Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation and an incredibly depressing essay about getting older, basically plays the bad cop to Nerve editor-at-large Jack Harrison's good cop in this particular debate, titled "The Brazilian Wax: Bare vs. Hair." Speaking almost like a cliche of The Kind of Guy You'd Want To Have Sex With, Harrison says he likes all of a woman's natural smells, secretions, and adornments, including pubic hair. Wurtzel (perhaps unsurprisingly, given her much-publicized reliance on various beauty treatments) disagrees.

She argues that men prefer a naked snatch, and that this is "just the way things are and will ever be." After speaking for all men and predicting the future, she moves on to generalizing about the preferences of her own gender:

I think we women don't feel entirely female unless we're slaves to beauty.

And:

[A]t one time, when you got pubic hair, it meant that you were an adult. Now, you get it removed to show that... you're an adult. There's something childish about being hairy, now that Brazilians have achieved vaginal hegemony.

And:

I guess there is a philosophical sickness that drives us to do things like go to salons for hair removal: it's an insane drive toward achieving a state that we'll never get to, that we'll always be approaching, stuck at some horrible asymptote. But I guess it makes me feel better to try.

In her post on Wurtzel's aging essay, Sadie wrote that Wurtzel "has always ascribed a universality to her own experiences" — and really, the best response to her thoughts on pubic hair is, "speak for your fucking self." The truth is, I do know women who get Brazilians because men like it (or, as Wurtzel says, "the audience response had been very, very good"). But I also know women who do it because they like the way it feels, or looks — and I know women who keep a full bush for those same reason. Yes, institutionalized standards of beauty are fucked up, and yes, the ideal of female hairlessness is one such standard of beauty. But getting a Brazilian doesn't necessarily mean you don't feel "fully female" without one.

It's a little weird that I started out this post defending waxing, since my personal sympathies lie with Harrison and his let-it-all-hang-out philosophy. But Wurtzel makes all female grooming sound like such depressing drudgery that I feel like stepping in on its behalf. Feminism has long had a fraught relationship with the modification and decoration of the female body, but one of the few nice things about the current post-feminist morass is the widespread recognition that dressing up, wearing lipstick, and, yes, even getting a Brazilian, can be kind of fun.

Yeah, so waxing hurts a lot more than lipstick. So it produces a look that some people think is infantile. That doesn't mean everyone who does it wants to look like an infant, or that every hair removed is an act of willing enslavement. Wurtzel's "insane drive toward achieving a state that we'll never get to" does sound like a pretty good description of the attitude toward beauty that women's magazines and advertisers want us to have. But just because Wurtzel drank that Kool-Aid doesn't mean we have to.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic — maybe it's impossible to make choices favored by the beauty-industrial complex without in some way enslaving oneself to this complex and all its evil familiars. But Wurtzel's idea of womanhood is so heartbreakingly constrained — by men, by porn, by standards of beauty that are totally entrenched and unchangeable — that it seems to leave no room for taking actual joy in our bodies. And I have to believe we're freer than that.

The Nerve Debate, The Brazilian Wax: Bare vs. Hair [Nerve]

If you look at Kendra's many Playboy pictorials (just Google it), you can see that she does not have pubic hair. Maybe she shaves though. Does that make her a "technical waxing virgin?"

Deadpans Wetherell of her first bikini wax, "I went for my birthday. The most horrible birthday present I've ever given myself." And, the more she thought about waxing, and the increasingly normative Brazilian (it was back in 2003 that Naomi Wolf, noting the pubic hair generational divide, wrote, "In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled"), the more Wetherell and Axelson wondered about the purpose of hair removal. What is it that makes so many women put up with the pain and expense of intimate waxing? Are we keeping up with the mostly hairless icons of female beauty? Competing with mainstream pornography? Worried about men's attitudes to an untamed bush?

So the directors got women — and men — on the record about sex, attraction, pain, and pleasure where pubic hair maintenance is concerned. Why We Wax, which debuted recently at the TriBeCa Film Center in New York, also covers the history of waxing and pubic grooming (ancient Egyptians apparently endorsed sugaring), the modern history of the so-called Brazilian (actually invented in the U.S., according to Jonice Padilha, one of the women interviewed, who is co-credited with developing the style). But the film doesn't just dwell on the psychosocial aspects of hair removal in the abstract: what's brilliant is that the filmmakers privilege the views of women who engage with the subject as active participants, sharing divergent opinions that together cover all the dimensions of the actual experience of getting waxed. The leg lifts, the "fetal position" pose, the cheek-spreading, the mirror self-check, the strange pleasure of the ass wax, the labia pain that can persist for days ("like, really bad sunburn on your vagina"), the girlfriend comparisons: it's all there.

