Love them, loathe them, wax them, laser them – for most of us, pubes are something we spend a lot of time and energy getting rid of. Grace Campbell argues it’s time we showed our downstairs hair a little love.
“I’d been tending to my pubes like they were somebody’s else garden I’d been asked to look after”
Grace Campbell, 25, comedian and actress
When I first sat down to write this article, I had just finished a very unsatisfying internet search. I’d procrastinated for an hour, looking for a salon in London that advertises the type of wax that I want. It shouldn’t be so hard to find, right? But as the search went on, I began to wonder if this wax is not yet advertised on the internet… because I have invented it?
This wax, which I call (through no stretch of the imagination) ‘The Grace’, consists of a full bikini wax and snail trail, a wax half way down the inner thighs (because let’s just all admit that our pubes do not stop at our bikini line), plus the removal of all the hair surrounding the bum crack. This, I have finally realised, at 25 years old, is my perfect wax. But getting to this point was no easy journey, let me tell you. Throughout the last decade, I’ve been in a tumultuous love-hate relationship with my pubic hair.
Before my pubes arrived aged 13, I can’t say I’d given much thought to them. My mind was too busy consuming itself with day dreams of ponies, Zac Efron, and how I could one day become Hannah Montana.
But pubes were no stranger to me. When I was growing up, bushy muffs were worn with pride in the female changing rooms at the local swimming pool. My mum, like most other feminists her age, always had her pubes grown out. Back then, I assumed having a bush was the norm. I thought that one day, when my day came, I would have one too.
But this all changed when I was 12. My mum and I were in the swimming pool changing rooms one day, when a group of loud, confident girls who were a bit older than me walked in. As they were getting changed they caught a glimpse of my mum’s hair. They were shocked into hysterical laughter, loudly mocking her bush. No one else in the room seemed to mind. But I did. I was offended. I was offended that they had attacked my mum. But more importantly, I was offended that I wasn’t in on their joke. I realised that if I wanted to keep being cool, I too had to hate my mum’s pubes.
Not long after this, I was in a conversation at school. I was part of a group of cool, Just Do It bag-wearing, cigarette-smoking girls. We were talking about sex. None of us had ever done it, but we knew all about it nonetheless. When pubes came into the conversation one girl shut the topic down with the line: “Girls, categorically, cannot have sex if they have pubic hair.”
When my own finally started appearing, I was torn on how to greet them. Part of me wanted to welcome them in as the symbol of puberty that they are, while another voice told me to send them packing before they got too comfy down there. But sex wasn’t even nearly on the horizon at this point. So, instead of addressing my pube problem, I just avoided all eye contact with down there. I cleaned it clinically, like it was Tupperware. Even when I masturbated I would only touch it from afar, without ever making eye contact with it. I feared that if I did look it in the eye, it would make me feel so uncomfortable that I’d want to get the whole thing removed.
This is an experience not unique to just me. I have met so many women who had this same hatred for their vaginas in their adolescent years. And it’s no surprise. From the moment we become aware of puberty, the media, and society more generally, makes us hate our bodies in more ways than one. Our weight is put under scrutiny. Our skin is terrorised. Our faces are given dedicated flaws which we must spend loads of money on altering and covering up. And our innocent little body hair is put to shame before it even gets a chance to grow. Teenage girls are fighting off body standards like mosquitos in the summer and sometimes, as I have learnt, it’s impossible not to get stung.
When I was 15 years old, I started to fancy boys. By then it was common knowledge that if you had pubes, boys would know it, with some supernatural power that they had, and they’d never want to get with you. So, reluctantly, I began a journey into the world of hair removal. I started this voyage with the lowest of the lows. Something I will always regret. I shaved my pubes.
Shaving your pubes is something I would never recommend to a friend. It’s a bit like using clothes detergent to wash your face with (I actually have a friend who once did this and it made her face look like it’d just been beaten up by a razor). In my opinion, pubic hairs are too thick for a razor, while the skin is not made for it. As soon as I looked down at the raw, bleeding, itchy, stubbly mess, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. Nearly as bad as the time I shaved one of my eyebrows off in Year 7.
