1972: Dr. Benjamin Nair invents a depilatory cream, now known as “Nair,”
that is marketed for hair removal.
1979: Artist Judy Chicago first exhibits her installation The Dinner Party, featuring thirty-nine place settings and china plates (many of the latter featuring vulvas) for historical and mythical women. Being somewhat abstract, it’s unclear whether most of the vulvas have pubic hair.5
1982: Full, natural pubic hair is on display in the naked college-coed shower scene made famous in Porky’s.
1985: Designer Rudi Gernreich—already known for inventing the monokini—unveiled the pubikini, a bathing suit for women that featured a small V-shaped strip to show off women’s pubic hair.
1989: The Cunt Coloring Book is published, giving artistic license for women (and men) to create their Dream Vulvas—hairstyles included.
1992: In her role in Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone reveals her vulva in a famous (but brief) leg-crossing scene, leading to a great deal of curiosity about her hairstyle. Reports circulated suggesting that she did not realize her vulva would be shown in the movie, making this an early instance of non-consensual female upskirt shots in Hollywood.
1996: The Vagina Monologues, written by and starring Eve Ensler, debuts at HERE Arts Center in New York. One monologue is titled “Hair.”6 1998: Betty Dodson releases Viva La Vulva, a video that highlights
interviews with women about their genitals and, as part of the genital portraits, features pubic hair grooming and styling.7
The Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler launches V-Day, a campaign to end violence against women and girls that involves women on college campuses and cities around the world mounting performances of The Vagina Monologues as fundraising events. Consequently, thousands of women begin talking more openly about vaginas and selling products, such as T-shirts with the word “vagina” on them and chocolate-vulva lolli-pops. There is some controversy over how many of the “vaginas”
mentioned in the play are actually vulvas, and there is much continued dialogue about hair.
2000: The Brazilian wax—already somewhat trendy thanks to quotes surfacing from actress Gwyneth Paltrow about how waxing changed her life—is featured on Sex and the City.
2003: Photographer Mario Testino shoots model Carmen Kass, mostly naked and with her underwear pulled down to reveal her pubic hair shaved into the letter G (for Gucci). Some called for the ad image—
dubbed “Pubic Enemy”—to be banned.
2004: The V Book: A Doctor’s Guide to Complete Vulvovaginal Health8 is published along with information about pubic hair removal methods.
2006: Brandon Davis uses the word “firecrotch” to describe Lindsay Lohan in an online video. The video gets picked up and the term is, sadly, used persistently by gossip blogger Perez Hilton in posts about Lohan.
2005: In a New York Times article titled “The Revised Birthday Suit,”
writer Natasha Singer speaks to women opting for a more permanent
“baldness” down there, via laser hair-reduction treatments. There are
also mentions of men going bare, women dyeing their pubic hair pink, and a woman with a lightning bolt pattern to her pubes.
2006: In separate incidents, the bare vulvas of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears are photographed and appear on Hollywood gossip blogs.
Just speaking the words vagina, pussy, genitals, clitoris without hesitation is a huge leap! I think we as women give permission to other women to feel comfortable, maybe that seems obvious but I rarely spoke the words even to my girls. I care if a man might feel turned off and not want to have oral sex because he thinks I’m not like some picture at times, but deep down I think most men are not that picky. I think fear can crush some sweet girls out there. I guess that we as women need to shift from thinking about our bodies only for sex and remember health and happiness comes first . . . sex follows.
—ELLEN, 53, New Jersey In The Break Up, Brooke (played by Jennifer Aniston) gets a Brazilian wax and then—to induce jealousy or to get revenge— walks around naked in the apartment she’s sharing with the boyfriend she’s recently split from, played by Vince Vaughn.
Two physicians in the UK, Dr. Armstrong and Dr. Wilson, publish a letter in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections titled “Did the Brazilian Kill the Pubic Louse?” The doctors note that although rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea increased in their practice from 1997 to 2003, the rates of pubic lice (crabs) decreased, particularly around 2000 (for women) and 2003 (for men), coinciding with the popularity of Brazilian waxing.9
2007: Body Drama by Nancy Redd is published as a book for younger women. It is body-affirming, featuring many images of diverse bodies—
including vulvas. In fact, there are twenty-four images of vulvas laid side by side with varied pubic hairstyles including fancy fluffs, groomed lady gardens, and beautiful bare-naked lady parts. (Well, we came up with these terms; but you get the picture—the women in her photos do all sorts of fun things with their hair.)
Hank Moody sings the praises of women’s natural pubic hair (and natural labia) on the popular show, Californication.
Debby takes her Wondrous Vulva Puppet on The Tyra Banks Show to teach women about their genital parts in an episode called “What’s Up Down
There?” The clip goes viral to millions of viewers on YouTube, in part because of it being posted on PerezHilton.com and aired on Talk Soup and Best Week Ever. And yes, pubic hairstyles get a nod.
The movie Knocked Up features a famous birth scene in which the main character, played by Katherine Heigl, gives birth and her vulva is completely bare. The blogosphere chatters away about the bald “stunt vulva.”
Reality show actor Spencer Pratt allegedly writes a negative post about actress Lauren Conrad (LC), describing her as having “beef curtains.”
Perez Hilton runs with this term and frequently calls LC by that name afterward.
Finnish performance artist Mimosa Pale launches her “Mobile Female Monument,” which she describes as “an interactive performance sculpture on wheels.” It’s also known as a large vulva sculpture operating as a bicycle taxi. Her “bicycle bits,” as we like to think of them, were on exhibit at the Tennis-palatsi Art Museum in Helsinki, where they were taken for a walk around town every other day.
Individuals could enter the sculpture, and there was reportedly enough room for an adult to lie down in it. (See MimosaPale.com for photos.)10 2008: Rachel Liebert founds the International Vulva Knitting Circle
(IVKC), a “grass-roots activist collective in support of the New View Campaign’s WTF-ing against the emerging industry of female genital cosmetic surgeries.” In its first year, the IVKC had almost 150 diverse knit vulvas from five countries.
Comedian and author Amy Sedaris appears on Chelsea Handler’s show, Chelsea Lately, and teaches Chelsea about “vaginal cleansing” using a model that she says was made by Todd Oldham. Though there are some wavy lines on the outside of what she calls the “outer folds” (the outer labia, we presume), it’s unclear if these are meant to be pubic hairs or not.
2009: Actress Kate Winslet tells Allure about wearing a merkin for her role in The Reader. “I had to grow the hair down there,” she said. “But because of years of waxing . . . it doesn’t come back quite the way it used to. They even made me a merkin—a wig—because they were so concerned that I might not be able to grow enough.”
The New View Campaign holds an event titled “Vulvagraphics: An Intervention in Honor of Female Genital Diversity” at The Change You
Want to See Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. The event features vulva- related art including knit vulvas from the IVKC.
The UK newspaper The Guardian publishes an article featuring the work of “The Muffia”—two female performance artists, Sinead King and Katie O’Brien, who lift their dresses and expose merkin-covered underwear while communicating messages to passersby. These messages raise questions about women’s issues, such as female genital cosmetic surgery, eating disorders, and more.
2010: The Hairy Underwear Collection is founded on January 4, 2010, by Finnish duo the Nutty Tarts (tarahtaneet.net) and features underwear that are given the appearance of having pubic hair on the crotch.
On Lopez Tonight, actress Jennifer Love Hewitt talks about getting vajazzled. “After a breakup, a friend of mine Swarovski crystalled my, um, precious lady,” Hewitt told Lopez. “It shined like a disco ball.”