Women With Pubic Hair Aren’t Unhygienic

I am tired of being told my body in its natural state is disgusting — it is totally normal to have hair down there

As young girls, we are taught that having hair is gross from family, boys etc. Who learn it from tv shows, porn and other people. Have you noticed that during shaving commercials, women are always shaving on bare skin? Or maybe you remember the dozens of celebrities who caused a “PR nightmare” for themselves by having a little hair.

I remember church services where women would sometimes pull up girls for not shaving their legs while wearing skirts. To them, it was a sign of uncleanliness.

So in my youth, I used to also religiously shave my legs until developing something called strawberry legs. Strawberry legs are little dark spots on your legs, which can resemble small black dots — the term coming from the resemblance to the skin of a strawberry. Many things can cause them from; shaving, clogged pores, folliculitis, keratosis pillars and dry skin. As a result, I barely showed my legs in public. However, that didn’t stop me shaving elsewhere — I even shaved my arms for special occasions.

Once I became sexually active, I began shaving my pubic hair. But because of my hair texture and sensitive skin, I suffered a lot from ingrown hairs.

So let’s say I’d shave on a Monday morning. By Tuesday I’d get some pretty heavy itching and come Wednesday I would erupt with bumps — imagine a bowl of lumpy oatmeal (sexy right?). The only way to settle the burning itch would be to lather, and I mean lather, the area with vaseline but even then that did very little to sedate the issue.

Come Wednesday night, I would have failed to stop itching and the razor bumps would now be bleeding sores. By the following Monday, I would have stopped itching due to new hair growth but I would still be pretty lumpy, sore and blistered.

I tried everything, different razors, putting conditioner first and even hair removal cream (do not use hair removal cream). I kept up this routine for a year before I decided to stop punishing myself, switch up torture methods, bite the bullet and look into waxing.

Now waxing produced some promising results. It was super painful but getting a hot wax made the pain tolerable. Though there were a lot fewer itches and bumps, come hair growth, it still wasn’t the wonder treatment I was looking for and it was kind of expensive.

When you have waxed for a while, the hair grows finer and slower, however, the in-between stage can be a little awkward. One of these stages landed when I was seeing a guy (Andrew*), it wasn’t a dire situation but I thought it my responsibility to apologise before we had sex and explain the situation.

After I apologised Andrew looked at me weirdly and said that he didn’t care. He mentioned that while he can’t speak for all men, he wasn’t going to opt-out of sex due to a little hair. Now, I am not one for praising men for doing the bare minimum, but in retrospect, I don’t think I appreciated Andrew’s comment at that time, instead, I took his comment as his personal opinion.

Though I knew he didn’t care, I would refuse oral sex due to cringing so badly one night I couldn’t enjoy it. Sometimes I would miss a month, have sex and panic thinking that I would be the butt of all the jokes with his friends. Though the relationship didn’t last, my attitude remained fixated on this idea that pubic hair was disgusting. An idea I carried for a couple of years.

I won’t lie and say one day I woke up screaming, “enough!” Choosing to embrace my inner hairy goddess. What actually happened was that I couldn’t afford a wax one month so I went without. I also became less sexually active so decided to quit with them being monthly. When I did have sex it was rarely with anyone I was committed to but rather friends with benefits.

These meetups were very sporadic in nature. I couldn’t simply just go get a wax, so I started to trim instead. I still refused oral but sex was fine. After a while, this became routine and the more I did it the less I cared about the fact there wasn’t a dolphin in between my legs. To my surprise, Andrew’s words rang true. The guy’s I was intimate with didn’t care — or at least that was the impression they gave. Once I became confident enough, I found that I didn’t care too much either.

I always joked with friends that if I met a guy who cared about what is going off in my underwear, then he was free to pay for my wax. But then I soon realised it was the perfect option for me; it wasn’t painful or expensive, I didn’t get razor burn — being trimmed became my new default.

I wish this story had a more “girl power, wham,” vibe but it doesn’t. It took a while and many small victories to get to where I am but I believe personal growth doesn’t always have to be so dramatic. It took a while but now I honestly don’t care what anyone’s opinion on my pubic hair is. If someone I want to be intimate with, can’t respect my choices, then we don’t have the same values so good riddance! I am tired of thinking my body in its natural state is disgusting or gross.

To the people reading this thinking, “everyone had a preference.” You’re right and mine is to no longer shave/wax.

So far it’s had 0 impact to the love life, that combined with saying goodbye to razor burn makes this a win-win for me!

I am a sex-blogger and editor of the publication — Tinder[ella] Chronicles!A home for all my sexy content! You can expect to find my sex tips, erotica, embarrassing stories and more!