Ava Answers is new a column exploring the science of sex by Ava Mainieri, a PhD student studying women’s health at Harvard University.Â
For those of us with vaginas, ripping, tearing and shaving our hair with pink Daisy razors has had a long history— the ancient Greeks found body hair so distasteful that artists molded their figures of women sans pubes. Trendsetter Queen Elizabeth I removed all the hair from her eyebrows to make her forehead appear larger, while Michelangelo and Manet both painted hairless vulvas. There was even a study in the 1890s that linked excessive body hair to female insanity. But according to evolutionary biologists, that curly mound that thrives beneath your underwear is probably there because it was once considered irresistibly sexy.
The main purpose of body hair on animals is to retain body heat. But around 3.3 million years ago, humans started running long distances across the savanna plains. Without central air conditioning or handy bottles of water, hair on our bodies just made us overheat. Therefore we biologically morphed from being covered in a head-to-toe carpet to a mosaic of hairy and less hairy parts.
You can’t exactly use your pubic hair to floss your teeth, but it is noticeably thicker than the hair on your legs. Estrogen, the main female sex hormone, morphs the hair follicles in that region into a large oval shape that causes the hair to grow thick and curly. This creates a nice barrier protecting your vagina from bacteria and dust floating around in the air. It also regulates moisture around your vulva which decreases the chances of yeast infection. But more importantly, biologist Robin Weiss believes that the thicker and coarser it grew millions of years ago, the more attractive you appeared because of all the foreign particles inadvertently trapped in your bush. Pubic hair acted as an attractant to grooming, a routine illustrating affection that usually leads to sex in primates.
Our great ape relatives created social bonds through long grooming sessions, picking bugs and dirt out of each other’s fur. Humans, too, habitually groom themselves and each other. Removing parasites is undeniably hygienic, but the associated rubbing in the genital area would have been pleasurable for both parties (personally, I can’t think of better foreplay). Grooming also releases endorphins, those awesome hormones that make us happy and lower our heart rates. It is not a stretch to assume that some fondling would have led to sex— obviously advantageous for the continuation of our species.
As such, pubic hair would have functioned as a sort of blinking sign indicating sexual maturity on our naked and frolicking cavewomen ancestors. Weiss postulates that when humans started walking around on two legs, the vulva became hidden from obvious view and pubic hair remained as the main indicator of completed puberty. The basics of pubic hair in both men and women suggest that it evolved as a sexy characteristic: it grows under the influence of reproductive hormones, becomes noticeable when you’re biologically able to have a baby, and acts as a visual ‘come-hither’ sign.
From the position of smell, our pubic area is full of apocrine glands, the organs that release the stank that makes us smelly seductive beasts. When your pubic hair lifts the sweat from your skin in order to keep your genital area dry and refreshed, it gathers bacteria. That musky smell comes from normal bacteria living on your skin mixing with the sweat. As long as you are someone who showers a few times a week, there is nothing dirty about body hair. Some scientists like Randy Thornhill even speculate that pheromones— the odorless molecules you release when you’re horny— get trapped in the short and curlies. Pheromones may act as a subconscious signal to potential mates that you’re ready to get it on.
Not only does having pubic hair increase your raw biological appeal, prevent germs from entering your vagina, and act as a cushion protecting thin genital skin during sex or exercise, but it could also save you a lot of money. A 2008 study concluded that an American woman who shaves will spend more than $10,000 over the course of her life removing unwanted body hair. Maybe we could take that beach vacation instead of fashioning our pubes to look like Barbie’s bits?
Before you schedule your next Brazilian bikini wax, remember that evolution wants you to be whoever you are, whether you shave, pluck, or let your carpet grow.