Esthetician Mara Sanchez explains the dynamics of the waxer-waxee relationship — that awkward repartee, or that more-awkward silence — as an intense game with the goal of distracting the client. "You can't give a client enough time to think about it. We don't really need them to do that, that's just engaging them so that they don't rip your hair out when you rip their hair out. Get it?" It's also important to be speedy. "You're like, SchchchhrrripSripSssschriiipRip. Next leg, please."

It's awesome to hear so many women talking about how they feel about their vaginas as they wax, trim, and regrow. One woman compares her vagina, post-wax, to Jabba the Hut. Another revels in feeling "every hill and bump." Someone says the phenomenon of women getting "a shiny 'giny" to please their husbands is creepy. Another says her husband doesn't care. An impressed dude says, of his wife, "She went from a jungle to a cathedral." One subject offers this advice: "If you don't want to wax, don't wax. Don't! Let it flow. Get designs on it. Dread that shit."

Why We Wax [Film Website]
Why We Wax [Current TV]
The Porn Myth [NYMag]

Earlier: Benny The Tech Geek Gets A Bikini Wax
Pimp My Vadge

Actually, the post begins: "One of my biggest pet peeves is a girl who is not probably groomed on all parts of her body." Dude. You mean "properly." Right? Stop looking at yourself in the mirror and get an education.


The "Philly fameball" continues:

If you are a hot girl, then it is imperative that everything is shaved, or clean to the point that there is minimal hair. I have had many experiences with beautiful women where they have been amazing looking (especially Internationally), but upon further investigation they are not properly groomed, and I have actually stopped in the middle of the act. One of the many things I notice on a girl while talking to them, and figuring out whether I am going to have them is their: nails, hair, make-up, and skin, and this will many times separate girls who are hot (8's and 9's) from girls who I want to take it to the next level with that night (10's). I remember once going home with a girl from Bungalow 8 in NYC who was a 10, and when I saw her naked and ungroomed, I became so disgusted that I asked her to leave my apartment, and when she said "What's wrong?" I told her, "I am not into the hair thing". She told me she hadn't been with anyone in 2 months, and wasn't planning on anything that night, so I decided to let her stay over. That next weekend when we hung out she was totally shaved.

Just FYI, according to the "Kade Scale", Megan Fox and Gisele Bundchen are 10s; Halle Berry is an 8 "a cute girl, but not date-worthy" and Salma Hayek is a 7 ("cute and somewhat sexy, but not someone that I would date.")

Friends, this is a sad, sad day in America. On the planet Earth, even. Because no matter how far we have come — I mean, we kind of almost had a female president of the United States, right? — there will always be shallow, narcissistic dudes who think that porn stars and Victoria's Secret models are illustrative examples of what it means to be a woman. Hair has nothing to do with a woman's "cleanliness" or hotness, IT MEANS THAT SHE HAS HIT PUBERTY and is no longer a child. How do these people exist? How can you, in this day and age, assign a number to a woman and judge her on her appearance and pubes? What kind of family raises a son who would write this:

The woman taking my blood at Quest Diagnostics had a visible mustache. I actually felt uncomfortable having her take my blood because of this, and I contemplated mentioning to her that I wanted a new nurse.

Seriously? Too bad he didn't suddenly pass out or suffer heart failure and require MOUTH TO MOUTH resuscitation from her. Because if there is a God, surely she would smite you for bodysnarking a fucking medical professional.

Grooming [ArthurKade.com]

(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich helps me answer questions about sex after childbirth, pubic hair, and product placements. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. (Or send us your phone number! We wanna talk.)



