Lili says hello, waves goodbye and says hello.

Tags

adelaide fringe, buskers, Derek Derek, friends, Janet Guenther, Lisa Lottie, Reuben Dot Dot Dot, Sam Wills, street performer, Street Performing, Travel, World Buskers Festival

I have just spent a glorious 10 ten days in the company of some of my favourite people in the world here at the World Buskers Festival. My street performer past has gifted me a global family of wanderers whom I see here and there around the globe at various festivals. It’s wonderful, but try organising a dinner party at home!

from left: Derek Derek, Janet Guenther, Lisa Lottie, Reuben Dot Dot Dot and Sam Wills

I adore these people, I adore their creativity, their quick wit and our ability to pick up a friendship, parted by months or years, as though we had simply popped out for milk. As time moves on and we have married (each other, sometimes) and some of us now have children, it is a heart-warming thought that the village that raises my child is full of some of the most hard working, disciplined and funny people I have ever met. Already he has learned that if you do something funny, people will applaud and laugh. Maybe that is a slippery slope.

Reuben Dot Dot Dot and Rafferty-Baz backstage

Also this festival, I have met new friends, who already feel like old friends because they are old friends of my old friends which basically makes them family. I’m proud of my friends, old and new. I’m proud that they are clever, funny and big hearted people. I’m proud because they work so hard to improve their shows and their skills to make everything even more impressive. I’m proud that despite the pain that some of them are in because of injuries caused by the job they do, they still push harder to do more. I always say ‘go hard or go home’ and that couldn’t be more appropriate for my glorious street performing family. They make me smile, they make me hoot with laughter, they make me feel safe and they are quite simply some of the dearest people in the world to me.
And so, to some, see you soon. To others, it’s be fun, see you somewhere and until that day comes, my darlings, fat hats to you all.

Now onward, to Adelaide Fringe.
Love Lili.

In Praise of the Pube

Tags

bush, feminist, lady garden, mother, muff, pubic hair

This is a blog I have been planning to write for ages, but it’s quite a personal topic, and the idea of a hirsute female does rather get people worked up. However, I think it is important and relevant, so I am damn well writing it and you can read it, or not and approve of it, or not. I’m not terribly bothered about what people think of me.

When I was pregnant, I made the decision to grow my muff out. After years of doing burlesque and striving for modern beauty ideals, I decided that enough was enough. I reasoned that if I couldn’t see it, then I shouldn’t have to wax, shave or strim it. By the time the baby arrived, I realised that I had become quite attached, no pun intended, to my glorious pubic triangle and I decided to just let it be.

We live in a society where many women strive for childlike bodies, devoid of flesh and hair. As the mother of a son, I want him to grow up knowing that women have the right to do whatever they wish with their bodies and their bodily hair. I want him to respect a girl’s right to be as hairy or as hairless as they wish and as skinny or as curvy as they like. I’m incredibly lucky as I have a husband who is deeply dedicated to my happiness and incredibly respectful of my body and I hope to bring my son up the same way.

Recently, I’ve see the stirrings of the beginning of a tidal turn where pubic hair is concerned. Seemingly the last modern taboo of the female body, pubic hair seems to be making something of a come back. The mannequins in American Apparel in New York have recently developed pubes and I have seen a resurgence in pubic hair on female performers of late, most recently at the World Buskers Festival in Christchurch. I’m convinced that it is a trend set to continue.

I hope that in time, more women will lay aside their razors and allow Mother Nature to re-bestow upon them the bush which she always intended. On my part, I intend to cultivate my lady garden with the fervour of an obsessive horticulturalist.

Long live a furry muff.

Love Lili

x

ADDENDUM: I’ve been told that recently Cameron Diaz has also spoken out in defence of a furry foof, you can read her views here. What a delight that an A-lister has revealed her own hairy aspirations. Here’s hoping that young women everywhere wil listen. Until then, I’m retiring to my boudoir, armed with the Argan oil!