Shave Your Balls Dammit!!

Photo by outcast104.

I feel I have gotten a little away from my blog’s foundational topic, pubic hair. Thus, I shall return to my roots, and share an alarming bit of information my new-found hairdresser shared with me. So if you’ve read my numerous blogs related to this topic, you know that the concept of a Brazilian Bikini wax was once foreign and bizarre to me. I have since explored the topic ad-nauseum and even went so far as to partake of this odd beauty regime.

I have vacillated between my concern for this being just one more oppressive beauty requirement imposed on women and the desire for women to feel a sense of empowerment and hot- sexy-mamma-ism. I was feeling more confident placing my vote with the latter view until my hair expert’s information led me back to the fence, leaning sharply towards oppression.

The pressure to go bare down “there” begins very early in a girl’s life. In fact, my lovely hairdresser shared that she herself, as a mere 14 year old, was considered pretty uncool by her peers for being the last one to catch on to the pubic hair removal trend. Turns out her and her pals started shaving it all off before they turned to waxing, later in teen-hood. I was aghast! 14! We live in a small town that I would hardly call cosmopolitan. It surprised me that this issue was even on the middle- school radar. “Why would you need to do that at 14?” I asked her.

“A lot of girls were having sex by eighth grade”, she answered, “Guys wouldn’t even be with a girl with pubic hair. They thought it was gross and that she was dirty somehow.” Pubescent teen boys were grossed out by pubic hair? These boys should just be grateful there was a naked chick in front of them, let alone worry if she still sported her NATURAL body hair! What a despicable double standard!

It started me worrying about my daughter again. Would this trend persist for her entrance into middle school? Would she be considering sexual activity? Would I catch her shaving…? How can I teach her not to leap on to this bizarre social expectation? I mentioned to my hairdresser that I had heard the trend was shifting back to au natural. She had heard about this but admitted that she is addicted to keeping things manicured. “I can barely stand to have it grow back in! I feel it when I move and it drives me nuts!” She shares that her husband doesn’t seem to care one way or the other (mine said he didn’t either). I wonder what he would say if she let it go for a while?

My kids haven’t seen my new hair style, and I am going to keep it that way. My daughter doesn’t need any additional incentive to think she should be doing the same thing. I am now in a panic! My daughter is a mere five years from these possibilities. How does one make their child resistant to peer pressure? How can I keep gawky, pimply boys out of her pants? My god! The 80’s were such an innocent time! They feel like the 50’s in comparison to this!

I had sex pretty early in my life. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great either. I wasn’t even aware that my body could be judged by such standards and compared to other girls. Modifying my body wasn’t even a thought in my mind. But my daughter…she will have to endure all of the uncertainties and anxiety of entering into her sexuality AANND wonder if her pubic hair is appropriately styled! What the fuck have men done to step it up for us lately? We as women should make up some random, bizarre and utterly useless expectations for them, like say, waxing their balls, and refuse to put out if they don’t meet this standard! Better yet, we should always tell them that a former boyfriend’s dick was way bigger than theirs, and just let this info drop innocently on their lap one day. Then we can watch with delight as their insecurities build and they begin to think about not measuring up.