Why Women Started Shaving "Down Under"

Women today shave a lot of parts of their body religiously for some pretty obvious reasons. If you plan on wearing shorts or a skirt, of course you're going to shave your legs. If you have dark arm hair, you may shave that hair. Some women even shave their upper lip (which isn't a good idea; you should always go with waxing when it comes to that area). And of course we shave our bikini lines when we go to the beach. But there wasn't always such a need for shaving anywhere near our pubic area.

Before the 1980's, women didn't really shave around their vagina area at all. The way swimsuits were made covered the bikini line area pretty well (they were a little like the boy shorts women wear today), so there wasn't a need for it. But when the '80's style bikinis that had a thinner strip of material that went between the legs became popular, women started to worry about their pubic hair poking out of the sides of these skimpier suits, so they started to shave their "bikini lines", as we call that area today.

This is still a long way from what women do now, however. Girls today act like not shaving their pubic hair is a sin. To have hair down there is viewed as dirty and vulgar, and letting it grow out is just letting yourself go and showing that you don't care how you look. However, these girls would be very surprised if they knew exactly what started the whole craze of shaving pubic hair.

Long ago, prostitutes shaved their pubic hair, possibly as a way to avoid getting "crabs", so other women would never even consider doing such a thing, but the invention of the VHS is what ultimately would start the trend as it exists today.

In the '80's, sado-masochism, or S&M, became very popular. S&M porno VHS tapes were readily available, and since men could watch them in the comfort of their own homes, sales took off. In these videos, women were often portrayed as being very weak. One of the ways they tried to make themselves look weaker and more vulnerable was by shaving their pubic hair. This made them completely naked, child-like, and extremely vulnerable. The look became popular with fans of the tapes, and men probably started convincing their girlfriends to imitate the look. Girls who were fans of the videos also followed suit. This was not a widespread phenomenon like it is today, though. It was more of a small cult movement. That is until "Playboy" decided to imitate the look for one of its magazines.

While women today see the era of the '90's as when the look became popular, the first "Playboy" photo shoot that featured a shaved vagina didn't take place but about seven years ago. Eventually, "Playboy" started using the look on all of its photo spreads. This is when the trend really took off. Strippers and women in the adult entertainment industry probably were some of the first to follow the trend, since they needed to be aware of what men were into sexually at the time. Guys also probably started to convince their girlfriends to imitate the look, and it just continued to spread until it became the norm with women in the U.S.

Women today shave because they think it's sexy and it's the look that's "in" right now. Little do they realize that they're imitating a look that became popular because it made women look weak and submissive.