How Do I Ask My Ex To Give Me My Sex Toys Back? from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

• Christian Bale's "assault" against his mother is part of a long-simmering feud. Apparently Christian's been estranged from his mother and sister, Jenny and Sharon Bale, since he sided with his father when his parents divorced in the early '90s. Christian "reluctantly" agreed to meet with them at his London hotel right before the premiere of The Dark Knight but soon realized they were there to hit him up for money. An argument ensued; Christian demanded they leave his suite and allegedly pushed his mother out of the door. Snubbed, his mother went and told her "assault" story; she's trying to sell it to media outlets as well. [Chicago Sun Times]
• Christian Bale singed autographs and posed for photos at the Madrid premiere of Dark Knight last night but did not speak to reporters, duh. By the by, he has not been formally charged with anything. [People]
• Christian's relationship with his wife? Solid. [E!]
• P.S.: Aaron Eckhart has agreed to be in a third Batman film. [ONTD]

• Princess diaries? The FBI has seized Anne Hathaway's journals and will scour the pages looking for info about her ex, Raffaello Follieri. Anne's apparently cut off all contact with Follieri and changed her numbers; a source says, "Raffaello has been trying to call her all the time." He's not doing to well in prison — and wonders if Anne helped put him behind bars. This is going to make a great movie of the week! [Rush & Molloy]
• Brad Pitt's lawyers have sent cease-and-desist letters to photo agencies after paparazzi used "highly powerful telephoto lenses" to get pics — maybe of the twins? [Rush & Molloy]
• Sienna Miller is suing over those shots of her cavorting with Balthazar Getty. She's claiming breach of privacy — and since she won a judgment in December regarding nude pictures of her on the set of Hippie Hippie Shake — she might have a shot. [People]
• Apparently Sienna's pubic hair is being digitally enhanced for Hippie Hippie Shake, a source says, because "the film is set in the swinging '60s when fashion was wild and body hair even wilder… Unfortunately, Brazilians weren't common in the '60s… Sienna's private parts were digitally enhanced, giving her a rather unruly, loud and proud bush." [Mirror]
• Britney's mom ran over a bike-riding young boy with her car and killed him. In 1975. But a source says, "To this day, Lynne hasn't gotten over what she did. She gets that terrified look in her eye when she is thinking about it." Lynne was rushing her injured brother to the hospital when the accident happened. [National Enquirer]
• Singer, fashion designer, actress and mother of two Jennifer Lopez is training for a triathalon, because you don't aleady feel bad enough about yourself. [MSNBC]
• Madonna's brother says his book doesn't even contain everything he wanted to reveal about Madge. "There are plenty of things I left out of the book," he swears. "And things that the lawyers and editors took out." [MSNBC]
• 50 Cent is suing Taco Bell for using his image in an ad campaign without his permission. The ads suggested that Fiddy change his name to 79, 89 or 99 Cent to help promote The Bell's penny-saving deals. 50 doesn't do fast food deals. Who does Taco Bell they think they are, Vitamin Water? [E!]
• Um, Pete Doherty is trying to turn his dead cat into a ring for Kate Moss. Shelley was Kate's fave cat when Kate and Pete were together. Pete's supposedly using that company that turns ashes into gems but yeah. Ugh. [ONTD]
• Let's do the time warp again: MTV is developing a remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A reader writes: "MTV has ruined EVERYTHING WE LOVED. I don't even know how to deal. Seriously, my emotions on this subject are majorly conflicted. I'm sad, which makes me want chocolate cake, but I'm also homicidal, which makes me want chicken fingers." [ONTD, Variety]
• Ethan Hawke and his wife Ryan Shawhughes welcomed a daughter, Clementine Jane Hawke, last Friday. [Us Magazine]
• Lindsay Lohan's cameo role on Ugly Betty is that of Kimberley, Betty's high school nemesis, who is now a fast food waitress. [Mirror]
• Angelina Jolie us the first choice of leading lady in The Thomas Crown Affair 2, which is too bad because no one can be as hot as Rene Russo was in the 1999 version, which, btw, was a remake. [Mirror]
• Peaches Geldof says all that matters is "love, art and music," because they are the only "pure things in life." Then she was spotted with a drug vial necklace. [The Sun]
• Kelsey Grammer nearly died after his heart attack last month. "They had to blast me twice and get me started all over again," he says. Insert something about tossed salads and scrambled eggs here. [Yahoo News]
• Nick Hogan is moving from the juvenile section into the general population of the Pinellas County Jail. He'll be one of 3,300 adult inmates, gulp. [E!]
• A nanny fired on Jordan's reality show is suing the "glamour model" also called Katie Price. The nanny says her privacy was infringed on. [Mirror]
• Here is a story from Pigeon Forge, TN: "Two 14-week-old American bald eagles named by Disney star Miley Cyrus and her country singer father, Billy Ray Cyrus, will be released into the wild Thursday at the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. The American Eagle Foundation has released more than 90 eagles from Dolly Parton's Dollywood theme park in East Tennessee since the 1990s." [Yahoo News]
• A man has been charged with stalking Lorne Michaels. The dude believes his thoughts were being stolen by Michaels and then used as SNL fodder. That's just good writing! [E!]
• Avril Lavigne "hates her fangs" and is planning on getting her teeth filed down by a cosmetic dentist. Her punk attitude will remain intact. [Star]
• Elton John has a Ben & Jerry's flavor named after him. Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road is a yummy blend of chocolate ice cream, peanut butter cookie dough, butter brickle and white chocolate chunks and it's only available for a limited time. [ET]
• Remember Jasmine Guy, Whitley from A Different World? She's having messy divorce problems. [Yahoo News]
• Mindy McCready is in rehab; her 2-year-old son is in the care of her mother. [Yahoo News]
• Matt LeBlanc's former manager is suing him and Matt says Camille Cerio has a "major depressive disorder." [TMZ]
• "I hope to be married in the next five years." — Derek Jeter. [Page Six]
• "She's at that point where she can call me and say, 'Hey Dad, what's up? What time are you going to get me?' It's really cool. We talk every day. It's hard for me to be the tough guy with my daughter. Maybe I should work on the discipline stuff, but I could leave her mother to do that!… Look at me and the way I live: I ride my bicycle, I walk, I don't have a driver. That's how I keep her grounded. Her mom does a good job too – she's not that person that everyone thinks. She's very laidback and cool." — Carlos Leon on his relationship with daughter Lourdes, aka Lola. [People]