After my pubic hair had all grown back a few months later, I tried the whole hair-removal cream thing. This wasn’t for me because, as a hypochondriac, every time I got an ingrown hair I went to A&E convinced I had terminal cancer. But I was a teenager who still needed to have a hairless vagina to be validated by my friends – and boys. So I started spending my hard-earned babysitting money on waxes. By 16, I was getting everything waxed off. My vagina looked like a battery-farmed chicken, poor thing.
When sex finally came it was below average. Having masturbated for years, sex felt like a pound shop version of the real thing. But one thing I knew for sure was that I had been conned into thinking that some pubes could have any effect on your sex life. I realised how little some hair on the skin would prevent some bump and grind from happening. Also, boys were far too preoccupied with their own performance, and playing out their favourite porn fantasies – they didn’t seem to notice what I was doing much.
I was lucky to have an experience early on in my sex life when a boy told me he thought hair was great, if that was what I preferred. Boys like him cared far less about pubes than we were made to believe. Sure, there were some guys who really resented pubes. Like my friend’s (now ex-) boyfriend, who once transferred her money for a wax when she couldn’t afford one because he, ‘didn’t want to have sex with her unless she was hairless’. But overall, I realised that this ‘hair equalling no sex’ thing was a lie women had been fed by the media, porn, and other people in their lives, and which we were also guilty of perpetuating.
By this point I’d also found my new friend feminism, which taught me that the patriarchy has been known to make women feel they should do things to their own bodies to impress men. It was then that I realised I’d been tending to my pubes like they were somebody else’s garden I had been asked to look after. I’d spent too long worrying about how some hairs on my precious parts would affect other people. I wanted to make my pubes my own again.
I became impassioned about pubes. I stopped stressing about waxing. I stopped waxing for a period, out of anger. I started drunkenly making preachy speeches at parties where I’d tell girls that, “If a boy doesn’t want to fuck you because of your pubes then they’re not worth a single second with your precious parts.” However, in a bit of a plot twist, I realised after some time soul-searching that as much as I like having some hair down there, I do also enjoy getting a wax once in a while. This is the difference, I think, between my generation of feminists and that of my mum’s. For feminists my age, it is believed that you should be able to do whatever you like to your body, as long as it’s your choice.
For my mum’s generation this isn’t quite the case. I learnt this one night a few years ago, when I was having dinner with some of my mum’s friends.
I mentioned to the table of second-wave feminists that I was planning on getting a wax before my upcoming holiday. But the cries of outrage at my comment made me feel like I’d admitted to murdering Gloria Steinem.
I knew then that I disagreed with these women, older and wiser than me, on this pube issue. I believe in myself even more strongly now. I can be a feminist even if I like getting my bum hole waxed every now and then.
Then earlier this year I ran the Vitality 10K in my underwear in
a squad of amazingly cool women lead by Bryony Gordon and Jada Sezer. I had been so busy with work in the days leading up to the race that it only occurred to me that morning that I’d completely forgotten to wax. When I arrived at the start line, in my underwear, I realised my pubes were like a hairy shrub making their way down my thighs. I know that me a few years ago wouldn’t have been able to run the race with my pubes this visible, but me today?
I did what any pragmatist would do and covered them in beautiful glitter, turning a boring shrub into a beautiful wisteria.
Pubic hair is just another part of our bodies that women are conditioned to hate from a young age. And as I’ve grown older I’ve found this more and more ridiculous. Why do we direct so much hatred towards some innocent hairs that evolution gave us to protect ourselves from bacteria and unwanted pathogens, when we could be directing that hatred and anger towards men like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson?
