I never thought I would write about pubic hair. But I am because pubic hair has become an issue for women.
Being out of the dating game for a long long time, I’ve heard the stories surrounding the politics of pubes. Dates who openly show their distaste if there are traces of pubic hair on a woman. 27-year-old women who moan how expensive “maintenance” is then say, as though anyone who doesn’t invest the same time or effort has missed an important memo, “I like to have nothing down there, it’s much cleaner”.
I’ve had my eyebrows done and beauticians have regaled me with amusing tales of clients and their pain thresholds when waxing. I’ve even sat across a man at a dining table who boldly declared he would only ever sleep with women who have “nothing down there” (that dinner didn’t end really well). By the way, he had nothing all over his head, but the volume of hair on other people seemed to be ripe for judgement.
I know that a lot of women maintain ‘down there’. I’ve always thought it was a neatness thing. You know, so when you go swimming in bathers your pubic hair doesn’t resemble small sea creatures waving in the ocean.
Listen: A podcast listener asks the Mamamia Out Loud team for help with this very problem. Post continues after audio.
I also know this boundary of neatness had been drawing in across that soft female flesh, closer and closer to becoming, not a strip of garden, but a scorched earth. Totally, utterly, bare.
To be honest, I’ve always thought taking off all your pubic hair was something an insecure woman would do. A woman who felt uncomfortable with her womanliness. A woman who too easily acquiesced to what a man wanted even though she protested it was all about cleanliness and what just “felt right”. A woman too easily swayed by shallow pop culture icons like the Kardashians (Kim once proclaimed that women “shouldn’t have hair anywhere but their heads”).
And perhaps even, I thought they weren’t thinkers because thinkers would surely have an issue about being a grown woman who had sex (all the time sex, not occasional let’s-do-something different with our pubic hair sex) with a vagina that has been stripped to look like a) a porn star or b) a pre-pubescent girl. But I’m wrong. Taking off all your pubic hair is normal. Just what you do. Part of body maintenance like a spray tan and eyebrow shaping.
A new study published this week in the U.S. JAMA Dermatology journal found, in a nationally representative sample, that 62 percent of women have opted for complete removal of their pubic hair and 84 percent reported some grooming.
“Many women think they are dirty and unclean if they haven’t groomed,” Dr. Tami S. Rowen, an obstetrician-gynecologist and the lead author of the study told The New York Times.
The study also found that the practice is common across all ages and races but most inclined to "groom" are women aged between 18-34, who have at least some college education. The New York Times says that anecdotally doctors are seeing 13-year-old girls remove all their pubic hair.
“At least once a week I hear from a young woman that she thinks it’s wrong to have pubic hair, that it’s meant to be removed,” said Dr Jennifer Gunter.
By the way, the medical fraternity is in agreement that it is not "cleaner" to remove pubic hair. It serves a purpose: trapping bacteria and preventing it from entering the vagina. A lack of pubic hair, and the forced removal of pubic hair, has been linked to a suite of health problems.
Top Comments
How controlling... Bringing other women down for their choices. Not to sound like a pussy (no pun intended) but I nearly cried reading this bully-ish article. And I only shave half the time!
I have shaved that area since high school. I was on the swim team and we had this crazy idea that hairless was better and helped with your times. Since then I have always kept it shaved because it's normal. Now however I'm currently 7 months pregnant and can't see not reach the area and my husband doesn't feel comfortable shaving me there so I have to put up with it and honestly I can't stand it shaved is definitely better and makes sex feel better as well