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I
need help understanding a recently observed trend. As a physician,
I see lots of naked bodies. For several years I’ve noticed
that, generally speaking, many straight patients (men and
women) in their 20s have trimmed and/or coifed pubic hair.
A lot of the men tell me that their girlfriends prefer it
that way; some have said, “It makes me feel cooler and cleaner.”
Occasionally I have to treat folliculitis (an infection/inflammation
at the base of the hair follicles) caused by overaggressive
shaving. Recently I have noticed many of my 14- to 16-year-old
male patients have completely trimmed off their pubic hair.
What gives? When I was that age, I anxiously awaited a full
set.
—Pursuing
Understanding by Inquiring Columnist
Women
have long felt it necessary to shave their legs, pits, forearms,
wrists, backs, shins, and ankles, PUBIC. Then about 10 years
ago stylish women began having their pubic hairs ripped out
at the roots. Surely you’ve heard of the Brazilian bikini
wax, Doc? The pubeless look was popularized, in my opinion,
by several cultural trends: the mainstreaming of pornography;
teeny-tiny bathing suits; and awful, unflattering low-rise
jeans. Naturally bushy women went from trimming to little
Hitler mustaches to complete deforestation in under a decade.
At the same time deforestation was becoming the beauty ideal
for women, PUBIC, male homosexuals were taking over American
cultural life. That our culture is now thoroughly dominated
by gay men is not some paranoid Christian conservative’s fantasy,
PUBIC, but a fact of life. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
confirmed something everyone already knows: Outside of rap
and hiphop culture, stylish gay men—not all gay men, mind
you, just the stylish ones—are the only tastemakers. And gay
men weren’t content to just setting tastes in jackets and
hair products and cowhide accent chairs. Hardly. We were,
however subtly, setting sexual tastes as well. Out went the
virile man (So long, Burt Reynolds!) and in came the vulnerable
boy (Hello, Ashton Kutcher!). Soon the kind of guys most gay
men want to fuck became the kind of guys most straight women
want to fuck, the male beauty ideal every bit as hairless
as its female counterpart.
The funny thing about declaring smooth, hairless skin sexy,
PUBIC, is that once you start stigmatizing some body hair—back
hair, chest hair, ass hair—it’s only a matter of time before
all body hair is deemed unattractive. Women started having
their pubes yanked out because body hair on women had long
been seen as unattractive and unfeminine; once they were required
to wear outfits that basically exposed everything but their
vulvas, off came the pubic hair. Men began shaving off their
chest hair in response to a gay dictated male beauty ideal
and gradually bought into the idea that body hair—including
pubic hair—was just as unattractive on males as it was on
females. And you’re seeing the results of this cultural shift
every time one of your 16-year-old male patients drops his
drawers.
For the record, I’m not endorsing any of this. While I’m a
longtime supporter of the reigning beauty ideal—I like ’em
lean and hairless, always have, so I’ve got no complaints
about the current beauty ideals, thank you very much—I know
there are people out there who feel differently. Indeed, a
pro-hair backlash is already under way.
I am a 15-year-old male with a question—what is proper
etiquette regarding pubic hairs? I will soon be having my
first sexual experience and was just wondering whether or
not the majority of women prefer the area hairless or not.
—Condoms
and Manners
The
proper etiquette regarding pubes, CAM, can be summed up in
three words: Keep it clean. However much pubic hair you’ve
got—and these days you can have as much or as little as you
like—no one wants to press his or her nose into a stinky,
matted mass of pubic hair. If your fingers stink after you
scratch your balls or you’ve got Butterfinger crumbs in your
pubes or, God forbid, if butt rasta is drifting up from your
ass crack, well, then it’s time to take a shower, CAM.
Now some women will, without a doubt, prefer you to trim or
arrive hairless; some, however, will prefer that you arrive
with all the hair God saw fit to grow down there. If you’re
indifferent on the pubic-hair issue, if your partner’s wishes
are more important than your own, I would urge you to make
the young woman in your life an offer: Tell her that how much
or how little pubic hair you have is entirely up to her. If
she likes it trimmed, she can trim it. If she would prefer
you hairless, she can shave your pubes off herself.
I had a mishap this morning. While trimming my pubes I
accidentally trimmed off a chunk of clit. My concern is regarding
the healing process. Is it going to heal normally? What are
my risks of infection? Do you think that the scar tissue will
affect the feeling? I’m concerned about this affecting my
sex life. Any suggestions and recommendations would be greatly
appreciated.
—Chunk
Lost in Trim
You
trimmed off a chunk of your clit? A chunk? Jesus Christ,
CLIT, what are you using to trim your pubes? A riding lawnmower?
And, like, excuse me, but your first impulse after carving
off a chunk of your clit was to send me a letter? If my clit
was lighter by a chunk and bleeding like crazy, CLIT, my first
impulse wouldn’t be to dash to the computer to send an e-mail
to some fag who writes a sex advice column. I WOULD GO SEE
MY FUCKING GYNECOLOGIST! You may be at risk of infection;
you may lose some sensation if scar tissue builds up; it may
affect your sex life—but only a doctor can examine what’s
left of your clit, look for any signs of deadly clit-eating
bacteria, and offer you the medical and/or surgical interventions
you may require.
In response to your comment addressed to GRABASS, the fellow
concerned with gender-specific groping issues: “And women
can hear the word ‘No’ without stalking or terrorizing the
men who’ve dumped them.”
You’re right. Women never stalk ex-boyfriends, or invent
a phantom pregnancy hours after a breakup, or emotionally
blackmail their former lovers with threats of violence, suicide,
or endless weeping phone calls. Yeah, Dan, women are entirely
exempt from irrational, even violent, behavior following a
breakup. Must be these pesky penises.
—Women
Go Psycho Too, Moron
Well,
uh, yes: Women sometimes act like assholes when they get dumped,
and some engage in bad, bad, bad behavior. So perhaps my generalization
was a bit of a generalization, WGPTM. But unlike men, women—however
pesky they are—rarely kill their partners. Almost half of
all women who are murdered are killed by their husbands or
boyfriends; women are 10 times likelier to be abused by a
man than a man is to be abused by a woman (insert your own
David Gest joke here); and more women land in emergency rooms
due to domestic violence than from any other cause.
So, yeah: Women can be real bitches. But like I told GRABASS,
male-on-female groping exists in a context of male-on-female
violence, a context that makes male-on-female groping seem
like less fun than female-on-male groping. I stand by that
statement, WGPTM, with the important caveat that, yeah, some
women sure are crazy-ass bitches.
mail@savagelove.net
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