Wigs for Your Nether Region?

#TransparentTuesday

Hi friend,

Today I’m going to talk about pubic hair. (Yes, you read that correctly!)

I’m telling you this upfront as a bit of a warning, both because it may be a NSFW situation, and also because I know not everyone is as comfortable talking about taboo topics as I am. 

As always, I will be sharing personal stories and reflecting with curiosity on cultural changes around pubic hair, with absolutely zero shame or judgment! So if this topic makes you uncomfortable (or you just don’t want to hear any personal details about my own vajayjay) please go ahead and skip this one. 

Now that that’s all settled, let’s dive in, shall we??

Last week I saw an ad for a new product from Kim Kardashian’s popular clothing brand Skims, which both intrigued and entertained me. 

What was the product, you ask?

Why, it’s a micro-string thong with a full bush of fake pubic hair! 

Yes folks, one of the most popular underwear brands out there is now selling merkins, in thong form! 

In case you haven’t heard the term “merkin” before, it’s a fabulous word for a pubic hair wig that has existed since the 15th century. They were fairly popular in the 1800s, because back then the only reason a person would have shaved their privates was to get rid of pubic lice and crabs, so people wore little wigs down there to avoid the stigma associated with naked nethers.

I find this to be an interesting bit of history for an item that is currently trending so hard it sold out almost immediately, no?

Honestly though, I find the whole thing fascinating!

For one thing, this particular brand was created by one of the women who have done the absolute most in American culture to create and then capitalize on unrealistic beauty and body ideals for women, including the idea that our cha-chas should be as smooth and hairless as a Sphynx (but with way less wrinkles, of course!). 

Kim and her whole family have become famous for using plastic surgery to nip, tuck, exaggerate, reduce, or enhance every imaginable part of their faces and bodies in order to achieve and maintain their status as the “absolute pinnacle of conventional beauty and body ideals,” and for contributing to the ever-increasing levels of unrealistic “goals” for millions of young women in the process.

And while I think it’s debatable how much transparency celebrities “owe” the public when it comes to this kind of stuff, there is no denying that the Kardashians have historically not been transparent or honest about what they get done. That way, they can then turn around to make money off of the insecurities they helped create, and sell young women an endless array of “solutions,” in the form of shapewear, makeup, skincare, supplements, and more. 

This context is important to keep in mind when we consider the new Skims merkin, because while they have every right to treat their own bodies as “trends,” the Kardashians are at their core business women who benefit from convincing other women to think of their bodies as trends, too. 

When it comes to considering a wig for your hoo-ha, that’s what we’re talking about: companies exploiting our insecurities, and our view of bodies as trends, in order to sell us stuff. 

Now, in order to understand the fact that pubic hair is becoming trendy again, we have to first acknowledge that for several decades now, it’s been taboo.

Despite the fact that pubic hair is normal, natural, and has been around as long as we have, shaving it off started becoming the norm—for women, specifically—sometime in the early 2000s, with the popularity of dangerously low-rise pants and jeans. 

Body hair had already been taboo for a while, with the expectation that women shave our armpits and legs starting back in the era of flappers, to the massive benefit of hair-removal companies. That expectation became more rigidly policed in the mainstream throughout the 80s and 90s, with the invention of the internet and increased objectification of women through celebrity culture, women’s magazines, and porn. 

Personally I’m 38, so by the time I was personally in a position to even consider how I felt about my own pubic hair, the message had already come in loud and clear: vaginas in their natural state are gross and shameful. 

I remember hearing boys and men talk openly about how disgusting it was for a woman to have pubic hair, and going on and on about how crazy-sexy-hot it was when she was totally bare. And I wasn’t alone! This was how a whole generation of people with vulvas learned that the only acceptable hairstyle for their noo-noo was bald, and it became ubiquitous. Sure, we saw a landing strip or a triangle here or there, but the standard—the ideal—was a totally bare muff. 

But trends are changing again, as they always do, and apparently bushes are back. 

