July 11, 2011 • 20 mins
Why do women spend so much time and money removing the hair down there? Is it because of men, the media, or personal preference? Join Molly and Cristen as they travel back in time to find out women's preferences for pubic hair removal through history.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From house Stop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristin and I'm Molly, So Molly. Uh,
(00:22):
since you are a Playboy connoisseur, I'm just kidding because
I know she's not. She's not. People. Um, but I
got I bet I got a lot of listeners attention
right there. We're gonna start this episode off with pornography. Okay,
but it's safe for work, don't worry, folks. So something
happened in the nineteen eighties in Playboy all right, the
(00:48):
centerfolds go from having very full, um natural pubic hair,
very natural bikini lines, to and to trimming it down
a little bit. It starts to shrink, starts to shrink,
and then in the nineties it's like it goes like
pubig hare recession or something like it just just disappears.
(01:11):
That's a great name for a band or a book
or something. Pubic hair res Pubic hair Recession. Uh. And
as we can guess today, Uh, those gals are bear. Yeah,
like almost all of them are Bear. You might have
a tiny, tiny runway, tiny little pubic goatee or soul patch.
I should say they have all sorts of names. Yeah,
(01:32):
a Charlie chaplain. I've never heard that before any podcast.
You kind of disturb me. So if if you aren't
getting our gi by now we're talking about pubic hare
and pubic hair removal, yes, and I think that if
you do happen to just catch like let's say, an
episode Girls next Door, even if you're not looking at Playboy,
if you see that show any where, we're Playboy. Playboy
mollets are running all around. None of them have any
(01:54):
pubic hare if you are to look. And and from
what I understand from researching this article, in porn, no
one has pubic care either, very little. So some people
think that it's thanks to all these um nude magazines
and porn movies that make us all think pupa cares out,
which is funny because we don't let porn set other
(02:15):
too many other trends. You know, it sounds like we
get fashion cues other fashion cues from from Playboy models.
But they're saying some researchers say that thanks to these
kinds of outlets that both men and women get the
idea that pubic hair on a lady is bad. Yes,
And I mean if you just look around at the
difference salons and spas in your town, chances are the
(02:40):
main thing on the menu it of bikini wax. Pikini
waxes are everywhere. It's kind of now that it's summer too,
it's sort of expected that you are going to go
get all of that hair forcibly ripped out with hot wax.
It sounds awful. Why would women do that to themselves? Well,
we're going to talk about that today on stuff Mom
never told you. Um, when you know how we always
(03:02):
like to start things down on stuff on when I
told you Christ And it's by going back in time. Yes,
And when we go back in time to investigate pubic hair,
the journey usually starts with art, with the great artists
and the great nudes of painting history, and um, you know,
they didn't have pubic care. So some people were like,
(03:22):
maybe they've been removing it for centuries. Some people are saying,
maybe those artists just didn't want pubic care in their paintings. Yeah,
who would want to have to pure? I can't, I can't.
I wonder if an artist would leave that till the
very end, or maybe they do it first to get
it over with. I don't know. It doesn't seem like
a process. Well that's maybe that's why it was never there,
is it? It just didn't It seemed like a lot
of detail, so they just completely just ignored it all together.
(03:46):
And it looks like no one in ancient times had
a pubic hair, or maybe they all removed it. We
don't know. And some historians think that Greek women would
remove some of their pubic hair where they aren't entirely sure.
And then there's a theory that this is just the
natural progression that um that started with women shaving their
(04:07):
under arms, So I was shaving your under arms, and
then our legs, and now well, as clothes get skimpier,
as bikinis get more popular and skimpier, they're just saying that,
you know, more and more flesh is on display. And
we've come as a society perhaps to think that hair
on a woman other than on her head is not
a good characteristic, that that hair equals male and no
(04:28):
hair equals female. Although fun hair on the head fact
that I really enjoyed from this research in the fifteenth
century European women would shave the tops of their foreheads
to heighten their hairline. So which would you prefer? You know,
that trend where you have to shave your forehead or
you have to shave your vagina. Probably neither are very fun. Well,
(04:49):
can I tell you another fun fact that I really
liked that in parts of Siberia, pubic hair was considered
a monstrous growth, attributable evil spirits, and legitimate grounds for
a husband to divorce as life. However, in Japan the
opposite was true. If you didn't have any hair, it
could justify in annulment. See, so it seems like a cross. Culturally,
(05:10):
we have different standards of pubic hare. Yeah, some places
it's evil, in some places it's you know, it shows
that you grow up. I mean that's sort of the
point of pubic hare is that it comes in at puberty.
