Thought for the Day

Odd post this. Please feel free to disregard ...

… anyway, the other day I was wandering around the newsagent’s waiting for a friend, and I found myself in front of what is usually coyly referred to as the “gentlemen’s interests” section.

Now normally I would glance at the covers only long enough to see where that section ended and the music magazines began, but on this occasion my attention was caught by a cover displaying (and I do mean displaying) a woman who was startlingly non-hirsute in a region traditionally endowed with at least the remnants of a triangular growth. The headline screamed that inside the covers there was more of the same because “we give our readers what they’ve asked for!”

OK, I’m curious. I flick through it. They’re as good as their word – there’s not so much as a suggestion of vegetation in sight. Looked at the next mag. Ditto. And the next. Same. All three of them. Pages and pages of glossy women totally devoid of anything resembling pubic hair.

Now I can understand that women who favour the g-string as being both comfortable and attractive (wrong on both counts in my book, but freedom to choose is all) find the Brazilian profile a practical option, but to remove all trace? Why? Is it for the woman’s own pleasure, or because she feels more attractive when as hairless in the nether regions as a six-year old? Aha - and there we have it – the source of my disturbance.

A woman is a woman. A girl is a girl. A pre-pubescent is a child. Each stage has its physical characteristics. Once you start blurring the edges (excuse) by removing some of them, is there not something a little questionable about the concept behind it? Is the quest for eternal youth now so extreme that we strive for a look that is pre-pubescent?

I noticed breast size was not diminished in any of the pictures; presumably the ideal woman according to their audience was a sort of fantasy hybrid. And speaking of fantasy, I’m not talking about the odd fun experiment, or what any couple may or may not choose to do to suit themselves. Not my business – each to his and her own and good luck to you. No, it was the mass depiction of this look as a sexual ideal that bothered me.

So am I imagining a cultural tendency to creepiness where only a sense of fun exists? Is this less about the cult of youth taken to disturbing extremes than simply the advent of the affordable laser treatment? Is it less of a social concern and more of a natty style trend?

Gentle reader, I ponder.