Admit it–haven’t you wondered about this? What IS the effect of all that hair removal down there on the local flora and fauna? Fortunately, scientists have answered that question. Sort of. For women in Leeds, England. (Maybe.)
Armstrong, N. (2006). Did the “Brazilian” kill the pubic louse? Sexually Transmitted Infections, 82(3), 265-266 DOI: 10.1136/sti.2005.018671
I’ve seen this paper cited over and over, but what you don’t realize until you actually read it is that….it doesn’t actually have any significant conclusions. The authors looked at the occurrence of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and pubic lice between 1997 and 2003 in people showing up at a public GYN clinic. While clap and chlamydia increased significantly, the frequency of pubic lice declined significantly during the same period.
The graph itself is deceptive. The second Y axis actually shows the percentage decreasing from 0.5% of cases seen to 0.15% cases seen. So, a rare thing got…more rare. Additionally, all the numbers are reported as a percentage, so there is no information at all about just how many total cases we are looking at. The total group seen has to be at least 200 people/year, since otherwise the percentages indicate sexually active headless torsos. But we really have no idea if this is any sort of a representative sample of the general population.
There is a much larger issue with this study, however. They have no data on what the waxing rate is in either the population of women showing up in their clinic, or the population at large. None. All they have is anecdotal stories that waxing became more popular during that time period. So, they aren’t even able to show a correlation; they just speculated that there would be a correlation, if there was any data.
There is a certain logical beauty in linking the destruction of Ho-Ha forests by clear-cutting and the death of the native fauna. (A crab louse paper from 1983 describes them as “swinging from hair to hair” rather like monkeys, BTW.) However, there simply is no evidence for for a link between snatch waxing and pubic lice decline.
Honestly? I think the only reason this paper made it past the journal editors was because it was about pubic lice, and crotch crickets are inherently interesting because of the pastures they graze in. (Which, of course, is exactly why -I- am writing about them!)
I did some investigating (in the library, pervs!) and found that there is actually data available on happy trail hair removal for women in the US and Australia. The percentage of Australian college women who shaved their pudenda was around 48% during the same time period; but that means that the majority of women still had some or all of their original carpeting, whether or not it still matched the drapes.
We also know from a very detailed study of American women in 2010 that there is no dominant pattern to hair removal in the US. Women aged 18-24 were most likely of all age groups to have naked crotches, but even then only 38% of them were hair free down there. Having a hairless muffin was actually the least common pattern of body hair in the over 2,450 women studied. Additionally, removal of one’s No-No Fro was NOT related to having experienced an STD infection in that study–which strongly suggests that the sample used for the “Brazilian hypothesis” was not representative.
It is far too soon to say if pubic lice are an endangered species. I know that when I was teaching entomology regularly, at least one student a year would manage to collect a crab louse, so they are still out there.
As for me, I plan to keep my Map of Tasmania intact. Hope that wasn’t overly sharing.
What, you couldn’t find a bare-spot to squeeze in a vajajay reference?
You don’t get pubic lice in your vagina :)
I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed that review of pube nicknames. I agree, the study sounds weak.
Hahahaha, “no-no fro” is my favorite.
I want to applaud your euphemistic skill. I’ve practically doubled my vocabulary for referring to women’s pubic hair.
Sounds like a lot of nitpicking,to me.
On a more serious note, what about people who have inconsistent no-no fros? I usually trim mine short, but I occasionally shave it and occasionally let it grow into a wild overgrown forest.
A bit of practical advice: go for shaving over waxing. Waxing legs and eyebrows is one thing, but there is much more hair per area around the vajayjay or the twig and berries and it hurts a lot to rip it all out at once.
If there are any hairs, they will find a way to latch on. You’d have to be pretty hairless–including around the anus–for the pubic lice not to be able to hold on.
I still can’t get the “monkeys” comment out of my brain.I wonder if they could remake the old Tarzan movies using pubice lice,kind of like a flea circus?That would be amazing!
This study was reminds me of the methodologies used in a lot “social interest” studies. The Associated Press is particularly bad about it. They seem to love a “unwed teen mother” study that includes 18 and 19 year olds who are married at the time of conception and are single due to widowhood and divorce. Technically an accurate use of the words, but not what most people have in mind talk about unwed teen pregnancy. Or my personal favorite, a study that concluded all homeless people are mentally ill…since all the homeless people the police brought to a single hospital were mentally ill.
Even if this study was valid, an interesting factor would be the different concept of Brazilian was in different countries. My wife’s own anecdotal experience has been that in the US you normally get a true Brazilian and in Germany what they call a Brazilian is what would be sold as a French wax is the US.
So you’re saying that even if I remove my short and curlies I could still get cooties in my Elmo?
I heard a story while on a tour of the vet facility at the San Diego Safari Park. When the California Condors were all captured, they were treated for feather mites. This resulted in the extinction of the mite species specific to the California Condor. I don’t know if they have any in the “frozen zoo”. Should we have the San Diego Zoo repeat this on people? :)
A majority of women still have pubic hair, but it seems like people who go smooth might have more partners on average, so the effect could be magnified. Of course you can’t correct a lack of data with additional guessing.
Wait, so pubic lice only live in women’s pubic hair? What about men’s pubic hair? If lice lived in pubic hair of both men and women how would women waxing lead to the extinction of all lice?
Exactly. Another reason this “research” paper is seriously flawed.
Except the study didn’t say that if only women go bald the lice will go extinct. The study correlated shaving/waxing prevalence with a reduction in the incidence of pubic lice. Once would expect that trend to continue with the increase in male genital shaving too.
I’m male, and I go bald. My wife appreciates it. And, no pubic lice here!
The study did not correlate anything with anything else–it was completely speculation.
They had no data on shaving, focused on women–yet suggested in the title that lice were a marked species.
I will be amazed, frankly, if manscaping becomes more common. I have zero tolerance for yanking of short and curlies, and I can’t imagine it’s nicer for men.