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Life & Style.

 

Nothing in life is permanent

The rise and fall of
the male perm

By Elliot Chan, Staff Writer

he decision to get a perm

was not spontaneous. It
wasn’t like I got drunk one night
and woke up with curly hair.
No, I discussed it with friends
and family and contemplated
it alone for hours. I was feeling
adventurous. Changing my
hairstyle was not like bungee
jumping or public speaking, but
it still took a lot of courage.

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I remember approaching my
long-time barber and inquiring
about a perm. He looked at me
with a smile. “No,” he said,
“Men don’t get perms anymore.”
That took me a little by surprise,
but then I thought about my
father. For most of my childhood,
he had big curly hair. I'll even go
ahead and call it an afro. It was
not natural; Chinese men like
my dad usually have straight
thin hair. I still remember sitting
in the barbershop watching him
with curlers on his head. He
looked like my grandma, but I
didn’t think much more about
it. Then one day he cut his hair

short and slicked it back with
gel. | never saw him with a perm
again. My father was far from
a pioneer, but I thought I could
surely bring the fashion back.
“T want it anyways,” I told
my barber, “I want a perm.”
The barber gave a
humourous yet disgruntled
sigh and sat me down, gave my
seat three quick pumps to find
the perfect working level, and
got to it. Six customers crept
into the shop during the course
of my transformation. The
barber greeted them and gave
an estimated time of finishing
my do. Some waited patiently,
while others left. All the while,
I sat there staring at myself in

‘want it anyways, | told my barber,

the mirror and glancing over
at the small audience. They
were looking at their phones or
reading magazines, but I could
feel them quietly snickering at
me. What have I done? I thought
to myself. But it was too late —
the curlers were in.

I really liked the way my
hair turned out. Sure, it took
a while to get used to, but I
didn’t look half bad. For once
in my life, my ethnicity was
ambiguous. Being used to a
life with a label like “Chan,” I
didn’t mind people assuming I
was Filipino, Korean, and even

Mexican for a while. My perm
was a pleasant departure from
the norm. I embraced it, despite
the occasional mockery and self-
consciousness.

It took four months for
my hair to grow out of the
curls. Before I knew it, I was
myself again, or someone who
resembled the person I once was.
I combed my fingers through my
flat hair; it just wasn’t the same.
I thought about trying it again
and even suggested it to others,
saying things like, “If you do it,
I'll do it.” But the days of male
perms are gone, like cassette
tapes and floppy disks.

Men today would rather
take a more masculine approach

‘want a perm.”

to hairstyles: bangs, fohawks,
or words shaved into their
undercut. That is the current
trend, and most people feel that
it’s easier just to follow the pack.
Sometimes hair can feel
like a nuisance, but it shouldn't
be. Hair should be a canvas for
our own personal exploration
and how others perceive us.
Blonde to brunette, ponytail
to cornrows, long bangs to
bald—why not? There are so
many things in life that are
permanent, and hair isn’t one of
them. So take a chance and be
adventurous.

 

Between the Sheets: Enthusiastic consent, think yes means yes

By Viv Steele, Consenting Adult

ike most people, I do all my

deep thinking while lying
on a table with an esthetician
between my legs, violently
ripping hair from my nether
region. There must be something
about intermittent jolts of pain
that really gets those brain-juices
going. And Ill be honest; it had
been a very long time since my
last wax. We're talking years.
Back at square one, I had some
Brazilian beginner questions for
my frank and hilarious waxing
girl—specifically, “How soon
after my wax can I get back to
getting busy?”

Turns out my question
was a fairly common one. |
suppose it makes sense that
people who get their pubes
painfully removed on the

regular tend to be sexually
active. My esthetician told me
what she tells all her clients,
which is that you usually can
have sex the same day that you
get waxed. If you're sore, take
an Advil, or wait a day. And
then she said something that
really stuck with me, so much
that I’m taking a departure into
autobiography territory to relay
this information to you. She
said, “If you’re having sex and it
hurts, just stop.”

“Just stop.” That phrase
hung in the air because of
how many times I’ve felt like
stopping but didn’t. It spoke
to all the times that I got sore
but kept going anyway because
I’m nice, or it was easier than
extracting myself from the
situation, or I felt 1 owed it to
my partner.

Enter the concept of

“enthusiastic consent,” or the
idea that we need to move away
from a “no means no” model
and towards a “yes means yes”
way of thinking. Sex education
website Scarleteen.com defines
consent as “an active process of
willingly and freely choosing
to participate in sex of any kind
with someone else, and a shared
responsibility for everyone
engaging in, or who wants to
engage in, any kind of sexual
interaction with someone.”

That definition strikes me as
a lot more complex than “Well,
they didn’t say no!” And it’s
a little wordy, so let’s unpack
it a bit. Consent is active. That
means it’s constantly changing;
consent can be removed at any
time during sex. You and your
partner need to foster clear
communication in order to
facilitate potential changes to

the game. It’s important to feel
comfortable putting the brakes
on lovemaking, and sometimes
that means developing a deeper
bond with your partner before
becoming sexually intimate. You
should feel comfortable talking
openly and freely about sex,
about what is working for you
and what isn’t. And if you’re
experiencing pain—like a post-
waxing vulva tenderness—you
should feel no pressure from
your partner to go through with
it anyway.

It’s okay to “Just stop.”
I know this and you know
this, but sometimes it needs
repeating. Your partner should
respect your limitations and you
need to respect theirs. You can
say “I don’t like it when you do
that,” you can say “I’m sorry,
I’ve changed my mind,” and
you can say all of this right in

the moment. Sex blogger Julie
Gillis at TheFrisky.com wonders,
“When is this sex supposed to
be discussed? ...Why do we
wait until the very last minute to
get the details set?”

Gillis thinks it might be
easier if we discuss sexcapades
well in advance of the deed, like
planning a party or a dinner out.
I agree—sex positive planning
is a good ideal to aspire to, but
sometimes life doesn’t work out
in a perfectly planned way. Until
we reach that place, while sex is
still sometimes a furtive fumble
in the back of a car, consent
needs to be an open, continuous
discussion. The “yes” you say
at the beginning doesn’t have
to apply to every subsequent
sexual act.

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