Outline For In-Class Talk On "Public Health, Patrician Status, and Pubic Hair"

Outline of in-class presentation on the history of pubic hair removal

Hey, I've never done an outline this detailed. Which should be obvious if you've read any of my posts. It was staggeringly hard for me, at least the first time, though I could see how over time it would be tremendously useful. Especially once it felt more natural. That said, despite quite a lot of preparation by the end of my actual talk I'd free-lanced a much stronger conclusion that more effectively tied the last section on class to the almost sudden turnaround of hairlessnes from a sign of sexual restraint to a sign of sexual expressiveness. Before I'd deliver the talk again I'd revise the outline to reflect the differences (oh yeah, and *really* clean up the bibliography!) but for now it really did serve it's purpose.

After listening to my speech my audience will introduce listeners to the history of pubic hair grooming as it relates to questions of hygiene, tradition, and modern body-image issues.

"Brazilian" waxing and other forms of pubic hair grooming have been practiced all through history and all around the world for all sorts of reasons. I will discuss some of those reasons, and their implications, as they relate to questions of hygiene, social conventions, and body-image issues.

I first became interested when I read an article for women about shaving their genitals and I was startled to see that except for location the steps, and the obstacles, were similar to those for shaving my face! A little bit of Googling turned revealed that body-hair grooming traditions were way more complex than I imagined.

The impact of body hair grooming in general, and pubic hair grooming in particular have affected millions of women and, increasingly, men. Looking at the history of pubic hair grooming might help put the recent fashion trends into a broader context and, perhaps, give us more perspective when we choose to respond.

1. On Sept. 3, 1999, I read an article in Salon.com about a new fashion craze called Brazilian waxing.
   1. A. I'd heard of people occasionally trimming or removing their pubic hair for health reasons or if they were porn performers but Salon reported it as a new fashion.
   2. B. Only three years later a relative mentioned that more than 50% of her Women's Clinic patients in rural, central Maine had begun practicing some form of partial or complete pubic hair removal.
2. Since I grew up during an era when one of the biggest Broadway musicals, Hair, was about never cutting any of your hair, I've followed the radical reversal in fashion with interest, accumulating quite a lot of information on the topic.
3. I thought if I shared some of what I've learned about the history and culture of pubic hair removal around the world it might help put our current fashion into perspective.
4. "Brazilian" waxing and other forms of pubic hair grooming have been practiced all through history and all around the world for all sorts of reasons. I will discuss some of those reasons, and their implications, as they relate to questions of hygiene, social conventions, and body-image issues.

Transition: Let's take a look first at body hair removal through the centuries

1. Although shaving or waxing pubic hair hit America in the late 1990s it's been around for years, but if it's been around for years why haven't we heard more about it?
   1. Nobody really talked much publically about sex until
      1. Masters & Johnson released their study in the late 1960
      2. David Reubin wrote "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex" in the early 1970s
      3. Alex Comfort's "The Joy of Sex" became a best-seller in the early 70's.
   2. Almost none of the books I scanned in the library on sex, feminism, fashion, or porn from 1975 to 1985 refer to pubic shaving or waxing.
   3. Those that do make only oblique references.
      1. "Joy of Sex" mentions it as a surprise variation.
      2. A book about "swingers" in the 1970s mentioned that some women with died hair shaved their pubic hair to hide that they weren't "natural" blondes.
      3. Towards the end of the 1970s some books and articles began to wonder why porn stars had started to shave their pubic hair.

Transition: So if there is little historical evidence of shaving for sexual or fashion reasons what information is in the historical record?

2. Ancient History
   1. Historians say women in the middle east made a depilatory called rhumsa turcorum three to four thousand years ago.
   2. Egyptians and Greeks used bronze or obsidian razors, pumice stones, threading, and sugaring to make themselves look more "refined" and less "barbaric."
   3. The prophet Mohamed specified that observant Moslem men and women should remove all body hair below the neck at least once every 40 days.
   4. We know that merkins were used by both prostitutes and nobility to disguise pubic hair loss due to parasite management and the effects of syphilis remedies.
   5. American pioneers and settlers shaved their body hair to control lice and other body parasites.
      1. John Wayne's funny swagger may have imitated pioneers with razor burn or stubble!
      2. Ma and Pa Wilder probably shaved when living in their Little House on the Prairie and their House At Plum Creek, because we know many of their contemporaries did.
   6. French authorities refused to extradite a pornographer back to England for publishing photos of models with pubic hair (shaved models were considered non-obscene.)
   7. Anecdote: During the toxic-shock syndrome scare some women friends trimmed their pubic hair to reduce sticking and pulling from menstrual pads.

