Shaved pussies

[R.P.McMurphy]

@kaylasdad99

Well, in the 50s, the Wonder Bread commercials were claiming that Wonder Bread helped build strong bodies twelve ways. It wasn’t until some time in the 70s that someone asked them to specify what those twelve ways were, and they had to stop.

So it’s not too implausible to suggest that a painted depiction of a product was perfectly kosher in the 50s.

Worse than that, the “strong bodies twelve ways” was actually a softening of their previous claim that it would make you grow taller in 7 days.

[Magiver]

@TriPolar

Apparently women used to shave their pubic area to thwart lice. They would then wear a pubic wig called a merkin to cover the bald spot.

Nice bit of trivia about a Peter Seller movie there.

[Duke_of_Rat]

@Lozman

My persian girlfriend says it is the custom for Persians to be hairless down there

So no Persian rugs?

[Rune]

@TriPolar

Apparently women used to shave their pubic area to thwart lice. They would then wear a pubic wig called a merkin to cover the bald spot. According to the wiki that would also hide signs of veneral disease. So maybe a bald pubic region was considered odd once upon a time.

Some of the female actresses of Lars von Trier’s upcoming movie Nymphomaniac had to have special designed wigs for their pubic area, because von Trier thought it was too odd without hair and it was not sufficient to order them to simply let it grow out since many had had laser treatment. So they had to hire an expensive wig maker (Dennis Knudsen) for it to look realistic.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

Weren’t Roman statues frequently painted, if not actually dressed? My understanding is that the “pure white simplicity” is simply because the paint and other ornamentation is long gone.

While pubic shaving is not new (by several thousand years), I think it’s gone from rare (in the 1960s/70s) to uncommon (80s) to universal. My perception is that most of the under-30 crowd regards any curl of hair below the neck on a woman as somewhere between strange and repulsive. (And it’s starting to cross over to male bodies, as well.)

[rhubarbarin]

Thankfully, your impression seems to be incorrect. At least in my area, Philadelphia. At 27, I’m one of the only women I’ve talked to about it (and I’ve talked about it with many from ages 20-35) who shaves everything (and I only do it every 1 or 2 weeks). Plenty are au natural. Most believe in being ‘groomed’ or trimmed to some degree but think shaving or waxing it all looks weird. And most men around my age seem to agree.

There’s more pressure on men now to ‘groom’ or trim, (which I support wholeheartedly) but almost none of them are taking it all off, that I’ve heard.

[dracoi]

@Rune

Some of the female actresses of Lars von Trier’s upcoming movie Nymphomaniac had to have special designed wigs for their pubic area, because von Trier thought it was too odd without hair and it was not sufficient to order them to simply let it grow out since many had had laser treatment. So they had to hire an expensive wig maker (Dennis Knudsen) for it to look realistic.

There might have been creative or aesthetic reasons for that particular case, but one reason for using merkins in the film biz is to cover up the genitals to ensure that you don’t have to re-shoot anything because the camera saw a little too much.