In being surprised that apparently 98% of UK women under 25 have no pubic hair at all?

[Longstocking2]

Is that true?

A friend who is a practice nurse says she presumes it's just a fashion. None of her women under 25 who come for smear tests have any pubic hair.. all shaved, shorn, waxed to nada.

Obviously that's fine but it seems a little universal to me. Aren't there any rebels out there?
Is it just for the boys they do it?

Does the image not come from porn originally?

{shock]

would love to be enlightened!
Clearly I'm over 25

I agree Alexpolismum I have been surprised to find that I am considered unclean and unhygienic, not to mention unattractive to look at and less pleasant to touch.

This is on top of my already considerable surprise at discovering that this practice is mainstream and not, as I had thought, the preserve of the uber perverted!

why do you assume people are calling you unclean because they themselves feel cleaner by removing hair?

I do agree that it is no suprise that under 25's are non bushy, based on porn. Old porn seemed much bushier. New porn seems hairfree.

Watcehd a teenagers and their view of sex, and thye did seem to have watched so much more porn that we had at that age and their views on what was a normal penis and normal boobs and normal sex seemed distorted, becasuse their views were based largely on porn knolwdge and little else.

I have never waxed or depilateddelapidated !! or waxed. all seems top painful to me. And am not keen on no hair, llooks to much likle a little girl. But I use dh's hairtrimmer, to keep mine trimmed and neat. else i would be like 'slap the pony' birds nest on either side of me bikini.

K, I'm going to give up on reading the last five pages. I've been following this thread for two days now and it's growing faster than I can read it.

I'm going to concentrate on the OP's question - where does this suddenly pervasive fashion come from? Throughout history, some women have probably always removed their pubes for a huge variety of reasons, but in the last couple of decades it's changed from being a fairly unusual thing to being the norm in this country. I think that's worth talking about without negating the individual reasons that individual women have for depilating their individual bodies.

Porn has become much more pervasive and has merged at the edges with mainstream popular culture but that's not the only change there's been in this area. In the olden days (70's - early 80's) I seem to remember most of the porn being European, whereas with the advent of the internet, most of it now seems to come from the US. Stylistically, it's quite different from the European stuff - it's much more smooth, shiny and plastic-y IYKWIM, and on the stuff I've seen, men and women are both hairless. I'm wondering how much mainstream American culture has influenced the porn industry there, as well as the other way round. Vaginal douches have been mentioned as a particularly American thing and I'm also thinking of circumcision - I've heard lots of Americans say it's more hygienic - if there are any Americans here, how long has pubic depilation been the norm in the States? ... could we be seeing a strand of old-fashioned American sexual puritanism, bizarrely mixed in with the porn aesthetic? It would make some sense of the hygiene reasons many people have given on this thread.

What I'm trying to say is that it's likely the current trend has no single cause. Certainly porn plays a large part but if this is a much more established practice in the States then porn may not be the only, or even the most important conduit. Mainstream popular culture (Sex & the City, magazines etc.) could have a lot to do with it as could cross-cultural influences from Islam and the far east. At some point, these ideas reach critical mass and start spreading fast, just through word-of-mouth and it becomes impossible to separate the strands of what has influenced what. So, yes, it's partly from porn, but to say it's just from porn is simplistic.

Because they often do not say "I feel clean" but rather "It is cleaner/ more hygienic" or reference may be made to bikinis that "don't look good"

Very few posters say "I feel cleaner but I appreciate that this might not be the truth and hairy women are also clean and know how to use the shower"

that was for Gigantaur

AmandaCooper - I was also amazed to discover that removing all ladygarden hair was mainstream. I still can't really believe it!

"What's wrong with vanity? Or, as I would look at it, taking care of oneself? Why not make the very best of what you have and celebrate your body."

It was me that said that. And I did not say it in the context you imply. It was said in response to another poster saying it was vanity. IMO it isn't vanity, it's looking after oneself. But that is just my opinion and not saying that if you don't do so you are a minger.

As QGM said, nobody has stated that people who do not remove hair are dirty or smelly. All that has been said is that they feel cleaner. Yet an awful lot has been said about us baldies being incapable of making up our own minds, being influenced by porn, or just plain cowtowing to a man's whims.

Which personally I find far ruder.

Sarah - I find the implication that I do not look after myself simply because I do not remove hair rude. (and somewhat ridiculous). Note, I used the word implication, because even though you did not directly say that, that is what is implied in or can be inferred from your post.

Furthermore, you have failed to understand the points being made with regard to porn. A lot of posters have been trying to say that porn has become more mainstream and that trends in porn have filtered through to society as a whole, as a gradual process. They are not trying to say that individual women are influenced by porn and cannot make up their own minds.

Well, I have no pubic hair because I remove it.

Certainly not for a man, because I don't have one. In fact I didn't start removing it until my XH & I separated - he preferred a bit of hair there.

