SEX AND SEXABILITY

On the Delicious Fierceness of Mullets and Why a Comeback is in Short Order

The Brief Odyssey of ‘Mi Mullet Y Yo’

I “pulled a Britney,” if you’ll forgive the term.

I once shaved my head to raise money for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day. The “race” is a 60-mile walk to end breast cancer, and it includes camping, remembrance, and boob-themed revelry. It was moving as fuck to talk with survivors, women (and men) fighting breast cancer, and loved ones who walked in solidarity.

But fundraising for these things takes a village — and a gimmick.

I’ll never regret my pledge to shave my head. It helped me reach the required $2000 contribution (as of 2008; it’s now $2300). It’s something I did intentionally and without the horrors or helpless feelings that often accompany a woman’s chemotherapy. And I stand behind the organizations that support breast cancer research — even though “pinkwashing” is real, and the financial models are imperfect.

To help was empowering. But now I looked like “Big Trouble in Little China”-era Kurt Russel.

There was once a poster in Joe’s college bedroom. A food advertisement. He’d stolen it from a convenience store in Latin America somewhere, and the image was even more suggestive than Kurt Russel’s bemulleted neckback.

“Mi Magnum Y Yo,” the tagline read. And, front-and-center, pouted a Latinx-looking brunette woman that was toying with a large, cream-colored, Magnum-brand popsicle near her mouth.

Well, huh. This was femininity.

Joe’s modern pinup collection also featured 90s-era Heidi Klum, holding up two coconuts in front of her bare boobs.

Tanned breasts. Impeccable lips. Tousled “beach” hair — perfection?

So enthusiastic was twenty-year-old Joe about these paragons of womanhood that he shoplifted something, perhaps risking la cárcel!

My hair took upwards of a year to grow back to shoulder-length. But Joe’s mentioned a few times how much he’d liked it. So how is it that my husband is so into me when I look like this? Does he have a secret Billy Ray Cyrus fetish?

Being mistaken for a boy a few times was interesting. Some poor waitress at a diner near my dad’s still probably remembers asking us where Dad’s “son” was from. I laughed out loud and corrected her, and the conversation moved on. She sheepishly retreated to the kitchen and someone else finished waiting on us, though.

Don’t they have women with short hair in the Midwest? I tried to remember. Or maybe when I’m bald I’m just a bit androgynous-looking to aspire to be a popsicle-fellating poster woman.

In any case, this day is mine to live. And I am feminine enough for me. I may even do the 3-Day again someday.

Even if my husband hadn’t seen beauty in that buzz-cut-turned mullet, it was humbling to walk 60 miles alongside thousands of thoughtful people.

After all, our numbered steps on this earth require blood, blisters, and gratitude.

And, often, a sweet spear of a dessert, in and around one’s mouth.

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