It shows that you're sexually mature, and it might serve
some other functions. It's possible that it keeps the general
area clean, keeps germs out of there. It might admit pheromones,
(05:31):
which are sexually signaling uh hormones of sort that are
kind of controversial, But basically, you put one pubic area
next to another and maybe they start talking and you
don't even know it, which is kind of ironic that
the porn standard would be no pubic care, because you
would think that women would be less sexy. They would
(05:52):
you know, there they removes a sexy signal. There's yeah,
they're sexy signals are the sexy signals? Oh, though, some
women say that know with no puple care, sex is
a lot better that that it is more sexy to
not have any pupic care, that you feel cleaner, that
there are better sensations. Um. It seems like you can
find people who who come down either side of this argument.
(06:14):
Let's talk for a second though about evolution, our second
favorite thing to talk about. Uh. Nancy et Cough, who
wrote Survival of the Prettiest Science of Beauty, wrote that
for centuries humans have equated hairiness with beasts and hairlessness
with beauty and femininity, and she points out that throughout history,
(06:37):
every time a new female body part has been publicly exposed,
like you said, as our clothes become skimpier and skimpier. Um,
that the exposure has come with hair hair removal, you know,
like when sleeveless stresses came into vogue, as we've talked
about before, we started shaving her under arms. But at
the same time, though, I mean, quick note, I don't
(06:58):
know that vagina bearing um styles are invoked unless I've
just missing something. But she says that this practice of
hair removal is explained through evolutionary psychology. It accentuates the
differences between male and female bodies, so hairlessness is associated
with the female body, whereas hairiness is associated with the
(07:19):
male body. Yeah. But then again, if if ria look
at from an evolution standpoint, you want to meet with
someone who will be a good partner, and part of
being a good partner's being old enough to have children,
of which pubic hair would have been a marker. Yeah,
so it's a little tricky um. And and then Freud
had a nice theory of about pubic care. He said
(07:42):
that women were excessively preoccupied with their pubic hair. Hence,
you know, which makes sense, you know, if we're always
going to go get it waxed and tweezed and threaded
and whatnot. He suggests that our achievements in the weaving
arts could be attributed to unrealized fantasies about plating there
are hairs together to can conceal our shameful lack of
(08:02):
a penis. I have never looked at my pubic hair
or braiding my hair as as some sort of lack
of a penis. I know, sometimes I wonder where old
Freud came up with these these crazy ideas, But I'm
gonna think of it the next time I do braid
my hair or weave something. I'm weaving all the time.
I guess maybe I do have penis and me. But
we do have to talk about that maturity factor, because
(08:23):
this is one thing that comes up a lot. This
is the one major qualm that people have with this
hair hairless down there trend is that you know, pubic
hair is the marker of female maturity. So by taking
all that hair off, it makes you look like a
little girl. Right, And so what does it say about
(08:45):
men who only want to have sex with with women
who don't have pubic hair? Are they heedophiles? And I'm
not saying they are, I'm just saying that is eventually
an argument that comes up over and over again in
these in these studies about whether women should from me
remove their to care. Are we somehow feeding into this
um male ideal of having sex with old girls, and
(09:05):
could that also, as a byproduct, contribute to the sexualization
of younger girls. And I think, you know, a lot
of the times when we talk about beauty trends on
this show, we actually find out that women are the
ones who kind of perpetuate them with shaved legs and armpits.
And I think that that might be true here. I
think that, you know, women are more likely to police
(09:26):
each other in terms of their pubic care. Like think
of that scene in the Sex and the City movie
where um, Miranda Hatton had got a bikino back some
time and Samantha's just appauled. I think that you know,
women might police this more than men do. Yeah, that's possible, um.
And also you know it's women, the Jay sisters who
brought the Brazilians to the US, and then female celebrities.
