BY Lux Alptraum
September 17, 2007
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5 Comments

A chance encounter with a copy of the SuicideGirls Magazine led to an interesting discovery: in all of the magazine’s 72 pages, we were only able to locate two or three models with even the merest scrap of pubic hair (and we do mean merest scrap, as even the girls who hadn’t chosen to go completely bare were rocking the tiniest of racing stripes).

Somehow, it seemed odd for a site which boasts of being “at the forefront of a generation of young women and men whose ideals about sexuality do not conform with what mainstream media is reporting” to display such a high level of conformity in its models’ pubic stylings.

Before we go any further with this inquiry, we feel the need to issue the following disclaimer: Boinkology takes no issue with Brazilians (some of us are quite fond of them, in fact). We firmly believe in the right of the individual to style his or her pubic hair as desired (be that shaved, waxed, trimmed, untouched, or hey, even dyed!). But the sight of so many shorn vulvas — and the underlying implication that this is the way (the only way) to be sexy — struck an uncomfortable chord in our hearts.

We’re relatively certain that the sans pube vibe was an editorial decision (after all, pubic hair is so last year — just ask Britney Spears). We’re also relatively certain that, if questioned about said decision, the staff of SuicideGirls would be more than likely to echo the answer they once gave about why such a small percentage of Suicide Girls were women of color: “We would love to have more, but they just don’t apply.” Or don’t want to be in the magazine, in this case.

And it’s such an easy answer, and so easy to leave it there, to absolve the media makers of any responsibility for their actions. It’s not their fault, after all: they’ve opened the door to everyone, and this is who’s come in. And of course, there is a grain of truth to that. Models of color are (or at least were) in short supply among altporn model applicants (though given the heavily white feel of many of the sites, it’s not hard to see why); likewise, it’s entirely likely that women with all their pubic hair intact are less likely to apply to be porn models.

But to leave it there, to not push past the basic facts to ask why this is so, displays such a grotesque level of willful naivete that it’s difficult to take seriously. Are we really to believe that girls with pubic hair are somehow less inclined to make porn? (And if you somehow happen to believe that, allow us to introduce you to long time Boinkology crush Furry Girl.)

A far more likely scenario is that, upon surveying the porniverse, prospective models come to the conclusion that to really make it — to really be considered sexy, to be considered porn material — it’s important to fit a certain style, a certain look. Or to be more blunt, that to be in porn, you have to look porn: and that looking porn means no pubic hair.

And thus, we come full circle to this issue of SuicideGirls Magazine. For if no Suicide Girls have pubic hair, than clearly, to be a Sucide Girl, one must rid herself of pubic hair. And if Suicide Girls are our measure of sexy, than clearly, to be sexy, one must bare all, as it were.

And, quite frankly, we have a hard time seeing that as something with ideals about sexuality that don’t conform — or, more accurately, don’t expect women to conform to a single, restrictive idea of beauty.