The Bush is Back, Baby 🌳
Yes, we're talking about pubes on main (again)
In case you haven’t heard, the bush™️ is in.
TikTok went wild over an Etsy review of a girl with a full bush in a bikini.
You Swim, the inclusive and cute asf Aussie swimwear brand’s summer 2024 campaign Going Bush, Going Beach stuns with a larger than life wheatpasting of a bikini bush encouraging their community to share pictures of their beach bushes and giving away 100 suits.
This feels like as good a time as any to tell you the story of the time I accidentally got a Brazilian wax.
Two years ago I booked a routine bikini wax. I thought nothing of it. After all, I’ve been waxing since I was seventeen. I’ve rocked a classic triangle, a heart, and even a lightning bolt. Truth be told, my only regret is not having vajazzled when I had the chance.
What’s odd is that I spent most of my prepubescent life willing my pubic hair to come in. I grew up with a naked mom, which means I saw my mother’s hairy mound pretty regularly, as a little girl I often wondered when my vagina would look like that. When the first wiry black strand broke through my skin, my cousin and I sat across from each other with our pants around our ankles marveling at our freshly grown wisps, feeling as though some new level of womanhood had finally been unlocked for us.
Back then I didn’t see the promise of pubic tufts as a source of societal shame, but as a signifier of a maturity that mystified me.
Middle school is treacherous enough, for whatever reason we also require our pre-teens to attend mandatory gym classes. There’s a lot of hate about gym class: the frumpy outfits, the social persecution that is being picked last for teams, and of course…the woe-inducing 45 minute period of actual physical activity. For a moment let’s put the cloying smell of Bath and Body Works body spray and hormonal sweat aside, the locker room is a terrifying and overwhelming place, and getting undressed in front of classmates should actually be illegal. I remember the judging and insecure looks, and nasty comments.
One comment in particular haunts me. A girl in class happened to be wearing a pair of underwear that revealed that she 1. had pubic hair and 2. hadn’t attempted to remove it. Some of the popular girls began to whisper about a something called a “wolf pussy”. Anxious eyes bounced around the change room scanning for the unkempt crotch in question.
Though the comment was made about another girl, the insult immediately made my body curl up, I actually felt myself become smaller. I was terrified that someone might catch a glimpse of my un-groomed pelvis and direct the vilification towards me.
It’s been 12 years since I was in that locker room but I still remember “wolf pussy”.
Around that time I started begging my mom to let me shave. Even though she routinely got waxed, and had several other body modifications like piercings and tattoos, she always told me that things like that have a time and place. And unfortunately for me, it was not my time.
So I did what most kids of strict parents do, I went behind her back. I managed to steal one of her razors and attempted to cure myself of my own wolf pussy. I am, an objectively hairy woman, I take after my dad that way. So just picture twelve year old me attempting shave a thick layer of unruly dark curly hair from navel to ankle. There were of course, nicks, cuts and, ingrowns. Oh my!
Eventually my mom caught on and realized she couldn’t do much to stop me. The tragedy continued until high school when finally my mom acquiesced, if I was going to remove my body hair, I might as well do it correctly. So she took me to an esthetician. By the time I turned eighteen I felt like a waxing pro, I could do my psychology class readings while the wax was poured on, and brace myself between paragraph sections for the pull.
There are few experiences like getting a bikini wax. Some places are fancier, with signature scented lobbies, immaculately curated product displays, chilled boxed waters for guests and wallpapered ceilings for your horizontal viewing pleasure, while others are sterilely designed, predictable in their austerity, and almost mechanically efficient. Regardless of where you get your pussy waxed, the how is pretty much always the same.
You’re escorted to a room, told to disrobe and place your personal items in a bin, and hop up on the freshly disinfected table. They will likely step out of the room while you undress, which feels a silly courtesy considering in that the next few moments they’ll be staring straight into your urethra. Next they’ll probably ask you to get into a position they call “butterfly”. There are many waxing poses, one of the most humbling: holding your ass cheeks apart as the wax dries, praying they don’t get sealed together.
Many things run through your mind during a wax, should I have showered again, please don’t fart, oh my god I have to pee, I wonder if I have the prettiest vagina she’s done today, god this is going to hurt, I deserve a sweet treat after this, etc.
Back to my Brazilian boo-boo. The process began as it usually does only this time I felt wax in a place i’d never felt wax before. I immediately looked up from my phone.
Are you taking everything off?
Did you book a Brazilian?
Uh, I didn’t mean to…
Oh.
At this point the wax was hardening and the sweat was beginning to pour. The waxer started apologizing profusely. She asked me what I wanted her to do. I told her I didn’t think there was much else to be done. The removal ritual began.
When the service was complete and the waxer passed me the small hand mirror I was startled by what I saw. A version of my vagina I hadn’t seen in over twenty years. Smooth, bare, and, totally unrecognizable in it’s vulnerability. I walked out of the wax center with a frictionless pep in my step and a lot of questions.
How the hell did that happen?
People really ask for this?
How long has it been since I’ve actually seen my vagina?
Is this really what men want?
Did she accidentally wax my clit off?
I came home and immediately showed my husband, we both couldn’t stop laughing.
I’d been waxing for years and had certainly been close to being bald but somehow that small longstanding patch of hair meant more than I knew. There were of course benefits, I had no idea my skin could feel so soft, clean up (in every sense) was a breeze, and the sex was…slippery when wet. Like everything though, there were drawbacks, the regrowth was hell, the upkeep was draining, and God the ingrowns.
In the end, it was a rather happy accident. I stayed hairless for a few months before resorting to my usual soul patch. Though I did get one final Brazilian before giving birth which definitely helped with visibility for all parties involved. That was nearly eight months ago and since then I’ve been equal parts busy and lazy.
These days I can be seen sporting a full bush. We’re talking the vintage 70s style pussy with the hair growing out the panties. It’s true that after giving birth vanity goes out the window, but so do the fucks. It’s laughable to me, that I spent my childhood wishing for this wild and womanly thing only to spend my teens and early twenties foolishly trying to tame it.
All I think about is that scene in the SATC movie where Samantha calls out Miranda for not shaving 😂
Thank you deeply for this, I’m a reformed waxer because of my naked bush mom and it’s nice to be seen in this era 😭🤎