Get out of hair! Most American women like to go bare down there

It’s perhaps not surprising that most American women — 84% — perform a little bikini-area landscaping. What’s shocking is just how far we’ll go: A whopping 62% say they go completely pube-free.

The hair-raising new JAMA Dermatology report released this week surveyed 3,316 ladies and found that pruning pubes was the norm, especially among younger, college-educated white women. And get this: 59% said they groomed for “hygienic purposes.”

Though a common misconception, the idea that hairless is somehow hygienic isn’t rooted in any real science. (So much for that education.) “It might feel ‘cleaner’ — but that’s like saying shaving your head bald makes your head cleaner than if you have long, wavy hair,” said Dr. Fahimeh Sasan, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai. (Which it doesn’t.) “As long as you wash yourself every day and change your underwear, you’re going to be just as clean.”

If anything, choosing to wax or shave your delicate bits can risk minor injury, mostly commonly cuts, ingrown hairs and burns. Some more severe side effects can include allergic reactions to products, and vulvar and vaginal infections, or some researchers suggest that nicks and razor burn may help spread STIs. (Per JAMA, shaving was the preferred depilation method by far — 73% reported using razors, while only 5% waxed.)

It all comes down to personal preference, Dr. Sasan said. Pubic grooming has no real benefit or drawback — though she suspects cultural forces are driving the trend. “I see hundreds of women a week, and it’s a popular thing because it’s all over the media: Supermodels, the Kardashians, the covers of magazines and Victoria’s Secret,” she said.

Becky, 24, who’s been going “Full Monty” since she was 14, says she felt pressured to fit in with her clean-shaven friends growing up, and now it’s just become a habit.

“I have a routine: I brush my teeth, shave my vagina,” she told The Daily News.

Becky-with-the-no-hair says she even waxed her close friends’ bikini lines for them, since they were shy about seeing a professional. Some 92% of the women surveyed in the new study also said they took care of everything on their own. “I think self-care is important, no matter what it is and what your choices are,” she said. “I definitely think it’s something I’m going to grow out of and not do anymore.”

 

The JAMA report reveals that grooming practices are also rooted in smoothing things over with a sexual partner. Almost one-third said they felt primping their pubic hair made their “vagina look nicer.” In fact, women overall were less likely to groom if their partners didn’t, or if their partners didn't prefer it. But for some, it wasn’t all about the other guy or gal: 19.6% felt being bare made oral sex easier.

An 18-year-old woman who sometimes shaves completely in the summer said she first started because the boys in her high school biology class said the au naturel mom in the "Miracle of Life" video was "so hairy" and "gross."

"It made me feel that if I wanted a boy to find me attractive that I would have to be completely hairless -- regardless of the fact that I had never been sexually active and no boy was seeing my pubic hair anytime soon," she said.

“I have girlfriends whose boyfriends would be grossed out if they had pubic hair,” Becky agreed. “I’ve always thought that was f---ed up, because we’re not policing men’s pubic hair.”

Yet income level, relationship status and geographic location had no impact on whether a woman was more likely to groom the bikini area or not, and neither did how often they had sex, the types of sex they had or their partner’s gender.

“Future direction for research include understanding the cultural differences as they relate to pubic hair grooming and the role of the health care professional in influencing women’s grooming habits,” the study concluded.

Or they can just look at whatever the Kardashians are doing.