exploring a popular culture body modification - Athenaeum Home ...

saying that he is not opposed to “manscaping” if his girlfriend depilates her pubic hair. A recent
study on gay and heterosexual men‟s body hair removal, which includes the pubic hair, found
that 82.1% of gay men and 66.4% of heterosexual men had tried removing their pubic hair and a
majority in both groups did so to improve their appearance/attractiveness (Martins, Tiggemann,
& Churchett, 2008). Despite the fact that male pubic hair depilation is gaining popularity, it is
however, still catching up to the level of approval that female depilation has obtained. A
Cosmopolitan article titled “What his down-there grooming says,” ridicules men who have
natural pubic hair, categorizing them as either „alpha male‟ or „lazy,‟ but tells women that
they‟ve „hit the jackpot‟ when finding a man who only trims his pubic hair (Eagleson, 2009).
The author also warns women of the completely depilated male, stating that he is the type who
watches a lot of pornography and might be difficult to settle down with (Eagleson, 2009).
Marika Tiggemann, one of the founding researchers on American female body hair
removal, did not include pubic hair in her original 1998 study, however, Tiggemann and
psychologist Suzanna Hodgson (2008) recently teamed up to conduct a study titled “The
Hairlessness Norm Extended: Reasons for and Predictors of Women‟s Body Hair Removal at
Different Body Sites.” Contrary to previous studies on body hair removal, the authors found that
participant motivations for removing their pubic hair were not the same as other body parts.
Similar to Tiggemann‟s previously discussed male study, the driving motivation for women‟s
pubic hair depilation was sexual attractiveness. The participants who removed all of their pubic
hair ranked self-enhancement as a stronger motivation than femininity, therefore, further
disproving normative femininity as the reason for pubic hair removal. The authors also found
that participants who removed a greater amount of pubic hair were more frequently exposed to
23