The Beauty of the Bush: A Cultural History of Women’s Pubic Hair, From Ancient Art to TikTok

It is easy to assume that hairlessness has always been the definitive Western beauty ideal when it comes to women’s bodies. Modern culture is saturated with an array of products and procedures designed to eradicate body hair, from intimate washes and laser treatments to the ubiquitous Brazilian wax. Yet, a deeper examination of history reveals an abundance of evidence pointing in the exact opposite direction.

Throughout various eras, pubic hair has been celebrated, displayed, traded, and even worn as a statement of health, status, and romance. In the 18th and 19th centuries, lovers frequently exchanged locks of their pubic hair as tokens of affection. These intimate keepsakes were often carefully encased in custom jewelry, carried around in small trinket boxes, or preserved in envelopes. Anne Lister, the 19th-century diarist frequently celebrated as "the first modern lesbian," notably collected locks of pubic hair from her various romantic partners.

Centuries earlier, during the 15th century, a full bush was regarded as a tangible symbol of health and prosperity, according to The Oxford Companion to the Body. During this period, being entirely clean-shaven was viewed with a deep sense of suspicion, often interpreted as an attempt to conceal venereal diseases.

Growing up surrounded by internet pornography, feminine intimate washes, and the normalization of hair removal makes it nearly impossible for contemporary minds to fathom that women’s pubic hair was once considered more hygienic or inherently desirable. Today, stray pubes are still largely framed as a social faux pas, though the natural look experienced a viral cultural moment thanks to online discourse on platforms like TikTok and high-profile fashion statements, such as Skims merkins. Much like the free-spirited atmosphere of the 1970s or the absinthe-soaked romanticism of the 19th century, these moments have occasionally offered women slightly more autonomy to grow out their body hair. However, this freedom consistently runs contrary to what has long been established as the artistic and cultural norm throughout Western history.

Long before the invention of modern razors and laser hair removal technology, people actively tended to their pubic hair. Archaeologists have discovered bronze tweezers utilized by the ancient Romans to meticulously pluck out hair from their armpits and pubic regions, strand by strand. When examining female nudes throughout art history, a hairy mons pubis is rarely to be found.

Art historian Cathelijne Blok traces this enduring aesthetic standard as far back as the Venus of Willendorf, a 30,000-year-old figurine featuring prominent feminine curves, a clear belly button, and defined labia, yet completely lacking a discernible bush. This artistic convention persisted well into the late 19th century, punctuated only by periods where vulvas were omitted from artistic representation entirely.

Even in Sandro Botticelli’s renowned Birth of Venus, the subject’s mons pubis is carefully obscured by hair flowing downward from her head. Blok explains that this artistic choice likely stems from the narrative of the subject arriving on land and suddenly becoming conscious of her own nudity. This classic gesture, known historically as the Venus Pudica, carries such profound cultural resonance that the Gillette company would, more than five centuries later, name a razor line after it.

In contrast, male bodies in classical art were treated differently. Blok notes that male body hair was often lightly smoothed or curated rather than entirely eradicated, pointing to Michelangelo’s David—long held as a symbol of the ideal male form—which features a small, perfectly trimmed and curled crown of pubic hair. This disparity existed largely because white, male perspectives historically dominated the art world, utilizing women’s bodies as a blank canvas upon which to impose a narrow set of virtues, including innocence, divinity, and chastity. Women themselves were culturally expected to embody these same imposed traits.

As Blok observes, youth and physical smoothness have long been idealized as desirable, while natural hairiness was frequently associated with animalism. Over time, that underlying logic devolved into something even more exclusionary, with racist pseudoscientists weaponizing visible body hair to frame certain populations as more primitive or less evolutionarily developed.

Beyond the canvas, societal ideals surrounding pubic hair continuously cycled through various iterations, frequently signaling a person’s social status and material wealth. For the ancient Greeks, a smooth appearance likely symbolized a refined form of femininity because achieving it hinged entirely on having the leisure and financial access necessary for regular grooming. Conversely, the exact opposite dynamic applied to medieval Europeans, where a full bush indicated robust health.

During the medieval period, when a lack of pubic hair could mistakenly suggest the presence of pubic lice or other sexually transmitted diseases, artificial hairpieces known as merkins gained widespread popularity among sex workers. Even aristocratic women, exhausted by the constant risk of contracting lice from philandering husbands, adopted the trend.

