"Haircuts by Children".

Outpost for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA October 14-15, 2006

The press release for "Haircuts by Children" shows a relaxed, balding old man with thick white beard having his hair cut by two kids. A tallish girl in pink T-shirt is carefully brushing away a few stray hairs on his right, while to the left a smaller boy in green plaid ponders the locks he's about to snip. Each child has a hand gently placed on the man's shoulder, asserting calming control. The tagline, "Ideal entertainment for the end of the world," doesn't so much demonstrate faith in the children's depilatory abilities as raise an eyebrow over these innocent proceedings.

Further down, one reads that the performance is the brainchild of Darren O'Donnell, artistic director of Toronto's Mammalian Diving Reflex Theatre Company, in collaboration with Outpost for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. But the op-ed instantly starts back-peddling from any implied hanky-panky, switching from children's rights to High Victorian flights of fancy: "In the future every child will be given a pair of scissors and invited to shape our destinies. In the future, every child will be given full citizen rights; invited to vote, run for office and drive streetcars. In the future, children will teach and adults will learn; a playground will be built on every battlefield; candy will be free and rotten teeth will be replaced at no cost to you, the consumer. In the future, children will be powerful creatures able to cross the street without looking both ways, and hold their breath forever and ever."

However grassroots or "cutting-edge," these have been the watchwords of Vault Disney for years now. But that's where the plot thickens. This performance may well be a clever ploy to get parents, a middle school teacher, volunteer hairstylist, two hair salon owners, and city councilmember to endorse a project whose astounding claim--that children can successfully take on mature adult roles--directly challenges age-of-consent laws. The events in question took place at Susy's Beauty Salon and Odette's New Styles in Highland Park, a mainly blue-collar/Latino area of Los Angeles (where many artists also live). Each salon offers a small community space where locals can gather for gossip and hairdos, not at all the sort of place you'd expect to find illicitly charged art performances.

At the event I attended, chairs were made available for spectators to sit and watch the proceedings. The two girls and boy cutting hair at Odette's seemed aware of the gravity of the situation, and handled themselves accordingly. I watched as one girl painstakingly trimmed the tips off of a woman's long blond mane, frequently pausing and asking for help to check if she was doing it correctly. The palpable anxiety of this barbershop trio was painful to watch. And then it was my turn.

Alexis, the 12-year-old who seemed legitimately shy, quietly asked me what I wanted, and because of his inexperience I was more specific with him than I would ever be with a qualified stylist. He seemed to understand, but then morphed my instructions into a language of his own. Gone was any pretense at symmetry or smoothness. My temples ended up nearly bald, and an entire chunk of hair was missing off the back of my head. But there was also something charming, even satisfying about realizing that in all probability I would end up looking a fright, and have to endure a whole month of people asking me what happened. My head became in turn a model world by which this accidental youth could develop a sense of who he is and what he might become. That seemed paramount at the time.

Today millions of viewers watch Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator" series, whose sanitized sting operations involve adults posing as kids looking for sex over the net. The men who make contact with these plants are eventually lured to a home under police surveillance and caught--all on national TV. On "Predator," however, the details negotiated online constitute the closest thing to consensual sex I've ever encountered, certainly on primetime. The youths in these spider lair scenarios seem perfectly aware of what is going on, and often solicit assurance as to their personal safety. If anything, these predatory acts only tend to follow the children's lead, affording (and yes, exploiting) the opportunity to explore their own potential.

In his 1980 gay guide to the United States, Edmund White reflected, following a visit with the local pedophile underground, that when he was 12 he wished some adult would initiate sexual contact. But wishes and fantasies are not continuous with their realization. The third position introduced by Freud at once derepresses the existence of childhood sexuality and emphasizes the importance of aim-inhibited libidinal ties, especially during the "return" of sexuality in early adolescence. As "Haircuts by Children" effortlessly proves, there are always places, times, and relationships in which no one can be safe from sexualization.