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
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“I believe my ardour for invention springs from his loins. I can’t say that the brassiere will ever take as great a place in history as the steamboat, but I did invent it.”
—Caresse Crosby (1892–1970)
“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)