Transition: Can we make any guesses about where the transition from assumptions about pubic hair as a Victorian signifier of greater sexuality might have begun to change?

3. Body hair became an early 20th Century signifier for class, race, sexual "excess," and gender.
   1. In 1914, after the first sleeveless and leg-baring gowns were introduced, ads promoting armpit and leg hair removal began appearing, but only in very high-end women's magazines like Harper's Bazaar.
   2. Largely white Anglo-Saxon protestant, upper class feminists criticized recent immigrants from Mediterranean regions for their immodest attire, use makeup, flamboyance, and "coarse" complexions.
   3. Ads for shaving products in middle-class magazines didn't appear 20 years after appearing in Harper's Bazaar.
   4. Marketers trying to introduce women's shaving products into Latin American markets noticed that women of European descent were reluctant to remove leg and armpit hair for fear of looking more like lower-status Native American women who they perceived to be more naturally hairless.
   5. The "Two Sphere" gender model dictated opposing qualities for men and women.
      1. If men were seen as strong, women must be seen as weak.
      2. If women were seen as nurturing, men must be seen as remote.
      3. If men were seen as hairy, mature sexual animals, women must be seen as hairless, sexless "pre-pubescent" angels.
4. Not until the end of the 20th Century did removal of pubic hair begin to signify higher rather than lower sexualization.

Pubic hair removal was present and common long before Americans became aware of it through sources such as Salon.com, Cosmopolitan magazine, and Sex and the City. In fact it was, and in much of the rest of the world still is, practiced for a variety of reasons including religion, hygiene, tradition, and status. Understanding this we may be able to assess contemporary media, marketing, and peer pressure to groom or remove pubic hair.

