2008-11-06 News
LC Watch Merkin hard, or hardly merkin?
by Jacob Shafer	write the author
November 06, 2008 Last week we devoted an entire column to re-printing all the titillating words contained in the "Special conditions" section of the LC rulebook. We've got far more serious matters to delve into going forward, but before we get off (pun intended) the topic, we've got a bit more to say about one of the LC's naughty little phrases: artificial public hair. A friend and reader of Maui Time from Denmark (our influence is international) pointed us to a Wikipedia entry on "merkins," which is apparently the accepted term for fake pubes. According to the entry (and yes, we know, it's Wikipedia, but this seems to be confirmed by multiple sources), merkins were "originally worn by prostitutes after shaving their genitalia to eliminate lice or to disguise the marks of syphilis." More recently, merkins of various sizes and colors have become a popular accoutrement among the Burning Man crowd. So three cheers for the LC; way to be on the cutting edge of a weird thing whores and hippies do, and to prevent them from ever doing it in a liquor-selling establishment on Maui by taking the time to put it in your rules. Finally, and then we really will let the subject rest: our Danish informant points out that the LC rule in question states, "No licensee shall permit any person from displaying any portion of any artificial pubic hair," meaning that technically the artificial hair doesn't have to be near the genitals to be verboten. Thus, a man with a really bad toupee that looks like pubic hair (and we've all seen one or two of those) could theoretically be held in violation and the bar in question cited. If you think that sounds ridiculous and far-fetched and that the LC would never do something that flies so blatantly in the face of fairness and common sense, clearly you need to read this column more often. - Jacob Shafer

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