THIS STORY IS PART OF THE LENS CARNIVAL EDITION.

By their iconic image, the merkin – a pubic wig – the Bearded Oysters marching group has been an emblem of feminist freedom and confidence on the Muses parade route for 20 years. Oysters principally use their crotches to create and show their private artwork, says founder Katrina Brees, the self-described “Mom Shucker.” 

“The merkin is like their canvas, their piece of artwork, their self expression,” Brees mentioned. 

In creating the Bearded Oysters, Brees was impressed by how oysters shift gender, reworking effortlessly with the move of nature. The marching group’s body-hair ingredient – which may embody beards, merkins, costumed physique hair and mustaches – explores  each gender presentation and the pressures that girls face to shave, pluck, wax, tweeze, and laser – all to “grow to be acceptable” by eradicating pure hair. 

On the parade route, the physique hair, beards and mustaches – usually manufactured from glitter, fake hair, fringe, or face paint – are instantly noticeable. The merkins, alternatively, are sometimes hidden underneath skirts, seen solely sporadically, when an Oyster chooses to flash somebody. 

Some merkins have messages written them, like one with a flag that claims, “Make a Merkin nice once more.” One among Brees’ favorites has a package deal of moist wipes connected, so you’ll be able to pull moist wipes out of the merkin.

The Oysters, now 400 sturdy, use this playful method to advertise messages of physique confidence and battle again towards restrictive magnificence requirements, particularly these involving hair elimination. 

The merkin itself has a storied historical past involving girls’s bodily autonomy, sexual freedom, and social hierarchy. “I don’t need anybody our Merkins and simply getting turned on,” Brees mentioned. “I need them to study one thing.” 

Brees wrote a small manifesto, a “transient and bawdy historical past of the merkin,” which notes that through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, some girls misplaced pubic hair after mercury-based remedies for syphilis. “As a result of a full bush was seen as an indication of well being, fertility, and desirability, these girls crafted wigs out of animal hair to hide hair loss.” 

Over time, a merkin grew to become an emblem of disguise and deception. “We reclaim it as an emblem of empowerment, selection, and protest towards restrictive magnificence requirements.”

Carnival is supposed to be a day the place regular societal divisions are briefly dissolved and everybody’s a king. Or, as New Orleans human-right activist Deon Haywood from Ladies With a Imaginative and prescient wrote not too long ago, “Mardi Gras is transgressive. It’s an opportunity for on a regular basis people to upend the foundations and overtly mock programs of oppression.” 

Bearded Oysters aren’t anticipated to be dancers. The group wears immediately recognizable silver and white costumes — with lights for night time parades — and makes use of wings, glamour, and private fashion to provide its free-form parade aesthetic reasonably than following inflexible choreography. 

The vitality of the cheering crowds is an almost indescribable expertise for practically anybody who parades. However for individuals with body-image struggles, it seems like medication. “You understand once you’re on the market,” mentioned Oyster SarahJane Guidry, “that persons are appreciating you in your strikes and never how your physique appears.”

For Guidry, it even felt intimidating to affix a gaggle so massive. She was capable of take the leap as a result of she joined with a buddy. Brees, who understands these anxieties, provided a two-for-one membership promotion this 12 months, to encourage associates to grow to be Oysters collectively.

By a self-described “benign dictatorship,” Brees constructed an deliberately versatile, all-ages group construction. All occasions are non-compulsory, together with parades, and Oysters have lifetime memberships to come back and go as they want. 

Continual well being situations, age, and parenthood can all make parading tough, she says. Plus, not everybody grew to become an Oyster to parade. Some joined for friendship and inventive collaboration and would favor to sit down on the sidelines on parade night time. 

Authentic Oyster Marilyn Enslow, 79, who additionally helped to discovered the Krewe du Vieux sub-krewe Pizza Sluts, counts three generations of her household as members. Her grandson, Zach Hunter, has paraded for 16 years. Her daughter has participated as effectively, and Enslow’s husband Steve was a fierce supporter of the Oysters earlier than he handed. Male helpers was known as “Shuckers,” however right this moment members of all genders are thought of Oysters. Brees considers Hunter certainly one of their strongest dancers. 

Whereas Enslow not joins the Oysters within the streets, she nonetheless has her assortment of merkins – together with the primary ever light-up merkin. Although it’s an intensive assortment, it pales to the gathering amassed by Brees, who at one level was the largest merkin creator and distributor on the planet by way of her Etsy store. 

The intergenerational friendships between Oysters additionally assist promote physique positivity. Youthful members see older Oysters “placing themselves on the market, taking on house, and realizing you are able to do this perpetually.” 

At this time, the Oysters are an establishment throughout the Muses universe, Hunter mentioned. “There’s all the time somebody on the route that’ll have a devoted Bearded Oyster signal.” And naturally, when beckoned, the Oysters can pay consideration.

When you’re fortunate, Oysters say, they could slip you a embellished oyster shell. When you’re luckier, they could flash you their merkins.

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