History
In Middle Eastern societies, removal of the female body hair has been considered proper hygiene, necessitated by local customs, for many centuries. In Islam, this is known as an act of Fitrah. Evidence of pubic hair removal in ancient India dates back to 4000 to 3000 BC. According to ethnologist F. Fawcett, writing in 1901, he had observed the removal of body hair, including pubic hair about the vulva, as a custom of women from the Hindu Nair caste.
In Western societies, removal of the female body hair has traditionally been considered appropriate when it has been visible. Visible pubic hair continues to be widely disapproved of culturally and considered to be embarrassing, and so is at times removed. With the reduction in the size of swimsuits, especially since the coming into fashion and popularity of the bikini after 1945, the practice of bikini waxing has also come into vogue.
Changes in lingerie styles have also encouraged the removal of pubic hair throughout the years. The nude crotch - i.e., the total removal of pubic hair, such as in a full Brazilian or the Sphinx wax - is considered by many to be erotic and glamourous.
Read more about this topic: Bikini Waxing
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“Boys forget what their country means by just reading “the land of the free” in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
“All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)