City Ordiance

CITY ORDINANCE 693B:

HAIRY STUDS FORCED TO STRIP

Silver Canyon was a medium size, seemingly normal, California community just north east of the Bay Area. Unlike nearby Bolinas, the residents were not concerned to hide their location from carpet baggers or gawking tourists and rarely considered themselves in political terms or as avant guarde if they thought of that kind of thing at all. That the community was, however, ‘progressive’ went without saying; this was, after all, northern California and the ballot box victory of the Feminist Greens at the local polls raised few eyebrows and didn’t seem set to change much at City Hall until…

The new city ordinance 693B could not be accused of taking the town by stealth. On the contrary, it had been hotly discussed and extensively covered by the press for months as debate raged- first in the city government chambers and then in the community at large- as to whether homo sapiens males were human or…something else…and, concurrently, what kind of rights (or obligations) that might entail if indeed they were found to be ‘something else’. Nearly everyone in town, from the mayor, Mimi Gomez-Steinkunt, to the humblest suburbanite, realized that to be a male member of the species was to possess diminished humanity; the real question was ‘to what extent was a male’s humanity impaired and, of course, what to do about it’? Subsidiary debates of mind-numbing complexity followed as the experts from various offices scattered around the Bay Area were trooped in to offer informed opinions and the extent of the multiple discussions, as the talking heads took their cases to the local TV stations, goes well beyond the purview of this story…except for one detail that emerged rather early- hairy men in particular were most definitely judged to be a sub-species (at best) as multiple studies had duly proven. Smooth, hairless men, conversely, represented a genetic marker of evolutionary advancement that at least approached the feminine apex. In a nut shell- females neither shaved (their faces) nor had hair on their torsos, ergo hairy males (as opposed to smooth) were less advanced in an evolutionary sense. This point, at least, seemed irrefutable and was, indeed, clear to most intelligent observers.

Hairy men were seriously disadvantaged in every way; mentally, emotionally, and even physically (less agile, though admittedly prone to greater ‘brute’ strength…but didn’t that word put things in an interesting perspective?) and a groundswell of public compassion for the perceived disadvantages of the furry male aided eventual passage of the ordinance. These sorts of men needed to be identified, controlled and, yes, protected for their own good as well as the good of others. Still, the fact that they were ‘men’- hairy or not- was problematic. The ACLU, ever diligent, issued dire warnings of costly court challenges as human rights- particularly in the Left Coast environment of Bay Area satellite communities- represented a value held in such high regard as to be nearly sacred. One simply could not do to ‘men’, hairy or not, what the new ordinance proposed without seeming to trample on human rights and, besides, there was also a question- however liberal the community might perceive itself to be- of propriety and, might as well say it, issues of indecent exposure. All of these problems were solved, after due consultation with licensed authority from cyber to psychiatric inclusive of the legal, philosophical, sociological, spiritual, and civic experts, by recourse to a fool proof sophistry; hairy men were indeed human and, as such had certain rights but they were also, in important and carefully defined ways, understood to be animals and, as such, existed under certain legally defined limitations and obligations, much like a dog, cat, or even head of livestock, and this was for the good of all- especially the hirsute males in question. The ACLU sputtered dutifully but proved impotent against the 9th Circuit Court and city ordinance 693B passed with barely a dissenting vote and was allowed to stand. Emboldened by the initial reception of the ordinance, the city Mothers then proceeded to slap on a string of codicils all of which- the ordinance itself along with innumerable imperatives, clarifications, and added strictures- would go into effect throughout the municipality thirty days after passage.