RUNNER IN THE SHEETS
Beauty is pain. This common phrase can be attributed to the lengths that women go through in order to maintain their outward appearance. Women pay others to dye their hair, to paint their fingernails and to scrape the calluses off of their feet during pedicures. They also pay people to pour hot wax onto their vaginas and rip their pubic hair out by the root.
Wait – what?
Yes, you read that right. Getting a wax for down there, more commonly known as the Brazilian wax, has become a norm in society. Being completely bare was largely brought to the masses through pornography, which needed women to be bald in order to get better close-up shots of the action occurring on film.
Skin flicks’ point-of-view camera style had quite an impact on men and women’s perceptions of sex. According to Ogi Ogas, author of “A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the Internet Tells us About Sexual Relationships,” what is seen in pornography affects people early.
“Let’s take a 13-year-old boy. If he’s masturbating and looking at porn with hairless women, that will certainly have a strong influence of what he’ll find arousing.”
So in other words, monkey see, monkey do. There is a war being waged on the lowly pubic hair, and it is making me wonder: do women do it for themselves, or because they think they should?
“The first time I got a wax, I was dying with embarrassment,” said Sydney Garza, 24. “I didn’t know you were supposed to trim up first, so I went into that situation hella unprepared… and I didn’t expect it to hurt as much as it did… It felt like my vadge had a [expletive] headache…but my boyfriend loved it, so it was worth it, I guess. The hair didn’t come back for a couple weeks.”
Fellow waxing enthusiast Brittney Cochran shared Garza’s sentiments about the benefits of the Brazilian.
“I am all for waxing,” said Cochran, 22. “Shaving can give you those little red bumps all over the place that itch like crazy and it’s a lot to keep up with… Besides, what guy likes a chick with a giant, stinky bush? It’s not clean…You can get little pieces of toilet paper stuck in it. Waxing makes it all clean.”
While some women are all for #TeamBare for reasons ranging from looks, hygiene and their lovers, other women aren’t so keen on the idea and aren’t shy about why.
“I will never wax, ever,” said Ashleigh Reed, 25. “Women grow hair on their vaginas during puberty, literally marking the change from girl into woman. I’d never wax that off – for what? So I can look like a little girl to my husband? It’s not right for a grown ass woman to look like a child…If you do it for yourself, that’s one thing…but I’m never waxing. I trim, but I don’t get people who wax.”
Reed’s anti-wax feelings were echoed by her friend Gabby Wegner, who also believes that all a vagina requires is upkeep rather than a wax.
“I heard this saying once that the only places a woman should have hair are on her head and her eyebrows,” said Wegner, “and I thought, ‘That’s stupid. I don’t need to be some hairless cat to be sexy.’ I trim down there…and it’s all good.”
According to a recent poll conducted by the Journal of Urology, more than 80 percent of female college students remove all or at least some of their pubic hair. These numbers were also reflected in a 2014 poll conducted by Cosmopolitan magazine, which found that more than 90 percent groom or wax their bikini line. Of those women, 71 percent go total Brazilian, 13 percent “just keep it neat,” and 6 percent of women who go for the gusto with a “deep wax.” A deep wax is when hair on the inside of the butt cheeks gets an eviction notice. Now that’s some serious anti-hair dedication.
As with all things, there is misinformation being spread about waxing. For instance, according to Amy Stoddard, an assistant professor of gynecology at UCLA, “There is nothing unclean about pubic hair. Shaving and waxing make skin more vulnerable, making it easier to contract – and spread— STI’s.”
There’s also the myth that all men want their partner to be waxed. While no study could ever speak for every person, a 2013 poll conducted by hair removal company Nad’s surveyed 1,000 men and found that more than half of participants prefer a groomed lady garden to a full-on Brazilian.
“If she’s naked and I’m naked, it’s going down,” said Samuel Mendez, 23. “No man is walking away from sex because she ain’t all waxed… I’m not gunna be like, ‘Ay, you need to get dressed and get gone, you got that gorilla feel.’ No one does that.”
Not everyone who walks out of a waxing salon feeling like Victoria’s Secret model – some women could potentially walk out feeling like Mr. Bigglesworth. But from what we can see, a majority of men don’t care if you’re waxed, just groomed. We’ve also found that there’s no hygienic reason to annex your pubes, debunking any cleanliness myths.
So ladies – whether you choose to go Brazilian or lady-scape at home, the choice is all yours. Whatever your choice is, celebrate it. Rock that landing strip, or sport a bush if you so choose. Experiment with yourself. Who knows? You might like it.