(09:50):
I think Gwyneth Paltrow said changed your life. Yeah, I
think as of course she got married. I think was
Brad pitt Arriss she said it changed your life. But
that could relate to this notion that it makes your
skin more sensitive down there, more sensitive to to sexual touch.
But you also have to keep in mind the hygiene
(10:11):
factor because it can also make you more susceptible to
a STD contraction. And just safety. I mean, you've got
a lot of sensitive stuff down there, and if you're
clipping or tweezing or waxing, got be careful. There's some
things down there you don't want to hurt. But imagine
if you are a man. Okay, yeah, and you know
because guys have pupic hare too, and according to these articles,
(10:35):
it is men's little secret that they like to go
have these procedures as well. I think the most controversial
notion is the of men getting wax and particularly men
getting their testicles waxed, because I can't think of anything
more painful than the notion of waxing a testicle. God,
apparently that's what men are doing that. You know, they
(10:56):
will wax or pupic hair because they like the way
it feels as well. They think can make certain parts
of their body look bigger. Um. But it's another it's
sort of like with the men in makeup question, Like
if you're a lady and you're with a fella and
you see that heustons all this time getting wax, is
that a turn on? Or is it a turn off well.
And also the male waxing, we should say is more
associated with gay culture than out straight man. I mean,
(11:18):
like straight men might be a little more likely to trim,
but outright waxing. You know, there's this like kind of
I would say, a head row taboo around that. Perhaps,
like it would show that they care too much about
personal grooming. But if they're going to care about what
their ladies do exactly, the question again comes back, are
we are we getting bikini waxes so that we please
(11:42):
potential male partners or are we getting bikiniaxs because we
like the way it looks. May becomes more troubling when
you're doing it, because men subconsciously want to have sex
with little girls. But you can also, I mean, I
think that there's an argument to be made that you
can you can have both of those things because you
look more groomed, might feel better about yourself when you
take all your clothes off, so you're feeling better, and
(12:04):
then also knowing that the man you know is turned
on even more as well, So perhaps it's beneficial to both. Yeah,
you know, but the question is the hairless look here
to stay? Because there was this two thousand five article
in the New York Times that talked all about um
Lazier in the hair off, which would be permanent. You know,
(12:24):
people kept likening it to a tattoo. And people are
saying some some stylists are saying maybe at some point
the more natural look will come back, for example, in
a different kind of rever session, not the pubic hare session,
but an economic one. That's a lot of money to
show out to get these continual bikini Brazilian waxes. So
maybe when times you're bad, people let that part of
(12:47):
their lives go and the people hare comes back, and
it's just a cyclic style phenomenon, and maybe like in
ten years things a look different. Possibly though, but you
can still, I mean, you can shave, you know. Uh.
And also we should know that early pornography in the
twenties and thirties did show a range of female pubic
hare from very full to being very bald, and statistically
(13:12):
a lot of us are doing it. I mean they
were different articles were polling dermatologists who said that fifty
of female patients were going totally hairless. Um, there has
been a this was in two thousand four, I believe
a fifty three increase in UM Americans having electrolysis to
(13:33):
remove their hair remove hair permanently. And then the most
disturbing trend of all this comes very recently. UM the
International Spa Association reported that six percent of teams who
had visited a spa I have had a hair removal
procedure done. Okay, in these teams can arrange very young.
I mean then the notion of like a thirteen year
(13:53):
old getting a bikini wax well, one lay he runs
the spot, said you should start waxing at six. Yeah,
for the verse, it's something called virgin waxing. You ask
those very very first hairs that come in and they
claim that if you start waxing it's six, then the
hair will just go away naturally on its sound. And
you know it's always um. You know, we we kind
of when we're of age, we think, okay, we can
(14:15):
make this rational decision. And if you start to freak
out if you know a six year old or a
ten year old or thirteen year old is doing it,
that seems to me to be the cue that maybe
something is wrong. If we are kind of just made
by these articles that say, you know, a mom takes
her ten year old to get a bikini. Ax, then
maybe that's not a great sign. Yeah, that's that's kind
of disturbing. But you know what, you can read article
after article that makes it seem like every single person
(14:36):
in the world, um, who is female has no pubic hair.
