The Bush Debate, Settled by No One

Two camps, no middle ground. One side removes everything—laser, wax, razor, obsessive maintenance—until smooth skin is a permanent condition. The other side has decided, with equal deliberateness, to let it all go. Underarms, legs, the full situation. Natural as a political act, hairlessness reframed as capitulation.

Feminists have had this argument on lock for a while, and the logic tracks: a preference for bare pubic skin is a preference inherited from porn aesthetics and a broader discomfort with adult bodies. Shaved labia read as pre-pubescent; body hair is adulthood made visible; erasing it is a form of erasure. Real women keep the bush. The counterargument—that some women just prefer the way it feels, or that a personal preference isn’t necessarily political—tends to get steamrolled in that particular conversation.

My own preferences have never been fixed enough to constitute a position. What I find attractive is contextual, variable, specific to the person in front of me. Refinery29 put a cross-section of people in front of a camera and asked them straight out. The answers scattered in every direction: short, long, wild, trimmed, maintained, ignored. But the one point of consensus—the thing everyone agreed on regardless of their own preference—was that you do it for yourself. Not for whoever’s watching. That’s the only part worth keeping.