The Ballad of the Hairy Feminist

A brief history of the war on pubes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Bridget and you're listening the stuff mom
never told you. And on today's show, we're dealing with
the topic you might have a little bit of firsthand
info about, and that is Bush. No, not our former president.

(00:28):
We're talking hubic hair. That's right, Buckle up. It's gonna
be even more interesting, I think than if we were
to do a podcast on George Bush, George H. W. Bush,
both of the Bush, any of them were talking about
a lot of different Bush to Bush in general, Sophia, George,
all of them, all the Bushes. Um, So this is
the topic that I have a lot of personal connection to. Uh,

(00:51):
if you've ever seen me in a tank top, you
probably already know the drill. I don't really do a
lot of body hair grooming, and I don't feel the
need to apologize for that. Was that always the case
for um? Yeah, It's interesting because a lot of people
assume that I don't do a lot of body hair
grooming because I'm a super ultra mega radical feminist. And

(01:11):
I actually let them think this. So when people are like, man,
you and those hairy armpits, you're such a radical feminist,
I'm like, I know, I really, I really am. I
feel like this is a continuation of the question is
my hair a feminist statement? It is. This is like
a part two of that episode of Ways body Hair Edition,
Body Hair Edition. So we're talking about body hair down

(01:33):
there and armpits, leg hair, you name it, you name it.
And I think, for myself my body hair choices, I
actually don't think of them as like political feminist choices.
I oftentimes let people think that if it makes me
seem cooler, but in actuality, I'm pretty lazy. Um. I
have very sensitive skin. I grew up in a household

(01:55):
where shaving just wasn't a huge part of the culture.
Like my mom used to tell me that dark skin,
you don't need to shave your body hair, and I
just sort of took that as fact. I said, Okay,
that's one of those rules of life that I'm that
I will absorb and make my own stuff your black mom. Yes, yes,

(02:17):
I love it. Um. And Also I went to you know,
I went to all girls high school where leg shaving
and really just general hygiene was not a huge part
of our day to day as we talked about on
the school uniform exactly exactly, So all of those things
kind of added up. And also I think I once
thought about it. My thought, Gee, if I'm not that
into shaving my arm pit, shading my legs, all of that,

(02:38):
If it takes maybe ten minutes to do it and
you do it every other day, that actually adds up.
It's like, what a lot of time hour a week.
I think about that every time I do my makeup,
because how much time do you spend on it? Because
like a lot of these personal grooming choices, you have
to weigh the cost of the time you spend grooming
yourself with you could be doing otherwise, how you could

(03:01):
be learning or growing or growing your network or something
in some other capacity, anything you could be doing with
your time. But I feel like this issue, just like makeup,
comes down to personal preference. When is it empowering versus
one is it patriarchy? Absolutely could not agree more. For me,

(03:21):
it was like, oh am I going to spend an
hour a week to basically give myself a rash no
thank you because my skin is very sensitive. But I
actually have a lot of friends who for them like
their makeup time in the morning. That is their favorite
part of the day when they do where they can
really express themselves. And all of that. And so if
it's worth it for you, if you're like, oh, this
personal grooming thing, this hour a day it takes me

(03:43):
actually makes me happy or fulfills me in some way,
I should go for it. But I do think it's
like it comes down to where you personally draw that line.
I don't think society should be the thing that tells
you know, you need to spend an hour a day
shaving your legs doing your makeup. If that doesn't drive
with what you want to actually be doing. It's sort
of like who are you performing for? Right? And I

(04:05):
only use makeup as an example here, knowing it's very
different than body hair. But I also sometimes feel like
if I'm feeling very sick, for instance, versus if Brad
the Booze feeling very sick and looking terrible, I can
put makeup all over my face and I can pretend
like I'm not looking and feeling terrible, you know what
I mean. I almost think of it as, oh, I
can I can play with this stereotype is double standard

(04:28):
and make it work for me. And when with body hair,
tell me there was a time when someone said something
to you like WHOA you don't shave. We're did like,
you must have gotten some shade at some point in
your life when when people pushed back on your personal choice. Yeah,
I have. That's that's real. Actually, in just preparing for
this episode, I was sitting in my favorite bar, red Derby,

(04:48):
typing away on my laptop and some chatty guy is like, oh,
what are you working on? Like doing work in a bar?
What you got there? And I said, oh, I'm researching
for a podcast. And he said what's your podcast episode
going to be about? And I said women and body hair.
And in our conversation he basically revealed, oh, this was
someone who I think was flirting with me. Just to
be like clear in this conversation, he was like, oh,

(05:10):
if I saw a girl who didn't shave, I would
never date her. And I was wearing like a turtle
mac and jeans, so I was like, oh, a little
does he know under this turtleneck, I'm very hair. What
do you think you were preparing to podcast about? Like,
you know, what's great, ladies, let's all shave everything all
the time. Just to align with this one dude's expectation, Well,
I mean you think you're going to keep talking about

(05:32):
exactly that I've at other times, particularly when I'm wearing
tank tops, where I'll lift my arms and I can
Usually people don't say anything, but I've seen people. You've
seen the I dart. Yeah, I've seen people see it.
And a lot of times when it's men, they don't
know how to respond. They're like, I saw a hair
on a nern armpit. Oh my god. Their eyes go