But two thousand and ten we get a scholarly study
of the International Society for Sexual Medicine which says, you
know what, it's not as common as you think. Give
us some stats mine, all right, So what we've got
here is a study group of women, so pretty pretty
(14:57):
broad range, pretty pretty large sample size, broad range of
ages from about eighteen two in their fifties, um, A
range of people who are sexually active and not sexually active,
range of people who are straight, gay, bisexual. Pretty what
I'm trying to lay out is pretty pretty large sample size.
The people who are most likely to engage in total
removal of their hair are the eighteen to twenty four
(15:19):
year olds. Uh. They might range up to thirty eight
percent of total hair removal in one month, and basically
it declines as you get older the chances that you
will remove your pupid care. So it seems to be
very young phenomenon. So the question then becomes for these researchers,
is it something you age out of or is it
something that maybe as you grow up and get married
(15:40):
you care less about um. And then as you get older,
you might be more likely to shave than you would
be to wax. You might be more likely to just wax,
you know, one time or two times in a year
as opposed to every month. The monthly thing is really
big among the younger ones, and then the older you get,
the us likely you are to keep it up. And
(16:02):
there's also a correlation they found between the amount of
grooming that you do and how often you will groom
down there and your relationship status, um, whether or not
you're sexually active, and specifically whether or not you are
orally sexually active. Yes, someone's gonna get really up close
(16:23):
and personal. You tend to keep it a little more trim.
But what these researchers go to great pains to point
out is that there is no one uh normal pubic
hair arrangement. You know. They went and sort with the
thesis that all these articles are telling us that the
majority of women get all our pubic hair removed, and
that just wasn't the case from the size sample group.
(16:47):
But there's a whole range of people who sometimes removed it,
sometimes removed a little bit of it, but not all
of it. And yeah, about a third of the people
who did remove it all the time. But again, no norm.
When is there ever a norm in terms of what
women do? Well? I think that there that it might
be a cultural beauty standard that's been established, but that
doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is doing it or that
(17:10):
we have to give into it. If you want to
go get your pubic hare waxed off, then do it,
you know. If you want to get it permanently removed
with electrolysis, finally do it. You know, with all these things,
ask yourself why you do it? Yeah, ask yourself, absolutely,
ask yourself why you do it? And recognize to your
point that even though it might see culture might have us, um,
(17:31):
think that everybody's doing it. And in order to be
an attractive sexually desirable woman, we don't need to have
hair down there. That's not necessarily the case. Men weigh
in and other you know, and women weigh in. Yeah,
we want to know what you guys think, um about
this very pertinent issue in our society. Today a pubic
hare waxing because it is pertinent. A lot of people
(17:54):
don't talk about it because it's it's your pubes. But
I think we need to talk about it. So send
us your thought s mom stuff at how stuff works
dot com. And let's read an email. Well, I have
an email here from Julia and it is on our
episode about bicycles. And she writes, my friend and I
(18:14):
really enjoyed your podcast on women and bicycles. Well, thank you, Julia.
I was remembering scenes from the movies A Midsummer Night
Stream and The Road to Wellville. Um. However, I was
surprised that you didn't do your research on modern developments
in bicycle saddles. Here in Seattle. I see plenty of
women on bikes, and it's perhaps due to all the
great sporting goods stores we have here. For at least
(18:35):
seven years now, women's bicycle seats have been available which
feature a divot or a hole in a seat in
the position where would otherwise rub against the volva. I
haven't had a friction problem since I've had one of
these saddles, even when I participated in the annual Summer
Solstice Naked bike ride through the city. Welly, we need
to take a trip to Seattle. I lived in Seattle.
(18:56):
I saw that you did. Yeah, how was it? It's
fun and it's not as scandals as you may think.