Women’s pubic hair did not genuinely re-enter mainstream Western art until the late 19th century. During this period, male artists such as Gustave Courbet, Gustav Klimt, and Egon Schiele began painting explicit nudes to the shock and outrage of contemporary audiences. At the time, depictions of pubic hair were largely relegated to illicit erotic works, including pornographic drawings, early photographs, and the aforementioned practice of exchanging lovers’ locks.

In 1866, Courbet’s close-up painting of a full-bushed vulva, titled L’Origine du monde, was met with intense, pearl-clutching controversy. Critics argued that the piece was not art, but pornography. The painting was not publicly exhibited in Paris until 1995 and famously faced strict censorship on social media platforms more than a century after its initial creation.

The true artistic breakthrough occurred when the female gaze finally permeated the art world. Artists such as Suzanne Valadon, Frida Kahlo, and later Judy Chicago and Tracey Emin began depicting pubic hair authentically from their own unique perspectives. As Blok notes, whether consciously intended as a political statement or not, the inclusion of pubic hair in art represents a vital degree of freedom regarding what women want to—or are allowed to—do with their own bodies.

The commercialization of hair removal accelerated rapidly in the early 20th century. In 1915, Gillette launched the Milady Decollete, marking the very first safety razor marketed specifically to women. The accompanying advertising campaign framed natural body hair as an embarrassing personal problem. This represented the beauty industry operating at its most effective, inventing a perceived physical flaw simply to sell the consumer a manufactured fix. Consequently, a smooth body quickly became the dominant mainstream standard.

However, that initial razor marketing campaign primarily targeted armpit, leg, and cleavage hair. In her book Plucked: A History of Hair Removal, author Rebecca Herzig writes that for the majority of the 20th century, prevailing fashion trends covered enough of the human body to keep pubic hair safely out of the public eye.

By the 1970s, body hair transformed into a deeply political symbol, serving as a banner for second-wave feminism and a direct rejection of traditional gender roles. The inaugural issue of Ms. Magazine featured a prominent opinion piece arguing that women should embrace their natural body hair, noting critically that women who shaved their pubes were merely emulating the infantile sexlessness of a young girl. Shortly thereafter, uncropped bushes began dominating the pages of publications like Playboy and Penthouse.

As cultural tides shifted once again, the leotard-clad, aerobics-toned fitness culture of the 1980s and the Kate Moss-led minimalist aesthetic of the 1990s ushered in a renewed demand for trimming and hair management. By the turn of the millennium, pubic hair had almost entirely vanished from mainstream visibility. Low-rise trousers crept dangerously low down the pubic bone, leaving virtually no room for visible hair, while laser hair removal skyrocketed in popularity after becoming commercially available for the first time in the 1990s. When bushes did occasionally surface in mainstream media, film, or television, they were overwhelmingly used as the punchline of a joke. A notable example is Anna Faris in the 2000 comedy Scary Movie, whose overgrown pubic hair is framed as a source of direct comic revulsion.

Cultural attitudes shifted yet again when bushes and merkins re-emerged within the contemporary zeitgeist. They appeared first on the high-fashion runways during Maison Margiela’s SS24 artisanal collection, then migrated online through viral social media movements like BushTok and the "full bush in a bikini" discourse, and finally landed directly in retail stores via commercial items like the Skims merkin thongs.

Hair artist Yumiko Hikage reflects on this ongoing cultural pendulum to Dazed, noting that pubic hair has long been treated as something intensely private, excessive, or inherently undesirable. Social media, contemporary art, and modern fashion have all contributed significantly to making bodies and body hair visible once more. According to Hikage, society is slowly beginning to question the underlying assumption that the human body must be constantly controlled, corrected, or altered to meet a rigid standard of beauty.

However, visibility does not automatically translate to genuine freedom. Hikage cautions that even natural body hair can easily transform into yet another restrictive beauty ideal.

Reflecting on historical precedents—ranging from medieval merkins to the 1970s feminists who characterized pubic grooming as an act of infantile sexlessness—it becomes unmistakably clear that debates surrounding pubic hair norms are never actually about the hair itself. Instead, they are reflections of society’s ongoing anxieties concerning the body underneath: matters of sexuality, reproduction, and fundamental bodily autonomy.