I’m 25 playing with a crowd of 21 to 30-something year olds, and I seem to be the only girl with the slightest trace of pubic hair. Everyone knows we are living in a time and culture where youth equals beauty, and therefore prepubescent hairless genitals are a social norm. And it most certainly doesn’t help that one of my close girlfriends is an esthetician, where she gets paid to remove people’s unwanted pubic hair (amongst other things, of course).

While I have no intention of putting my dear friend out of business, I can’t help but wonder why bald became beautiful. I’m pretty convinced evolution intended for pubic hair to serve the purpose of protecting such delicate bits. Maybe this was more necessary when early humans used to walk the earth naked, and now that we have designer jeans, pubic hair has become almost as pointless as an appendix.

Or perhaps it was when “Deep Throat” came out in 1972, featuring a sex scene where Linda Lovelace (or was it her roommate?) eroticses pubic hair removal by lustfully shaving it off for the camera. Now thousands of hairless films are popping out of Van Nuys every year, and porn with pubic hair has become more of a niche market than anything else. As time passes by and pornography seems to be more acceptable in the public sphere, our perceptions of what constitutes sexy are controlled by whatever look the ‘it-girl’ porn-star is currently rocking. And it seems the ‘it-girls’ of the past few decades have been rocking the freshly waxed school-girl look.

Don’t get me wrong; in no way am I criticizing those who choose the hairless route. Many people like the look and feel of it, or they prefer a clean working space. As someone who refuses the traditional bikini wax but avidly seeks the back end of the Brazilian, I most certainly get it.  To each their own. It’s just that I used to be that girl who did it for all the wrong reasons. Waxing, shaving, depilatories, even laser, basically anything to remove all my body hair from the waist down. I claimed I did it for ME, when in all actuality I did it because I was scarred from when boyfriend #3 practically outlawed it. And yet I was never fully comfortable being naked. It was like something was missing (because it was!), and irritated skin had been left in its place.

I guess I just don’t understand why I feel like I have to defend my choice to maintain a little bit of hair down there. I’m not too lazy to shave or too cheap to wax. What happened is I got the memo on the hairless movement but I decided to throw it away in the garbage instead. I’m not 7 anymore. I have breasts and curves and rock a pretty mean body. I’ve tried the bald-as-a-cue-ball wax job, and I looked like an awkward little girl covered in red bumps from angry ingrown hairs. Pubic hair makes me feel like a sexual being, like a woman. So I’m keeping it, and if you don’t like it, go play with somebody else.

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