Dear ugly one,
I am a Thirties, heterosexual, cisgender female Who was recently divorced. I’m dating again and already feel completely lost when it comes to how I should “style” my pubic hair. That being said, I’ve been getting ads on Instagram over the past few weeks about lasering my butt hair… and I have a lot of questions. Is this safe? Should I buy a laser hair remover so I can remove hair in the privacy of my home? Does my anus look like a naked mole rat? Do women really do this?
– lost in the jungle
From one thirtysomething divorcee receiving targeted ads about family asshole hair removal to another, let me start by saying I see you. I heard. I yes you.
You and I both grew up in the early 2000s: the era of low-rise jeans, whale-tail thongs, and midriff-baring shirts. Girls are going wild, Carrie Bradshaw is getting a Brazilian wax, and internet porn is at your fingertips. However for all these pubic Among the sightings, the only female pubic hair I saw as a young woman—not counting the cartoons in “Your Care and Keeping,” that classic “girl’s body book”—was my own.
How can I no Have you internalized the idea that hair down there is unacceptable, unattractive, and unsexy? How could I blame the boys for feeling the same way? Hair loss has become the norm. Soon enough, I traded in the newly grown bush for a razor-burned bikini line dotted with dried blood and ingrown hairs. yes. Much sexier.
Millennials aren’t the first to feel shamed for their short and curly hair, though.
“Body hair has been considered unclean and uncivilized as far back as the Roman Empire,” says Dr. Michael Reed, an obstetrician-gynecologist in California. “Both men and women remove body and pubic hair [with tweezers] To reduce lice infestations, wealthy people in ancient times could afford things like soap and hot baths, so they could have the luxury of shaving. This made hairlessness a symbol of upper class society. Trends come and go. By the 18th century, “most Europeans and Americans considered pubic hair removal unnecessary.” In the 19th century, it enjoyed a resurgence in popularity thanks to Gillette’s new safety razor. The free love movement of the 1960s and ’70s liberated the jungle again, and then the ’80s and ’90s brought the beauty boom.
Reed notes that “especially in the past 10 years, more than 80 percent of women groom their pubic hair to some extent,” and there are an increasing number of methods to choose from: trimming, shaving, waxing, sugaring, Hair removal, epilators, lasers and epilators.
Not all hair removal is sexually motivated. Many people trim their pubic hair for sensual purposes. This practice can also be used to express class, cleanliness, femininity, youth, beach etiquette, Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I like your question “Lost in the Jungle” because you are very clear about your why: you are not “doing it for you”. You do this because men will see your various holes, and you want them to look sexy (or at least average).
Now to answer your question. First: Are the at-home butt hair removal devices you see on Instagram safe?
I’m pretty sure you’re referring to the Nood, a tool that has haunted my own internet experience via this video: “Want a hairless a**hole?” The Nood is not a laser, but IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) equipment. “Similar to laser hair removal, IPL therapy targets hair follicles with pulses of light to inhibit hair growth,” says Reed. While Nood is FDA-approved for hair removal, risks include “skin irritation, burns, and pigmentation changes.” It is also not suitable for use on blonde or red hair or Dark skin. Even if you can accept the risks and meet the requirements, Reed says you should get “an appropriate evaluation by a trained professional” before trying it at home.
I said don’t bother.
To answer your other two questions – Does my anus look like a naked mole rat? Do women really do this? – I polled over 14,000 people online via my newsletter Beauty Review, and I have some good news to report: Baby, the jungle is back. And the bushes you’re talking about? It never really left.
Of the heterosexual women surveyed, 82% removed some pubic hair, but only 15% said their pubic hair was completely exposed. 40% retained a bikini-shaped bush (only the hair sticking out of the bikini bottom was removed), 29.5% reported rocking a full bush or a slightly trimmed full bush, and 11% left a small Continental zone. Fully 60% of respondents said they would not remove hair on or around the anus at all.
While 65% of women expressed concern about whether a new male partner would judge their pubic hair style, only 16% said a partner had ever asked them to change the way they groomed their pubic hair.
