Should women cut their hair here?

Should women trim their pubic hair? Some people like to trim it, while some women like it to grow freely. How to do it?

Borrowing the global anti-violence feminist drama "The Vagina Monologues", the two sides of the above debate can be divided into "pubic hair monologue" and "pubic hair blankness". The Pubic Hair Monologues group follows the spirit of the "Vagina Monologues", believing that Asian women should not regard their pubic hair as an object of male gaze, should not accept the habits imposed on the female body by Western colonialists, should not mind the common perception that "hairy hair represents lewdness", and should let their skin color be natural, which is also a kind of "Asian value".

Last year, some white and Chinese Americans criticized the actress in the Edison Chen incident on American websites for not trimming, removing or shaving her pubic hair, which triggered a counterattack from Chinese netizens in Asia. The seemingly crude debate between the two sides actually involves some core issues of gender and body politics.

The pubic hair leaving white school advocates that leaving pubic hair white (shaving or trimming) is a "universal value" from the perspective of aesthetics and civilization. They believe that original, untrimmed, messy pubic hair is ugly and disgusting, and is impolite or uncivilized, and is a manifestation of a person's negligence in taking care of his or her body, being unkempt and unhygienic.

Judging from the historical trajectory of shaving armpit hair, the blank space faction will probably eventually defeat the monologue faction. After all, decades ago, Asian women all had armpit hair. Not long ago, young Asian women followed the footsteps of Western women, regarding armpit hair as shameful and disgusting, and even removed it for hygienic reasons because it would produce odor.

"Hygiene" is the most important word for civilization. The pubic hair whitening faction points out that pubic hair accumulates sweat, fiber dust, and foreign matter from feces and urine, which not only breeds bacteria but also produces odor, and is especially detrimental to oral sex. Behind this hygienic rhetoric lies both a historical trend of civilization and publicization.

The trend of "civilization" is to deviate from the natural smell and appearance of animals through artificial processing. Due to the late modern focus on and interest in body development, leaving pubic hair white, dyeing it, maintaining and protecting it, trimming pubic hair into cute shapes, genital piercing, plastic surgery, tattoos, etc. have become popular. But sometimes "anti-civilization" may be caused by rebellious spirit. For example, some people think that shaving is out of date and start to braid pubic hair into "pubic braids", thus forming a subculture within civilization.

As for the trend of "publicization", it indicates that pubic hair has changed from private to public, which is caused by the "publicization of sex" and the "liberation of women's emotions and body". The third-level films, A-films and pornographic pictures commonly known as "pubic hair films" first caused professional actors to start leaving their pubic hair white. It is said that trimmed pubic hair looks more beautiful on camera, so trimming hair has become one of the professional images of such actors, and some sex workers also have this trend (Asian women's selfies still mostly belong to the pubic hair monologue school, showing their non-professional amateur character).

In addition, the popularity of bikini swimsuits has also led to a trend of leaving pubic hair white, and imitation pubic hair showing through swimming trunks represents indecency or exposure. Finally, as the frequency of women meeting strangers naked and having oral sex increased, pubic hair gradually became a personal appearance, which further reinforced the requirement that pubic hair must conform to etiquette and civilization.

The changing cultural significance of pubic hair has, of course, caused all sorts of anxiety. Does leaving pubic hair white cater to and please the male gaze? Not necessarily, because many Asian men say that primitive and messy pubic hair is more animalistic and wild, which can stimulate the sexual desire of Asian men. Moreover, if leaving pubic hair blank is a Western body colonization or a new discipline of women's bodies, then how should we view the removal of armpit and leg hair, double eyelid surgery, nose surgery, dyeing, etc. that Asian women have become accustomed to?

Some people think that Asian women are conservative and will not go from monologue to leaving blank space. However, if Cecilia Cheung and Gillian Chung in the nude photos both trimmed or shaved their pubic hair, I am afraid that a craze of leaving blank pubic hair would have already started among Chinese women. The outcome of this controversial body politics is difficult to predict.

Some people argue from a biological perspective that Asian women do not have as much body hair as Western women and therefore do not need to remove it. However, the same biological perspective also suggests that black pubic hair appears denser and messier and therefore needs to be trimmed or shaved more often. Some people firmly believe that having no pubic hair is a bad omen in Chinese culture, so leaving blank space will not be popular. However, a plump waist and a wide hip were once the only criteria for Chinese people to choose a daughter-in-law or a wife, but this no longer exists.