Study Say Pubic Hair Is Back In Style
Trimming is a thing of the past/Google ImagesLADIES, breaking news: it is time to step away from the molten wax and let our lady gardens grow free. Perhaps you already suspected something was afoot from the re-emergence of the lesser-spotted foof in the gym changing rooms.
Or maybe you ditched the razor when Gwyneth Paltrow admitted on the Ellen Degeneres show that she “rocks a 70s vibe down there” but it is now official: 51 per cent of 1,870 women who answered an online pharmacy poll, carried out by UK Medix, do not “style or groom their pubic hair” with 45 per cent of us admitting that we can “no longer be bothered to keep up the grooming” and 62 per cent revealing that their partner “prefers the natural look”.
Whoooaa…hang on. Pubic topiary has become The Norm. Its demise is momentous. Thanks to pornography and those swooping crotch-shots of female singers’ hair-free gusset regions, female pubes have withered and died; a whole generation of young men are grossed out by Mother Nature’s handiwork because it hasn’t appeared on porn stars since the early 1990s and girls as young as 12 are trying to rid themselves of their pubescent femininity at a time when they should be celebrating their womanliness.
So just what is doing on downstairs?
Like so many fashion trends (false nails, hair extensions, fake tans), we can’t kid ourselves that the bald nunny arose out of a demand from our partners. Hoary old husbands weren’t down the pub debating how best to finesse their sex-lives before returning home to demand that the pubes must go. Most blokes are not that shallow. Or arguably they’re just happy to get jiggy with the object of their affections regardless. Most wouldn’t recoil even if their beloved’s follicles depicted the face of Christ, like the ones that turn up in tabloids on slices of bread.
Thanks to the likes of feminist writers such as Caitlin Moran who derides the trend in her bestseller book, How To Be A Woman, removing all – or most – of our special love triangle has finally come to seem utterly absurd. Moran points out that in porn: “Hairlessness is not there for the excitingness. It’s not, disappointingly, there to satisfy a kink…the real reason porn stars wax is because, if you remove all the fur, you can see more when you’re doing penetrative shots. And that’s it. It’s all down to the technical considerations of cinematography.” In other words it had no place emerging in the life of an account manager from Milton Keynes.
We simply don't need the hassle
Wax 'em/Google ImagesAnd now, it seems that we long-term pubic horticulturalists have finally come to realise that all modes of hair removal are simply a massive hassle. Self-shaving is a risky business (33 per cent of those surveyed preferred this method). Partner-shaving is even more dangerous and who – apart from university students – has the time to indulge in such intimacy? And there are few tortures greater than the itch of growing back a shaven muff.
I could weep for the teenage girls who reach for the razor believing that this is ‘normal’ after seeing porn stars go no-fro. The downturn in this year’s A-level results was nothing to do with failing standards, but due to the inability of 18-year-old women to concentrate on trigonometry when they are fighting the agony of 200 locusts down their kecks - Morris dancing with feather dusters.
Fifteen per cent of those asked use hair-removal creams (smooth on, wait, grimace, sweat, wipe off, weep) which have the warming effect of dosing your vagina in acid and leave your bits looking sad, sulky and pink with embarrassment – like a newly-clipped poodle. And on day two the damn things start to grow back even thicker than before; the lunatic itching begins and the ingrown hairs begin to take root.
Professional waxing (the choice of 27 per cent of those questioned) is the only way to achieve the hair–free look with minimum grow-back agony. It is also excellent practice for the rigours of childbirth offering the ideal opportunity to practise hypnotic visualisations while your most treasured asset is torn asunder.
It took me a while to find my waxing match
Like the idiot that I am, I’d suffered at the hands of several less experienced beauty therapists with the attendant hot sweats, white knuckles gripping the bed (although I kept going back – loser), until I arrived upon the incomparably lovely Polish Angela at Jo Blue Salon in West London. With a friendly smile she snapped on her rubber gloves and got to work on my rainforest in the manner of all people skilled at working with their hands: part technique, part artistry.
I knew she meant business when she leaned in close at the end with tweezers to get at the pesky ones too short to yield to the powers of hot wax. Like all good bikini-line-managers, she establishes if you want to leave a vertical section intact (generally known as the Brazilian landing strip) and even asks you to check her handy-work upon completion. This potentially awkward scenario is survived by merely nodding approval and uttering a platitude such as “lovely, thanks” as though assessing the hallway as the decorator is leaving.
But even Angela has noticed the waning popularity of the Brazilian. We mused that it may be down to the colder weather, as though our pubic hair is a sensible fashion choice like a new scarf or a pair of Ugg boots. But that’s just ridiculous isn’t it? I know that David Cameron’s solution to rising gas bills is to put on a jumper but I don’t recall him telling people to enlist the help of their potentially toasty pubic thatch. And besides, it turns out that chilly Newcastle is the nations’ ‘Hollywood’ capital with 35 per cent of bikini trimmers opting for this Californian completely bare look - which offers no insulation whatsoever.
What about the signals it sends our daughters?
Most of us probably gave waxing a whizz out of curiosity and a noble can-do attitude. It has the novel and fascinating effect of allowing one to see one’s genitals in a way that one hasn’t since primary school (trust me – you don’t need to). But like most fads we’ve clearly realised that it offers too few benefits for the time, money, pain, embarrassment and discomfort that it entails; never mind the confusing signals we give our own pre-pubescent daughters as we share a shower.
Do you rock a 70s vibe?/Google ImagesI once dropped my three-year-old daughter at nursery and frankly answered her question regarding my morning’s plans “I’m going to see the lovely lady who takes the hair off my tinkle.” She looked non-plussed and was, in fact, so blasé that she announced this fact to her teachers who were doubled over at pick-up wanting to know how I’d gone on at - what my daughter had called - “the tinkle shop”.
And if our kids are underwhelmed by our appearance, it turns out our partners are too. Over 60 per cent of men prefer a more womanly flower. Only teenage boys with more porn than experience could freely express a preference for a hair-free ninky-nonk without sounding like a paedophile.
While writing this I conducted the very scientific poll of asking my own husband. Like most topics that he has never considered it takes him a long time to answer and he clearly thinks it’s one of those loaded questions with a right or wrong answer that might lead to a row. Eventually he surmises: “Well, neat is good: it suggests you’ve made an effort. But too little hair is a bit pervy isn’t it? We’ve got daughters. It would be weird if I preferred that look.”
I’m surprised to find there was indeed a right answer and he nailed it. He also says that if he was going loco down in Acapulco (we have young children – we talk in code) with a woman for the very first time and she had a well-sculpted Brazilian, it might indicate a large audience of regular admirers. And he wouldn’t like that idea. I let the discussion about judgemental sexual double-standards go. He did ever so well on the pube question.
So you see – while we were fetishising our flaps and fearing the fro below, men were happy with a Bobby Ball style bush all along. Looks like the mega-bush is here to stay. Stay safe ladies and stay warm.
-By Beverly Turner/The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10452327/Pubic-hair-is-back-ladies.-The-men-dont-care-and-the-women-cant-be-bothered.html
Malaysian Digest
