Lost Ledgers - Hair Phobias

Hair Phobias

Hair is a biologically natural phenomenon found in virtually all mammals. Many people find it sexy and attractive, to the degree that lacking hair can render one a reject by members of the opposite sex. Despite this, it turns out that many people are deathly afraid of hair.

Imagine these scenarios, which will probably sound familiar:

1.	You are on a date at an expensive Italian restaurant. At one point, you bite into a lightly oiled bit of cheese garlic bread only to find that you have consumed part of a giant hairball.

2.	You are showering in your home. Oddly, you find that the water in the tub is not draining, but instead is building up and getting deeper. When you bend over to look at what might be obstructing the drain, you are attacked from behind by a hairy prisoner and sodomized.

You are engaging in oral copulation with a loved one. During the course of your activity, you are distracted by a strange, itchy feeling in your mouth. You are annoyed by the sensation, and knowing that it will break the mood, you decide not to investigate. Several minutes later, you decide that you can no longer ignore the source of the distraction. After removing your partner's naughty bits, you reach into your mouth only to find John Stossel stuck to the roof of your mouth.

Surely every one of us has found outselves in one of these positions over the course of our worthless lives. And often we have been disgusted and sickened by this hair that we feel has intruded into our personal space.

The reality is, however, that fear of hair-- or chaetophobia, as doctors like to call it, is a conditioned response. We are trained from our birth by our communities and churches to preserve this sense of fear. Think about it: hair is generally very clean. It is the one part of our body that most of us make a point of washing daily. The hair that is stuck in our household plumbing is also extremely clean, given that is constantly being washed by the water and sewage that passes through the pipes.

So next time you freak out because of hair, just remember, used pizza boxes don't count as recycling because they have grease all over them.