Everyone's wearing like body paint their kids there to participate. No,
I just observed. Additionally, women should make sure that they
get a bike that really fits and puts them in
a good cycling position so they aren't sliding around in
the saddle very much. Even if you're unusually short or tall,
(19:18):
or have short or long arms, many bike shops can
customize your bike. Ladies should get out there. Traffic is
not nearly as scary as you think it is once
you get used to it. So thank you for the
advice and the encouragement. Julia, and if you have thoughts
to send our way again. Our email addresses mom Stuff
at how stuff Works dot com. You can also head
over to Facebook and like us, comment, interact with other listeners,
(19:42):
follow us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcasts, and read
our blog during the week, It's stuff Mom Never told
You from how Stuff Works dot com. Be sure to
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how staff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The houstef Works iPhone
(20:06):
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are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From house Stop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristin and I'm Molly, So Molly. Uh,
(00:22):
since you are a Playboy connoisseur, I'm just kidding because
I know she's not. She's not. People. Um, but I
got I bet I got a lot of listeners attention
right there. We're gonna start this episode off with pornography. Okay,
but it's safe for work, don't worry, folks. So something
happened in the nineteen eighties in Playboy all right, the
(00:48):
centerfolds go from having very full, um natural pubic hair,
very natural bikini lines, to and to trimming it down
a little bit. It starts to shrink, starts to shrink,
and then in the nineties it's like it goes like
pubig hare recession or something like it just just disappears.
(01:11):
That's a great name for a band or a book
or something. Pubic hair res Pubic hair Recession. Uh. And
as we can guess today, Uh, those gals are bear. Yeah,
like almost all of them are Bear. You might have
a tiny, tiny runway, tiny little pubic goatee or soul patch.
I should say they have all sorts of names. Yeah,
(01:32):
a Charlie chaplain. I've never heard that before any podcast.
You kind of disturb me. So if if you aren't
getting our gi by now we're talking about pubic hare
and pubic hair removal, yes, and I think that if
you do happen to just catch like let's say, an
episode Girls next Door, even if you're not looking at Playboy,
if you see that show any where, we're Playboy. Playboy
mollets are running all around. None of them have any
(01:54):
pubic hare if you are to look. And and from
what I understand from researching this article, in porn, no
one has pubic care either, very little. So some people
think that it's thanks to all these um nude magazines
and porn movies that make us all think pupa cares out,
which is funny because we don't let porn set other
(02:15):
too many other trends. You know, it sounds like we
get fashion cues other fashion cues from from Playboy models.
But they're saying some researchers say that thanks to these
kinds of outlets that both men and women get the
idea that pubic hair on a lady is bad. Yes,
And I mean if you just look around at the
difference salons and spas in your town, chances are the
(02:40):
main thing on the menu it of bikini wax. Pikini
waxes are everywhere. It's kind of now that it's summer too,
it's sort of expected that you are going to go
get all of that hair forcibly ripped out with hot wax.
It sounds awful. Why would women do that to themselves? Well,
we're going to talk about that today on stuff Mom
never told you. Um, when you know how we always
(03:02):
like to start things down on stuff on when I
told you Christ And it's by going back in time. Yes,
And when we go back in time to investigate pubic hair,
the journey usually starts with art, with the great artists
and the great nudes of painting history, and um, you know,
they didn't have pubic care. So some people were like,
(03:22):
maybe they've been removing it for centuries. Some people are saying,
maybe those artists just didn't want pubic care in their paintings. Yeah,
who would want to have to pure? I can't, I can't.
I wonder if an artist would leave that till the
very end, or maybe they do it first to get
it over with. I don't know. It doesn't seem like
a process. Well that's maybe that's why it was never there,
is it? It just didn't It seemed like a lot
of detail, so they just completely just ignored it all together.
(03:46):
And it looks like no one in ancient times had
a pubic hair, or maybe they all removed it. We
don't know. And some historians think that Greek women would
remove some of their pubic hair where they aren't entirely sure.
And then there's a theory that this is just the
natural progression that um that started with women shaving their
(04:07):
under arms, So I was shaving your under arms, and
then our legs, and now well, as clothes get skimpier,
as bikinis get more popular and skimpier, they're just saying that,
you know, more and more flesh is on display. And
we've come as a society perhaps to think that hair
on a woman other than on her head is not
a good characteristic, that that hair equals male and no
(04:28):
hair equals female. Although fun hair on the head fact
that I really enjoyed from this research in the fifteenth
century European women would shave the tops of their foreheads
to heighten their hairline. So which would you prefer? You know,
that trend where you have to shave your forehead or
you have to shave your vagina. Probably neither are very fun. Well,
(04:49):
can I tell you another fun fact that I really
liked that in parts of Siberia, pubic hair was considered
a monstrous growth, attributable evil spirits, and legitimate grounds for
a husband to divorce as life. However, in Japan the
opposite was true. If you didn't have any hair, it
could justify in annulment. See, so it seems like a cross. Culturally,
(05:10):
we have different standards of pubic hare. Yeah, some places
it's evil, in some places it's you know, it shows
that you grow up. I mean that's sort of the
point of pubic hare is that it comes in at puberty.
