Going bushy out of principle

I’ve come a long way with my bundle of issues, but discussing pubic hair with my mother-in-law is most strictly out of bounds. Or it was, until now. I wasn’t aware of having invited the conversation either; an innocent comment on my loss of hair on my head following my pregnancy, had started a tirade of feminist indignation.

“Well.” said my mother-in-law, wrenching the hand brake viciously, “They should make swimsuits for real women, not porn stars.”

My mother in law is fabulous. A gynecologist by trade and president of the abused women’s shelter in her spare time. So respect for women is high on her agenda and she’s the best example of a feminist I know. But it’s not the first time I’ve heard this discussion. One of my BFFs is a proud hairy woman. And as much as I love her, I still find it incongruous that she wears her McQueen dress with hairy armpits. Nevertheless I agree with her on every insult you can throw at hair removal, it’s itchy, high maintenance, painful and can be bloody expensive. But the first time she mentioned “infantilization” (making women look like little girls) even I was taken aback. She said, “Men can’t cope with women and their reality. We bleed, we have hair. Deal with it.”

What was so bad about having a haircut? We did it for the hair on our heads so why not hair on our bodies? Was every man really secretly yearning for a little girl? What an allegation!

I have pursued the conventional path of trying out many different hairstyles, to the point of discussing pubic grooming etiquette before going to hospital to give birth to my daughter (I’ll tell you now, no-one gives a damn about stray pubic hair when there’s every other type of fluid and muck imaginable splashing around the bed). As our society continues to push us towards tighter buns, perfect labia, botoxed skin so every part of our body has come under ‘perfection’ scrutiny, including the bush.

There’s an argument around that this development has been pushed from men idolizing porn stars (which in turn stems from our repressive society). But it takes two to tango. Do we really think that in order to attract a man we have to shave our pubes?

Pubic hair removal would appear to be part of the same corporal maintenance regime we use to aspire to an ideal dictated by a society that can’t cope with the reality of our biology. And that’s not porn, that’s simply human nature. We’re afraid of being rejected by those we want to attract. We’re afraid of being alone. We’re afraid of death.

Same old, same old.

It’s our responsibility to consciously choose what trends and fashions we follow, to make active choices about our world. I’m a fan of being deliberate. And yet whilst it may be important to take a stand on the principle of infantilizing women, how big a deal is is that women have to grow their pubic hair to actively take a stand?

For me, it seemed ridiculous. Ridiculous that was, until I had children. And then I realized.

When my daughter grows up she’ll have nothing but non-hairy women to look at. Whilst we are blessed here in Sweden with a culture where anarchy is hardly anarchistic due to liberal parenting, she still has no frame of reference for pubic hair. And almost more importantly, neither does my son who will expect women to be non-hairy if I don’t show them otherwise. I want my children to know what a regular woman looks like before they are influenced by the media. I want them to know that it is a personal choice. And that uncut pubic hair can be one of them. In practice as well as in theory. And if not from me? From whom?

In a few years we’ll be covering up through the natural progression of prudery, and the societal construct of shame. So it’s now or never. I’m going hairy out of principle. So my daughter won’t have to be ashamed of her adult body. So my son won’t shame women into changing theirs. And I’m also going out to spend an extortionate amount on new non-string like lingerie.