Sienna Miller, famous for acting in some stuff and most recently galavanting around with a not-quite-yet-divorced dude, loves being topless. It’s getting to the point where there are more topless photos of her than there are, well…topped.
Anyway, today I read that she’s in some movie which is set in the ’60’s, and she’s nude in it (shocker) and BECAUSE it’s set in the ’60’s, and she’s a millenium kind of gal when it comes to landscaping her pubic area (i.e. brazilian), the producers were forced to come up with a way to get her to look, well…furrier.
So their choices? Digitally enhance her pubes (which ended up being what they did) OR use a product specifically designed for just such a purpose. A pubic wig, if you will. And guess what! This product has a NAME. A name, which before today, I had never heard of. Jump in to find out more about the name of this product!
It’s a MERKIN. Am I the only one hearing this word for the first time? Or do we have merkin experts among us? Wikipedia defines the merkin as follows:
A merkin (first use, according to the OED, 1617) is a pubic wig, originally worn by prostitutes after shaving their genitalia to eliminate lice or disguise the marks of syphilis. There are many different ways of wearing a merkin, although most involve placing the merkin on the vulva or the scrotum.
If you’ve heard of this word before today, I would like to know, and I would like to know the FULL CONTEXT of how you learned it.
Well I can’t wait to fit that one into a sentence. But isn’t it just a toupee with a hole in it. Ironic that another little furry item that you put your hands in to keep warm is called a muff. Such is the english language. By the way, Webster on line would not give a meaning but Google sure did, with photos. Ha, Ha
How did you not know about these little beauties?! I think they also consider fake chest hair to be merkins. I honestly don’t remember how I learned of it, it was years ago, but we did have a friend who who was affectionately known as Merkin. He was a hairy fellow.
Darn it!! Now my favorite obscure word is no longer obscure!! I used to love to ask people who thought they had a great vocabulary to define it. Drat you!
Oh, wait — I forgot to give you the full context.
Well, I used to work in an office where the employees were extremely well-read and had great senses of humor. One day, we were talking about a guy with the unfortunate name of Fred Merkin, and my boss said, “This guy is as useful as his name implies.” Seeing my look of puzzlement, he asked, “You know what a merkin is, right?” When I said, “No,” he said, “It’s a genital wig. At least we know what his ancestors did for a living!” I started laughing. I was fairly new to the office, but I thought, “Boy, this place is going to be fun!” I was right — best job, best group of co-workers I could ever ask for.
Merkin… interesting. My boyfriend loves calling people pubic wigs so I’m familiar with the concept. Nice to know they have a proper name.
I’m imagining a scenario in which someone reads this blog and goes “OH! I need one of those!”
And I’m imagining a scenario in which someone (hairy) finds out to her/his dismay what her/his nickname means…
Who put those damn stars there?
“OH, hey I need one of those….and now I know what my nickname means.” This is a day of jubilation!!!
(Hey Buckeye Bob– O H)
Now, I know a GREAT word to insult people with and 95% of them won’t know what it means! Yay!
Because I can never leave well enough alone: how does it stay on (a woman)?
I learn something everyday at the mock dock…
So I guess I’m the only one who bought “Merkin Ball”, Pearl Jam’s companion EP to Neil Young’s “Mirror Ball”. That was, like, 1995.
So, yeah, I knew what a merkin was before hearing about Sienna Miller’s snatch.
I first learned what a merkin was when I watched a pre-op transsexual do a strip tease one night - when the G string came off showing the merkin and not her frank ‘n beans, the crowd went wild.
I had to ask my friend what the hell that was, and he told me it was a merkin, then explained it to me.
Aaaaahh, misspent youth.
Incidentally, the term is used to describe the lesbian version of a gay man’s “beard”.
http://tinyurl.com/6ds4cr
I also just discovered that fuzzy fishing lures are also called merkins.
oh boy
http://www.merkinworld.com/