Pube Wig

Pube Wig

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the pubic wig. For other uses, see Merkin (disambiguation) .

^ Oxford Companion to the Body Oxford University Press , 2002

^ Francis, Gareth (2003-06-26). "A short and curly history of the merkin" . The Guardian .

^ Bradley, Henry ; Cragie, William Alexander (1908). Murray, James Alexander Henry ; et al. (eds.). Merkin . A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles . 2. Vol. 6. Oxford : Clarendon Press . p. 360.

^ Jump up to: a b "merkin, n.1" . OED Online . Oxford University Press . Retrieved 2014-07-14 .

^ Duchovny, David DVD commentary for Steven Soderbergh 's Full Frontal '

^ Yuan, Jada (2009-09-28). " A Serious Man's Amy Landecker: 'The Correct Term Is Merkin' " . New York . Retrieved 2010-04-28 .

^ Jump up to: a b Lindsy Van Gelder. Your Bikini Line, Your Business? , Allure , 2009-08-26

^ Lucy Lawless interview for Entertainment Weekly

^ Hannah Morrill. Kate Winslet, Unscripted , Allure , 2009-06-03. NOTE: Many sources claim that she wore a merkin by only quoting part of this interview (found in full in the printed issue): "Let me tell you, The Reader was not glamorous for me in terms of body-hair maintenance. I had to grow it in, because you can't have a landing strip in 1950, you know? And then because of years of waxing, as all of us girls know, it doesn't come back quite the way it used to. They even made me a merkin because they were so concerned that I might not be able to grow enough. I said, 'Guys, I am going to have to draw the line at a pubic wig, but you can shoot my own snatch up close and personal.'" Another Allure source (used here) also says she didn't wear it.

^ Mehr Transparenz auf dem Laufsteg , Spiegel

^ Graham, Bill, Interview: ‘Killer Joe’ Stars Emile Hirsch and Gina Gershon on Getting Dirty, Single Takes and a Chicken Bone , Thought Catalog , 2012-07-25

^ Brevet, Brad. What I Learned Listening to David Fincher's 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' Commentary Archived 2013-12-11 at the Wayback Machine , Rope of Silicon , 2012-03-12

^ Rooney Mara Naked, Merkin Details For 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' , The Huffington Post , 2011-12-13

^ Merkin at AllMovie

^ Axmaker, Sean (22 January 2015). "Videophiled: 'Adua and Her Friends' and 'The Skin' – Survival, Italian Style - Cinephiled" . Cinephiled . Retrieved 6 April 2018 .

^ Complex Magazine Interview , jessicaparkerkennedy.org , 2014-01-25

^ Yamato, Jen (4 October 2016). " 'The Greasy Strangler': Inside the Most WTF Movie of the Year" . The Daily Beast .

A merkin is a pubic wig . Merkins were worn by sex workers after shaving their mons pubis , and are now used as decorative items, erotic devices, or in films, by both men and women.

The Oxford Companion to the Body dates the origin of the pubic wig to the 1450s. According to the publication, women would shave their pubic hair for personal hygiene and to combat pubic lice . They would then don a merkin. Also, sex workers would wear a merkin to cover up signs of disease, such as syphilis . [1] [2]

The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first written use of the term to 1617. The word probably originated from malkin , [3] [4] a derogatory term for a lower-class young woman, or from Marykin , a pet form of the female given name Mary . [4]

In Hollywood filmmaking, merkins can be worn by actors and actresses to avoid inadvertent exposure of the genitalia during nude or semi-nude scenes. The presence of the merkin protects the actor from inadvertently performing "full-frontal" nudity – some contracts specifically require that nipples and genitals be covered in some way – which can help ensure that the film achieves a less restrictive MPAA rating . [5]

A merkin may also be used when the actor or actress has less pubic hair than is required, as in the nude dancing extras in The Bank Job . Amy Landecker wore a merkin in A Serious Man (2009) for a nude sunbathing scene; bikini waxing was neither common nor fashionable in 1967 when the film is set. [6] [7]

