Bidisha article on pubic hair removal

Interesting idea coldtits that I will end up mulling for some time.

My gut reaction is that with the way women often react to mooncups because they have to touch themselves suggests there is not that kind of shift. But on the other hand there is a shift towards engaging with the body during childbirth rather than it being behind a screen. So shifts both ways.

I like the idea of women being more at ease with their own body.

But then why shave? I quite like twisting mine into one big curl.

I;'ve never waxed

Ok, well I have, and it was an absolute farce which resulted in me wailing down the phone to my friend at 10 pm with a teatowel stuck to my minge with hot wax, and blisters there for three weeks because I tried to remove it with nail polish remover.

Never Again.

Yes, don't listen when women talk about choice. There's always someone who knows better.

We have got a slew of people saying, 'I choose to wax/shave my pubic hair'!

And while it's tempting to talk about evil capitalists, as in "a trend that is being encouraged/capitalised on by the beauty industry", in this case I think they're meeting a demand from the customers, rather than creating one. People genuinely like doing this, and if we don't address that point, we aren't taking an honest look at the situation, just as Bidisha didn't.

before the sexual revolution, sex was something men did, sexual organs were something men had. Women had 'privates'. they were taught that 'privates' were dirty. They were taught not to touch them.

You have to be pretty knowledgable about your own vulva, or have a mirrored bath, not to cut yourself shaving. You have to have touched it before.

My first decision to shave my pubes came about a year before I was sexually active. I didn't like the way my new hair made me sweat (and this wasn't about shaving under my arms, because I didn't actually have any pit hair until I was 17!) so I tried shaving it off.

But only a girl with a private bathroom and access to a razor could do that. I certainly didn't tell my mother, she'd have probably told me off for knowing about vulvas!

because maybe, historically, women didn't realise that actually, they can control what happens to their vulva? That it is a pretty awesome part of the body and can be ornamented and groomed as the owner of it sees fit?

Yes I agree AW. In the last thread I saw on this (in AIBU admittedly) women were very reluctant to acknowledge that the cultural shift had anything to do with porn. Which is weird because to me it seems so obvious.

I read this argument very differently. I don't see it as being about what individuals do and their relationship to porn. I believe that people do it for a myriad of reasons, such as pubes in the teeth. What is interesting is the trend and when looking at it, I think an overall trend can't be looked at as individual's actions. I'm not interested in why x person shaves their pubes, I'm interested in why lots of people shave their pubes, what has been the cultural shift that makes this make sense. Which is where pornification comes in. It's not to say that individuals who shave their pubes watch porn, nor that nobody did it before porn, nor that this is the driver for everyone. It's about the impact of porn on society and how this is enacted by people, and how it leads to cultural shifts of what is 'normal'.

The message from Coldtits says exactly what I meant. What would Bidisha say to her? The article simply doesn't address this viewpoint, and if she's going to be realistic (the author, I mean) she can't refuse to hear people who think shaving is normal. She's tackling the easy issue and not touching the complicated one.

As for modern versus vintage porn, I think pubic hair was considered so obscene a few decades ago that to be legal, images had to have it removed. Then it became possible to show it, so they did that. And then the porn producers found that for reasons of extra exposure, extra sadism, pedophilia or whatever, their customers preferred no hair. And now lots of people are doing it, to the consternation of many others.

The increase in violent porn frightens me. People acting in porn should at least look like they are enjoying it ... amateur couple porn is probably the closest to what you can get to real porn now.

It's a question of very personal preference.

I prefer to shave my pubes off, all of them. I did it when I was single for 2 years, and believe me, nobody saw my crotch or anywhere near it.

It makes periods much easier to deal with (I won't use tampons, I hate them) and stops me getting too hot in the summer. And, for the same reason I shave my armpits even if single and in winter, it reduces the amount of trapped sweat and lessens body odour, meaning I don't have to shower every 3 hours in a heat wave (I used to work in a hot hot hot nursing home and the residents wouldn't allow us to open the windows.)

But porn has changed massively from what it was in the past. Pubic hair is only one of those changes.

An increase in extremely violent porn is another.

You can only make sense of it by looking at it as part of a much larger picture.

What I want to know is why this is a feature of modern pornography when it wasn't so in the past. Some external factor must have influenced it.

Maybe porn is trying to increase its appeal to men who come from cultures where shaving is the norm? Thats just a wild guess but does anyone have a better theory?

To be honest, her stream of cutesy names for the female crotch got on my nerves. Say "cunt", woman, and get it over with.

This topic was discussed here a few weeks ago, and there were a fair number of women who do shave their pubic hair and didn't like being compared with porn stars. What Bidisha didn't do, in fact of course she didn't do it, was address the huge number of non-porny people who are shaving (men too) and have made it part of their view of what a normal person should be like. Maybe that's the reality of "the mainstreaming of pornography", but once it's happened, it's dishonest to ignore it.

You might as well do the same with shaving legs and armpits, or wearing high heels or cosmetics. It becomes an issue of telling women what they ought to want in the name of feminism. The theory is simple, but real life is a lot more complicated.

put it this way, the porn industry influences fasion: it's a multi-million dollar industry.

Women certainly can't influence the porn industry

So what's the link? Was it making museums and art galleries free exposing more women to classical statues and women wanting to emulate them?

I get hair removal in the pubic region is not exclusive to he 21st century in the west. What about the popularity? That is what the article is about. Current popularity not origins.

David, my guess is pubic hair was previously taboo because they were coming out of an era of prudishness.
BUt this fashion was definitely led by the porn industry. Have you read Beauty and Misogyny? IT's all in there.

Look at any classical (female) statue, not a pubic hair in sight

Yip - some Muslim authorities recommend removing pubic hair (men and women) as a hygiene thing.

I'm sure porn has played a role, or at least had an influence in the West on this hair-removal area, but it certainly did not invent it.