(05:54):
they get very wide eyes. He's like, don't say anything,
don't say anything, don't say I can tell they're trying
not to look and they're trying not to think about it,
but they definitely are women. Women amount of times will say,
oh cool, you don't shave your pit. I've actually been
complimented on my arm put hair by women. That's so funny.
So last summer I spent just about a month up

(06:15):
on Brad's family farm, which is the most secluded place
I could think of going, which is internet free. They
don't even have the option of having internet. That's how
like out in the middle of nowhere. This place is
in upstate New York. Because I was writing my book,
which more news on that front later. But so I
spent about two weeks up on the farm just getting

(06:35):
this book out of my head, which was quite the
intellectual binge of writing. I put everything else in my
business on hold for two weeks. It was awesome. And
then I took my little sister Isabelle on her week
long backpacking trip that I had had organized for her
as her gift for high school graduation. So she and
I did a whole section of the Long Trail in Vermont.

(06:57):
We went Hut to Hut. We carried a tent with us,
but we never had to use is it because we
crushed all of our daily mileage goals and got to
these like shelters, these pretty rustic lodgings in the woods,
hours ahead of our schedule, and so we never had
to pitch attend. But throughout the course of that entire month,
I was just me and my dog and my little sister.

(07:17):
Like that was it in terms of exposure to human beings.
Um sometime with the booze parents and sometime with strangers
on the trail who did not give about what you
were shaving or not shaving. So I took that opportunity
to just not shave anything for a month. And I
have to say, only when I stopped shaving everything for

(07:37):
a month, did I realize, Wow, it has been well
over a decade since I've ever gone this long without shaving,
Because I had basically started shaving after one summer camp
experience when all the girls were shaving and I was
like the only girl that hadn't shaved anything. And I
came home from camp with no hair on my leg
and like, hit it. I hit it from my mom.

(07:59):
How old were you when? And I hit it from
my mom who would like definitely would not have approved.
And then one day she found out, like she noticed
while she was like forcing me into like slathering on
lotion after a bath or something, She's like, you have
to lotion up. You don't want dry skin, you know
what I mean. And I remember feeling like I've done

(08:20):
something really bad, and I like secretly started shaving. And
then I'm like, oh my god, I'm almost thirty years old.
I've never gone a month without shaving since I was fourteen. Wow,
that could not be more different from my own experience.
The last time I shaved my legs was literally the
White House Correspondence Center of the Obama administration. That's the
last time it's happened. Well, to be fair, there was

(08:42):
another time, because I remember this came up when we
were first starting to serve as co host for Stuff
I've Never Told You, which was a super exciting time.
Earlier this year, the network sent us on a little
like tour of DC with that video team and the photographers,
and you were talking about, oh my god, I can't
believe I'm not going to like not shave for a

(09:03):
photo shoot because it was summer and arms were going
to be out and legs are gonna be out, and
you made the call then well, I shaved my pits
not my legs, all right? Yeah? Were you feeling? Was it? Then?
Maybe there was a conversation about, like I'm feeling a
little like should I have shaved? I felt like I
was happy that I shaved my arm pits, but I
regretted not shaving my legs. Yes, that's what it was.

(09:26):
So why So that's the discordance that I'm curious about
because there seems like there definitely is pressure for all
women to shave, for sure, and you feel that I
feel it when it comes to my physical the way
that I physically present. I think I've just gotten to
a place where I just do what I want right,
Like I know there's pressure. I get it. It's tough

(09:49):
to navigate, but I think I've just sort of taken
myself out of that. And I will also say that
I have my eye when I was waxed and my chin,
basically my entire face waxed, right because I of PCOS.
And if you know what that is, it means that
you oftentimes have a hairy face. And so if I
didn't get my eyebrows wax, I would look like free
to Carlo, that's not that that's a bad thing, right,

(10:12):
she was pretty bomb, she was pretty great. This is
polycystical variance, right, Yeah, which where I mean Warren's an
episode of itself because so many women I know are
dealing with PCOS. I saw you tweet about this on
your hilarious twitter feed. What did you say that soliciting
When you go to s salant and you're there to
get your eyebrows done, and the woman I swear every

(10:35):
song they do this, they say mustache to question, like
like it's a question, and it's not a question of
do you want your upper lip wax? It's that mustache
that you have you want me to take care of that.
I swear one day, I'm gonna say no, I'd like
the mustache styled please. I mean, that's just I'm sure
you're like immediate response was like mustache, Like what mustache?

(10:56):
What are you talking about? But that's like purposefully I
think they do it. I think it's good marketing. Really
make you think that you have a mustache, whether you
do or don't, to see how okay you want me
to take care of that mustache for you. For the record,
I might have a little bit of a mustache. I mean,
that's the thing. That's the thing. If there's one thing
that I want this episode to underscore is that bodies

(11:18):
are hairy, and body hair is okay. Why do we
live in a society where even an advertisement for razors
for women, they shave an already shaved leg. They don't
shave a hairy leg, even an advertisement for razors. Think
about horror movies where the scenario is that it's the
end of the world. They're being you know, tailed by,

(11:38):
zombies are living out in the woods. Whatever, Where are
these women finding time to shave their bits? You just
think about my mind. We live in a world that
doesn't even illustrate that body hair for feminine identified folks
is a thing, and that's wild bonkers. It's really it
really is. It's when you start seeing it. It's rewear.