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If you are not familiar with the word merkin, it simply means “an artificial hair cover for the female pubic region.” In fewer words, a vagina wig. The Oxford Companion to the Body traces the first merkins back to the 1450s.
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What is a merkin? I was unfamiliar with this term until recently, when I found several news stories about Evan Rachel Wood’s slated full-frontal nude scene in the upcoming HBO series Mildred Pierce , based on the classic Joan Crawford film from 1945. Wood was nervous about the scene, in part because the downstairs region of her body didn’t conform to ’30s standards, when women were not in the habit of sporting landing strips or any other number of bikini-wax variations. But Kate Winslet, her co-star and no slouch to undressing for the camera herself, told her not to worry; she could wear a “wig” – or, more properly speaking – a Merkin, to cover up those meat blinds and look more authentic.
The Merkin has its origins in ancient history, as early as 1450, according to the Oxford Companion to the Body . The vag wig was originally used for health and sanitary reasons (crabs, or pubic lice were a common problem), because without the marvels of modern medicine, sometimes little could be done other than a full-on shave. Left with no pubic hair, some women opted to wear a wig over that region.
There is a darker side to the story: afflicted with various sexually transmitted diseases and forced to work all the same, prostitutes had to cover up evidence of their downstairs afflictions.
Over time, the Merkin evolved into something more than just a cover up for an area that, if it weren’t for health concerns, would otherwise be left unshaved. Mentions of the Merkin appear in classical literature, such as in Alexander Smith’s A Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the most Notorious Highwaymen (1714): “This put a strange Whim in his Head; which was to get the hairy circle of [a] prostitute’s Merkin…this he dry’d well, and comb’d out, and then return’d to the Cardinal, telling him he had brought St. Peter’s Beard.”
Men also wore the Merkin centries ago, when women were not allowed on the stage. The pubic wig proved to be a method of covering up their junk (this idea was suggested in Joseph Harker’s Notes and Queries ).
In more recent times, the Merkin has evolved into an erotic toy, used as a decorative object. According to merkinworld.com , “the wearing of a pubic wig is a sensory experience. The wig can allow the wearer a certain ‘jouissance’ as it is made of fibre/hair that has been selected by the wearer, and it is worn on an erogenous zone.”
As an erotic accessory, the Merkin knows no bounds; it can be used by men in drag, or it can act as a decorative object, suggestive of sexual innocence, promiscuity, or any other number of sexually charged meanings. Merkinworld.com offers customized Merkins for adventurous clientele curious about sprucing up their bush area.
Of course, the most mainstream and famous use of the Merkin relates to its use in Hollywood. Up until the creation of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in 1966, there were was very little, if any, nudity depicted in Hollywood productions. The MPAA freed up studios and filmmakers to do whatever they wanted – but each film would be submitted to the MPAA board and assigned a rating (in theory, this avoided government censorship, but it amounted to the same thing because movies are made specifically with MPAA rating guidelines in mind).
The MPAA is notorious for being hypocritical about their rating policies regarding depictions of sex and nudity, and here is where the Merkin comes in. Although a Johnson can be shown in its full glory, female genitalia or meat blinds cannot be depicted unless a film is given the NC-17 rating – which ensures that it won’t play anywhere, and will instead probably be released “unrated.”
In an age when landing strips and variations thereof are the norm, the Merkin allows contemporary actresses to cover up their downstairs region and meet the MPAA guidelines.
The feminist blog Jezebel famously documented the 14 most famous uses of the Merkin in cinema and television history; highlights include, of course, Kate Winslet in The Reader , as well as Amy Landecker from the recent Cohen Brothers’ film A Serious Man , and Patricia Arquette in Human Nature , who made her own Merkin because she didn’t want to show her own pubes.
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