Why removing pubic hair is a bad style choice

[FastidiaBlueberry]

Article here

And, the irony being, using a newspaper article to argue that people who do wax are brainwashed by the media

chinley but not all the non-hairless are au-naturel either. I definitely don't want pube hair to stick out of my bikini, so I laser off the edge and the top. I also give the rest of the hair a nice trim. I don't like the complete hairless look myself, but I think it's something to do with age. I'm in my late 30s. Apparently the younglings all prefer the bald look.

Youngling is a praise, btw, in case you are offended. I wish I'm younger.

"Have you actually read the linked article and bothered to look at the medics etc who were quoted in it?"

Here's the extensive medical evidence provided in the guardian article:
"surgeons figured out that shaving a body part prior to surgery actually increased, rather than decreased, surgical site infections" - no names, no numbers, no statistics. I do agree that it is highly likely in a hospital that it would make you more prone to an infection, but a hospital is an environment where you are exposed to more viruses/bacteria etc. that in normal day to day life, so it is more likely
Then there's a section on strap infections, but not referencing or quoting any medical sources
"Additionally, I've seen cellulitis (soft-tissue bacterial infection without abscess) of the scrotum, labia and penis as a result of spread of bacteria from shaving or from sexual contact with strep or staph bacteria from a partner's skin." I've seen - so presumably this is one person, the author's experience?
"Some clinicians are finding that freshly shaved pubic areas and genitals are also more vulnerable to herpes infections due to the microscopic wounds being exposed to viruses carried by mouth or genitals" some clinicians. Again, no indication as to numbers, some could be two, some could be 10.

And that's it. That is the extensive medical evidence set out in the grauniad article.

If you actually go to the Guardian site and see the profile of the person who wrote the feature, she is not a journo- she is a doctor/GP.

Do you research properly before slagging off inaccuracies etc in the press.

The Guardian is not Nature or the Lancet, agreed. But I don't know how you can so easily dismiss something written by a dr.

Yes, but it's the Guardian, and my experience of reading articles in the guardian when it's something in my area of expertise - they're badly written, badly researched and biased which makes me be wary of any articles in the guardian.

Could you also point out, anywhere in this thread, where someone has said that having body hair is unhygenic, because I couldn't find anything.

I'd love to know if the Guardian actually researches anything before they slag off countries/professions/industries/political parties, because I would say no. And I wasn't slagging it off - I was pointing out that, given that you said "[have you] bothered to look at the medics etc who were quoted in it" - I did. And there's only ONE medic quoted in it, the author.

I always think about how the dcs approaching puberty must feel if they see their mum bare down there? Perhaps that generation wax anyway these days but nice too see there is an alternative?

Also why is it just men who don't (allegedly) want hair to do oral? or do women expect men to wax too these days? I'd find that a complete turn-off

*to

Just for those data-crazy doubters (I don't care whether you raze your pubes or not):-

"we noted that the rate at which Staphylococcus lugdunensis was isolated from samples from the plastic surgery unit of our hospital increased considerably. We investigated the sources of these S. lugdunensis strains, and we found that in the case of drain colonization or surgical site infection, the strain was more likely to have come from the patient's skin bacteria when the pubic site had been shaved preoperatively."
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC153917/

"Waxing is the most common method for extensive depilation, and complications include burns, mechanical folliculitis, infectious folliculitis, other infections of skin and soft tissues, and contact dermatitis and/or vulvitis [1]. Removal of hair causes skin microtrauma, with inoculation of pathogens and subsequent mechanical spread of infection [3]. A recent systematic review of surgical site infections found that shaving resulted in more infections than clipping, presumably because the skin was not breached with clippers [3]. Infecting organisms can be from autoinoculation of skin or vaginal flora and group A streptococci are known to colonize the vagina [4]. Infecting bacteria can include S. aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and other potential pathogens include human papilloma virus, molluscum contagiosum, dermatophytes (such as Trichophyton tonsurans) resulting in Majocchi granuloma, and more unusual fungi, such as Sporothrix schenckii, which has been reported following electrolysis [5, 6]."
cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/45/3/e29.full horrific case study

"There is sufficient evidence that avoiding routine perineal shaving for women prior to labour is safe. The clinical significance of the difference in women having gram negative bacteria is uncertain. Furthermore, the potential for side-effects suggests that shaving should not be part of routine clinical practice."
"Most of the side-effects attributable to shaving occur later, as described by one of the trials. These included irritation, redness, multiple superficial scratches from the razor and burning and itching of the vulva."
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001236/pdf/standard

The author of the article in the OP, Emily Gibson, is a GP.

fi seems to equali "fi"

I'm interested to see, however, that there has been a big reduction in pubic lice infestations as a result of waxing.

chinley!

"The people championing hairy fannies have been judging everyone else, whereas the hairless ones have NOT ONCE said anything negative about people who choose to keep their pubes."

Not strictly true, there have been remarks along the lines of 'feeling sorry' for the poor blokes who have to have sex with the Hairy Marys.

It's that sort of attitude which puts unpleasant pressure on young women to conform and be bald. (More 'experienced' birds such as myself have no problems dismissing such claims as utter nonsense, obviously.)

And they say pubes are "unhygienic" and that they are somehow unclean.

chinley - what about the 'feeling sorry for blokes who have to have oral sex with hairy women' remarks? Or don't those count?

Chinley is that your best response when someone like Garlic has gone to the bother of finding the evidence that you so wanted to see? You haven't the decency to admit that you were wrong to challenge the facts.

My point about the Guardian still stands- the article is actually from another publication- if you access it through the main Guardian website you would see that at the end it refers to where it was published previously.
The author- as pointed out already- is not a journalist but a medic.

You can't expect the same amount of scientific detail in this kind of feature that Garlic has linked to in her post- but the conclusion is still the same.

"Waving, that isn't the same as saying all women with hairy minges are unhygienic is it?"

Oh no, it's positively complimentary