It’s not too often that you’ll find a successful porn star with a bushel of hair in his or her pants. In fact, most nudie magazines and adult videos always show people as bald as the day they were born. So the question is, when did going “au natural” become uncool, and why are males and females shaving, waxing and even tweezing their way to complete hairlessness?

As early as the Stone Age, cave paintings have revealed that Neanderthal humans used crude tweezers made of seashells to remove hair from various parts of their body, including the crotch. Men and women of the upper class were taught that having hair anywhere was shameful and uncivilized.

Unshaven societies became known as barbarians — literally, “the unbarbered” — and many ancient Egyptians used homemade depilatories to rid themselves of hair completely.

In Ancient Rome, men of the upper class even had skilled live-in servants to shave them, making it even easier for them to achieve the hairless look that was so popular. And now, modern day men and women are constantly pictured with little to no pubic hair, further reinforcing the ancient stereotypes that pubic hair is “gross” and “unclean.”

Personally, I had always thought that going completely bald “down there” made you look like you were pre-pubescent, and it wasn’t until I began to discover oral sex that I began to realize why less hair could be seen as an advantage.

Like myself, most students I interviewed started out slow, first trimming down their natural “do,” then maybe shaving the bikini area for summertime, and eventually going completely bare. Most students said that once you go bare, you never go back, because it feels weird once it begins to grow back.

Others said that bald privates made them feel like “child molesters,” and preferred their partners to just maintain a nice trim. Feelings often varied between what students prefer for themselves vs. what they prefer in a partner.

A male student said “As far as shaving, I would like to groom but I am too lazy and don’t know how to get rid of the hair afterward. You don’t want it to clog the drain in the shower but you don’t want to have to scoop up all that messy wet hair from the tub and put it in the trash. It would be great if you could shave outside or have one of those clippers with a vacuum attachment.

As far as my women go, I am cool with anything, but I do like variety, so I would want my woman to change it twice a year maybe.”

Another male said he prefers “Mount Baldy” when it comes to a woman’s crotch, and for himself, it depends on his current partner. “I started out just shaving my nuts, then I tried the bikini line, but that looked dumb, so I just went ahead and shaved the whole thing, but my current girlfriend didn’t like that, so now I just trim.”

A female student explained, “I prefer to have partners trim, because I just don’t want any weird, funky, out-of-control growing. I shave because I personally like it better. It’s really high maintenance, but I think it feels better not having all that gross curly hair down there. It also makes me feel sexier when a guy goes down me.”

One girl even said that her boyfriend told her to stop shaving because “it made him feel like he was having sex with a twelve year old.”

The two most popular methods are shaving and trimming. Some personal tips for shaving are: buy a good razor, because it makes all the difference and use Tendskin (a product that prevents ingrown hairs and razor burn) as soon as you get done shaving. Baby powder also works as a way to sooth a bare crotch, but Tendskin is a real miracle worker.

If you’re a trimmer, try manicure scissors rather than regular scissors to avoid nipping your poor privates. And no matter what your preference, no crotch looks good with herpes, so use a condom.

What do you want to read about next week? Email me at [email protected] and let me know.