Vesna's Burger — Big Brother Uncut [YouTube]

I go back and forth about shaving, but I understand I'm blonde and fine-haired so my opinion is of little relevance to the general population. But, my regimen is: shave my legs when they're noticeably hairy (which is to say, it's long enough to see actual legitimate hairs) and trim the pubes with a beard trimmer when they get long enough to annoy me. That's right, I said beard trimmer. It takes it down to like a quarter of an inch in under two minutes and it's impossible to cut myself; it doesn't itch when it grows back; and I don't get ingrown hairs or razor burn. I switched to a beard trimmer after shaving the whole thing for the better part of a year, which resulted in razor burn, ingrown hairs, insane itching when I was lax on maintenance (and I was always lax on maintenance) and the uncomfortable feeling that any guy who was really interested in seeing it hairless was, at best, a little creepy. The one exception was a particular ex (now married, so I won't reveal his name) who used to shave it for me but leave a landing strip. I'd just lie back on the bed once a week, he'd shave it, clean it up, uh, you know, stay down there for a bit and we'd go to sleep, it was very relaxing.

On the other hand, one Jezzie gets regularly waxed but not to the point of pre-pubescent hairlessness; another only does in the summer; a third waxes the edges for the summer and goes "retrobush" otherwise (and good for her!); and the final sticks with "incredibly halfhearted shaving and trimming when I can find an implement." I know what she's getting for her birthday this year!

There is, however, a near-universal dudely opposition to the full wax job but in favor of some maintenance — only one guy and, as it happens, the youngest of the bunch even expressed a remote preference for the landing strip look. As one friend with a lucky girlfriend said, "I prefer a regular trim because it makes it easier to perform oral. I like cunnilingus but don't like hair in the way," and maintained but natural-looking seemed to be the word of the day. In the end, though, they all more or less agreed with Spencer who said "i would truly not feel comfortable telling someone else what kind of shaving regimen she should have — it's like telling a girl to diet, in my mind. not appropriate."

If that's the case, though, why the fuss? Why the pulling and ripping of hairs in the pursuit of something that most guys don't really seem to give a shit about anyway? Is it really just that we're told we ought to look like that, like looking like that, that men prefer we look like that? Because, really, why would a guy care if he's about to get laid?

[Side note: I've dated guys who shaved everything below the navel. Freaks my shit out every time.]

Earlier: Wax Tales
To Strip Or Not To Strip?
Is Pubic Hair Making A Comeback?
An Open Apology to Our Labia

Image via LOLVogue: Good Help Is Hard To Find

P.S. No animals were drugged in the making of this video.

Historical context!

The end of pubic lice?

And the "Beyond Gross" Award Goes To...