(12:00):
You just blew my mind with the shaving commercial about it.
They shave already shaven leg. And that's how unusual it
is to see body hair in society that they shave
already shaved leg. You can't even show a hairy leg
and a goddamn razor. Well, it just goes to show
you how uncomfortable the world is with hairy women. Yeah,

(12:21):
it's hard out there for us, Harry ladies. Well, it's
like so unpalatable. It's like they can't this isn't something
that can be seen. Really deal with it, body hair,
body hair, deal with it. But you'd actually be surprised,
I mean, particularly when it comes to pubic hair. That
attitude is a little bit of an anomaly saying, you know,
I'm gonna just have my hair the way I wanted

(12:42):
and people can just deal with it. We'll dive it
more into the statistics on why that is after a
quick break and we're back and we were just talking
a little bit about how body hair is so unpalable
in our culture. We really don't even really see it.

(13:03):
So how did we get here? Well, as it turns out,
bridget body hair removal wasn't really that big of a
deal until the nineteen forties, at which time bathing suits
started to get a little smaller instead of a complete coverage,
as we know in the Nipples episode. Really men and
women's bathing suit trends came up there too, As more

(13:24):
of our bodies were on public display, hair removal not
only on legs but along the bikini line became more
of a concern, And we promised y'all at the top
of this episode we're gonna be talking about bush Embrace
yourselves because here it comes. That's when having no body

(13:44):
hair on your bikini line became associated with femininity and
being presentable in public on beaches. So that's when people
really started to be concerned with the appearance of their
bikini line. But really, not much was going on underneath
a bikini in terms of hair removal until later on. Yeah,
women tended to still have pretty full hair despite the

(14:07):
fact that they trimmed their bikini lines to get into
these much smaller bathing suits. Lady Escaping, Lady Escaping a
little bit of that what's going on. And in the
nineteen seventies, if you've ever picked up and dusted off
an old Playboy, you know that full Bush was king
for a long queen, I should say, fuld Bush reigned strongly,

(14:28):
especially in the seventies. By the time that ninety two
iconic porno Deep Throat came out, women still tended to
be as harry as men between their legs, which as
someone who has seen that movie, I can't confirm, there
is a lot of hair. There's also like mustaches and
like curly froze, a lot of hair, a hair, and
there's a very chest hair time. Like I feel like

(14:49):
the seventies were all about, you know, hippie sheek. I
was thinking about the musical hair right like, this was
a time when hair was celebrated, when oh natural makes
Day's organic movement look really uptight exactly. It wasn't until
nineteen seventy four that things changed a little bit. That
years when you had Hustler magazine publishing their first quote

(15:11):
unquote pink shop. Weird name. Never heard that term until
this epode, I had never heard it either, But it's
one of those terms that as soon as you hear
it I knew exactly what they meant. Without even finishing
the sentence, I said, pink shop, all right, get it.
I get what they're insinuating there um. And in case
you have not picked up on that, that was the
first entirely pubic hair free woman in Hustler. Still today,

(15:35):
pubic hair grooming is very much in in the United States,
according to a study published by researchers from you See
San Francisco's Department on Obstetrics and Ecology and Reproductive Sciences
and Department of Urology. Women here in the United States
increasingly are grooming their pubic hair for cosmetic purposes. But
this trend seems to appear amongst specific demographics of women,

(15:59):
in particular young white women. Yeah, so my mom was
kind of right on this one way to go stuff.
Your black mom ever told you right on the money.
White women are more likely to remove their pubic hair,
so are younger women and more educated women, and they're
more likely to report that they were grooming if they
feel that this is what their partner wants. What is

(16:20):
your theory behind this, because I'm sure you have one
like I have my own, But what do you think
is the reason behind, younger, whiter, more educated. I don't know,
that's a great question. I do think it has something
to do with how we're raised. I think back to
my mom just sort of casually saying, if you have
dark skinned you don't need to shave anything. People really
can't even see the hair. I think that's part of it.

(16:42):
I also think that it has to do with peer groups.
Like it didn't surprise me when you said that you
first started shaving your legs when you went to summer
camp being in a you know, a bunk or what
happ you with a bunch of girls you're same age,
and sort of picking up on the fact that, oh,
fourteen year old girls shaved their legs. Yeah, it was
sort of is rite of passage. But instead of me

(17:02):
having that moment with my mom, I was the weird girl,
like in sixth grade who didn't have a sports bra
on when you want to change the gym. You know,
my mom was so latey fair, she was a total
hippie about everything. But I never got the memo and
I always felt like kind of left out, you know.
So it was definitely a peer pressure situation when it
came to shaving. But I think This has a lot

(17:23):
to do with privilege, because a pubic hair maintenance is
expensive as hell. Brazilian bikini waxing expensive as hell, right,
and on top of that, like we know, we all know,
shaving down there is not the best it's not the
most advised situation with ingrown hairs and whatnot. So I

(17:44):
just think that I don't know when I when I
read younger, whiter, and more educated, it was like, those
are the times in your life, like young, white, more
educated women are the ones who are going to justify
that kind of an expense, you know what I mean, Like, Oh,
I'm young, I haven't thought about budgeting for my retirement yet.
I'm more educated, so I might have more privilege going