So, if you have made it to the end of this article, I want to leave you with one final thing. Whatever you do to your pubes; whether you cut them, wax them, shave them (please don’t), pluck them… please just remember, to give them some damn respect. Don’t let anyone tell you what you do with them. Don’t let anyone shame you for having them. Your pubes are only here to protect you, so give them respect for that.
“Keeping my pubes felt empowering”
Akhera Williams, 18, student
Puberty gatecrashed my childhood. I was eight when I first saw small hairs peeping from my swimsuit. I didn’t hate them when they arrived, but nobody likes unexpected guests.
I went through a period of smuggling razors from the bathroom cupboard because I didn’t want anyone to know I was shaving, and it wasn’t until I was told the process makes the hairs grow back thicker that I stopped.
For a while, I coasted in the knowledge that down there had hair and didn’t think about the political weight it carried. Though, I’ll never forget when I got underarm hair mixed up with pubes and asked some boys at school: what are your opinions on female pubic hair? Their faces crumpled like discarded notes, and they shook their heads in condemnation. I realised then that hairless females were the status quo.
In protest, aged 16, I tried to disrupt the system, spending a year unshaven. Growing up as a black female, always conscious of her body size, meant keeping my hairs felt like a finger up to a system that made me feel out of place, no matter what I did. It was empowering, and the only comments I got were from my mum who supported my self reform.
But now, at 18, I’m fine hibernating half of the year and trimming a little the other, because I’ve realised sometimes it’s not about making a statement, but about finding a sense of balance.
“I’m a wax it all off kind of girl”
Kiké Adetunji, 30, senior project manager
You might say that I’ve hit the lottery when it comes to my hair. It’s thick, curly and quite long (thanks Mum), and while I enjoy rocking the au naturel look with the hair on my head, for my private parts that just simply isn’t my vibe. When it comes to pubes, I am a ‘wax it all off please’, kind of girl.
I’ve been removing my hair for the best part of 14 years; shaving, epilators, hair-removal creams, I’ve tried it all and experienced many a wonky landing strip for my efforts. My hair removal journey started when I was 16 years old.
I was petrified that the guy I was seeing would not only be repulsed by my bush but that he would tell all his friends and I’d be the talk of the town.
These days, older and hopefully a little wiser, I really don’t give a shit what any guy thinks of my pubic hair status. It’s not their vagina, so – let’s be honest – they have no say or influence on how I choose to groom it. Although I still opt for a monthly wax, my reasons for doing so now are based on how it makes me feel, which is clean, comfortable and, more importantly, confident.
I don’t think my decision to wax is at all anti-feminist. Isn’t feminism about supporting and empowering women in the personal choices they make? If removing my hair is something that helps me to feel even happier within my own body, then surely that’s the only thing that matters.
Millennials talk pubes…
The choices I make about my pubic hair are another expression of my right as a woman to do exactly as I choose with my body. And I feel very lucky to have that freedom. Katie Teehan, Chief Sub-Editor, 34
Lots of my friends have hairy legs, pubes and underarms, and I would like to move more towards that, but I just don’t think that I will ever quite shake the conditioning to be as hair-free as possible. Charlotte Wickham, 28
I don’t think women should look or do anything a certain way to adhere to ideals of femininity, but I’ve always been a fan of fully shaved. In recent years, I’ve been grappling with whether this is my preference or something I’ve internalised from the male gaze and societal expectations. Chloe Laws, Social Media Editor, 24
I feel nicer when fully waxed and will always get a Hollywood ahead of hols! Rowenna Edare, 29
I change my pubic hair a lot – based on my preferences, never anyone else’s. Life is too short to live with someone else’s decisions about your most personal area. Marie-Claire Chappet, Contributing Features Editor, 30
I worry my daughters will grow up doubting their bodies if I’m bald down there, so I have a little bit of hair to make a statement not to feel embarrassed about what is natural. Dana James, 35
Illustration by Sabina Dallu. Photographs: Reece Dekan. *From the GLAMOUR Pubic Hair Survey 2019: 498 women aged 16+, surveyed in July 2019