OK, so first off, the audience-corralling at Tyra is so budget. We were made to wait in a basement with cinder-block walls that, coupled with the metal detectors at the door, made it feel like we were at Central Booking or something. The middle-aged black lady sitting next to me made the experience so much better, though. A true Tyra fan, she was just as excited to be there as I was, and just as put off by the amenities in our holding cell. "Why don't they have flat screen TVs?" she asked me. "They just got that bunk Panasonic box," she said, referring to the 13" tube television playing an old episode of Tyra off a VHS tape.

When we first walked in the door, they confiscated our cell phones and cameras, which pissed us off to no end, seeing as we were planning on live blogging the whole thing. We were also given a weirdly faded ditto copy of a diagram of a vagina. Check it out:

Aside from the vulva barely being visible, it's practically impossible to tell where these lines are pointing! Anyway, we were asked to fill in the blanks, naming the different parts of it. Mrs. Awesome, as I'll call my new friend, was like, "There are so many parts! Oh my God! Well, I know this one. That's the labia. That's the 'flappy.' That's how you remember that: The labia is the flappy."

She didn't know the rest of the answers, so she started copying mine, as though it were a test and we'd be graded on it. I'd put in joke answers like "Urethra Franklin" and "Labia Menorah." She totally wrote them on hers too, thinking it was correct.

So, after waiting for what seemed like a billion years, we got to go to the studio and I got chills — partly because I was excited and partly because it was fucking freezing in there. After we were seated (all the way in the back), and pumped up by the crowd-warmer, Tyra herself came out. I knew it would be a "very special episode" serious-type show because she didn't runway-walk out to the stage or elevate from the floor through the clouds of a smoke machine (which pissed me off so much, since that's right where we were sitting). Instead, she simply came out and took a seat on stage to do a quiet intro.

Things got awkward immediately because of technical difficulties, so Tyra just sat there not saying anything, while her groomer brushed her weave (he would do this about every two minutes throughout the duration of the taping). I was so gutted; I really truly believed that she would interact with us, but instead, she just pretended that we weren't there. Oh, and the "questions" from audience members? They were all staged, written on cue cards for people pre-picked to read.

The actual show however, was the height of retardation. Moe, Jennifer and I really thought that we'd be experiencing an intelligent, open discourse about vaginas, but it was more like the ABC's of Sex Education for Trainables. Tyra was all, "Women are actually afraid to discuss their genitals, look at them, or even say the word 'vagina.'" Jennifer, Moe and I were like, "Wha?! We sort of do all of that like all day long." (And actually, I tend to say "pussy" or "vadge" more than "vagina.")

"In fact," Tyra went on, "Many women don't even know that we don't pee out of the same hole that we have babies."

The taping took like 4 hours, mainly because they stopped every few minutes for Tyra to get her makeua and hair re-done. She never once acknowledged audience members, who were so obviously in adoration of her. (BTW, her ass looked amazing in person.) It wasn't until the very end of the show when the theme song (sung by Fergie) began playing that TyTy came out of her shell. She started dancing like fool, doing the Roger Rabbit and the running man, and being the campy Tyra that we all know and love.

But ultimately, she was just really disappointing. Isn't she always trying to remind us that she's "one of us." She's always trying to be relatable, when really, she's barely likeable. I guess I could've predicted she'd be an asshole, though.

Oh! And in case you were wondering: Tyra has pubic hair! But she left it up to our imaginations about just how much she has. I'm thinking her pussy hair is kinda like her thighs: Thick.

For her own part, Watson, likening herself to certain aspects of Hermione, says, 'I'm a bit of a feminist. I'm very competitive and challenging.'

We never thought we'd hear a young woman — particularly an actress — under the age of 30 ever describe herself as a 'feminist', but well, there you have it. We'd just like to remind Ms. Watson that, when clad Chanel, she needs to throw her shoulders back and down and give the photographers a look like she means it.

Emma Watson: 'There Are Too Many Stupid Girls' [People]
Related: Naked Truth About Stage Kiss [NYPost]

In today's 'are you friggin' serious?' news, the improbably-named Cindy Barshop, Paris Hilton's bikini waxer radios in to Us Magazine from Damage Control Central.

Us: So why do you think celebrities are skipping the underwear and going commando?

CB: I think that with the completely bare waxing, they just feel comfortable enough with their bodies that they can skip the underwear. And oops if they do happen to flash someone, it's not as embarrassing because the area is groomed.

Because a girl's bare labia have an essential dignity to them that pubes just lack, y'know?