Hairless porn stars are being urged to ‘do their bit’ for the endangered merkin, by offering them somewhere warm to hibernate for the winter. With fewer than 80 breeding pairs remaining in the wild, Grizzly Merkins could soon go the way of the cleft ferret.
Professor of outdoor hirsutes Ben Holmes believes the industry’s total rejection of any kind of fur is bad news for the merkin, once prized for its unusually triangular pelt. But with complaints that merkin farming left too much to the imagination, the lovable beasts have nearly been shaved into extinction.
“With such a bushy covering, merkins find it hard to tell where they’re going or what they should be doing”, explained Holmes. “Particularly the males, who struggle to look beyond the end of their nose.” Once abundant on the mounds and deltas that surround Hollywood, they’re now so rare they’re hardly mentioned. But Holmes is relentless in his enthusiasm for the creatures, and believes that with the right encouragement, they could soon be back on everyone’s lips.
Holmes is striving to create the right conditions for merkins, to allow them to recover an area last not seen in the ‘70s. “While a lot of footage from the era is out of focus, obscured by ‘repairmen’ or worn out by constant rewinding, you can still tell that merkins were abundant and much sought after”, he insisted. “By recreating conditions with the right levels of orange wallpaper and the theme from ‘Shaft’, we could encourage them to breed vigorously, with a slightly reduced risk of chafing.”
Holmes claims he now understands why previous attempts to pluck the merkin from obscurity were counter-productive, “we were far too clinical when we approached the problem with a razor-like tenacity”, he admitted. “We’re now using a softer focus, to create a safer, more moody environment. If we can only find a way to reintroduce them to this barren landscape, it could be a sign that we’ve finally come of age.”
