Traditionally, the summer holiday period has been when women start denuding their bodies of hair in preparation for public appearances in swimwear.
But for younger people in particular, year-round hairlessness is now the norm, with even the genital area kept fuzz-free. In fact, in one New Zealand study, under a fifth of women said they weren’t removing some or all of their pubic hair.
Virginia Braun, associate professor of psychology at the University of Auckland, has been involved with three studies looking at attitudes to pubic-hair removal, and says health is among the reasons given for the practice.
“There is an idea that it feels or looks cleaner; a perception of hygiene, although in fact there’s lots of research that highlights the health risks,” she says.
In a recent survey of 3316 women in the US, more than half said they were grooming for hygiene reasons. However, there are better reasons for keeping our hair on.
It protects the genitalia from friction and offers a natural barrier against bacteria and foreign particles. It can help control the moisture of the area and decrease the chance of yeast infection. And the act of removing it – whether by waxing or shaving – inflames the follicles, causes ingrown hairs and leaves micro wounds where bacteria can flourish, leading to an increased risk of skin infections.
Another US study found that “extreme” grooming is linked to a significantly higher risk of sexually transmitted infection. There is also evidence from the US that there has been an increase in minor injuries linked to grooming, most involving clumsy use of razors and some resulting in emergency department visits.
It seems there is only one health benefit linked to the trend of hairlessness – a decrease in pubic lice infestations.
Although women have long tidied up their “bikini line” before donning their togs, Braun identifies the late 1990s as the start of the trend for removing most or all pubic hair.
“That’s when we started to get promotion of so-called Brazilian waxes. There was a lot of media coverage and popular programmes such as Sex and the City featured it. It was about that time we started to think about the genitals as having an aesthetic you could change and probably should change.”
Celebrity endorsement also played a part: Kim Kardashian proclaimed that women shouldn’t have hair anywhere but their heads, Victoria Beckham announced Brazilian waxes should be compulsory at age 15 and Eva Longoria claimed they improved the sex life.
Most women see hair removal as a personal choice, but Braun’s research reveals many influences that are at work to make them feel it is desirable.
“Adverts portray women’s body hair as unsightly and unseemly. The internet is an influence, as are friends and family. Women also tend to imagine what a partner does and doesn’t like.”
Then there is the pornography factor. An analysis of decades of Playboy centrefolds by researchers at George Washington University showed its nude models have gone from commonly having pubic hair to almost always being partially or entirely hairless.
The hair-removal industry perpetuates the idea it is something nasty that ought to come off.
“Don’t let your lady garden go to seed,” advises Auckland’s Off Wax & Laser on its website.
The trend for grooming may have started with women, but men have joined the party. More than 200 Kiwi men aged between 18 and 35 took part in Braun’s 2013 body image study. A 10th of them were hair-free, and a further 69 per cent were removing some or all of their pubic hair.
There is a backlash against grooming and again celebrities are involved. Feminist writer Caitlin Moran and actress Cameron Diaz have both spoken out in favour of the natural look. It remains to be seen how much traction they will have in an era when there are decent profits to be made from vajazzling (decorating the pubic area with crystals) and vajacials (a “facial” for the vaginal area that is promoted for women who have Brazilians).
“It’s easy to see these things that happen in a cultural context, but right from the get go around women’s hair removal it was tied into commerce,” says Braun, who has a number of anecdotal reports of men who have never seen a woman with genital hair.
This article was first published in the December 24, 2016 issue of the New Zealand Listener. Follow the Listener on Twitter, Facebook and sign up to the weekly newsletter.
