Dear Girls, Please Shave Your Pubic Hair

I will be attacked by feminists from the sole existence of this title. I will then be lynched by a crowd of angry protesters holding photos of Gloria Steinem, after they finish reading the whole thing.

The internet is no place for bigots. And I agree. But I am here to talk about realities, realities that are based on experiences, guy talks (who cares about that?) and late night chats with good female friends of mine.

The science of sexuality is not only rooted in biology. Many factors affect the sexual arousal of a person: social, psychological and cultural are one of many. In Mauritania, girls were fed more than boys, so that they look more beautiful and more “marriage material”. Yes, fat is beautiful. No need to travel that far to Africa, as we can go a few decades back in time and see how our celebrities were seen differently: the famous example of Marilyn Monroe and her not-so-perfect body in today’s standards. This is just an example on how time and culture affect our sexual perceptions.

Let’s have a quick look on how the definition of beautiful changed with civilizations.

Ancient Egypt: Women wanted to be thin, have flat stomachs and tiny waists. They used to shave arms, legs and other private parts.

Renaissance: Looking at paintings of women from that period, you would consider them fat. They were considered sexy.


30s-40s: Women worked hard to have firm and shapely bodies.


The 50s: The curvy shape of Hollywood stars like Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe was the preferred shape of women of that era.

These are examples to show that what turns people on and what doesn’t, differ with time and culture.

Let’s go back to our main issue. Female pubic hair.

This is a passage from Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer (written in the 1930s):

The other night I took her on–out of pity–and what do you think the crazy bitch had done to herself? She had shaved it clean … not a speck of hair on it. Did you ever have a woman who shaved her twat? It’s repulsive ain’t it? And it’s funny, too. Sort of mad like. It doesn’t look like a twat anymore: it’s like a dead clam or something. He describes to me how, his curiosity aroused, he got out of bed and searched for his flashlight. I made her hold it open and I trained the flashlight on it. You should have seen me … it was comical. I got so worked up about it that I forgot all about her. I never in my life looked at a cunt so seriously. You’d imagine I’d never seen one before. And the more I looked at it the less interesting it became. It only goes to show you there’s nothing to it after all, especially when it’s shaved. It’s the hair that makes it mysterious.

Reading that text (from one of my favorite books of all time) I was shocked. I thought there was sarcasm to it. I was missing on something. Doesn’t he want it shaved? What happened? Why is it so repulsive for me to be with a girl who left everything down there to grow? It’s not only me though. He’s the alien. It’s his weird time of history. Maybe it’s the drugs they used to consume. When I share my “hairy experiences” with friends I get the same reaction from EVERYONE. And hey, don’t get me wrong, I am not a demanding douche. I don’t mind them leaving hair or designing it on the groin. But when I get a hard time staying hard, don’t look at me. Let me explain.

I don’t blame girls who don’t shave around that area, I blame the porn industry. I am part of a generation that witnessed the rapid changes in pubic hair “shapes”. The early 2000s, beginning of my adolescent years, or the beginning of discovering sexuality, unfortunately, through porn. Back then, I used to find it weird to watch a fully shaved female porn actress in action. Why? Because it wasn’t that common. It wasn’t a trend either to keep everything down there. Here we would be talking about 70s and 80s porn. But why watch that? You want the highest quality available. Now, the 2000s finished now and if you randomly browse some porn videos you will mostly see fully shaved vaginas. So I grew up, seeing naked women who were either shaved completely, or had a funky design on the groin. Never (or rarely — and these videos will have “hairy pussy” in the title) will you see girls with the whole bush down there. What will subsequently happen when you have your first experience? What are your expectations? You want something as close to what you first saw when you first did the do.

I know, it’s fucked up. And this is part of a bigger problem that is being addressed in many areas. The problem of television and the internet. The bad influence they had and will keep having on new generations if drastic changes don’t take place. What’s the solution? You can’t change involuntary reactions.

You can start a revolution in the porn industry and bring hair back. I see this as one of the few solutions that exist.

But til then, please, shave your pubic hair. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

image – Shutterstock

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