• Faster Pussycat, Wax, Wax!
  By Christina Valhouli, Salon.com, Sept. 3, 1999
  http://dir.salon.com/story/health/feature/1999/09/03/bikini/index.html
• Merkin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkin
• Merkin; lice abatement; http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2003/jun/26/features11.g2
• The Oxford Companion to the Body: Merkin
  Colin Blakemore and Sheila Jennett, editors 2001
  ISBN 0-19-852403-X (Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-Body-Colin-Blakemore/dp/019852403X )
• The Oxford Companion To The Body traces the merkin back to 1450, a time when the bidet was a distant prospect and personal hygiene fell well short of the mark. Pubic lice were common - so some women, fed up with the constant itching, just shaved the lot off and then covered their modesty with a merkin.
• The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England
  Steven Marcus, W W Norton & Co Inc, April 1985
  http://www.amazon.com/Other-Victorians-Sexuality-Pornography-Mid-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0393302369/
• Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism
  Linda M. Scott; Palgrave Macmillan (February 16, 2006)
  http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Lipstick-Redressing-Fashion-Feminism/dp/140397134X/
• Hair or Bare?: The History of American Women and Hair Removal, 1914-1934
  Kirsten Hansen; Senior Thesis in American Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University, Thesis Advisor: Professor Rosenberg, 18 April 2007
  http://www.barnard.edu/history/sample%20thesis/Kirsten%20Hansen%20thesis%20pdf.pdf
  My comparison of the Ladies' Home Journal to Harper's Bazaar reveals that hair removal was even more of a class-related phenomenon than Hope suggests, based on her analysis of the less-widely read Delineator. The hair removal campaign which debuted in Harper's Bazaar in 1914 did not appear in the Ladies' Home Journal until 1934. In sum, the introduction of hair removal to women was introduced through and influenced by many different industries; furthermore, it trickled down the class hierarchy at a slower rate than Hope suggests. Finally, Hope only briefly speculates about the link between hair removal and gender, and does not begin to consider the implications of hair removal as part of the greater social phenomenon of the era, the redefinition of the feminine ideal.
• Women's Health Magazine: Dec. 2006:
  http://www.womenshealthmag.com/beauty-and-style/facts-about-beauty
  Number of women who've considered shaving their head: 1 in 5
  Age she began shaving: 12
  Of women who shave, percentage who do it every day: 24"
  Percentage of women who say men should shave facial hair daily: 37
  Percentage of women who think a 5 o'clock shadow is hot: 14
  Percentage of women who wax: 17
  Top three areas waxed:
  1. bikini line
  2. eyebrows
  3. lip
  Percentage of women who've gone Brazilian:3
  Percentage of women who say they'd wax their guy's back: 31
• Women's Health Magazine: July/August, 2006
  http://www.womenshealthmag.com/beauty-and-style/shaving-and-waxing-tips?page=2
• Schedule appointments for the 2 weeks after your period. A new study found you're less susceptible to pain then.
• Women's Health, Oct 2007
  http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/best-bath-products
  Red bumps on your bikini line are skinspeak for WTF?! Avoid irritating your follicles by soaking in warm water for 5 minutes before shaving, says Gregory G. Papadeas, D.O., a Denver-based dermatologist. Water loosens hair follicles to help stubble slip out nice and easy.
• Body hair removal: the 'mundane' production of normative femininity;
  Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, March, 2005 by Merran Toerien, Sue Wilkinson, Precilla Y.L. Choi Foo
  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_5-6_52/ai_n15344791/pg_1
  Women's body hair (5) removal is strongly normative across numerous cultural contexts today. Survey research indicates that the practice is currently prevalent in North America (Basow, 1991) and Australia (Tiggemann & Kenyon, 1998). However, accounts of women's hair removal from such diverse regions as Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome; the Tobriand Islands; Uganda; South America; and Turkey (Cooper, 1971) show it to be neither a modern nor a purely Western invention. Taken together, the long history and the current, documented prevalence of women's body depilation suggest it to be of social significance. Moreover, there is strong evidence of a widespread symbolic association between body hair—or its absence—and ideal gender: to have a hairy body is a sign of masculinity; to have a hairless one, a sign of femininity (6) (Basow, 1991; Basow & Braman, 1998; Cooper, 1971; Ferrante, 1988; Firth, 1973; Greer, 1970; Hope, 1982; Simpson, 1986; Synnott, 1993; Tiggemann & Kenyon, 1998; Toerien & Wilkinson, 2003, 2004). Indeed, the depiction of the female body as depilated, with "smooth unwrinkled ... skin" (Tiggemann & Kenyon, 1998, p. 873), is part of the current, dominant, mass media image of ideal femininity (Whelehan, 2000).
• Male body depilation: prevalence and associated features of body hair removal; Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, May, 2005 by Michael Boroughs, Guy Cafri, J. Kevin Thompson
  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_9-10_52/ai_n15341181/pg_1
  During ancient times Egyptian and Greek cultures placed a premium on the appearance of a hairless male body, and ancient Egyptian men often shaved their body hair with pumice and razors (Luciano, 2001). In the modern era however, body depilation (i.e., body hair reduction or removal below the neck) has typically been culturally sanctioned only for women (Basow & Braman, 1998; Hope, 1982; Tiggemann & Kenyon, 1998) and is strongly normative within contemporary Western culture (Toerien & Wilkinson, 2003, 2004). With few exceptions, men have not engaged in body depilation because the presence of body hair has traditionally been symbolic of masculinity and therefore associated with men's attractiveness and virility (Basow, 1991; Basow & Braman, 1998; Lewis, 1987; Tiggemann & Kenyon, 1998). It appears, however, that the hairless male body ideal has come back into vogue (Luciano, 2001). According to popular press accounts, this shifting ideal has influenced many men both to remove and reduce their body hair (Gomes, 2001; Smith, 2000; Stuever, 2000). In fact, Boroughs and Thompson (2002) found that appearance concerns motivate some men to shave or trim many parts of their bodies, including most notably: abdomen, chest, groin, and legs. Consequently, the aim of the current study was to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of body depilation, as well as its related social and affective features. This information will provide a greater understanding of male body depilation and also inform our understanding of the rapidly developing field of men's body image.
• The Shaving Historical Timeline
  QuickShave Razor Company, Houston, TX
  http://www.quikshave.com/timeline.htm
• Shaving Throughout History
  QuickShave Razor Company, Houston, TX
  http://www.quikshave.com/smooth.htm