I'm glad you brought this up because it has been on my mind for a while now too. And I do agree with you - the last time I went down to the tip was about ten days ago - nothing's changed. Old washing machines, batteries leaking acid, plastic bags, anything it seems, straight into landfill.

I love Amy Poehler's comments on Saturday Night Live:

"Ladies, what's up with all the deforestation going on down there? You need hair down there! It's a backup system for underwear! ... I remember when a lady garden was as big as a slice of New York pizza!"

From Salon http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/12/31/2006_sex/index2.html

Its a wonder the SBS has not done a special on this. They like to sink to the lowest ebb and call it educational. At least everyone knows that Big brother etc is trash. More sensuality, more child molestaion, more perversion. Who really cares until they are affected.

Meredith

I agree with what you say. However, the idea of a depilated muff, in my opinion, has a great deal to do with the desire of some men to see women as pre-pubescent. The pornography industry has made Brazilians and nude genitalia mandatory. This is a reflection of the fashion industry's "size 8" for models and impractical designs for real women.

In personal terms, "vive la muff"

Good article.

Why women buy so uncritically into all this nonsense is beyond me.

I remember reading an article in one of those women's magazines by a bloke who said that he felt uncomfortable with his lover's decision to wax it nearly off. It made him feel dirty, he said. She said it made her feel clean. Eep! Clean like a little girl?

Mind you, some men seem to like it, so we have the pathologising of what nature intended by both men and women.

2007 and the uncomfortableness with the female form continues.

Good on you for writing this piece

What a waste, all of that imagery and humour just to knee men in the balls over some very tenuous links with pornography and children.

Some women need to get on with life and stop blaming men for women's vanity. Women remove hair from all sorts of places and 99.9999% of the times it is for fashion and vanity, not men. If anyone doesn't believe this just have a look at girls' and women's magazines. This could start with the January 2007 edition of Cleo, which has more bare muff than twelve months of 'girlie' mags (and no full-on 70's feminist hair).

Anyhow, some blondes can get away with things that more hirsute and darker haired women cannot and a black shadow really detracts from 'the look', as do tufts of hair poking out from bathers.

I suppose heaps of hair could go with the bib and braces overalls for the 'butch' look so valued in some circles. But some of them shave their heads instead and that really would (in the author's eyes) be reminiscent of an infant's baldness.

Has the author considered why some men are stripping and trimming mush hair from their bodies and undergoing plastic surgery? Following the author's logic that must be because women are pederasts and 'make' men do it.

When looking for the reason for something, it is never wise to disregard the most obvious.

There is huge $$ investment in personal care products including hair removal and in fashion generally. That is where the ideas and pressure are coming from, not from ordinary blokes who quite frankly are quite mystified about the trend (and are looking very uncomfortable as the personal care and fashion advertisers gun turrets are being turned their way).

It is about male and female entrepreneurs making money, not men.