THE BUSH
Nude (Nu) by Amedeo Modigliani. 1917. Oil on Canvas. Picture of painting taken at the Guggenheim.
The bush. This can mean anything, but in this day and age, it immediately conjures an image of a patch of pubic hair: neatly trimmed or a little unkempt, depending on one’s personal experience with it.
Everyone has their own preference when it comes to the bush. Some like it, some don’t mind, some hate it, while others just don’t care. Again, personal preference is a big factor when it comes to the bush.
So, what do most women prefer?
Well, the Journal of the American Medical Association Dermatology conducted a study, in which over 3,300 women, living in the United States were surveyed about their grooming habits. The women were 18 to 65 years old, and over 84% reported that they groomed their hair down there.
The study showed that age, education, and race were common factors in grooming, with younger women, ages 18 to 34, more likely to groom than older women. Those “with some college or a bachelor’s degree” and “white women” were more likely to groom, while “No association was found between grooming and income, relationship status, or geographic location.”
Pubic hair grooming is not new. Neither is the most prevalent reason for grooming: the need to please the opposite sex.
According to The Naked Woman: A Study of the Female Body, in the 10th Century BC, King Solomon reputedly told the Queen of Sheba to remove her pubic hair, or “nature’s veil” so as to open herself to him. The book also revealed that in ancient Greece and Rome, men preferred their women with no hair in their nether regions. Techniques such as hair-by-hair plucking were employed to get rid of unwanted hair. The Greeks also singed the hair with a lamp or ashes, while the Romans used creams and a form of waxing.
The practice of pubic hair removal was also popular amongst the Arabs, which impressed the Crusaders so much that they took it back to Europe, where it was adopted by Aristocrats in the middle ages.
Today, in addition to wanting to please the opposite sex, other factors like cultural trend and the portrayal of pubic hair removal in the media are driving forces in women wanting to get rid of their hair down there.
So, it begs the question. What's your preference? And why?