On short hair, sex, and THE NOW

An old friend of mine recently posted an article to his Facebook page about how women who cut their hair really short, must have “given up” on sex. At first I totally resented this article. Who the fuck are these British douchebags telling ME that my coochie is out of commission just because of the goddamn haircut I rock these days? What the fuck do the Brits know about style anyway? Laura fucking Ashley? Double-breasted blazers? Clothing held together by safety pins? Thanks for blessing the world with all your fashion gems, you pompous English assholes.

But then, a few days later, I looked in the mirror and took a pair of scissors to my hair. My hair was already quite short (think Rihanna). But that night I chopped it all off until each strand of hair was about two inches long. I didn’t do it because I had sworn myself off sex; I did it because I was no longer interested in trying to look sexy.

This was a huge moment in my life, dear readers.

If there is anything I have learned since moving to Puerto Rico, it is how to use sex, sexiness, and femininity to get what I want. As a matter of fact, I am convinced that the only reason why I still have my job as pastry chef/bartender right now is because I am a fairly attractive woman. At first, this was a fun realization, that I can twist machismo to suit my needs (or at least to get my belly full). Some of my initial reactions:

1. Really, papi, you’re going to buy me a drink for NO REASON whatsoever? Dale.
2. Really, jefe? You’re not gonna fire me even though I just spilled a flan all over the kitchen floor, underbaked a cheesecake, spilled wine all over a customer’s lap, and broke like five glasses?
3. Really, flower vendor? You’re going to give me a free bouquet of roses? Thanks.
4. Really, every man I’ve met in Puerto Rico? You wanna hang out with me even though my Spanish is shitty and you probably can’t tell how really smart I am?

But now it’s getting a little old. When I chopped of all of my hair, I did so knowing a couple of things: first that it will look good because I’ve done it before and second that it is very likely to produce a negative and/or confused reaction amongst the masses of Puerto Rican people. Women, oh women of Puerto Rico. Machismo is a bitch ain’t it? Although certainly it allows me to go out and not pay for a single drink it also makes me think that I have to wear tight clothing and have long hair in order to be attractive. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with tight clothing and long flowing locks. But when I just want to go out in a t-shirt and shorts and when I want to think I look dope as hell with short hair, this machismo shit really pisses me off.

Being in Puerto Rico has also taught me how much I rely on sex and being attractive to make me feel better about myself. And guess what? That’s a totally, TOTALLY bad strategy to find happiness. (Did you already know that? You probably did and I’m just slow as hell.) So I’m reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. It took me a while to get over the fact that it was a book you find in the Spiritual Guidance/Self-Help section of the bookstore and that I’m looking for advice from a dude that looks like some kind of self-satisfied macadamia nut (what the fuck do you know about inner peace, basketball-headed motherfucker?). But those were just my insecurities speaking. Once I started to read it, everything changed. Te. Lo. Juro. One of the most profound ideas I’ve encountered so far is that everything I need to be happy already exists inside of me. Forget drugs, forget alcohol, forget budissy (butt, dick, and pussy). I’ve been searching for it my whole goddamn life but happiness has been inside of me since I first danced out of my mother’s womb. I’ve just been too busy wondering when the next time I was gonna get high and fuck to realize it. I was never present enough to understand that all I needed to be happy was to be present. So cyclical, I know! Fuck old memories and planning for the future. Feel the seat underneath me as I write, hear the children riding bikes outside, think nothing else. And when I find myself obsessing about the future or fretting over the stupid shit I did in the past, I just observe those thoughts and laugh at my brain as it tries to distract me from true happiness.

You go, Eckhart Tolle. You wrote some profound ass shit.

So then, I cut off all my fucking hair. Not necessarily, as I said before, because I wanted to go off sex but because I realized that I didn’t want to be looking for sex. And shit, that’s hard. Because sex, for the most part, and as I have written in other blog entries, is fucking awesome. What’s better than smoking a blunt, getting eaten out, and getting fucked really hard? Hmmm…drawing a blank here because THERE IS NOTHING BETTER! Nothing. If I could choose two things to sustain me for the rest of my life, I would definitely choose booty and weed. No contest. But it’s important to know why I want to have sex. And once I really think about it, it’s not always because it feels good. Often, I want to have sex to boost my self-esteem (Oh, you think I’m hot, let’s do it), to get my mind off of other things (fuck that motherfucker; here’s another dude that wants to have sex with me), or just because I can (meh, I guess I can let you hit it).

If I can have sex with someone and not think about these other things and be truly present in the moment, then I am all about it. But if not, then I have to make the mature decision to acknowledge that I’m trying to escape from some deep shit and I should think about what I truly need (meditation, writing, talking it out, exercise perhaps). Cutting my hair helped me to internalize this. It helps me to see myself more clearly: I look in the mirror and I see nothing but my face and in that face, I see every emotion that I have to confront, every emotion that prevents me from being truly present (regret: ugh, guilt: bleh, insecurity: vomit). Something happened after taking the scissors to my locks in which I stopped worried about being sexy and started to reallyreallyreally be me. This doesn’t mean that I no longer take pleasure in putting on makeup before I go out or that I stopped enjoying the way my breasts look in my favorite t-shirt. On the contrary, my smile is wider and my swagger…sheeeit…ni hablar. My short hair has made me confident in just how fly I am. And I won’t be surprised if that makes for more delicious sexual romps from which to choose (mindfully, of course).