"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom." - Soren Kierkegaard

***

Does a short haircut mean women have gone off sex?

"Cave paintings celebrated long-haired women - the longer the hair the more fertile and, therefore, desirable she was - and nothing had changed when Botticelli painted the Birth of Venus, complete with those flowing locks, millennia later.

These days you need only watch a shampoo commercial to see that long hair is still shorthand for sexual attractiveness. Glossy, shoulder-length tresses are tossed from side to side as the ultimate sign of a woman at her peak.

Touching and playing with our hair is also regarded as one of the more obvious flirtation techniques...

Longer hair is associated with youth perhaps because as young girls we usually wear our hair long, and it is generally the case that when women become mothers they cut their hair for the sake of practicality, continuing to wear it shorter and shorter as they get older. This, of course, coincides with a gradual falling away of libido and sexual activity...

Don't be fooled when a woman cuts it all off or completely restyles it and yet denies there's anything going on. You can bet that some sort of emotional change is taking place, and usually a dramatic cut reflects a whole new phase for her.

Many times I've noticed a client or a friend make such a change to their hair only for them to confide - or for me to discover - that something's been troubling them. It could be anything from general dissatisfaction with how they've been feeling about themselves, to dissatisfaction with something specifically, such as their sex life...

The most savage seductresses - sirens, mermaids, Lorelei - all exploited manes in which male destinies might become entangled. Mortal enchantresses, too, were never without luxuriant tresses with which to lasso their prey.

The longer and more untrammelled a woman's hair, the more potent and dangerous her sexuality. Tumbling tresses also boast of more positive sexual associations.

Renaissance brides adopted flowing locks as an emblem of virginity, sexuality and fertility...

Where long hair suggested sex, short hair has been a mark of revolution; of women putting political rather than sexual objectives first...

I was soon aware that fewer men turned their heads the way they used to.

The realisation started to dawn on me that long hair advertises a desire to attract, even to be dominated. Long hair on a woman shouts: 'Pull me, please!' Newly-cut hair represents a different relationship to her sexuality and her sexual life.

For me after that dramatic change of appearance, short-haired sex would turn out to be less frequent...

There comes a point in every woman's life when she questions whether she is too old to wear her hair long. It's usually between the ages of 35 and 45... At a certain age, long hair can start to feel a bit desperate. It's the same as wearing a mini-skirt when you're old enough to know better - it's very mutton-dressed-as-lamb.

There really is nothing quite as unsexy as someone who is trying a bit too hard... Cutting it off is a big step and for many women it feels like the end of an era.

They're petrified that the mere act of having a haircut will strip them of their sexiness and render them completely undesirable. Dramatic? Maybe. But then our hair is the only fashion accessory we wear every moment of our lives...

I am so desperate to hang on to that feminine image of long locks that I have even had hair extensions to bolster what was once mine naturally. I had the extensions done shortly after my husband ran off because I consciously thought it would make me feel more sexually attractive.

I love having thick, long hair and I like to play with my current locks by twirling them around my fingers - it's a form of self-expression."