The Electron Pencil

Lady Business

I squawked about vajazzling in Open Salon a few years ago. You know all about vajazzling, don’t you? If not, it’s where you get tiny gems implanted around your lady parts because…, well because you have an obscene amount of money and rather than help the needy or something stupid like that, you choose to bejewel your nethers.

I wrote:

Maybe vajazzling is the last gasp manifestation of the Age of Reagan — you know, the fabulous three decades that gave us Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, real-life Gordon Geckos, McMansions, the Hummer H2, gazillion-inch flat screen TVs, Enron, Bernie Madoff, and Lloyd Blankfein. I thought the Great Recession had cooled off this holy land’s fascination with greed and hyper-materialism.

At the time, I figured it was the height of idiocy that women should want karat-ed cooters but — silly me — I neglected to take into account the human race’s capacity for insanity. Turns out one of the biggest growth industries in the doctorin’ world these days is elective female genital plastic surgery, AKA “designer vaginas.”

A Georgia O’Keeffe Painting

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[Attn. all female readers: be prepared to have the hair on your head stand straight up.] Females as young as 14 are ponying up thousands of dollars for cosmetic surgeons to give their hoo-has the “clamshell” look. This includes the surgical removal of their labia because said flaps are “ugly” or “too long” or “irregular.”

In other words, upper middle class Western kids, of their own volition, are undergoing what many females in Third World countries are suffering unwillingly. Okay, to be fair, fundamentalist Muslims in certain African countries are mandating that females get their clitorises lopped. Kids in this holy land aren’t doing that, natch, but still, they’re getting their gender bits sliced off so’s they’ll look “prettier” and, people, that’s nuts.

Why young teens — and their parents who, presumably, foot the bill — would go all in for a below-the-belt scalpel job to improve the decor of their genitalia is today’s conundrum. How do they know their labia are unattractive vis-à-vis other teen girls’? And to whom would these anatomical structures be repulsive?

Frankly, I can’t imagine a young man beholding his first female genitalia and thinking (or saying out loud), You know, I was all hot and bothered to go through with this but after espying that overly-large set of labia minora, I believe I’ll sit this one out.

Then again, loads of young men are weirdly misogynistic these days so I don’t know what they think about things of that nature anymore.

And what about the bizarre competitions that teen girls have with each other? You know, as in my tan’s better than yours, my teeth are straighter than yours, or even my breasts are rounder or bigger or pointier than yours. The proof for each of these claims is out front, as it were. How do young ladies compare the relative symmetries of their labia? Do they inspect each others’ undercarriages?

This is all too puzzling for me. I think I’ll go back to contemplating something less taxing to my brain, like how can the Palestinians and the Israelis learn to get along.

[For more reading on “designer vaginas” check out this piece in The Daily Beast or this one in the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald.]

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Deer Prudence

The question of whether to shoot deer hanging around Griffy Lake or not has been argued with some passion of late. The Bloomington City Council recently okayed a contract with a wildlife management outfit to cull the Bambi pop. around the newly-refilled lake because neighbors are sick and tired of the ruminants snacking on their garden pansies, violas, and buttercups.

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Fitting, then, that our town’s Science Cafe gang will present a couple of speakers who’ll tackle the Q. of what deer dig to eat tomorrow night at Finch’s Brasserie.

Angela Shelton, a research scientist in Indiana University’s Department of Biology, and Steve Cotter, Natural Resources Manager for the city’s Parks & Recreation Department, will double-team a talk about Invasive Species in Bloomington and Deer Herbivory around Griffy Lake.

The gabfest begins at 6:30pm and usually runs about an hour, unless the audience presses for more. In any case, the food and booze both are good at Finch’s so see you there.

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Schwarber Soars

As your source for all news concerning Indiana University’s own Kyle Schwarber, I’m happy to report that the baseball player known as the Hulk among his former Hoosier teammates is rising fast in the Chicago Cubs farm system.

The big bat he became noted for during his years here is just as potent against professional pitching. In fact, Schwarber’s numbers against minor league hurlers are even better than those he posted in collegiate ball. That could be because he’s benefitting from top-flight coaching or it could be because, well, he’s the real deal.

Schwarber

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Schwarber, in case you’ve forgotten, was selected number four in June’s Major League Baseball amateur draft. Very few experts had him pegged that high but, according to Cubs’ VP of player development Jason McLeod, he’d had his eye on Schwarber beginning in his freshman year and was certain from the start that the catcher was going to be a special hitter.

Schwarber has risen swiftly through the Cubs system, starting out in Boise in June, earning a promotion to Kane County after a week, and in July already has been promoted again, this time to Daytona. Schwarber’s still catching even though many scouts feel his big league future is in left field or at first base. The Hulk’s presence in the Cubs organization has contributed to the system’s ranking as the best in baseball recently by ESPN expert Keith Law.

Even if Schwarber continues to punish minor league pitchers, don’t expect him to make an appearance at Wrigley Field until late 2015 or, more likely, 2016. The current Cubs brain trust led by Theo Epstein believes strongly in getting kids plenty of minor league at bats before exposing them to big league hurlers.

Me? I can’t wait to see the Hoosier Hulk swinging for Sheffield Avenue on Chicago’s North Side. Stay tuned here for further updates.

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More On Paris

According to her obituary in the Nashville Tennessean, a memorial will be held for RE Paris sometime in September.

Paris was born and raised in Nashville, as anyone who’d ever heard her twang could attest. It’s not known at this time if the memorial will be held here or there. Stayed tuned here for further updates.

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