STATE OF GRACE When she stomped onto the fashion scene in the ’70s, Grace Jones was a pioneer of fearless experimentation. Now at 67, the model, musician, actress, and Studio 54 icon has pushed boundaries at every turn, inspiring fellow artists like Ke
Shaving my head led directly to my first orgasm. This is because I am fairly sure that the man I had my first orgasm with was Andre, my hairdresser from Cinandre, a huge salon at 57th Street and Madison Avenue. It was such a revelation, almost traumatic, the very first, that most of the details have been wiped away, other than the tidal rush of feelings, but a little bit of detective work, rummaging through my memories, has led to Andre as the prime suspect. His salon was where I was sent to make sure that when my hair started to grow back I didn’t go ahead and shave it off again ...
These days, they say DJs are God. Back then, it was hairdressers who were God. Like Vidal Sassoon. All the celebrities would go to hairstylists like Andre. He was more than a hairdresser. He was an artist and a photographer, very experimental. He cut the hair of lots of models and actresses, and he invented the Farrah Fawcett flick. It was decided he would know what to do with me.
He definitely knew what to do with me. Andre relished this instinct that I had to find a different place to be, even when it came to my hair, and he treated my short hair like a canvas. It was very short, but there were ways he could change how it looked, and instinctively this was what I was after, constant change. It would be a key part of my overall performance. My hair could be adjusted, changed, edited, in much the same way that later my whole body would be treated ...
I suppose it’s not surprising that my first orgasm was with Andre. His fingers on my scalp working their magic helped, and it didn’t take much for that to lead to great sex. I’d never had sex like that before. It was sex from another era, another solar system. It still started with the mouth but it ended up beyond the body. It made me feel like I was falling backward in time. He was very openminded and creative, and that seemed to spill over into the sex. He bent me out of shape.