It shows that you're sexually mature, and it might serve
some other functions. It's possible that it keeps the general
area clean, keeps germs out of there. It might admit pheromones,
(05:31):
which are sexually signaling uh hormones of sort that are
kind of controversial, But basically, you put one pubic area
next to another and maybe they start talking and you
don't even know it, which is kind of ironic that
the porn standard would be no pubic care, because you
would think that women would be less sexy. They would
(05:52):
you know, there they removes a sexy signal. There's yeah,
they're sexy signals are the sexy signals? Oh, though, some
women say that know with no puple care, sex is
a lot better that that it is more sexy to
not have any pupic care, that you feel cleaner, that
there are better sensations. Um. It seems like you can
find people who who come down either side of this argument.
(06:14):
Let's talk for a second though about evolution, our second
favorite thing to talk about. Uh. Nancy et Cough, who
wrote Survival of the Prettiest Science of Beauty, wrote that
for centuries humans have equated hairiness with beasts and hairlessness
with beauty and femininity, and she points out that throughout history,
(06:37):
every time a new female body part has been publicly exposed,
like you said, as our clothes become skimpier and skimpier. Um,
that the exposure has come with hair hair removal, you know,
like when sleeveless stresses came into vogue, as we've talked
about before, we started shaving her under arms. But at
the same time, though, I mean, quick note, I don't
(06:58):
know that vagina bearing um styles are invoked unless I've
just missing something. But she says that this practice of
hair removal is explained through evolutionary psychology. It accentuates the
differences between male and female bodies, so hairlessness is associated
with the female body, whereas hairiness is associated with the
(07:19):
male body. Yeah. But then again, if if ria look
at from an evolution standpoint, you want to meet with
someone who will be a good partner, and part of
being a good partner's being old enough to have children,
of which pubic hair would have been a marker. Yeah,
so it's a little tricky um. And and then Freud
had a nice theory of about pubic care. He said
(07:42):
that women were excessively preoccupied with their pubic hair. Hence,
you know, which makes sense, you know, if we're always
going to go get it waxed and tweezed and threaded
and whatnot. He suggests that our achievements in the weaving
arts could be attributed to unrealized fantasies about plating there
are hairs together to can conceal our shameful lack of
(08:02):
a penis. I have never looked at my pubic hair
or braiding my hair as as some sort of lack
of a penis. I know, sometimes I wonder where old
Freud came up with these these crazy ideas, But I'm
gonna think of it the next time I do braid
my hair or weave something. I'm weaving all the time.
I guess maybe I do have penis and me. But
we do have to talk about that maturity factor, because
(08:23):
this is one thing that comes up a lot. This
is the one major qualm that people have with this
hair hairless down there trend is that you know, pubic
hair is the marker of female maturity. So by taking
all that hair off, it makes you look like a
little girl. Right, And so what does it say about
(08:45):
men who only want to have sex with with women
who don't have pubic hair? Are they heedophiles? And I'm
not saying they are, I'm just saying that is eventually
an argument that comes up over and over again in
these in these studies about whether women should from me
remove their to care. Are we somehow feeding into this
um male ideal of having sex with old girls, and
(09:05):
could that also, as a byproduct, contribute to the sexualization
of younger girls. And I think, you know, a lot
of the times when we talk about beauty trends on
this show, we actually find out that women are the
ones who kind of perpetuate them with shaved legs and armpits.
And I think that that might be true here. I
think that, you know, women are more likely to police
(09:26):
each other in terms of their pubic care. Like think
of that scene in the Sex and the City movie
where um, Miranda Hatton had got a bikino back some
time and Samantha's just appauled. I think that you know,
women might police this more than men do. Yeah, that's possible, um.
And also you know it's women, the Jay sisters who
brought the Brazilians to the US, and then female celebrities.
(09:50):
I think Gwyneth Paltrow said changed your life. Yeah, I
think as of course she got married. I think was
Brad pitt Arriss she said it changed your life. But
that could relate to this notion that it makes your
skin more sensitive down there, more sensitive to to sexual touch.
