"If you want to be touched my a boy, you have to shave your vagina, Arin."
This was what I was told by a boy in my 8th grade class that later went on to get suspended for sexually harassing me in history class.
By this time I had already started shaving my legs, arms, and armpits because I was a swimmer and we are often told that we need to shave to get the best time we can at championships, zones, and nationals. Because of that comment from that boy, I decided that it was time I start shaving my vagina, which now I know is my vulva, because the world has taught me my worth is in the boy that I date and how beautiful he finds me. Up until this past year, I had continually shaved my vulva and I had always liked it more because I did feel much cleaner with it. I have always dealt with horrific yeast infections and when I was younger, that smell and infection would get stuck in my hairs always making me feel unsanitary. Only if a doctor would have listened and actually have addressed my yeast infections maybe I would've stopped shaving earlier on.
Our pubic hair actually has a purpose, while we think that it actually creates a habitat for infection it actually protects us against bacteria. If you truly think about it, we have had pubic hair since the stone ages and no women would've shaved back then and if infections were happening because of pubic hair, many generations of women would've diminished earlier on but they haven't. Shaving pubic hair actually increases our changes for bacteria because when we shave the hair follicles they become irritated and inflamed leaving microscopic open wounds. Add an warm and wet environment, bacteria will thrive causing more infection down there than if we would leave the pubic hair (Gibson, 2012).
In an article done by The Guardian in 2018, he found a study from 2017 that concluded that only 6% of women didn't shave their vulvas and 30% of men said that was a deal breaker for them (Alex MK). The porn industry is growing and is continually having an impact on today's world including the growth of pubic hair. Porn has been available for decades but because of modern day technology and the internet, it is easily accessible by anyone including children. The invention of shaving the vulva came from the porn industry because that is what continues to thrive because that is what is expected. If you want to overly blunt view on the porn industry, it's that I don't agree with it at all. This comes from a variety of reasons but my development of disapproval for the porn industry comes from being exposed when I was a child after being sexually abused, finding out that America is one of the very few countries to continue circumsizing boys, how it thrives the sex trafficking industry, how it normalises violent rape culture, and now, how our sexual body images (both male and female) are meant to be altered. But my rant on the porn industry is for another blog post because I could actually go on for days.
I haven't shaved my vulva in about 6 months now and I love it. It took a while to get passed the itchy phase while it was growing in but once it was in, I actually fell in love with. This comes from constantly having my women reproductive health issues dismissed and dealing with the mental loss of my private parts because of sexual abuse. This was another way for me to reclaim this body part of mine. I was no longer altering my body for someone else, I was allowing my body to be what it needs to be. That pubic hair is completely normal, it's not gross, unsanitary, and shameful to have pubic hair as a women. Although, if YOU are making the decision for YOU and that is how you feel most comfortable and beautiful than that is your choice and that makes me so happy! But if you are doing it because of the porn industry, because of boy, or because of this ridiculous society then it is time to reclaim your body. Because we are going to change the name of womanhood together.
Xoxo,
Moonli
Gibson, E. (2012) Pubic hair has a job to do-stop shaving and leave it alone. The Guardian<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/07/pubic-hair-has-job-stop-shaving>.
MK, A. (2018) To shave or not to shave down there? I won't let porn trends decide. The Guardian <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/07/porn-pubic-hair-fashionable-pornography-feminism>