I just like it - nobody sees it (not even me, really, I don't want to look at it in the mirror - why would I?) and I don't show it to anyone else.

I remove it with a 'bikini trimmer' - horrible twee name - and no, it doesn't itch when it grows back. And no I don't want to look like a little girl or a bald granny.

I'm not influenced by porn - the last porn I saw was about 30 years ago when men had beards and women had bushes (think original Joy of Sex).

I'm 58.

Analyse me.

I agree with everything Parsnips said.
Isn't this all American ? circumcision = cleaner int he US. no hair = cleaner. UK kids are watching mainly US porn.
Its no hairy german , hairy eastern european porn stuff that they ae watching now , is it ?
We all know its not actually cleaner, though, don't we ? It isn't really 'more hygenic', is it ? I didn't think it was.
But it is 'seen' to be. like myth, taken as norm, or so it seems.

"AmandaCooper - I was also amazed to discover that removing all ladygarden hair was mainstream. I still can't really believe it!"

But is it norm ? I know no one thta removes all. None of my close friends do. So thats atleast 15 I can think of. Mind you we are all in our 30's.

I see the majority of ladies at the swimming pool (gym) i take the boys swimmiing, have some hair.

I find it hard to believe thta it is the norm.

I like your last line there Oblomov. I think it could be applied to many things in the beauty industry.

Well you can imply or infer anything you like into it. As it happens, it was a response to the post directly above it, and if read in context it is very clear that that is so.

What I was actually objecting to was the statement that it is vanity. What one person calls vanity is just another person's general grooming. I like looking after myself, it pleases me and I fail to see why that is a) a problem and b) anyone else's business.

Personally I have absolutely no problem with anyone having hair. It's a matter of personal choice and shouldn't be anything else.

What I do have a problem with is being told constantly that it is due to porn/being incapable of thinking for myself or because I just want to please a man.

I have not failed to understand that point. The posts that state that are blunt, to the point and unmistakeable. I am not the only one who feels like that and that has been stated over and over again on this thread.

i don't think that two adults who bath regularly will be more or less clean depending on the level of genital hair growth.

but i feel cleaner without the bush. particularly during my period.

My first ever at the OP's friend acting unprofessionally by blabbing about her patients' pubic hair styling.

Fair enough, Gigantaur. Although I must say it doesn't bother me in the slightest during my period, but I have a little toilet shower thing (whatever they're supposed to be called) and make regular use of it.

Pubic hair was designed to trap smells and pheremones. In order to trap the opposite sex. It is in the two areas of our body where we produce the most secretions for that very reason.

Knowing this, it makes me feel cleaner to remove it. But it is my personal choice to do so and by saying that it is not implying that anyone who does not do so is unclean. Others have stated that pubic hair is there to draw moisture etc away or prevent chaffing. To them it then makes sense to keep hair. Again that is their choice, but it should not give them the right to criticise those of us who don't like hair.

Any way you look at it, to my mind, grooming that happens with your genitals has to do with sex.

I feel like there was this breif window in the 70's, 80's and 90's where women actually were able to be more sexually liberated and not be ashamed of their bits.

Since, I don't know, the much greater availability of (I guess) American porn, say the last ten years, girls have tended to, in generaql, be into a lot more artificial grooming.

Hair extensions
Waxed vaginas
Fake Tan
False eyelashes

All things that, yes, some people have always done, but NOT mainstream.

Now it is mainstream.

I don't care what other people do with their bodies, but It does feel to me like it is all borne out of this enourmous insecurity that whatever we have, naturally, is not good enough.

I bet fake orgasms are on the rise, too.

Sarah - we have been reading the same thread. I have read posts stating that individual women are not influenced by porn directly, that it is a general thing. You have apparently read something else. I don't feel like reading through this mammoth thread again to find out if you are right, but for what it's worth, this is my position on the matter: I would never assume that a woman who depilates has been directly influenced by porn. I might assume that she has been affected by popular culture/ peer pressure if she is very young, but not that she had been viewing porn. In my opinion, that is what a lot of posters have been trying to say. Does that satisfy you?

Could that post have had any more commas?

Alexpolismum I dare you to go for your next smear with it all shaved off!

Mine I mean

Hair extensions - never. I have plenty of hair of my own tyvm.
Waxed pubic area - I epilate. I epilate because I, personally feel cleaner. It also makes for better sex but again that is only my opinion.
Waxed anywhere else - yes, because I personally prefer the look of it.
Fake tan - yes. I don't tan easily at all. I would like to tan but I am not going to risk my health by trying to do so so I fake instead.

False eyelashes - no, don't need them.
False nails - no, have short, soft, crap nails of my own but they would get in the way of my everyday life.

I don't do fake orgasms either. I am perfectly capable of having decent real ones.