Pretty Girl Bullshit - The ‘Bikini Line’ Myth

Hello, I’m Bertie. This column is basically a place for me to call bullshit on girl related stuff that I think is dumb. While I appreciate the importance of girl talk, I’m not about to braid your pubic hair or send you the results of my latest smear test. Instead, I will pass on any remotely useful knowledge I happen to discover re: being a FEMALE. Trust me: I’m not a doctor, but I do have a Ph.D in pretty girl bullshit.

PRETTY GIRL BULLSHIT #7: THE 'BIKINI LINE' MYTH

I think (hope) that, by now, it’s pretty much common knowledge that men who find pubic hair disgusting are terrified of women and should be added to some sort of database. So far, so obvious. But what about all the guys who look at you really earnestly and go “you know, I prefer it un-waxed”. Like I should, with tears streaming down my face, thank them on behalf of all womankind for being so understanding about our little "issue". And finally, what about all the asshole women who act like not waxing is the same as not brushing your teeth for three weeks, or surviving on a diet of bar nuts and Yop? Who are all these people and why do they care so much about what my vagina is wearing?! Normally this stuff really doesn’t bother me. Like, at all. But I got my nails done last week and my manicurist started waxing on (lol) about how much she loved “waxing off horrid hair” and how she wanted to wax my armpits, my eyebrows and my entire ARMS. I then proceeded to gaze in horror at her weird, hairless arms, and wonder how much money she spent monthly on painkillers, wax strips and goose fat. This did not help me to relax. Then I had the pleasure of reading the Amanda Platell article at Mail Online about a woman who – shock horror – decided NOT to shave her armpits, and how it was revolting and nearly made her vomit and also how AMANDA PLATELL was nicknamed "The Wolf Baby" which coincidentally almost made me vomit (with laughter). AP veets her whole body “back to normal”. Because being hairless and smelling of a used tampon sprayed with kitchen cleaner (right?!) is so totally normal. AMANDUH. PLEASE. In order to properly understand this issue, I am going to hijack an article from thegloss.com that quotes men verbatim on their female body hair preferences. These cool guys all think they’re being way valorous by saying they don’t expect us to be bald from the eyelashes down. Woah. Have the nominations for the next Nobel Peace prize been delegated yet? 'Cos like, I think we have three more candidates. Anonymous #1: Not too much, obviously, but not too little either. Brazilian is weird. Girls can change it up, and then it's like I'm having sex with multiple people. PGB says: What? Multiple people? Are you a particularly gullible person? Do you have special vagina goggles that allow you to block out all our other features? If so, please link them to me for next week's article. Anonymous #2: I love body hair on women, although ape arms can be a bummer. PGB says: Ape arms a bummer? I’m surprised you don’t feel an affinity with them given the totally successful Neanderthal brain transplant you evidently received. Anonymous #3: I don't want sanitary sex. If she's the kind of person that's gonna be uptight about pubic hair, she's not gonna be that rock n roll. Like, I want the kind of sex that you wake up so dishevelled that you kind of wonder if the other person is still OK with it. PGB says: Hey friend? This is a published interview. You should consider not saying stuff about waking up after sex and wondering if it was non-consensual. PS: since when have pubic hair and "rock n roll" been related? We’ve all seen the Mechanical Animals album cover, and Marilyn Manson is like way *rock hands*. Still, I wasn’t satisfied. I needed to conduct my own survey. So I asked three not-anonymous males to draw body hair onto the outlines of two women. One was meant to have "good hair", and the other one "bad hair". I thought they might cotton on to the fact that I wasn’t just asking them 4FUN considering they’d read some previous PGBs, but luckily they didn’t seem to care and provided me with drawings that, as you can see, would make their mothers weep. Not-Anonymous #1: Max

This is Max, I found him in my flatmate's bed this morning. Max is totally great, but being a male model and all I wouldn’t be surprised if he bathes in wax and then rips it off his entire body in one sudden movement, like every single morning. With this in mind I leapt into bed, snuggled up next to him and watched him get creative. ;-)

PGB says: Max’s "Good" drawing has the most hair out of all three (combined), although most of it is on her head. Regardless, he still expects your pubic region to resemble a mini Mars bar. He also gave his "Bad" picture hair on her arms. I’m sorry but did I miss the MASSIVE BOAT everyone appears to have got on when they started removing hair from their arms?! Not-Anonymous #2: Mike This is Mike. Mike put his name in my phone as "not-so-indie-Mike" when I met him, which is funny because he looks about 100000000x more indie than me. "Not-so-indie-Mike" has stories from Freshers' Week that would make your toenails curl. He is a law student.

PGB says: I was disturbed by the almost non-existent amount of leg hair he drew on the "Bad" body. That is me on a good day, TBH. Also, the lack of eyebrows on any of the "good hair" examples was worrying. It pretty much implies that hot, waxed bodies look best when topped off with a totally expressionless face. Creepy. Not-Anonymous #3: Steve Finally, this is Steve, who's friends with "not-so-indie-Mike". I was reluctant to let Steve participate because he'd sat and watched Mike do his and I was all like: these conditions are not conducive to a fair test! But he convinced me he had a totally different opinion of "Good" hair. Foolishly I believed him.

After watching him painstakingly draw hairs onto "Good hair"'s head in a style that recalled a young Roberto Baggio, he proceeded to leave the rest of her body untouched. I only had three (hand-drawn) sets of bodies and this was the last. I'm still seething.

PGB says: Interestingly, two of the three LADS decided to adorn their "bad b1tch" with a Mohawk. Mohawks are traditionally associated with punk rock and rebellion. They are the worst hair a girl can have EVUH because women who challenge social norms are SO lesbian.

FFS. My Top 5 "Speedo-Line" Styles For Men: 1.    The Shard: Fashion hair into a sharp, upward point using strong-holding gel. Shave surrounding area.
2.  The Beautiful Flower: Curl hair into wanton ringlets and let fall naturally. Additional petals optional.
3.    The Hot Dog: All off, and a glistening coat of oil (pref. meat flavour).
4.  The Suburbia: Kept short and neat like a nice lawn. Daily maintenance imperative.
5.    The Crown Jewels: Begin with a "Hot Dog" and apply multi-coloured diamante in tasteful design.

Follow Bertie on Twitter: @BertieBrandes

Previously: Pretty Girl Bullshit - Getting to Grips with FHM's Sexy 100

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