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

that “explores in depth how the process itself can be eroticized, and how newly bared skin is, for
some time afterward, subject to heightened pleasurable sensations” (Getting Down with Pubic
Fashion, 13). Removing the hair also decreases the chances of getting hair in the mouth during
oral sex (Trager, 2006). The previously discussed comedy, Scary Movie 2 (2001), uses this
situation to disgust the audience and further reinforces the idea that one can feel more relaxed if
not worried about pubic hair getting caught in his/her partner‟s throat. Dermatologist Mitchel P.
Goldman said that a number of his male patients are mountain bikers, who want to eliminate
pubic hair from “getting in the way of sports,” and that they achieve this by depilating “the hair
around the scrotum, the testicles, and the peri-anal area” (Singer, 2005, p. 15). Pubic hairs
project from the body and the bikers are trying to eliminate the possibility of their pubic hairs
from being pulled, due to the friction/movement between their legs. Depilation and/or trimming
can therefore eliminate this potential discomfort not only in sports events but also day-to-day
activities. Along these same lines and feeling almost freed in a sense, one woman said of fully
depilating her pubic hair, “Just walking down the street is fun because you glide” (Morris, 2004,
p. 197).
The main character of a satirical British comedy series, Da Ali G Show, discusses another
discomfort and uses complete pubic hair depilation as an example of something that he would
never do. He says to a rabbi, “Like, me Julie once asked me to shave me gulies, but me said, you
know, that me never would cause of the second-day stubble” (Cohen, 2003). The character is
stating that follicle growth, two days after completely depilating the pubic region, can be
incredibly uncomfortable, something only to avoid with continual depilation, waxing, or laser
hair removal. When Merran Toerien and Sue Wilkinson asked women how they perceived their
29