The Hair Down There

A feminist writer wonders why she’s so quick to pull off her pants and expose herself to a stranger in the hedonistic and masochistic ritual that is the bikini wax.

Illustrations by Sophie Yanow

Internationally touring writer, poet, performer and educator — and longtime Narratively contributor — Caroline Rothstein will be teaching Deeply Personal: Writing First-Person Essays on Raw and Difficult Topics for Narratively Academy this month. Today, we’re excited to reshare this Narratively Classic from Caroline, an exhaustive look at a topic that’s well…about as deeply personal as it gets!

The year was 2013. I was four and a half years into a relationship I didn’t know was soon to end. I was 31. Regularly waxing my pubes. The ways we talked about gender and identity were expanding, but not yet nearly as far as they both could and would. Now, 11 years later, I still think about this piece a lot. Mostly because I stopped waxing altogether shortly before the pandemic. At 31, I wish I knew what I know now: that I actually like having lots of hair down there, and all the years of waxing and thinning the hair bums me out. I suppose that too is reflexive of the larger shift. In a society, in a discourse, in a body. I think often — like a lot, a lot — about my interview with Stoya, an adult performer and writer featured in this story. And not to spoil the kicker, but what she says about the discourse around pubic hair being a surrogate for what’s actually at stake with regards to equity and justice — I think the sentiment tracks, too. —Caroline Rothstein, October 2024

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A few bikini waxes ago, I pulled off my pants and underwear, loosely folded them into a pile atop my shoes, hoisted myself onto the waxing table and briskly flopped my legs into a diamond, my feet touching sole to sole. While waiting for the esthetician to return with a cylinder of green wax and conduct my regular procedure – a “women’s deep bikini with top,” which clears the underwear lines and keeps some bush around the labia – I had a montage of thoughts. First, I am a feminist; I claim to do this for myself, not my long-term male partner, or anyone before him, or any societal expectation. Second, the only times I ever got Brazilian waxes, removing almost all pubic hair, were during the year and a half in college when I was deliberately celibate and only my hands, my vibrator, and my full-length mirror saw my crotch. Third, I am a survivor of rape.

Yet here I am, month in and month out, dropping my pants for a stranger, letting her slide hot, green, organic wax along my vulva, around my labia, and across my lower abdomen with a thick, pale wooden popsicle stick just so I can feel “clean.” How can I subject a part of my body with such a complicated narrative to this hedonistic ritual and still call myself a feminist?