(18:05):
for me in terms of income. And I'm white, So
all of the above times a bunch, you know what
I mean. I just feel like there's a bit of
performative privilege that goes into maintaining your pubic care as
being an important thing. Yeah, I think that's probably right.
And I think that even this buying a razor if
you're a woman can be more expensive than it is
if you're a man, because it's pinks w has to

(18:26):
costs x amount more. Um, I think there's something to that.
I just think it's one of those things where from
an early age I was not socialized that body hair
grooming was an important thing to worry about in the
scheme of things. And I think that it's interesting that
a lot of my classmates, because we were all girls
and an all girls school, also didn't shade. But I

(18:47):
wonder if I had been in a public school, a
co ed school, things would have been different. I distinctly
remember in my public high school there was this like
weird rumor that I don't know why any of us
were talking about this, but somehow had gotten around. This
is like back in the day when every sex act
was so new to us, as like this was probably
middle school actually not even high school, that like anytime

(19:10):
anyone hooked up in any capacity, it like became the
gossip fodder of the next Monday morning. And I remember
hearing this story of this guy who was dating this
girl in our public school asking her if she would
take care of the hair because they were hooking up
and he wasn't into like her bush. And that's something

(19:31):
became like public knowledge in my high school that she
had to clean it up. Down there, you know, for
the sake of his preference. If that's you, when you're listening,
please call into the show. I have so many questions.
Don't don't. Don't so embarrassed that I ever heard that
about you. But yes, I mean, that really does jive
with the research that men are much more likely than
women to ask their partner or expect their partner to

(19:53):
do that kind of grooming. So her experience, as mortifying
as that sounds, actually jives with some of the things
that we've seen the research around this issue. According to
the study from the Journal of Sexual Medicine, both men
and women prefer a partner who does a little maintenance
down there, but men are much more likely to prefer
a partner who removes all body hair. Sixty percent of

(20:16):
men prefer a partner that is hair free compared to
women who prefer a hair free dude. Wow. And it's
important for us to point out that this was a
survey of a thousand people who were mostly heterosexual and
mostly white, so you know, they're not really taking into
considerations same sex couples experiences. But it's interesting that, first

(20:39):
of all, of women prefer a dude that's fully shaved.
Interesting all I have that I almost don't want to
say this because I know that the all right, I
almost don't want to say this because the person that
I'm talking about listens to the show, and I'm sure
that you will recognize himself in this anecdote. So sorry
that I'm telling a bunch of people. But he told

(21:00):
me that he grooms completely down there because he thinks
it makes him look bigger. That's definitely a thing you think. Yeah, well,
I think that's definitely assumption. Right. It's like a way
to play um like visual tricks, like an optical illusion.
Oh my god, there's no hair. It's huge, enormous exactly

(21:21):
works every time I can really get the scope of
how big it is about the hair. And you know what,
I think this is a to do with porn. So basically,
the authors of the study found that the prevalence of
fully waxed women in pornography are linked to the prevalence
of waxing amongst younger, white, or more educated women. In fact,

(21:44):
they found that women younger than the age of twenty
four were significantly more likely to have opted for a
Brazilian or a full shave, particularly if they were white
in college educated. That doesn't surprise me at all. And
I've often wondered about the ways that porn is really
influenced how we see how men and women are supposed
to look down there. Yeah, I wonder if you think

(22:07):
do you think it has anything to do with the
recency of your pubic hair, you know what I mean?
Like when you're younger, the majority of your life was
spent without hair down there, and now you're, like in
your early twenties just getting used to it. Still are
like later in your teens, are just getting used to
it and haven't fully gotten to the point. Like you
said at the top of this episode, I've just taken

(22:29):
myself out of that, you know, public expectation. It's almost
like you've gotten to know your own body better, right,
You respect how your own body wants to show up
in this world, you know, and you're not going to
hold yourself up to a standard of what you see
in porn for starters or some weird warped version of
a youthful girl who doesn't have any hair down there.

(22:50):
I don't know if I wonder if that's length as well. Well. Actually,
that's a perfect segue into something that I found really
fascinating from this topic, which is shame. According to the research,
shane can sometimes have a lot to do with why
a woman chooses to groom down there or not. According
to something called the Female Genital Self Image Scale or
the f g S I S, which is a scale

(23:10):
put together by researchers from the University of Indiana and
the University of Texas, the drive to groom once the
pubic area can be linked to shame for women. According
to one of the researchers from the University of Indiana,
she writes, there's this very real sense of shame if
you don't have your genitals prepared. I get that. I
totally get that. Would I'm on the road for a
week at a time, I don't shave at all, and

(23:32):
then the night before I come home, I'll shave my body,
you know what I mean. It's definitely performative still, so
I just want to make it clear that I don't
think that makes me a bad feminist. But there's also
an angle to this, which is like fully aware that
there's a performative component to body hair. As women, I
think that we are taught to be ashamed about a

(23:53):
lot of our body to smells, hairs, moles, freckles, like
all kinds, all kinds of things we are taught to
be ashamed of, and so I almost wonder if it's
this internal thing where when you don't when you aren't groomed,
it's just internalized that there has to be some sort
of shame linked with that. Yeah, definitely, I mean to
be fair, I kind of was amazed with my own

(24:14):
body after that month on the farm. I was like, whoa,
check this out, Brad and I met up with him
after really being apart for like four weeks, and I
was like, dude, look at the hair under my arm
fits right now, Like, look at my legs. I was
sort of like fascinated, which I'm sure is not the
intent if that's like your default, So I hope that

