HAIR: Sex Society Symbolism

by Wendy Cooper ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 26, 1971

This social-scientific commentary ranges easily from the present to the Biblical past when it was first said that the ""very hairs on your head are all numbered"" and if you're interested, and you will be, in a current head count -- blonds have an average 140,000 to the lesser brunette showing of 108,000. Miss Cooper's book is a fall of curious incidentals (your hair can stand straight up in moments of stress or turn white overnight) as well as solider facts about hair and its association with both virility and sexual dominance; about the attraction or counterattraction of what grows where; about styles and their tyrannical extravagance then as well as now (and, by the way, the woolly gene is always the strongest); about hair as part of legend and myth and religion; and, as a dismal envoi, the naked ape will become more so -- baldness is increasing gene by generation. Miss Cooper writes entertainingly as well as knowingly, and the 72 color and 171 black-and-white plates should contribute to the visually bouffant presentation.

Pub Date: Nov. 26, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Stein & Day

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION