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Seriously, about this recurring pubescent/pre-pubescent meme about pubic hair and shaving: with or pubic without hair both men’s and women’s genitals look as different from children’s as men’s faces do with or without beards.

There are plenty of perfectly good reasons not to shave or trim but the “pre-pubescent” thing says more about denial and unfamiliarity with grownup bodies than anything else.

For instance (since they’re frequently photographed together) Google around for images of George Clooney and Brad Pitt and tell me that a) Clooney looks immature without a beard and b) Pitt looks mature with one. It’s the same with people’s genitals.

fMhLisa of Feminist Mormon Housewives has a great rundown on the obligation women feel to shave their legs. And by extension anywhere else.

I was sitting on mfranti’s couch, when the evening light hit my legs at the right angle and she (in that uber mormon-nice way of hers) screeched, “Ahhh! Leg Hair! Ewww!” while pulling her gag face. I don’t really blame her, truth be told, I often have the same reaction. Especially when I put on my dressy boots and the leg hair kinda flops out over the top, ewww. Run Away!

So why not shave? you ask, and save yourself the horror of the leg-hair boot flop.

Well, I’m totally lazy.

Plus the getting old thing, simultaneously less attractive (chin haired, boob sagged, and wrinkled) and more comfortable with myself (dude I’m totally awesome, I kid you not).

And then there’s the ideology. Though I’m never really sure if my ideology is an excuse for the laziness or my laziness is an excuse for my ideology (one wouldn’t want to come off as a militant weirdo).

She said it here.

This is going to sound like a total digression. It’s not.

Back before I was “figleaf,” in fact back before blogs, I spent a lot of time on the old Usenet newsgroups pertaining to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. And because I was a stay at home dad I talked occasionallly about shopping and cooking.

One day, sort of out of the blue, I got an email from a reporter from a national cooking magaine asking if she could interview me about being a dad in the kitchen. I said sure and after a little back and forth I sent her my phone number. When she called she spent a minute or two asking a couple of general how-are-you question like how did I like being a stay-at-home dad and how often did I cook. But then she started asking me how my mother’s cooking influenced my cooking. I said not at all, my mom hated to cook and except for a couple of pretty good scratch recipes she relied heavily on cans, freezers, and (when it came on the market) Hamburger Helper. I started to tell her instead that I’d gotten the idea when an african american woman from our church stayed with us for a week when mom needed surgery and mentioned that, since she worked during the day, her son, who was my age and in my Sunday school class, would cook his own lunches.

No, no, says the interviewer, can you tell me more about how you learned recipes from your mom. And I said, well, I didn’t really learn any recipes from my mom. Instead I was bored one summer and read the Joy of Cooking cover to cover and… No, no, says the interviewer, what recipes did your mom use that you use now? And I said, well, I guess I make macaroni and cheese from a box the way she did but, really, I read this short story about a chef in upstate New York who… And the interviewer said “it sounds like you didn’t really learn to cook from your mom.” And I said no, I learned… And she said thank you, but my editor wants stories about stay at home dads and how they learned from their mothers. And she thanked me again.

And that was the end of that.

I mention this because a friend and I were talking today about gender and fashion and somehow shaving came up. And I opined, based on my old hippie friend’s experiences with “straight” boys and men, that men aren’t really as concerned about shaving (legs and armpits back then) as they were made out to be. I mean, sure, they might say something. But they didn’t run screaming from the room. And, for that matter, later many of them became hippies themselves. And stopped shaving. Their faces.

My friend brought up the point that thanks to porn men are insisting that women shave not just legs and armpits but pubic hair before they’ll have sex with them. And I was thinking… you know… it wasn’t that long ago that men, not just hippie men but “mainstream” men, were suspicious of women who shaved their pubic hair. (We won’t even go into the whole, stupid “does the rug match the drapes” business, m’kay?) And it wasn’t that much longer before that that porn would rave on and on and on about “luxuriant” pubic hair being an indication of sexual appetite. So I said I still didn’t think that many men are really refusing to have sex with their partners because they don’t shave.

And my friend said (and here’s where my digression stops looking so digress-y) that she didn’t know. “Even” Cosmopolitan is obsessed with the importance of shaving body hair. And she mentioned that any time they run an “ask men” feature that involves pubic hair, sure enough, all the men insist they can’t even get it up for sex with someone with anything less than a full-on Brazilian wax.

And I thought about how the article the reporter who contacted me was all about men who were influenced to cook by their mothers.

Hmm….

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. It absolutely does. But probably no more often than women insist they won’t go near a man with back hair. In other words, it happens. But in one case word of every instance carries a ton of freight; in the other it vanishes with scarcely a ripple.

Which brings me to my next point. The Las Vegas Courtesan (l’ll link in a minute) writes intelligently and in the first person about sex-worker issues. She also does self-photography and posts them. The photos are not “half-nekkid” and, since photos like that aren’t everyone’s cup of tea I wanted to let you know that if you following this link would take you to a photo of LVC minus underwear, plus pubic hair.

I mention this because the comments are are relevant. And again for those who’d rather not check out the photo I’ve quoted them below. (The second comment is from LVC.)

