The Orion Online

Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: Features

Andra DeForest [Click to enlarge]

Body hair. We all have it. Some of us are relatively hair-free, while others could buy a gorilla mask, strip naked and be ready for Halloween.

When we are children our body hair consists of little else than "peach fuzz." At the dawn of puberty, the texture and amount of body hair begins to change - enter pubic hair.

Pubic hair, or "hair down there" as my family refers to it, is the coarse, curly hair that begins growing around the genitals at the beginning of puberty.

I asked 30 female friends and acquaintances about their fuzz preference, and every woman admitted to removing a portion or all of their pubic hair at least once. Those who have since stopped attributed the halt to painful razor burn, unsightly ingrown hairs and laziness.

According to the Sexec Index Web site, independent economic surveyors of sex, sex work and sexual services, there has been a 23 percent decline in sexual service providers with natural pubic hair in the United States and Canada since 1997 - yes, I'm talking about prostitutes. Female sexual providers who are au natural south of the border made up only 7 percent of the population in 2007.

While trying to find statistics on pubic hair, I noticed a bit of a double standard when it comes to the desired amount of hair on the naughty bits of males versus females.

The porn industry is bursting at the seams with actresses who wax the whole shebang, commonly known as a "Brazilian," while some male co-stars are more likely to have jungles down there.

Salons in Chico offer bikini-waxing services that run the gamut from clean up for bikini season to the actual dying and styling of one's pubes. These services are marketed almost directly toward women, which begs the question: Where do males fall on the hair-removal spectrum?

A poll of males on campus garnered the results I predicted. Overall, males are not as concerned with their pubic hair as women, since more than half of the males I asked said they do nothing to their short-and-curlies. While none admitted to going totally bare, a small portion of men admitted to trimming the bush.

A man I once dated, "Legs," shaved his entire body. He was an athlete, so he shaved his arms, legs and armpits as well as his nether regions. I'd never been with a man with this grooming habit before so I was a little taken aback.

Personally, I thought it looked funny. The last time I saw a male crotch that bare I was bathing a 3-year-old.

Legs told me he liked the bald look because he thought it made his penis look larger. I wanted to tell him it also made his penis look much younger. I guess I prefer some fuzz in that area to remind me I'm making love to an adult.

I had a male friend tell me he was all for removing some hair. He was too embarrassed to get it done professionally and too terrified at the thought of taking a razor near his Johnson, and he opted instead to use a medium-length setting on his beard trimmer to do the job.

This is an understandable concern. No one wants a nasty cut or razor burn on such a sensitive body part. While I take no issue with the razor method, I seem to be outnumbered by the women who would rather wax every four to six weeks than shave every few days.

Whether you wax it off or leave a little, some people say it's just good sexiquette to give the pubes a little trim every once in a while.

If you're just not into that, rock the classic '70s bushfro. After all, that's how nature intended it.

Regardless of what society tells us, the way you wear your hair down there is completely up to you.

Andra DeForest can be reached at
sexcolumnist@theorion.com

Have a sex-related question? Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Don't be shy! E-mail me, and I may answer it in one of my columns. All identifiable information will be changed and is strictly confidential.

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