Bring Back the Bush: Where Did All the Pubic Hair Go?

This programme strong language, adult themes and scenes of nudity.

Once upon a time, pubic hair was everywhere, but where is it now?

That is hair goals.

You hardly see a bush any more.

Vaginas are now normally bare...

...and totally hairless.

I'm Chidera Eggerue, a writer and body positivity activist.

Today I'm going to be shooting myself in lingerie.

And I really enjoy doing so because it makes me

feel like I have the power and the control over my own body.

I launched a campaign called Saggy Boobs Matter because

I want women to accept their breasts and their bodies, however they are.

But like many women, I still completely shave my pubes.

In a world where if you only see images where women's

bodies are shiny and hairless, if you are the opposite,

you're going to feel like something is wrong with you.

I want to know how we got here,

and why so many women my age are

obsessed with getting rid of their pubes.

So, I'm setting myself a challenge and growing my pubic hair,

to see what happens when I bring back my bush.

It will definitely be an opportunity to open

a conversation about sexuality, about desirability,

but most importantly about women's autonomy.

I didn't shave for the first time until I was...

.19.

So, because I was living in the home of my family,

it meant that me shaving put me in trouble by my mother.

If you are shaving your pubic hair then it kind of means that

you're not a virgin any more.

And even though around the age of 18, I didn't even think

in that way, it was still strange to me that my hair meant that much.

I've been shaving for most of my adult life...

...but now I'm setting myself a challenge.

For the next 6 weeks I will not be shaving my pubes.

I definitely feel nervous about it

because I know I'm going to come across people who don't really

understand, all they will see is the hair and feel disgusted.

It's a cool experiment to see what biases people have

carrying in them that they don't even notice.

Will I still be desirable to them?

Will they still have the same level of awe they have for me

if I have bushy pubes?

H ey,

But I'm not going to be doing this all alone,

I've recruited four other young women who are bravely taking

up the challenge of quitting being hairless and growing out their bush.

Let's do porn star martinis.

Like me, they are influencers and regularly post

photos of themselves to thousands of followers on Instagram.

And our appearance is always under the spotlight.

So, how do we feel about growing out our pubic hair?

I've been thinking about it a lot and I'm going to feel like,

not dirty, but like you know when you feel clean,

when you've had like a nice shave and... I know exactly what you mean.

You know, I'm going to be in a little outfit

and I know there's going to be hair there.

Obviously, I might get a bit of hate from it

and there is always going to be comments made.

I'm going to be dancing in that cage and the whole time in my mind, I'm going to be like...

They're looking, they're looking.

Like, Can anybody see what is going on down there??

On Instagram I try to look like the best version of me and obviously.

And what's the best version of you in the Instagram context?

Like, so like clean, like no hair at all,

tanned all the time, like everything like smooth and clean.

I'm gonna feel like my pictures aren't as good.

You feel like you have to be always clean shaven,

you have to look a certain way.

It's not because anyone's told you that,

it's just been like a thing that you've always known.

There have been moments on shoots where they've had to go out

and buy tweezers, they've gone out and bought like razors.

Tweezing their pubes? Yep.

Hair by hair? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In like my hometown there was a local waxing salon and they

were advertising sessions to get rid of what they call Virgin Hair.

For young girls from like sort of like 11, 12, you know

those first signs of like pubic hair?

And they were saying,

if you get rid of that now then you basically won't have

problems down the line, like it'll be much easier to get rid of later.

Problems as in what? Hair growing?

As in hair growing.

Which is why I think this is so important, what we're doing.

Because a lot of women of our age group have not seen

what their pubes look like since they were like 13 or 12,

because they've been shaving repeatedly and relentlessly since.

And I say we toast to growing the hair out, yes.

Yes, ladies!

To pubes! To pubes!

To pubic hair.

In 6 weeks' time,

I'm hoping we'll be able to reveal our new bushes to the world.

By letting nature take its course,

I want to see if we can feel more comfortable about our bodies,

and inspire other women to feel the same.

I've been doing some research on other women who

have chosen to make their pubes public.

I'm seeing what happens when other people dump their ideas on you.

