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I don't think I'm an especially kinky guy or nothing, but for me Sexy Scissors, located at 600 E. 6th Street, was a disappointing experience. Not only did it seem quite tame, vanilla, and not that sexy, but I also got a mediocre haircut when I went there. I was passing through Austin, Texas recently when I saw the sign by the road -- a large pair of red scissors with a pair of sexy legs where the shears usually are. The word around town was that it was a hair salon for men's haircuts and more. Rumor had it that beer was served for free and hot women cut hair wearing skimpy bikinis. It sounded like a good concept, but I was skeptical. It seemed to me that a woman cutting hair in a bikini would get hair all over herself, and that's not sexy, it's itchy. The next morning I looked up Sexy Scissors in the phone book to find out for myself. One Sexy Scissors was in the book but was listed at 7702 N. Lamar @183. I called the number anyways, because how many Sexy Scissors could there be? "Two locations, one fine haircut," the lady on the phone told me. They opened at 9a.m. and a haircut and a shampoo cost $22.00. Shaves, Manicures, Pedicures and Massages were also available. It was more than I usually paid for a 'do, but what the hell, I was on vacation. A sexy haircut? In my head, my trip to the Sexy Scissors was going to be like getting a lap dance at a strip club. Not naked, but with that same kind of personal sexual attention from a woman. I started to imagine what shape it would take. I'd walk in to a lounge, get a beer in a frosted mug and drop onto a plush couch. I'd select my barber beauty from a wall of exotic women, and then wait for her to emerge. She'd then escort me to a private room where she'd look into my eyes and ask me what I wanted. “Square in the back, #4 guard on the top and bring the sideburns up a little,” I'd say. With a warm smile and bubbly laugh she'd begin. There'd be a pause here and there where she'd stop to listen to what I had to say and rest her hand gently on the side of my neck. She'd smell real good and there'd naturally be a few cleavage-near-the-face opportunities. Or maybe she would wear high leather boots, tie me to the chair, talk dirty and degrade me with a bad hair cut. In my haircut fantasy world, she was definitely going to give me a shampoo and then a shave with hot shaving cream and a straight razor. The buxom Scandinavian would finish me off by getting me another beer and giving me a deep, hard neck massage. I pulled up in the parking lot. There was a man waiting in an idling, black, diesel pick-up truck with tinted window near the door. It added to the seediness. I felt like I was doing something dirty and forbidden, like going to the windowless adult bookstore at the edge of town. I walked past the truck and up to through the Sexy Scissors door. And that is when I realized that my skepticism had been justified, and my sexy fantasy haircut probably wasn't going to happen. White tile floors and bright fluorescent lights greeted me. The long rectangular room was room was divided in half by a partition that was similar to the wall of a office cubicle. On one side was the check-in desk and waiting room. On the other side were the semi-private cutting stations divided by the same cubicle-like walls. I signed in and went right to the back to use the restroom. The restroom was clean and decorated with some pictures of half-naked women --the black-and-white type where the woman's not wearing a shirt but hiding her nipples seductively with her hands. And there was a poster with a thong-clad woman, the type that would be in a 10th grade boy's room. I began to get the feeling that this was going to be lame. As I came out, the desk lady did offer me a free beer. That was pretty cool for 10 in the morning, but it never really picked up from there. I sat down under the TV that had Sportscenter on and sorted through the magazines on the table. Where were the sexy pornographic magazines? There was a GQ, and a FHM, and a Men's Health, and a Maxim, but those magazines are really just a bunch of guys telling each other what watch to wear and how to get those fab washboard abs for the summertime. There was only one hair attendant on duty, so I waited for about 35 minutes. I had a few beers and lost myself in the previous night's sports highlights. I was finally called back by Brittany. She was in her mid to late 20's, I guessed. She had on a tank top and a shirt that was tied and exposed a little of her stomach, a la Daisy Duke. She had short black shorts, platform sandals and some Texas sorority girl cuteness to her, as do most girls walking around Austin. I felt the same as the few occasions I have been to Hooters, minus the hot wings -- not sure if I should pay respect to the woman because of the service she was performing, or ogle the large luscious breasts that were behind her thin T-shirt. We shook hands and I sat down. She didn't give off a vibe that made me feel at ease or relaxed, in fact she seemed sort of mechanical. I had shaved my head with a #2 guard a few weeks earlier