(24:36):
doesn't sound I'm knowing. I was just amazed at my
own body, and I was like, check this out, dude. Yeah,
when you let stuff grow, it's kind of surprising how
how my how your garden grows exactly exactly. Something I
found really sad from the research that they did at
the University of Indiana on what they call the Genital

(24:56):
Self Image Scale. One of the researchers were called that
she was talking about body hair with a group of
students and during one of her class discussions, a male
students said he had never seen a pubic hair on
a woman in real life and that if he ever
came across it, he would walk out the door. So again,
I think this idea of what we see in porn,
what you see in media shame, it all kind of

(25:19):
gets into one kind of untanglable ball that leads to
having people not even sort of recognized body hair as
a thing that grows on our bodies. Yea for women,
for women, and it's so gendered. Yeah, that sucks. The
other thing that was really sad about that scale is
the link that researchers found between women's feelings about their

(25:40):
own genitals, that sort of self image in that region
of our bodies being directly linked to their enjoyment of sex.
So if you're not feeling good about how you're presenting
down there based on all of these unrealistic expectations in
porn or wherever, then you're going to enjoy sex less.
And that's because even when I don't feel like the

(26:03):
sexiest version of myself, you don't want that to get
in the way of your enjoyment of the act itself.
But I feel like it definitely does. Yeah, And I
guess that's to be expected, because even as someone who
doesn't really do a lot of body hair grooming, if
I'm not feeling my best in other ways, I can
see that getting in the way. So how did you

(26:23):
shake off the hair expectations? I'm so curious like that.
Never I think beef free. Yeah, it never really was
a beef for me. I think I think a big
part of it is that the kinds of people who
end up being near my body in an intimate way
have never brought it up. So I honestly this sounds

(26:44):
I've told people, listen, it sounds wild. I don't think,
particularly with my legs, I don't think anyone's even ever
really noticed that I don't shave my legs. I don't
think it's ever even come up in that way. And
so I think one, I think my mom is kind
of right that I do have dark skin and I
have dark hair. You really you have to get very
up close and personal to see, oh, that person has
hairy legs. My arm pits is a little clearer, but um, yeah,

(27:08):
I think I just, really, that's such a good question.
That's such a good question. I just think it's pretty
inspiring that you are like, I don't care the deal.
I think at a certain point I realized I have
a actually I know exactly what it is. If you
go back. I bring her up on the podcast Act.
She's one of my idols. But Solange Knowles has this

(27:30):
great thing that she did when she shaved her head
and people were like, you had such beautiful hair, why
did you shave it? Blah blah blah, And she just said,
you know, I have so much stuff that I care
about in my life, and I have a finite amount
of energy that I can devote to things, and I
want to devote that energy to things that are not
my hair. And that's just the way it is. And
I think that for me, that thing was body hair.

(27:52):
You know, I already cared so little about it, and
I already knew that the act of shaving is physically
uncomfortable for me, like I get a ash, My skin
is already very sensitive, and I just thought, you know,
I'm not going to dedicate my finite energy into giving
a fit. When anybody thinks about this and the kind
of people who would be touching my legs and touching

(28:12):
my body in an intimate way. Those are the kind
of people who probably wouldn't give a shit either. So
it just sort of worked out that the kind of
people who I would want to present my body in
a particular kind of way that we tend to be
on the same page about. It's kind of a prerequisite. Yeah,
Like if you're like, if you're, if you're. The guy
who I met at red Derby was actually I told
him to listen to the podcast. You gonna listen and

(28:34):
be like, what the hell you were never going to
get there, dude, you were not eligible. He was like
barking up the wrong tree in so many different ways,
Like a total waste of time. But thanks for the drink, though,
this is making me sound so awful. Um, it was
for research. It was for researchers, for research. So yeah,

(28:56):
I just think it was one of those things where
I said, it just isn't worth investing the energy in.
And I already have so many things that I want
to be investing my energy into, and whether or not
my legs or shaped is not one of them. I
honestly think that's why The research points out that younger
women who have a little bit more privileged in some
ways are more likely to be removing all hair because

(29:18):
in that conclusion alone is something that takes a little
while to come to. So I haven't always been a
hairy feminist. In college, I would shave from time to time.
Even in college, I think I was more likely to
sort of feel like I needed a shave in order
to compete with the girls who were my age who
were shaving. Like that was the first time that I
was around a lot of white women who were my

(29:41):
same age. That was the first time that I realized
it was unusual to not shave. This is also my
first year of college wasn't awakening for me in a
lot of ways, and that I had mostly been around
women the entire time, and so I didn't realize that
people wore things other than pajamas in public. I didn't
realize that, you know, you're supposed to shave your legs.
I and realize, and I didn't realize that that was

(30:02):
I just all of this was new to me, and
so I was for the first time kind of grappling
with how you presented as a woman or how you
were expected to present as a feminine person, and so
college I did feel a little bit weird about it.
And I also think it was more associated with being like, oh,
I'm a feminist, I'm like a radical person, and in

(30:23):
college I was very radical and just in college I've
always you know, you know, but I think in college
it was much more part of my identity. I think
these days for me, like, if you're not a little
bit radical, I'm like, oh, like past. Yeah. In college
it was much more like I was like the radical
girl on campus, whereas these days, like everybody I think
is like the radical person, whether you look it or not. Well,

(30:46):
I feel like you live in that bubble. Correct. Yeah,
that's that's thank you. That's that's what I'm trying to
radical bubble dweller. I feel like I'm babbling, but you
get what I'm saying. Right at the time, I was
the radical feminist and so the fact that I didn't
shave a ton was like part of my identity in
a way that is not now. And again because it's

(31:08):
because I am in a little bit of a lefty
feminist bubble. It just means less, Yes, it's less salient,
that's exactly. Yeah, that's interesting. And actually, now that you
mentioned it, thinking about it, another reason why I probably
didn't shave that much in college and it felt different.
It is because I grew up hearing that not shaving
and having a pubic hair was good for your sexual health.

