Is An Untrimmed Bikini Line The Last Body Hair Taboo?

Summer is around the corner and I’m already making preparations. No, I'm not planning fun parties, beach vacations or even the vibe of my summer wardrobe.

What I’m preoccupied with is trying to work out how long before I’ll be on a beach, and therefore when I need to have my bikini wax done. And then I’m backdating that to work out when I need to start growing out my pubic hair to be long enough to wax.

I normally shave, but you can’t really shave when it comes to bikinis because you’ll get ingrown hairs, a shaving rash that everyone will see or, worse — if you’re dark-haired like me, there’ll be a goddamn five o’clock shadow by the end of the day.

I’ve considered laser hair removal, but the appointments are too expensive for me to afford. So instead, I go through this every year where I try to plan my bikini wax for the time when I can get maximum use out of the hair-free visual before it starts growing back. And then I have to hide my bottom half away, regardless of how hot it is, until such a time that the hair is long enough to be ripped out again.

If you’re thinking, my god that’s a lot of overthinking over something so tiny, then, yes, you’re right. It is. But I know that I’m not the only one who cycles through this every summer. It feels, in a lot of ways, that the world is slowly becoming okay with body hair under women’s armpits and on their legs — but the pubic region is the final frontier we just can’t seem to cross.

This thought came to me as I was shopping online one day, and marvelling at how some of the femme-presenting models were showing off their underarm hair. How far we’ve come, I thought. And, listen, it is impressive that body hair on women — once emphatically a no-no — is becoming more widely embraced and accepted.

But then I wondered, how often do we see a bikini advertised with an unshaved, unwaxed, un-lasered pubic region?

There are a few examples, but they're few and far between. Australian underwear brand HARA the Label does a wonderful job of showing errant hairs, but for the majority of online stores, any swimwear or underwear always displays a neat and tidy bikini line. It’s almost as if pubic hair is the final taboo that we have trouble destigmatising.

It’s not for lack of trying — body-positive influencer Sara Puhto (@saggysara) frequently posts shots of her razor bumps and the smattering of hair around her bikini line on her Instagram, even collaborating in a post with Bella Davis (@isabelladavis6) to emphasis the normality of pubic hair.

“You don’t owe anyone a smooth, bump-free, hairless body!” she wrote in her caption.

It was an admirable and much-needed post. But the comment section was, as they say, not it. Commenters called it “unhygienic” or a sign that someone isn’t “taking care of themselves”, while others said that they couldn’t possibly envision a world where they could accept the hair around their pubic region as being okay to leave unshaven. Given that the post is only a few months old, it’s fair to say that it’s an accurate gauge of how this still continues to be a struggle to change people’s perceptions about. It’s interesting to unpack the objections that we hold.

The predominant prevailing idea is that pubic hair and an unshaven bikini line are “unhygienic” — which is a wild take, to put it mildly, and one that was also commonly thrown at people who don’t shave their underarm hair. Somehow, as a society, we have equated body hair with being “unclean” — but of course, only for women. Women with underarm hair and pubic hair are unhygienic, but men, who openly display their underarm hair and who, beneath those boxers and board shorts, probably don’t shave either, are totally fine.

Never mind also that the science refutes this — there are currently no scientific studies that suggest any health benefits associated with removing pubic hair (other than the fringe example of needing to remove pubic lice). Yes, pubic hair does trap dirt and sweat, but so does the hair on your head — and that’s why we have showers and wash ourselves.

That pubic hair grows on the pubic region also seems to create a societal perception that the hair is “private” or “indecent” in some way. Basically, this implies that because the hair that decorates your inner thighs is a part of the hair that covers your vulva, it is somehow sexual.

And of course, there’s this niggling sense that cleaning up our bikini area is somehow indicative of who we are as a person — i.e. that we’re put-together and take care of ourselves. Except much of what is outwardly perceived as women “taking care of themselves” is simply them aligning with societal beauty standards which are — surprise surprise — largely predicated on appeasing the male gaze. It doesn’t shock me that in a survey conducted across 100 women, those who identified as a part of the LGBTQIA+ community were more relaxed about their pubic hair. After all, I’m sure many of us have a horror story of being shamed by a man for our pubic hair. 

Now, I type all this believing each word that I write. I understand the double standards and the unrealistic societal pressures. I’m fully aware that body hair is normal. And yet, I also know that I will still book my bikini wax before my next beach trip.

What we do with our bikini line is our choice to make, and that includes waxing or shaving it. I realise that for some it’s a real preference; something they actively want to do for themselves. But I'm beginning to question my own motives. Can I truly claim that this is a decision I make based on my own preferences, when growing up there was never really any other choice? Am I performing these rituals simply because I can’t conceive of a world where having a hairy bikini line wouldn’t draw scorn and disgust at the beach?

Perhaps, like with underarm hair and leg hair, the more that people choose to simply exist with untrimmed pubic hair and the more we see it, the more widely it will be accepted. Even if I never reach the point of being comfortable going au naturel, it brings me hope that the generations younger than us might see that they have other options that don’t necessarily involve hot wax, a razor or continuous laser sessions, and look forward to summer without spending far too much time and energy planning how to prepare their bodies for it.