Historical Pubes
It's National Gardening Month! Let's check in on the shrubs.
Hey horny readers! Apparently, April is National Gardening Month. Let’s check in on past and present trends in pruning.
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Adult Sex Ed comedically challenges why we think what we think about sex. In case you’re new, I’m Dani Faith Leonard, a comedy writer, film producer, and performer. In 2018, I started a comedy show called Adult Sex Ed and launched this newsletter last year. Each week, I take a fun deep dive into a topic that I’ve been researching. Want to know more? Read the whole description on substack here.
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Most trends have a historical significance, especially when it comes to sex. Pubic hair trends over time usually correlated with public health issues. I spoke about this last year when we explored The History of the Merkin: At first, merkins were aspirational. Cleopatra was supposedly known for her long, luxurious pubic hair, which she proudly wore brushed and oiled. At the time, poor people were forced to shave due to a fear of pubic lice, especially sex workers. People wore merkins to cover up their bits and look rich.
Personally, I made the choice to laser, which seemed wonderful at the time. I had no idea I would always look poor, especially by ancient standards. I should also point out that the Ancient Egyptians invented sugaring, which is a hair removal method still used today. Other women removed hair with copper razors or flintstones. Ancient Greeks were also rocking the Jason Statham—they removed their short and curlies through plucking out each individual hair or singeing it off with heat. Now that’s dedication!
Moving on from ancient times, in the Middle Ages through the Victorian era, you needed to have a bush. Much like in Egypt, the appearance of a healthy, full bush was a sign of higher class. Prostitutes lapped off their thatches, adding to the stigma. It was also believed at the time that an intact bush would actually protect from dirt, dust, and vermin. How much dust are we talking about that it’s traveling inside?
By the early 1900s in the United States, it was common to shave the legs, but leave the bush. Gillette razors were introduced in 1901 and by 1915, they were advertised to women to get rid of their “embarrassing personal problem.” Women started to shave their leg and armpit hair once it was marketed to them as “unseemly.”
When bikinis were introduced in the 1940s, women started grooming further, cleaning up their bikini lines. At that point, women started opting for a close trim, which kind of looks like this designer shawl:
The 1960s and 1970s were a time of sexual liberation, and people preferred a natural, free look. Enter the bush, a trend which spanned the gender spectrum. The female bush was widely shown in public for the first time during the “Pubic Wars,” a pun on the Punic Wars, coined by Hugh Hefner. In the United States in the 50s and 60s, photographs weren’t deemed pornographic unless they showed pubic hair or genitals. Magazines were careful at the time to brush close to this line without stepping over it, but Playboy suddenly had competition when Penthouse came to the states. During the “wars,” each magazine showed a little bit more nudity than the other, risking obscenity charges. Playboy first showed some wisps in 1968. The first Playmate to have the first full frontal nude centerfold was Miss January 1972, Marilyn Cole.
By the 1980s, removing pubic hair or “cleaning it up” was on the rise. This led to some astoundingly weird choices in the 80s and 90s. There was a trim triangle, which makes sense, as it’s the natural shape of the area. The landing strip is a truly odd concept when you think about it, yet a random straight line of pubes was popularized by pornography and copied by the masses. Of course, a mini landing strip was also a thing, which could be a diamond, heart, or what I can only see as a tidy Hitler mustache.
Sometimes, a trend comes around that’s impractical, silly, kind of fun, and absolutely pointless. Enter vajazzling, an early aughts trend that no one really needed, but explains a lot about the 2000s. People adorned their pubic areas with jewels, risking major chafing and spending way too much money. I did a deep dive on the vajazzling trend earlier this year. The vajazzling era coincided with the peak popularity of the Brazilian wax.
Pube trends seem to be a free-for-all these days. Fewer people are opting for Brazilians and even Vogue is all for embracing the full bush. For what it’s worth, a 2012 study showed that women who remove their pubes tend to have a greater interest in sex. The most important thing is that beauty is in the eye of the pube-holder. Also a trend these days: an increase in awareness about manscaping, with bro-ey podcast hosts everywhere reading ads about grooming your balls. See, equality is possible!
In case you were wondering, pubic hair is usually curly because curly hair catches the pheromones better, but if it were straight, it would be easier to grow a jumprope. Another fact to add to the list of things you never needed to know: according to the Illustrated Book of Sexual Records, the longest known pubes were 28 inches long and belonged to a woman from South Africa. It reached her knees and probably cleaned the cars that drove through her legs, as she shimmied back and forth, like a human car wash.
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