(31:29):
And this was a message that I internalized very early on,
that you had pubic hair for a reason. My mom
used to always say, you have hair for a reason,
and you don't want to get rid of it if
it's put there, you know, by nature, by God. Right,
So I'm like, wait a minute, what is mama to
actually saying, I think there's a god. The Biblical verse

(31:50):
for this, my mom is, I'm telling you, it doesn't
matter the situation. My mom is a Bible versu that fits.
Sometimes they're made up, but I swear heard her quotes
byer Man, and I'm like, that's not scripture, that's bier Man.
I'm pretty sure. But yeah, so I grew up thinking
that not shaving was good for your sexual health. And
actually there's some debate on whether or not that's true. Right,

(32:11):
So what's interesting is Emily Gibson, a family physician who
blogs at Barnstorming, says that removing pubic hair can come
with sexual health risks because hair quote protects against friction
that can cause skin abrasion and injury, protecting from bacteria
and other unwanted pathogens. So that's exactly what I grew

(32:32):
up thinking. I grew up thinking that your pubic hair
was like the last line of defense from nasty is
getting into your bage, right, the lack of a better friend.
That's the medical term, if you look at a medical
is the accepted medical non enclature. Not to mention. She
goes on to say that like removing pubic hair irritates

(32:54):
and inflames the hair falcon, which we all know when
it comes to removing pubic hair. Even though a lot
of people, according to the research, do opt to shave
as opposed to waxing shaving, at least for me, it
is not a very pleasant experience. It's not and I
think that's where the whole waxing world gets its revenue stream. Frankly,

(33:15):
but that's not pleasant either. Nothing about hair removal down
there is pleasant. But you've got to know, you're like,
you've got to keep your razors rotating. I'm a disposable
razor person now. I used to have fancy razors, But
now I'm like, I don't want any razor touching my body.
That is not pretty new, because otherwise it's just gonna
gather bacteria. You're going to get more grown hair, is

(33:37):
more likelihood of infection, and all of that is just
the worst. So the one time that I tried professional waxing,
I had a group on and it was one of
those things where I hemmed in. I was like, do
I do it? It's half off, man, will try it?
Why not budget wax I know, first of all, if
you ever want to of all the things to not
get cheap on, waxing is probably hot on the list.

(34:00):
Probably waxing and like lace six eye surgery, two things
you don't want to cheap out on. Pay the pay
what it costs. I go to the salons my first time.
Keep in mind I barely even ever shaved my first
time doing it. Everyone is like, oh, it's not that bad,
not that bad. This was when the trend was I'm
dating myself a little bit. This is when the trend

(34:20):
was those super low rise jeans. I've seen photos on
you like throwback Thursday. I was oh, so sad, so sad.
It's like why why did we think those jeans were good?
There was like so much back showing. I was like,
coming from you had to be out. Basically, your our

(34:40):
vulvas were out in the early two houses go back
in the look. It was the trend. And so I
had a Christine Agulara, Yes, yeah it is. So I
had a coupon for a spa salon to get waxed,
and I've never done it before. I go in. I'm like,
is this gonna hurt? She says, Oh, It's gonna feel
like a quick pinch. I say, fine, live. She does

(35:00):
the one side, I'm on fire? Did you like pass out?
I like I have. It was a pain, a searing,
red hot pain of a thousand sons, the likes of
which I have never experienced ever in my life, and
I hope never to experience again. Here's the kicker. She
did one side. I was like done, I can't do this,

(35:23):
and she was like, You're gonna be very hairy on
one side and not harry on the other. And I
said fine. So I was I left half done. I
just couldn't. I couldn't go through with it. Oh I
wanted to. I just realized something in the middle of
the story. This is the second very specific story I've
told him about my own body parts. So I'm sorry

(35:45):
it's coming back back. It seems to come up a lot. Um.
But yeah, so the second time you've made me basically
cry on air laughing about your vagina. It's like the
third the third co host of this podcast, like third
character who comes up sometimes. Um, Okay, let's take a
quick break, but when we come back, behalf to finish

(36:06):
talking to this medical research and whether or not shaving
is actually good for your sexual health. And we're back.
We were just getting into some of the medical research
on whether or not shaving's good for you bad for you,

(36:27):
talking about why waxing is the most painful thing I've
ever experienced and why it should be avoided because it
hurts like a mother. Um. Yeah, So, but here's the thing.
The medical community is a little bit divided on the
health benefits or lack thereof, when it comes to hair removal.
And I wonder what you think about this, bridget because
other medical professionals say that pubes can be a breeding