But you also have to keep in mind the hygiene
(10:11):
factor because it can also make you more susceptible to
a STD contraction. And just safety. I mean, you've got
a lot of sensitive stuff down there, and if you're
clipping or tweezing or waxing, got be careful. There's some
things down there you don't want to hurt. But imagine
if you are a man. Okay, yeah, and you know
because guys have pupic hare too, and according to these articles,
(10:35):
it is men's little secret that they like to go
have these procedures as well. I think the most controversial
notion is the of men getting wax and particularly men
getting their testicles waxed, because I can't think of anything
more painful than the notion of waxing a testicle. God,
apparently that's what men are doing that. You know, they
(10:56):
will wax or pupic hair because they like the way
it feels as well. They think can make certain parts
of their body look bigger. Um. But it's another it's
sort of like with the men in makeup question, Like
if you're a lady and you're with a fella and
you see that heustons all this time getting wax, is
that a turn on? Or is it a turn off well.
And also the male waxing, we should say is more
associated with gay culture than out straight man. I mean,
(11:18):
like straight men might be a little more likely to trim,
but outright waxing. You know, there's this like kind of
I would say, a head row taboo around that. Perhaps,
like it would show that they care too much about
personal grooming. But if they're going to care about what
their ladies do exactly, the question again comes back, are
we are we getting bikini waxes so that we please
(11:42):
potential male partners or are we getting bikiniaxs because we
like the way it looks. May becomes more troubling when
you're doing it, because men subconsciously want to have sex
with little girls. But you can also, I mean, I
think that there's an argument to be made that you
can you can have both of those things because you
look more groomed, might feel better about yourself when you
take all your clothes off, so you're feeling better, and
(12:04):
then also knowing that the man you know is turned
on even more as well, So perhaps it's beneficial to both. Yeah,
you know, but the question is the hairless look here
to stay? Because there was this two thousand five article
in the New York Times that talked all about um
Lazier in the hair off, which would be permanent. You know,
(12:24):
people kept likening it to a tattoo. And people are
saying some some stylists are saying maybe at some point
the more natural look will come back, for example, in
a different kind of rever session, not the pubic hare session,
but an economic one. That's a lot of money to
show out to get these continual bikini Brazilian waxes. So
maybe when times you're bad, people let that part of
(12:47):
their lives go and the people hare comes back, and
it's just a cyclic style phenomenon, and maybe like in
ten years things a look different. Possibly though, but you
can still, I mean, you can shave, you know. Uh.
And also we should know that early pornography in the
twenties and thirties did show a range of female pubic
hare from very full to being very bald, and statistically
(13:12):
a lot of us are doing it. I mean they
were different articles were polling dermatologists who said that fifty
of female patients were going totally hairless. Um, there has
been a this was in two thousand four, I believe
a fifty three increase in UM Americans having electrolysis to
(13:33):
remove their hair remove hair permanently. And then the most
disturbing trend of all this comes very recently. UM the
International Spa Association reported that six percent of teams who
had visited a spa I have had a hair removal
procedure done. Okay, in these teams can arrange very young.
I mean then the notion of like a thirteen year
(13:53):
old getting a bikini wax well, one lay he runs
the spot, said you should start waxing at six. Yeah,
for the verse, it's something called virgin waxing. You ask
those very very first hairs that come in and they
claim that if you start waxing it's six, then the
hair will just go away naturally on its sound. And
you know it's always um. You know, we we kind
of when we're of age, we think, okay, we can
(14:15):
make this rational decision. And if you start to freak
out if you know a six year old or a
ten year old or thirteen year old is doing it,
that seems to me to be the cue that maybe
something is wrong. If we are kind of just made
by these articles that say, you know, a mom takes
her ten year old to get a bikini. Ax, then
maybe that's not a great sign. Yeah, that's that's kind
of disturbing. But you know what, you can read article
after article that makes it seem like every single person
(14:36):
in the world, um, who is female has no pubic hair.
But two thousand and ten we get a scholarly study
of the International Society for Sexual Medicine which says, you
know what, it's not as common as you think. Give
us some stats mine, all right, So what we've got
here is a study group of women, so pretty pretty
(14:57):
broad range, pretty pretty large sample size, broad range of
ages from about eighteen two in their fifties, um, A
range of people who are sexually active and not sexually active,
range of people who are straight, gay, bisexual. Pretty what
I'm trying to lay out is pretty pretty large sample size.