The phrase “full bush in bikini bottoms” became a huge trend on TikTok last year, and lots of Gen Z folks (as well as other generations) are asserting their right to have hair down there again. 

And to be clear, I support this trend very much. I love when people reclaim their body’s natural state as acceptable or even ideal, and I love that we’re finally moving away from the shame and stigma around pubic hair.

But this is where it gets interesting, because a lot of people are looking at the Skims merkin and feeling utterly bewildered. There are a wide variety of pubic hairstyles available, from curly to straight, from blonde and brunette to ginger. 

But what is the point, you may ask? Why would anyone ever spend $32 to buy a fake bush when you can just grow a real one for free??

And, well. Here’s the thing: some of us can’t.

Some of us grew up in an era that was so strictly bush-phobic that we simply could not imagine a world in which a person would ever want to rock their pubic hair, so… we lasered it all off. 

I know, y’all. I know. This is embarrassing, but it’s just the truth: I was one of those people. 

Basically the moment I became sexually active as a teenager I started shaving down there. Sometimes I’d do a shape, but mostly I went with the “none whatsoever” approach that I had internalized as the “ideal” in the eyes of men. 

It was annoying to upkeep, and sometimes it got itchy or painful, but the men who saw me naked were always very complimentary about this choice, and it allowed me to feel “confident.” (As long as we’re using the definition of “confident” here that people often use, to mean: “it offered me relief from shame and anxiety.”)

Yes, I liked being bare because men thought it was hot, and because it offered me a lot of validation as a person mired in self-objectification and internalized patriarchy. It also allowed me to side-step the sticky issue of sexual and body shame when it came to having pubic hair.

By my mid 20s I had been painstakingly disappearing my pubic hair for so long that it wasn’t even a consideration. I wouldn’t get naked with someone unless I had shaved, and I was utterly convinced that I would never, ever, ever want anything but the barest of bare muffs. 

So when I came into the financial position to afford laser hair removal instead of shaving or waxing, I went for it. I got every single strand of my own pubic hair lasered off, so while I can still  grow a few wispy hairs here and there, I am now permanently incapable of growing a bush. 

For the record, it’s been a long time since I engaged in this particular body modification, and my own relationship to sex, beauty, gender, and my body have all changed a lot in that time, to say nothing of the trends. So I’ve made my peace with it, but sometimes—like when I see a Gen Z-er rocking bikini bottoms with visible curly hairs poking out the top and edges— I’m a bit jealous, and wish I could rock a natural hairstyle down there! 

For the sake of feminism, and rejecting unrealistic beauty ideals. For the sake of reclaiming our right to have body hair, and decentering the male gaze. For the sake of looking more queer, and embodying the “representation” that people need to feel free and accepting of themselves. (Plus I just think a bush looks cool as hell.)

So do I think the new Skims merkin is absurd in its exploitative approach to women’s bodies? 

Yes. 

Do I think selling a generation of women beaver wigs after convincing them to laser off all the hair they were born with is some peak dystopian patriarchy and capitalism shit, a la Dr Suess’s story The Sneeches? (“The Snatches,” perhaps?)

Absolutely. 

But do I also kinda get why someone might want to buy one? 

Honestly, yeah. 

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading! It may have sounded like a silly topic at first, but I hope you’ll agree that there is actually a lot of deep and interesting stuff surrounding it. It’s incredibly telling that we live in a world where so many of us were shamed by society into getting rid of something we were born with, only to have them try to sell it back to us decades later for $32. 

And this is only one of many changes to our bodies that we’re encouraged to think we “need” in order to be acceptable. 

There’s been a lot of coverage in mainstream media lately of celebrities (and civilians) getting their breast and butt implants taken out for similar reasons, as well as dissolving the filler they’ve put in their faces. 

I wonder where we’ll be a few decades from now, when people are trying to backtrack on other forms of body modification, like buccal fat removal, blepharoplasty, and weight loss from GLP-1s. Some things can be reversed, but others can’t… and trends are always changing. 

I’m dying to know what you think about this topic, so feel free to hit reply and share. 🙂

Big hug,

Jessi