In Culture
Some people experience sexually attraction to or sexual arousal from seeing or touching pubic hair, or from seeing or touching a clean crotch. Some regard this as pubic hair fetishism. A preference for hairless crotch in oneself or in another is known as acomoclitism.
According to the Oxford Companion to the Body in the 1450s women would shave their pubic hair for personal hygiene and to combat pubic lice and would then don a merkin or pubic wig.
Among the upper class in 19th century Victorian Britain, pubic hair from one's lover was frequently collected as a souvenir. The curls were, for instance, worn like cockades in men's hats as potency talismans, or exchanged among lovers as tokens of affection. The museum of St. Andrews University in Scotland has in its collection a snuff box full of pubic hair of one of King George IV's mistresses, possibly Elizabeth Conyngham, which the notoriously licentious monarch donated to the Fife sex club, The Beggar's Benison.
In Western societies, exposure of a woman's body hair below her neck has traditionally and continues to be widely disapproved of culturally. It may be regarded as immodest and sometimes obscene. Many people consider exposure of pubic hair to be embarrassing. With the reduction in the size of swimsuits, especially since the coming into fashion and growth in popularity of the bikini since the 1940s, the practice of bikini waxing has also come into vogue. However, some people also remove pubic hair that is not exposed, for aesthetic, personal hygiene, cultural, religious, fashion or other reasons.
In more recent times, models and actors who appeared nude on stage, film or photography used to shield their frontal genital area by the angle of their body or leg in relation to the camera, or in some other way; but now it is more common for female adult entertainers who appear nude, such as strippers and pornographic actresses, to remove their pubic hair. The presentation is regarded as more erotic and aesthetic, while others consider the style as unnatural. Some people remove pubic hairs for erotic and sexual reasons or because they or their sex partner enjoy the feel of a clean crotch.
Read more about this topic: Pubic Hair
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“If you’re anxious for to shine in the high esthetic line as a man
of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant
them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your
complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a
transcendental kind.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“All our civilization had meant nothing. The same culture that had nurtured the kindly enlightened people among whom I had been brought up, carried around with it war. Why should I not have known this? I did know it, but I did not believe it. I believed it as we believe we are going to die. Something that is to happen in some remote time.”
—Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1966)