and really only needed a trim to clean up, so I thought I'd get started with the sexy shave. But she didn't have a razor or shaving cream. All she could offer was to use a small pair of clippers. I didn't think raking clippers across my entire face would feel that good so I opted for just the trim. She halfway tried to make chit-chat about the vacation I was on, but by then my heart really wasn't into it. I had abandoned all hope for sexiness. I wanted to watch the TV but the semi-private cubicle partition wouldn't let me do that either. So I stared at the stupid pictures decorating the stall. Around the mirror were pictures of busty women cut out of fashion magazines. One of the pictures was of a woman in a fur bikini, and therein lied the root of the problem. It would have been sexy if the hair stylist was wearing the fur bikini, but to have a model in a picture taped onto the glass was a major cop out. And it really magnified what is wrong with how sexuality is in American today. It's everywhere and it's nowhere. Mainstream magazines, TV, and day-to-day life drip with sexual innuendo, but when the sexual fantasy is given a physical location it is frowned upon as dirty, or it has to be regulated, or it must be watered down, or there's some stigma about the people who go in. And she fucked up my sideburns. I couldn't enjoy the shampoo and chose to ignore the sign the offered massages for $1.00 per minute. I could not believe that this was the Sexy they were touting and couldn't believe Brittany's talk about the company franchising. In all fairness I was just passing through town. And it was 10 in the morning. And it was a new location, and I didn't have enough 10 oz. plastic cups of beer, but for me Sexy Scissors didn't make the cut. |
I have no beef with the commercial sex industry. Though fee-for-service sex tends to be dangerously exploitative, all forms of commerce have that potential. Indeed, many of prostitution's attendant ills such as killer johns, bitchslap-happy pimps and foul discharges could be mitigated if the practice was regulated rather than outlawed. Morality aside, there's nothing inherently wrong with paying for sexual gratification. That said, I am totally fucking appalled when some charlatan tries to sell burgers by appealing to our collective sirloin. How dare someone hijack carnal desire to sell something other than carnality! That's bait-and-switch, bud! Where's the F.T.C. when you need 'em? To me, a bawdyhouse is way less objectionable than Hooters, yet one is illegal and one is allowed to rent space in malls. The powers-that-be find nothing wrong with letting you wallow in blue-balled purgatory, but they'll jail and fine you for actually attaining sweet release. After all, once you've managed not to fall short of grace, what's left to sell? The Big Tease rules the American libido. You see it in the haughty juxtaposition of bikini babes and material pretensions in lad rags. You see it when the tantalizingly dichotomous Jessica Simpson credits the almighty Himself for her great ass. And you see it at Austin's Sexy Scissors, which gives "gentlemen" the unique opportunity to experience shell-game sexuality and a bad hair day simultaneously. Borrowing their moniker from either a Kama Sutra position or an erotic wrestling manuver, Sexy Scissors opened its doors in 2001. Judging from prominent ads on its walls, the salon seems to be blood relative to the Yellow Rose, a venerable Austin titty bar. According to Sexy Scissors' Web site, they provide "a fun, friendly and stimulating environment where men can feel comfortable getting a haircut, manicure or pedicure." Frankly, I never feel comfortable when someone's looking at my toenails, and I get all the haircut stimulation I need beneath the stuffed animal heads at Kervin Warken's barber shop in Delwood Plaza. Kervin has been cutting hair since before the Cuban Missile Crisis, and to my knowledge, he's never had to don short shorts to bring in new customers. Moreover, I often hear Paul Harvey on the radio at Kervin's. You can trust your mane to a man who listens to Paul Harvey. Nevertheless, when Kim challenged her male friends to visit Sexy Scissors and report back, I knew it had to be done. I also knew the experience would be a lot less embarrassing if I brought along my brother-in-law and former Excitement Machine bowling teammate, Gene Atwood. Despite our certainty that it would be a sham, pulling into Sexy Scissors' driveway infused us with the same false sense of giddy anticipation you feel upon entering a casino. "Maybe, just maybe, this'll be our lucky day of days," I thought in the back of my mind, not knowing (or caring) what that meant. Stupid resilient human spirit! The Sexy Scissors logo is a pair of scissors with shears fashioned after a woman's long legs in stiletto heels. Castration fetishists driving up and down North Lamar undoubtedly have trouble maintaining vehicular control upon sight of the giant neon manifestation of said logo. Between this and the pink ape with a disturbingly human ass advertising a bingo parlor mere yards away, the intersection of North Lamar and West