In fact, 50% of the men surveyed said they had no preference for the vagina or Tramp hair – their partner can have all of it, none, some, etc. As for those who have preferences? 17% preferred full bushes, 18% preferred exposed areas, and most preferred polite “cleaning” around general genitalia. More than 71% of male respondents said they were never bothered by their partner’s pubic or butt hair. Many even wrote enthusiastically commend For pubic hair. Comments included: “Natural body hair is hot!” and “Grow a bush!” and “Who has the energy and flexibility to shave their own anus?”
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Stacey Harding, deputy manager of on-site training at the European Wax Center, confirmed some of these findings. “Pubic hair style trends have changed in the body removal industry over the past decade,” she said. “While the full Brazilian style remains popular, people have begun to move toward a more natural look.”
The pubic bone also has its place in the fashion world. Earlier this year, the Maison Margiela Artisanal collection sent models down the catwalk wearing sheer skirts and prosthetic pubic hair — Bjork has recently been featured in Vogue Scandinavian, merkin and more cover. Emily Kirkpatrick, the fashion journalist behind the newsletter I <3 Mess, noted that last month, Julia Fox "wore a trompe l'oeil-style hairy vagina bikini bottom ”. “Doja Cat rocked visible bushes and areolas at the Grammys.”
what do we owe pubicborn? One of these is predictable trend cycles. We shave, then don’t shave, then wax, and so on. Kirkpatrick said maybe the pandemic, which put most maintenance appointments on hold for an entire year, “made women realize how silly the hamster wheel of hair removal is.” “Inflation is also causing many people to re-evaluate their budgets and what’s really important in life.” (Last month, journalist Virginia Sole-Smith wrote in her newsletter: “American women will spend up to $23,000 and Two months to manage our body hair.”)
It could also be about pleasure; a journalist friend who works on sexual health topics just told me that pubic hair is partially arrive please. “Think about how good it feels when someone plays with the hair on your head,” she said. Point taken.
Reed believes the feminist movement has played an important role in the pubic hair renaissance—a “rejection of over-grooming or artificial standards of beauty that too often are dictated by male perceptions,” he says—though I don’t Believe this. (Look at the ever-increasing constraints of many other modern beauty standards.)
All things considered, my advice is to leave it as is. That doesn’t mean the choice is easy.
There’s a big gap between knowing that pubic hair norms have relaxed and feeling confident about showing off your own pubic hair norms. For many of us, body hair is still knotted in shame. It can be hard to unpack the lessons we learn from our formative years, especially when it comes to intimacy, and especially in highly sensitive situations—like a first date after a divorce.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I feel like you’re not asking about hairlessness, but acceptance: How to Guarantee Someone Won’t Judge Your Vagina – In 8 Easy Steps! I can’t give you that. You can knock it all off and sleep with one of the 17% of people who like your hairiness. You might let it grow and meet one of the 18% of men who don’t want you there. It may be uncomfortable. It’s part of dating (and life). You can’t avoid friction in human interactions, and you shouldn’t. This is how you learn, grow, and test compatibility.
When I met my ex-husband in my twenties, I was wearing a neat bikini. When he expressed a preference for a mannequin-smooth pubic mound, I booked six permanent laser hair removal sessions on site. Now, I wish I hadn’t. I wish I could get caught up in this friction and make myself feel uncomfortable and unattractive and question what this request means for our future. Does he have any other ideas about my appearance? (He did.) Am I willing to sacrifice my body for these preferences, too? (I’m not.)
Sometime after my divorce, my pubic hair grew back. (Hair follicles can sometimes regrow after hormonal events, such as birth control changes or pregnancy.) I realized I was missing it, so I kept it. It reminds us of the difference between manipulating our bodies to fit someone else’s ideals and making specific aesthetic choices for ourselves. I have no complaints!
What if the new partner complains or demands changes? Honestly, I think I’ll just move on. To change the dating cliché, there’s a lot of pubic hair in the jungle.
