women do less pubic hair removal and this is very good news

On the sidelines of the Januhairy challenge, which promotes body hair throughout the month of January, the "Gender, sexualities and sexual health" pole of Ifop conducted a survey on the evolution of depilatory practices of the French.

The revenge of pubic hair has sounded! If you are on Instagram accounts Le Sens du Poil, Parlons Poils or Paye ton poil, from the Liberté, Pilosity Sorority collective, you necessarily want to put an end to the diktat of hair removal. Well, maybe the time has come to throw our dull razors and itchy creams in the trash. The pole "Gender, sexualities and sexual health" of the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop) has indeed conducted, for the platform dedicated to sexual health Charles.co, a survey on the evolution of depilatory practices of the French.

This study was launched via an online questionnaire from January 19 to 20, 2021, during the challenge of Januhairy, which invites you to grow your hair at the start of the year. Nearly 2,000 people took part in this survey … which highlights an unprecedented decline in depilatory practices in France. A neat result.

The end of pubic hair removal?

According to the results of the survey, in eight years, the "No Shave" ("No shaving", in the language of Molière) has doubled, from 28% in 2021 against 15% in 2013. The health crisis plays in this acceleration of the "return of the hair", already in germ (bulb?) for several years. "Nearly one in five women say they remove hair from the armpits, bikini line or legs' less often than before the first confinement", explains the study, a sign that depilatory practices have a lot to do with their degree of sociability and with regard to others in the management of their physical appearance. "

However, Ifop notes that there is still a pressure to depilation for women, much stronger than that for men: "Only 21% heterosexual men appreciate female pubic hair with all their hair, half as much as what is observed for male pubic areas when heterosexual women (41%) are asked on the subject." And this very close shave is no longer reserved for young people under 25 (56%), but also for women aged 25-34 (48%) and 35-49 (31%). Good news, however, the women surveyed "express a broader rejection of this 'pressure to depilate' which translates, for many of them, into the possibility of stopping this frantic hunt for hair." One in two French people say that one day she could stop removing hair on the shirt.

"Less burdensome gender stereotypes"

Still present in our "dear patriarchal society" (no), the link between depilation and seduction is also losing unanimity. Because if, according to Ifop, the idea that the absence of hair is a major asset of seduction is still "twice as rooted in the fairer sex (at 73%) than the idea that hair removal is a criterion of male seduction (at 33% for men)", this stereotype is gradually being shelved. The hairs are attractive and in no way spoil the pleasure of the other, and it begins to be known.

"The vast majority of men attracted to women declaring that they could have sex with a non-shaved woman on the armpits (66%) or legs (61%) but also in the raw state on the pubic level ( 70%) ", says the study. "In a society where the transgression of gender stereotypes always exposes a risk of stigmatization, less mechanical respect for the norm of female hairlessness should not therefore be reduced to a simple relaxation in a context of confinement. (…) if the data seem to show that this evolution is dictated more by concerns for comfort or health than by feminist motivations (rarely assumed as such), it is difficult for us not to see in it the distant trace of changes in representations hair driven in recent years by activists of body positivism. (…) This decline in anti-hair culture must however be qualified ", concludes François KRAUS, director of the "Gender, sexualities and sexual health" of Ifop. However, the change is underway. Rather than our hair, let's rather shave the patriarchy!