The people who are most likely to engage in total
removal of their hair are the eighteen to twenty four
(15:19):
year olds. Uh. They might range up to thirty eight
percent of total hair removal in one month, and basically
it declines as you get older the chances that you
will remove your pupid care. So it seems to be
very young phenomenon. So the question then becomes for these researchers,
is it something you age out of or is it
something that maybe as you grow up and get married
(15:40):
you care less about um. And then as you get older,
you might be more likely to shave than you would
be to wax. You might be more likely to just wax,
you know, one time or two times in a year
as opposed to every month. The monthly thing is really
big among the younger ones, and then the older you get,
the us likely you are to keep it up. And
(16:02):
there's also a correlation they found between the amount of
grooming that you do and how often you will groom
down there and your relationship status, um, whether or not
you're sexually active, and specifically whether or not you are
orally sexually active. Yes, someone's gonna get really up close
(16:23):
and personal. You tend to keep it a little more trim.
But what these researchers go to great pains to point
out is that there is no one uh normal pubic
hair arrangement. You know. They went and sort with the
thesis that all these articles are telling us that the
majority of women get all our pubic hair removed, and
that just wasn't the case from the size sample group.
(16:47):
But there's a whole range of people who sometimes removed it,
sometimes removed a little bit of it, but not all
of it. And yeah, about a third of the people
who did remove it all the time. But again, no norm.
When is there ever a norm in terms of what
women do? Well? I think that there that it might
be a cultural beauty standard that's been established, but that
doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is doing it or that
(17:10):
we have to give into it. If you want to
go get your pubic hare waxed off, then do it,
you know. If you want to get it permanently removed
with electrolysis, finally do it. You know, with all these things,
ask yourself why you do it? Yeah, ask yourself, absolutely,
ask yourself why you do it? And recognize to your
point that even though it might see culture might have us, um,
(17:31):
think that everybody's doing it. And in order to be
an attractive sexually desirable woman, we don't need to have
hair down there. That's not necessarily the case. Men weigh
in and other you know, and women weigh in. Yeah,
we want to know what you guys think, um about
this very pertinent issue in our society. Today a pubic
hare waxing because it is pertinent. A lot of people
(17:54):
don't talk about it because it's it's your pubes. But
I think we need to talk about it. So send
us your thought s mom stuff at how stuff works
dot com. And let's read an email. Well, I have
an email here from Julia and it is on our
episode about bicycles. And she writes, my friend and I
(18:14):
really enjoyed your podcast on women and bicycles. Well, thank you, Julia.
I was remembering scenes from the movies A Midsummer Night
Stream and The Road to Wellville. Um. However, I was
surprised that you didn't do your research on modern developments
in bicycle saddles. Here in Seattle. I see plenty of
women on bikes, and it's perhaps due to all the
great sporting goods stores we have here. For at least
(18:35):
seven years now, women's bicycle seats have been available which
feature a divot or a hole in a seat in
the position where would otherwise rub against the volva. I
haven't had a friction problem since I've had one of
these saddles, even when I participated in the annual Summer
Solstice Naked bike ride through the city. Welly, we need
to take a trip to Seattle. I lived in Seattle.
(18:56):
I saw that you did. Yeah, how was it? It's
fun and it's not as scandals as you may think.
Everyone's wearing like body paint their kids there to participate. No,
I just observed. Additionally, women should make sure that they
get a bike that really fits and puts them in
a good cycling position so they aren't sliding around in
the saddle very much. Even if you're unusually short or tall,
(19:18):
or have short or long arms, many bike shops can
customize your bike. Ladies should get out there. Traffic is
not nearly as scary as you think it is once
you get used to it. So thank you for the
advice and the encouragement. Julia, and if you have thoughts
to send our way again. Our email addresses mom Stuff
at how stuff Works dot com. You can also head
over to Facebook and like us, comment, interact with other listeners,
(19:42):
follow us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcasts, and read
our blog during the week, It's stuff Mom Never told
You from how Stuff Works dot com. Be sure to
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how staff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The houstef Works iPhone
(20:06):
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