Fri May 31

'Do I need to shave my pubic hair before having sex?'

Written by Helen Barcham, PhD candidate, Western Sydney University

I Need to Know is an ongoing series for teens in search of reliable, confidential advice about life’s tricky questions. If you’re a teen, send us your questions about sex, drugs, health and relationships and we’ll ask an expert to answer it for you.

Do you need to shave your vagina before having sex? Anonymous

Key points

An estimated 60% of young women remove their pubic hair
Pornography does not reflect women’s diversity
If you’re shaving your pubic hair, use a mirror and clean razor
Shaving before sex is your choice.

It can be challenging for girls and women to learn how to relate to their bodies because there are so few resources available to adequately guide us. It’s no wonder, then, that you ask this important question!

'Do I need to shave my pubic hair before having sex?'

Before we get any further, I want to clarify that pubic hair grows on and around your vulva, not the vagina. The vagina is internal. Here’s a helpful graphic of what is going on down there. While I can’t tell you what you should do with your pubic hair (in fact, no one should tell you what to do with your body), I can give you some information to help you make an informed decision. So, to shave or not to shave? Here are five things to consider. 1. More than half of young women remove their pubic hair One study of young Australian women found 60% of them removed some of their pubic hair, compared with 96% who regularly removed their leg and underarm hair. While removing pubic hair is becoming more common, it is still not as typical as removing leg and underarm hair. This might tell us something about the social pressures we face when it comes to our body hair: the more visible the hair, the more likely we are to remove it. Social norms about body hair can sometimes make choice feel impossible. But there is also a growing wave of young women taking to social media to talk back to these pressures. They celebrate our natural diversity and difference, and embrace their relationships with body hair. 2. It’s fashion Just as the hair on our head is subject to changing fashions and trends, so too is pubic hair! Over the past few decades, women’s pubic hair has undergone dramatic refashioning. Fashions range from the full bush in the 1970s to the “Brazilian” in the 1990s, to a more recent move towards complete hairlessness, aided by new technologies such as laser hair removal. Remember, behind our beauty work sits an entire industry that profits from our insecurities.

There’s a lot of money to be made (and time spent) removing hair. Nina Maile Gordon/The Conversation 3. Pubes and porn Popular culture is influential in how we think about the female body. With the growing availability of pornography, young people increasingly see it as a “normal” representation of how people have sex. Perhaps you’ve looked at porn before and thought, wow, is that what I should do and what I should look like while doing it? Remember, porn is a performance and is highly stylised. It does not reflect our “real”, non-Photoshop world. For example, one of the many reasons that porn tends to show women without pubic hair is that it allows the camera to capture graphic shots. Read more: 'Are Kegel exercises actually good for you?' 4. Sex, STIs and shaving Some studies suggest shaving pubic hair may increase the risk of getting a sexually transmitted infection. One reason is that shaving can cause micro-tears in the top layer of the skin, which can lead to bacterial buildup and transmission. More research is needed to substantiate these claims. If you do shave, use a mirror so you can see what you’re doing, and take extra care around the outer lips of your vulva where cuts are more common. Make sure your razor is clean and use warm water. Alternatively, you can trim the hair, or wax (while this prolongs hair regrowth it may present other health risks such as infection). Read more: 'Is it normal for girls to masturbate?' 5. Demanding bodily autonomy! We are raised to think of our vulvas as our “private parts”, belonging purely to ourselves. The world around us comes to influence what we do and feel about our bodies. What we do with our hair is no different. Hair has always been a site for political intervention: whether it’s the military exercising discipline by shaving men’s hair, or the “body police” mandating that body hair is less acceptable on women than it is on men. To dictate what someone does with their hair is to take away their bodily autonomy. One of the ways to assert control over our own bodies is to recognise that the ideas and practices available to us as girls and women are often so habitual that they’re rarely questioned. Considering how some young women are renegotiating femininity might be a good start. From there, you can negotiate which practices best suit your values and beliefs, which may change over time. And in direct response to your question, shaving before sex is your choice! If you’re a teenager and have a question you’d like answered by an expert, you can: email us at intk@theconversation.edu.au submit your question anonymously through Incogneato, or DM us on Instagram. Please tell us your name (you can use a fake name if you don’t want to be identified), age and which city you live in. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Authors: Helen Barcham, PhD candidate, Western Sydney University