For example, I'm looking at this photo of Amber Rose that she posted,

the famous, iconic pic where she's not naked but she has her bush out.

When model Amber Rose posted a photo online of her full-frontal bush,

it was removed from Instagram and she was attacked

and slut-shamed by numerous men.

A Swedish model recently received rape threats after posing

for an ad campaign which revealed and celebrated her leg hair.

So, for someone to get rape threats for having leg hair,

what kind of threats will they get for having pubic hair visible?

It's day one, my darlings.

No hair at all.

I'm like a sphynx cat.

I just don't want people looking and thinking, Oh, my God."

But, yeah, I mean, I'm not that hairy, but still it's

just like the non-shaving thing that I can't get my head around.

Oh.

I want to know why having pubic hair has become so controversial.

I'm meeting a group of people whose daily business is vaginas,

big business.

I'm in the porn capital of the world, Hollywood.

A place so associated with hairlessness that it's even

had a bikini wax named after it.

Does everybody feel good or do you want a little rehearsal real fast?

Over the last 10 years,

online access to free pornography has exploded.

One leading porn site receives over 100 million hits a day.

A little dab on her lips,

or like bite your lips even just to bring some colour back to them.

And studies show that porn is where many young people go to

learn about sex, and also what makes a woman desirable.

When you two greet one another, familiarity,

like a little warmth from the two of you, cos you're fucking later.

I've come to meet two adult performers on the set

of their latest film.

Out With A Bang, 1B, take one.

Leading lady Casey Calvert and director Lena Paul.

So, when you're filming a scene,

like what are the shots that make it a successful picture?

It's kind of one of those things where the less you

leave to the imagination, the better that it is.

Casey has this like amazing petite body, but then she's

also like fully shaved, and so you can just see everything.

So, for me,

I imagine that I'm going to be getting a lot of nice, tight,

what we call penetration shots.

Because they provided such a clear view of penetration,

hairless vaginas became the porn norm.

Performers with a bush were considered niche and so were

only a fraction of the market compared to the Hollywood look.

Let me get some air.

But recently there's been some change,

several of the industry's superstars are now bringing back their bush.

Through the '90s and the early 2000s, 95% of girls were completely shaven.

So then bush became its own category for the fans who

liked to see pubic hair.

Mm-hmm. And what I think has happened in the past 3 years or so,

is that girls who are A-list girls,

girls who are super-famous, stopped shaving.

And that became OK and people still shot them,

and that kind of trickles down throughout the business.

Super-cute, just wipe the dick, just a tiny bit.

Lena both directs and performs in adult films,

and is one of the most searched stars on PornHub.

The weird things you have to look out for.

But in spite of her popularity, bushes are still a divisive issue.

Do you ever get comments from your audience in regards

to your pubic area, like what are their preferences?

It's very polarising.

So, there's definitely a lot of men that are like, "Oh, my God,

"her bush is disgusting, Lena Paul's so cute but she'd be

"so much hotter if she shaved".

It's kind of one of those things though,

just like being a woman in any other space,

it doesn't matter what you do,

you could be made in a fucking computer and there's going to be a

subset of men that are going to tell you that you were made incorrectly.

This is like the equivalent to being given a group task

and you take all the credit.

I suspect that I'm not the only woman who started to shave

because of what other people might think.

It's like we feel our bodies won't be good enough unless we

change them and that's the sort of pressure we tend not to talk about.

Is it quite tricky with the nails and the Allen key? Yeah.

So, I'm creating my own confessional booth.

To get us talking about how we really feel about our pubic hair.

I used to be a Catholic up until 16 and I used to go to the

confessional booth with the Priest, I was kind of scared of it.

I think it's the vulnerability of like telling your truth to someone.

Cos some people they live with secrets that they've never

actually spoken out loud to anyone, not even themselves.

So, I guess it's cathartic in that sense.

When was the first time you ever shaved?

Probably when I was 14.

Do you remember why you needed to shave?

Um, I felt like it was really disgusting.

I thought, that I was...

...I looked dirty.

Why do you choose to remove your pubes

but not any other part of your body?

I just feel more comfortable with less hair there and also,