Claude Dubois ¹ loves hair, fries that go beyond women's panties, dark fleeces that emphasize and hide sex.

"When I was a boy at the end of the 1950s, there was no porn or internet, and the only way to discover sexuality was to see the hair escaping from girls' swimsuits. at the pool, the shadow that was foaming on their groins.For me, the pubic fleece remained the absolute symbol of sexual maturity and feminine mystery.I remember the erotic shock that I experienced when I discovered Silvana Mangano in the film 'Bitter Rice', of the animality that emanated from his unwaxed armpits, we did not see his sex, of course, but we guessed it was as wild and lush as the underside of his arms. "

Today, Claude is very unhappy. When the summer comes, when the women are unveiled, he does not have the slightest hair to put under his eyes. Pubic hair removal has become as common as that of the armpits: the hair, an eminently natural secondary character, is considered transgressive, even taboo.

"In sex shops, Claude continues, movies with actresses little or no shaved are a category apart, between fetishism and SM, as if love hair was a perversion."

Pubis and hair, a beautiful story

The practice of pubic hair removal was born in Egypt and is one of the precepts of the Muslim religion. It is in the Middle East that has been designed the depilatory paste, made of sugar, water and lemon, more and more used in our beauty salons.

In the West, until the 1970s, it was forbidden by law to publish images of pubic hair in the mainstream press. The nude photos in "Playboy" and "Lui" were retouched with a brush until transforming the mount of Venus into a marble conch.

The appearance of hair has been a considerable audacity, but over the years, this symbol of liberation has experienced a virtual domestication. Pubic hair removal has become an aesthetic and hygienic standard in the same way as underarms.

The fashion of the Brazilian jersey, then the thong and the pants with hyper-low waist has caused what the amateurs of natural fleeces consider as an erotic catastrophe, in the same way that the ecologists are sorry for the Amazon deforestation. Whether in bathrooms or beauty salons, we shave, we epile, we pull out and lasise pubis, labia and between-buttocks to be sexy. The men get into it, joining the girls in this quest for the smooth.

The trivialization of pornographic imagery has contributed greatly to this trend. The majority of X movie actresses have adopted the metro ticket, the American triangle or the vertical hairnet. The eye, willy-nilly, eventually adapt to these weeded landscapes. This leads to a paradoxical situation where hypersexualization is associated with aseptic and infantile aesthetics.

In "Le Grand Appartement", the recent film by Pascal Thomas, Laetitia Casta appears ... with hair under the arms. To the journalist who asked her if she was not afraid to break her image ² , here is what the beautiful woman answered: "I went back to what I was, you will see: it will come back to fashion, the hairs They're going to be pissed off those who have had their hair done forever, and today women are forced to look like children.

The opinion of the beautician on the depilation of the jersey

" Before, the clients came to have the jersey removed just before the holidays, now it's all year long, and there's a growing demand for full hair removal by 18- to 25-year-olds. Today, we make 30% of integral, 40% of ticket of metro and 30% of Brazilian.The pubic hair removal has become common in the same way as that of the armpits.The girls and the young men think Hair is dirty and neglected Hair removal is more related to partner demand, and women who do it get used to it because the regrowth phase is not really good.

On Valentine's Day, I have more fun requests : hair removal in the shape of a heart or initial of the first name, dyeing of hair in pink ... From 40/45 years, women are dyed pubic for hide the white hairs. Those with a bald fleece can get a tattoo.

When a woman who only asked for the classic jersey suddenly goes to the Brazilian or the 'American triangle', nine times out of ten, she has a new lover ...

We are doing more and more permanent hair removal in pulsed light.

To avoid pimples due to hair that grow back under the skin, I advise to regularly massage the groin with sweet almond oil and shave, all four waxing . It gives a little strength to the hair and it allows him to cross the skin barrier.

¹ Writer and historian of Paris. Author of "La Bastoche: pleasure and crime" (Punctum edition).
² In "To Us Paris", January 2007.