• What did our listeners learn about body hair growing up?

• What are our listeners’ pubes like now?

• Are pubes unhygienic? Why is there so much stigma around pubes and body hair?

• Should you shave your pubes? Do guys care about pubic hair? Do girls care about their pubic hair? Who should you shave for?

• Tips on how to shave pubes

From before puberty, before we grow our first armpit hair, leg hair, pubic hair, women are raised to understand that this should all be removed. This week we sit down to question why, to point to the ways in which we’ve been taught to have shame about our bodies and its hair, and really examine the ways in which these messages of control have impacted us.

We begin by hearing some of the messages our listeners heard about pubes and body hair growing up, (essentially to ‘shave’, that the hair is ‘bad and should be removed’ and that men don’t find it sexy). Some listeners even shared the ways in which these messages impacted them: causing them to question whether their body hair and pubes are bad, or desperately google how to clean shave ‘down there’, and live with razor burns and irritation and thus even more insecurities.

We then get more into our own experiences and memories of getting body hair. Maria shares how shaving was engrained as an expectation, and how she was shamed by male figures specifically if there was any body hair showing. We discuss how its interesting that now we can look at shaving as an option when a lot of the time it doesn’t really feel like a choice.

We continue to question society’s messages about shaving and ask whether it’s okay for a partner to express a preference on their partner’s pubic hair grooming, and whether it’s okay to ask your girlfriend to shave her pubes. Ultimately we conclude that it’s not, but pubes politics are complicated, as Maria hypocritically confesses she shaves for her boyfriend even though she doesn’t like shaving. Patriarchy 1, Maria 0.

We update everyone on our pube status (share how we personally groom our pubes) and we encourage you to share your pube status with us!