(36:51):
ground for bacteria themselves. I've heard that before. Um, I
don't know. It's a good question because I've heard it
both ways, right, that you need pubes because it creates
a barrier for things that could get into your vagina
and making sick. I've heard that it can be a
breeding ground for those very same things. Yeah. So Dr
Wendy Eskew, who's quoted in the Women's Health piece on

(37:12):
this as there's no question that being hair free in
that area is cleaner simply because of the fact that
hair does provide bacteria. But does cleaner mean better necessarily?
I mean, I don't think fear of pubic lice or
crabs is a good reason to shave all your body hair,
you know what I mean? Like real protection is better, right,

(37:36):
Like actual protection, like wrap it up and use barriers.
Your pubic hair does not count as a barrier that
they're trying to talk about insects. Said so, I guess
if we're if we're talking about if we're talking to
the women who are you in high school right now,
let's just go on the record, is saying there are
real ways to protect yourselves, and that is condoms and

(37:59):
dental damns and all of those things. But to me,
it feels like there are risks to shaving. There are
unpleasant trees associated with waxing and other ways of removing
body Here we didn't even talk about nair and the
toxic chemicals that people are basically putting on their body
to remove body hair. But you know there are clear

(38:20):
serious medical risks with those options that I think outweigh
keeping your body hair. You think so, I think so? Yeah.
And again I think I've said this earlier on the show.
If this episode does anything, I hope that it underscores
that it really should be a personal weighing of what
you think is important versus what's not. And I think
if you think that you know, well, what's what's what's

(38:42):
comfortable exactly exactly, And it has to do with your
own what is that scale, your self vaginal experience scale
or whatever it is, right like your own self image
of your body in terms of hair, like do you
feel good having body hair, then great, keep it around.
Do you feel better with some grooming or a whole

(39:03):
lot of grooming, then that's on you too. Just make
sure you're not performing for somebody else all the time.
I think, no fun. Yeah, And I think for me
as a as a Harry feminist, I think it's okay.
It's okay, to be Harry. Choosing to not shave doesn't
have to be some heavy choice. It certainly isn't for me. Um,
And that's okay. I mean I think women to just

(39:26):
own their grooming choices. I was going to say that
you shouldn't be making your personal grooming choices because of
your partner, but I guess if that's how you get down,
maybe that's okay. Yeah, I mean it kind of reminds
me of the shoot we did together, Like you didn't
want to deal with being the one with Harry Pitts
on our photo shoot, right, and you you made that choice.
You decided based on the audience and your own, you know,

(39:49):
goals for that shoot to not have Harry Pitts. And
I think that a this audience, and I would love
you with Harry Pitts all the same digitally add hair
those images region we'll get right on that. No, but
I think it is it's a tricky one. And I
think what you're saying, which I wholeheartedly agree with, is
that nobody should feel feminist shame or like a bad

(40:12):
feminist for you know, not keeping their body hair around. Yeah. Obviously,
we live in a society where the choice to groom
or not to groom has been made very hairy by
this whole thing called the patriarchy, and so I just
want to acknowledge even though for me, I don't think
you think of it as like a feminist choice or
a political choice. I think it's very clearly still an

(40:36):
issue that is so gendered and so hot button. I mean,
you had a Swedish model earlier this year who posed
for Adidas with hairy legs, and she got rape and
death threats on Instagram just for having hairy legs. She
actually went on Instagram to address the firestorm that her
bear hairy legs got from being in this image, and

(40:57):
she writes me, being such an able old white cis body,
but it's only non conforming feature being a little leg hair. Literally,
I've been getting rape threats in my damn box. I
can't even begin to imagine what it's like to not
possess all these privileges and still try to exist in
the world. And I think she's so right that even
a little thing like a little bit of leg hair

(41:18):
on someone who otherwise is totally genderal conformant is gets
you rape and death threats. That should just go to
show that this issue is as much as I tend
to think of it as just a personal preference that
I've made for myself, that isn't really this heavy political thing.
It's still very clearly is politicized. Well, it sounds like
it's an issue men have with harry women. Yeah, it

(41:38):
sounds like something that men need to figure out, because
I I think you and I have talked a lot
on this episode about the other women in our lives
who have influenced our shaving or not shaving, And I
think really the pressure is on not just from the
actresses in pornos, but from the guys in our lives

(41:59):
who would walk out the door when you know they
were confronted with a little pubic hair or leg hair
or whatever. Yeah, And honestly, reading her response on Instagram
reminds me earlier this year, I took a car trip
down to North Carolina to go to Okracoke, this island
off the coast of eastern North Carolina. It wasn't a vacation,
was for one day. I drove eight hours to spend

(42:24):
one day, and then I drove it a vacation of sorts.
I mean, I got a day on the beach. I
got it there on the beach and when I drove
when I drove down there, I was wearing my like basically,
I was looking my most kind of like myself. I
would say I had my hair was curly. I was
wearing an oversized men's baseball hat that's a power on it.

(42:45):
I was wearing a sports braw and overalls. I was
going to call that that was That's what I thought
you were going to say overalls when you said oversized,
and I'm like, yeah, I knew you. That's that's like,
like I feel like myself and I am dressed in
that kind of way. Were your July for Instagram pick? Yes,
that was like bridget Todd one oh one. You were

(43:06):
like exuding Bridget to thank you. I was, and I
felt like myself and my pits were Harry right that trip. Yeah,
that was the same trip. Yeah, that was like me
at my most like most, feeling like myself. I'll put
the picture in the note so folks can like, what
are you talking about? But so my like regular kind
of like uniform which is a little bit gender non specific.