Anderson is rife with icons of barely sublimated deviance. We sauntered underneath the neon leg-shears into Sexy Scissors around 6 p.m. on a warm spring Thursday, pausing for a moment to gaze at D.Z. Grabow's wall art masterpiece, "Pillar-Headed, Flag-Waving Woman with Lopsided Breastuses." Sexy Scissors prides itself on its "masculine decor," which is a nice way of saying the place looks like a garage. The floors were concrete, the walls were covered in corrugated metal and the stylists kept their equipment in rolling tool chests. Beer signs and centerfolds of seminude vixens occasionally broke up the faux industrial monotony. I expected Yello's "Oh Yeah" to begin pumping on the stereo at any moment. The matronly buxom receptionist greeted us warmly and asked if we'd like a beer. I nodded eagerly while Gene opted for coffee. Unfortunately, the beer in question was a rather pissy variety that reminded me of 3.2 Okie beer, and you were only allowed two 10-ounce cups of the stuff. Granted, we could fathom the liability hazard of some buffoon getting an eye gouged out by an errant shear while drunkenly trying to grope a stylist, but two urinalysis cups' worth of bad beer seemed more than a little chintzy. At $16 for a clipper cut and $22 for a scissors cut, the sex appeal of the stylists needed to go a long way. In the meantime, Gene and I cooled our engines in uncomfortable metal chairs. The TV was tuned to the Golf Channel and the magazine selection was top-heavy (heh, heh) on FHM, Maxim and the like. We were told the wait would be about 15 minutes, but it was more like 30. Finally, the first available stylist emerged from her cubicle and called me back. The adventure had begun in earnest. As much as I hate to judge someone solely on the basis of appearance, Sexy Scissors describes itself as a place where a guy can have a sexy woman cut his hair. Therefore, as a consumer (if not a human being), I feel justified in saying my stylist fell well short of eye candy. Rather than being a playland of flirty young things in Catholic schoolgirl uniforms and French maid outfits, Sexy Scissors was apparently the place where old strippers go to die. My stylist did dress like a stripper, but in the harsh, florescent lighting of a barbershop, hiding the leathery barmaid element was impossible. Although I'll speak if spoken to by a stylist, I'm not the type that strikes up a running conversation. Neither was my stylist. As a result, most of the haircut took place in an atmosphere of awkward, stony silence. At least strippers have to pretend to be nice to you. Our communication problems begin when I use the word "tapered" to describe how I want the hair on the back of my head. She doesn't know what that means. "Most guys who come in here have short hair and just want the clippers," she says. "I don't see a lot of guys with hair like yours. I'm not used to doing this with scissors, so I'm going to go real slow." Holy mother of fuck, this woman has no idea what she's doing! I begin to squirm uncomfortably in the chair, thinking that she'll take years of being treated poorly by oafish men out on my hair. Sensing my discomfort, she reassures me her clippers are on a low setting and aren't going to accidentally clear-cut one of my sideburns away. In the end, she was unable to successfully taper my hair in the back or even out my sideburns properly. I'll have to go get my haircut again sooner than I normally would've, too, but at least I wouldn't look too shaggy for Mother's Day. It was time for me to give her work the once over with the handheld mirror. Even if it were the worst haircut ever, I wouldn't have the guts to say anything. She asks what I think and I tactfully say something like, "Thank you, it looks very nice." "Goddamn, I'm good," she replies. "Time for a cigarette." As with every other newly coifed man emerging from the cubicles during my visit, the receptionist took one look at my head and said, "You look graht!" They only billed me for a clipper cut even though my stylist at least attempted to use scissors. That came to $16, but I went ahead and paid $23 partly because I thought maybe my stylist had given me a price break, and partly because I felt bad knowing I was going to write about what a total con Sexy Scissors is. My stylist wasn't sexy, my haircut struggled for mediocrity and the promise of complimentary beer was conditional and therefore deceptive. And I'll bet I'm not alone in my opinion. I'm sure men walk out of Sexy Scissors every day feeling jacked, but let's face it, no one wants to be the one who calls a consumer affairs reporter to give the "victims" a public face. Doing so would be tantamount to taking a vow of chaste misery. D'oh! Yet Sexy Scissors is just one of a gazillion anticlimactic ways in which sexual puffery is used to lure us into the freak show tent to buy sugar pills. Sex is easy, it's almost universal and it nearly always works in spite of past experiences that should teach us otherwise. After a while, it kind of makes sense to just enjoy the swindle for what it is. ------------ |
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