Charlie Brooker's latest column (fnarr fnarr)

charlie clown · September 15, 2008

Not because I think it's classic Brooker but just because, as far as I can remember, it's been a while since we last posted one of em....

Pubes n stuff

Have I missed out on a male-grooming memo? Am I a lone caveman in a world of trimmed bodies?

The other day I was enduring The Sex Education Show on Channel 4, in which a self-consciously "liberated" presenter called Anna ran screeching around the place like a one-woman hen night, banging on about boobs and willies in a bid to "get Britain talking" about sex. And the script essentially ran as follows:

"Hey, Britain! Let's all be honest and open, yeah? Penises! There! I said it! Some are big, some are small! Here's a photo of one! Are you shocked? You mustn't be shocked! Although it's OK to be amused! Tee hee! Aren't we pushing back the boundaries? Isn't this healthy? Come on, we're all adults. This is good for us! Celebrate it! Vulva! Wow! Can you believe I just said that? Condom! Orgasm! Clitoris! Etc!"

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for snickering nob gags and frank images of nudity, but I'd rather not have them accompanied by some tissue-thin justification about "healing the nation" or "getting people talking". Just tell us a joke, show us your bum and piss off.

Anyway, as luck would have it, Anna did show us her bum. Sort of. In a mirror. While she was trying on lingerie, because this was a modern documentary, see? Just as in London you're famously never more than 4ft from a rat, so in 21st-century factual entertainment shows the presenter is never more than four minutes from a pointless TV stunt. Like trying on some frilly pants. Or getting a bikini wax.

The bikini wax section caused me some anguish. After braving a "full Hollywood" (where they suddenly rip the whole lot clean away, like DLT having his face pulled off), Anna held a little chat with a studio audience, encouraging them to help heal broken Britain by loudly discussing their pubes. Things were ticking along predictably - ie a 50-50 mix of words and chortling - when something upsetting happened. They asked the men in the studio whether they trimmed their pubic hair, and almost every single one of them put their hands up.

Then they read out the results of a survey they'd done, which claimed that, yes, 60% of men trim their pubes. What, really? 60%? Huh? And then they asked the women in the studio if they preferred the male trimmed-pube look - and they all nodded like Churchill the car-insurance dog. First I felt woefully out-of-touch. Then I simply hated the world a little more. And then an uneasy thought came over me. If the majority of other men genuinely spend hours hoisting their scrotum over the bathroom sink with one hand, nail scissors in the other, meticulously snipping and pruning their man-bush into a tiny ornamental hedge, until their entire pubic region resembles a tranquil arboretum in miniature, albeit one with a cheerful bit of dick poking out of it, then maybe all my ex-girlfriends have been secretly revolted by my comparatively slovenly lower appearance. Did they think I was some sort of wild hobo? I phoned one up and asked her.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked.

I told her that according to something I'd seen on telly, most men trim their pubes.

"Well, duh. It was obviously bulls***," she barked.

"Really?"

"Really."

Phew. This was a relief. Aside from the icky pubic-hair aspect of the whole thing, no one wants to feel like the odd one out. I didn't want to be the sole dishevelled caveman in a world full of smooth, sculpted statues. I thought I'd missed a memo.

I've missed memos before. For instance I never bothered with scarves for years, because I couldn't work out how you were meant to wrap them round your neck without the dangling ends getting in the way. And then about two years ago someone showed me the method whereby you fold the scarf in half and poke the end through the loop and - hey presto - it all stays neatly in place. Wow, I thought. Everyone else has known this for years, and I've just found out now! I bought a couple of scarves to celebrate, and smugly paraded around in them like a child who'd just learned to tie his own laces.

And then a few weeks later I was sitting (uncharacteristically scarfless) with a friend having a drink, when she suddenly pointed at someone walking past the window in a scarf, and scowled, "God! Why is everybody suddenly wearing their scarves that way, as if they're at university? They look like such tossers."

I shrank in my seat, wondering how I'd missed not one, but three memos: the one that'd taught everyone else this particular method of scarf-tying, the second one that decreed it fashionable, and the third that decided it was passé.

Fortunately, it seems no pubic-hair memo has been issued at all: on closer inspection, the "survey" that threw up the 60%-trim rating had only asked 50 men, with no indication of how representative these 50 men were. They could've been male strippers. Or indie Camden eyeliner types whose black jeans are so tight, they have to shave their minges off just to do up their flies. I wouldn't put anything past those t***s. They probably don't have human-size testicles anyway. But that's an argument for another week, because we're out of space and time. Goodbye.

· This week Charlie failed to buy a coconut (out of curiosity) for the second week running: "And I will continue to keep you all up to date on this situation, every week from now on, here in this end note section"

Bailo · September 15, 2008

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