(43:28):
Perhaps we'll say um and Harry armpits and I'll never
forget driving down to North Carolina, stopping to get gas
and things. The way that I felt when men at
gas stations and rest stops and diners would see my
hairy armpits. I almost felt unsafe. And I don't want
to I almost cringe at saying that, because there are

(43:50):
people whose gender presentation makes them very, very unsafe on
a regular basis, and so I don't want to conflate
the two. But the kind of responses I was getting from,
you know, gas station owners and clerks on the road
in eastern North Carolina was making me feel noticed in
a way that I didn't like. And so I remember
before getting in the car to go back to d C,

(44:12):
I shaved almost because I was nervous. I didn't I
didn't want to feel like that again. I didn't want
to feel these eyes on me in this way that
felt uncomfortable, and I didn't want to as a as
a woman alone, I felt uneasy about attracting that kind
of attention for my body hair, and so I shaved,

(44:34):
and it was it was It felt like a totally
performative thing. You know, I don't feel like myself and
I but I shaved, and it just was a really
strange consideration. Yeah. Well, it is a reminder that we
can mistake what might look like a personal choice for
what is very much a constrained choice. That's exactly it.

(44:56):
That was when I realized, Oh, in my radical bubble,
I can say, oh, I don't shake my armpits because
if I do, I get a rash and I don't
really care about it. I'm kind of lazy and have
that be that. I'm very privileged to have that be
the case for me in my life. That was I
don't think I recognized until that trip that that being
able to feel like that's just a you know, las

(45:17):
a fair thing. I'm casual choice I'm making. I don't
think I realized how privileged I am that that is
the case for me, when it's not the case for everybody,
and it really shouldn't be. It's I mean, it's body
shouldn't be a privileged thing to choose. It should be
a choice. It's such a nothing thing. I thought it
here is such a it should be such a non issue.

(45:37):
But here we are, and here we are. Yeah, And
I think that's part of the reason why it is
often seen as radical, because you whether you realize it
or not. By not shaving, because that's how you feel
most you, you're really making it okay for other women
to do the same. Like, I think the more women
who choose not to groom body hair, even if it's
just once every now and then on a farm or

(45:59):
you know, if I were to like regularly not shave,
make that a real choice that's more acceptable. And I
think things like the H and M campaign it just
came out last year, which featured models with armpit hair curves,
and we're more sort of gender fluid. I think if
we can get brands on board, how about let's start
with Razor commercials. People, if you want to sell us

(46:21):
on your razor show it taking off some actual body hair,
don't shave and already shaved leg on a commercial, which
I think is just such a mind blowing point you
made earlier. We need to see in mainstream media on runaways,
in magazines, and maybe if y'all could see us on
this podcast, you would see it, but in more of

(46:42):
a mainstream way. We need to see women with body
hair to make that a more understandable normality. It's about normalizing, Yeah,
I think we should be normalizing that grooming of body
hair is a choice and not It shouldn't. We shouldn't
be normalizing that grooming of body hair is a given
that if you don't groom your body you're in a
specific kind of way, then you're abnormal, when in fact,

(47:04):
groom it, don't groom it. It should be a choice
and we should be living in a world that reflects that. Yeah, absolutely,
even if it was just like fourteen year old me
at summer camp, shouldn't be made to feel weird and mothered.
Same thing for thirty year old me. Yeah, so you know,
if I feel like shaving this week, I will, Yeah,
do you? Yeah? I think as feminists it should be

(47:24):
about choice, and I think that I choose not to
shave that often. I do shave sometimes, So I don't
want this to be like your vegan thing where you're
mostly vegan and someone's gonna see you eating a hot
dog and be like that a vegan Like, yeah, I
saw I saw a picture of Bridge on Instagram and
her art bits were smooth. What gives? So it might happen,
but that's not new. Yeah. I'd love to hear from

(47:46):
our listeners how has this shown up in your life? Like,
do you feel pressure to be well shaven or groomed
in what capacity? Have you had an adventure with the
waxing salon or budget wax. I've definitely had a group
on wax myself, So I feel for you bridget um
or shaving, Like, what are the pros and cons if

(48:07):
you were to break it down, and how do you
feel or how do you react when you see a
hairy woman? You know, this is stuff that we're internalizing
as women too, and most importantly, let's talk to men
in our lives. Let's talk to the men who listen
to this podcast. What is your actual reaction if you
are finding hair down there that you were not expecting

(48:28):
and why do you feel that way? I would want
to know that. I'm curious. Yeah, well, I'm excited to
hear from other hairy people. As a hairy person myself,
I'm particularly interested in people who choose to be hairy
for things like weddings and proms. What's that? Like? My
mom always asked, So you're gonna not shave your armpits
and you get married, And I'm like, I don't know

(48:48):
if I'll get married. I know this is a lot
of questions. Sypassicna it's holidays, it always goes bad. But
I'm just very curious to know for other folks what
this looks like. Yeah, so hit us up on Twitter
at mom Stuff Podcast, Let's keep the conversation going over
on Instagram at stuff mom Never Told You, And as always,
we love getting your emails at mom stuff at how

(49:09):
stuff works dot com