Just like hair that you shave, it comes back. And so do I, with a second episode of Hair and Loathing.
Yes, it's still about body hair, but more specifically about how it gets in your head, rather than on it when it comes to sex and body image.
Listen free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts or any good podcast app.
Charlotte Cook poses with her bush Photo: RNZ
This episode features women of all ages and their thoughts on trends, how body hair has impacted intimacy and why everyone is hell bent on the idea that hairlessness improves hygiene. That's if history has anything to say about it.
(News flash – while having no hair in your private bits might feel breezy and cleaner, it doesn’t actually change the situation down there)
Hirsute and Horny is the most personal part of the series. Instead of masking my emotions with some terrible humour, I actually had to talk about how I felt.
A 7-year-old me would have loved if someone could have torn down the walls of the patriarchy, so that I could embrace my wee hairy toes.
Scientists say there was once a thick layer of hair across all bodies. But natural selection got rid of the furriest ones because they were more likely to catch lice and other parasite nasties.
The Encyclopedia of Hair said people began to perceive nearly-hairless bodies as more sexually attractive, and as a good potential mate because they had healthy-parasite free-skin... go figure.
Today, there are fewer parasites to catch, but it seems the obsession with 'hairlessness = sexy,' remains.
However, this came as a surprise to the couple of 80-odd year-old women I spoke to who were shocked to learn about the rather violent waxing procedure women go through to keep themselves 'fur free' downstairs.
One even said perhaps they do it “so men didn’t get hair caught between their teeth”.
And while I don’t have any examples of an involuntary floss, I do have plenty of memories that involve crippling anxiety and self-doubt that race through my inner monologue when my clothes finally come off.
I also bravely asked my mum about her own sex life, and whether she considered the way she felt about her body would impact on my own self esteem.
“No, I don’t think I thought about it, which is kind of a shame really. I didn’t consider what I would say to you would have an impact on how you felt about yourself. "
“I obviously had such strong thoughts about myself, and how it didn’t feel right...I probably felt sorry for you.”
Mum feels that way because for at least a century, she’s been told by advertising, media and people in her life, that body hair on women is not okay.
It doesn’t just have an impact on the ladies, apparently when famous Victorian Art Critic John Ruskin got married, he was so surprised and disgusted by his new bride’s pubic hair he couldn’t do the deed.
The frustrated woman eventually got some action, as have I. But to hear more of my story, and everyone else’s make sure you listen to Hirsute and Horny!