#Nice shot. Very hot! Love the nude and the hands, so much more erotic.
Glad to see the “bald” look hasn’t completely taken over. (Much sexier IMHO).
March 29th, 2009 at 7:15 pm

1. lasvegascourtesan Says:

Yea I am going to take some more photos before I get waxed again because I know quite a few people like the natural look. :)
March 29th, 2009 at 7:42 pm

1. Thru.Blu.Eyes Says:

Stomach and legs are awesome! I agree about the “bald” look. It seems so predominant everywhere you look now. I prefer smooth lips and a little hair on the mound. Landing strip, triangle, heart, doesn’t matter. I just like women to look like, well, women. Love your pictures on the site, LVC. Very erotic and sexy.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:52 pm

1. John Says:

Awesome picture! Very erotic and I love the not so bald look. Slightly trimmed is a much better look in my opinion. Mmmm, thanks for sharing!
March 30th, 2009 at 4:19 am

1. Jeff Says:

Very nice picture… I agree with previous notes about liking a little patch of hair more than simply bald. Don’t be fooled though! I personally don’t like the forest look

Say anything you like about the overall tone of the comments, but it’s kind of inescapable that

a) the four men who chose to comment affirmed a bias towards at least some pubic hair.
b) only the last one, Jeff, chose to say anything even slightly negative (he doesn’t like a lot of pubic hair.) Another commenter said affirmatively that he likes slightly trimmed pubic hair. (Call it a cliché, or call me a whiner, but since pubic hair really does go up your nose I prefer trimmed pubic hair too.)
c) LVC acknowledges that “quite a few people like the natural look.”

Again, it could just be that commenter #5 hasn’t come along. Or it could be that would-be commenters #5 through #5000 all retired to their fainting couches a la the Romantic artist John Ruskin on (allegedly) his wedding night. But I doubt it. Instead, the first four outside comments about a (literal!) “pornstitution” photograph said, more or less, “cool, pubic hair.”

As opposed to “‘Ahhh! Leg Hair! Ewww!’ while pulling her gag face.”

Question Authority, m’kay?

Oh, and go read the rest of fMhLisa’s post. Compared to my rambling anecdotes she directly articulates why the pressure (in her case from other women, but from men as well) is overblown. And generally worth ignoring.

Photo by Flickr user caitlinburke. Used under a Creative Commons license.

In a thread on an unknown-to-me website called of Model Mayhem a photographer named Cazee says

I have an interest in shooting male nudes for the female eye. But wondered how far is too far – what crosses the line for most women from erotic to a turn off?

How would I change a fine art male nude into something rather erotic for a woman without starting to tread into “nasty” territory?

do muscles play a more important role? hair? buttocks? frontal implied or full nudes? erections? sexy face?

Or is this genre only for males with that interest?

To which someone else, September Sui, generously replied

The blogger of Real Adult Sex has Half-Naked Thursdays in which he posts erotic pictures of himself. Tastefully done ones. I’m not one for body hair myself, but he’s got such a nuanced eye, I enjoy them. You could start there.

Read all about it here.

The responses to the original question vary widely. Anyone inclined to lament pressure on women to remove body hair might be interested, though not necessarily encouraged, to note the sentiment seems to be extended to men as well.

It’s funny. Until I was about 25 I had exactly: hair on my chin, my upper lip, my armpits, and a very-curly sort of… mustache of pubic hair. Around 25 the first few hairs showed up on my chest but you probably wouldn’t have noticed till I turned 30. I’ve been slowly filling in ever since.

Since with men it tends to grow in all over I’m not sure where one would, literally I guess, draw the line. In general I kind of like the “happy trail” on my belly. I think it would look funny ending it abruptly where my pubic hair wouldn’t start if I shaved only there, though. As for everywhere else, while at least one commenter opined that beard stubble is a must I’m not sure there’s much of a market for stubble all over.

I do tend to trim my body hair, maybe once or twice a year. Naturally I tend to shave my face every day, and I do occasionally think about giving in and getting it waxed or sugared or lasered or something but…

I think it would make me look pre-thirtyescent. :-)

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.

Specific 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.

Thesis

“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.

Why do I care?

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.

Why You Should Care

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.

Introduction

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

Body

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.

Conclusion

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.

Bibliography:

• 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;

  href=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2003/jun/26/features11.g2”>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: href=“http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-Body-Colin-Blakemore/dp/019852403X”>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
  href=“http://www.amazon.com/Other-Victorians-Sexuality-Pornography-Mid-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0393302369/”>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)
  href=“http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Lipstick-Redressing-Fashion-Feminism/dp/140397134X/”>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
  href=“http://www.barnard.edu/history/sample%20thesis/Kirsten%20Hansen%20thesis%20pdf.pdf”>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:
  
  href=“http://www.womenshealthmag.com/beauty-and-style/facts-about-beauty”>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
  
  href=“http://www.womenshealthmag.com/beauty-and-style/shaving-and-waxing-tips?page=2”>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
  href=“http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_5-6_52/ai_n15344791/pg_1”>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
  href=“http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_9-10_52/ai_n15341181/pg_1”>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