How Quitting Porn Helped Me Embrace My Pubic Hair

On my first solo adventure to the United States, I met an American boy on the Los Angeles pier. Many hours later, when a drink had turned to several, we were on a lifeguard station in the middle of the night and ready to fulfill my ultimate California fantasy. That’s when I learned my American dream boy was saving himself for marriage. We kept in touch after I flew back to Europe and I learned he’d also quit watching pornography. Thus came my epiphany: If a beautiful, red-blooded man could renounce porn, why the hell couldn’t I?

If a beautiful, red-blooded man could renounce porn, why the hell couldn’t I?

I Pretended to Like Being Hairless

I had used porn since my late teens in an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’” gesture. Truth be told, I felt frustrated by how unrealistic it all was——the human form included. The women’s genitals were bare and smooth, not even a landing strip in sight, and as a result, I shaved religiously. Razor burn nor the agony of itchy regrowth were enough to stop me. No fresh razors around? No problem, a rusty one would do.In my teens, when my mother caught me in the nude, laughing at how I looked like a plucked chicken down there, I insisted I liked this. No, it wasn’t uncomfortable. I was afraid of being rejected at my most vulnerable.A decade later, I now understand that pornstars are hairless in order to give as clear a shot as possible of a penis thrusting in and out of a vagina. But at the time, I just thought hair equaled dirty. I asked my university boyfriend, who I loved with all my heart, whether he preferred bare or hairy girls. I’ll be honest: I expected him to say, “Whatever makes you most comfortable.” What he actually said was an unequivocal “shaven.”

I’ve Come to Appreciate My Pubic Hair

“All men watch porn,” society tells us, but none of those men seemed to be renouncing porn in protest of its beauty standards. So I figured hairlessness was what all men were into, whether they confessed it or not. There were times I really wanted to be physically intimate but, remembering I hadn’t shaved, would scuttle away to the bathroom or even hold off entirely.Fast-forward to my California comedown. I’ve been tempted to watch porn many times in the months following my trip, but the joy I feel without it always helps me resist. (I have reconnected with my imagination as well as experimenting with audio porn and just occasionally, when I really wanted that visual stimulation, browsed erotic artwork on Instagram.) Now, without anyone to compare myself to, I’ve also come to appreciate my pubic hair. I feel sad for that teenage girl who felt pressure to conform and am now in a place where I can question the merit of men who want me to look like a four-year-old child down below. Anyone who is worthy of me, surely, won’t prioritize their preferences over my pain and discomfort.

Anyone who is worthy of me, surely, won’t prioritize their preferences over my pain and discomfort.

Quitting Porn Helped Me Love and Admire Myself

I don’t begrudge women who choose to go hairless. Feeling fresher or prettier without hair won’t make you less of a feminist in my book. But, I hope women will take more time to consider the motives behind their choices.The way I regard my body has not been magically cured: I believe women still get an extremely raw deal on that front. I’m furious that I can’t read a magazine without being bombarded by size-zero models, fad diets and anti-aging creams. I’m furious about men who say, “Men age like wine while women age like milk.” I’m furious about my terror of turning 30. I’m furious that my body can’t expand, sag or wrinkle while mens’ are allowed to simply exist. The one thing I have been able to take from quitting pornography, though, is a newfound affection for my pubic hair. Without those pornified bodies to compare myself to, I can appreciate my hair—not as something unhygienic and ugly but as a symbol of femininity that should be celebrated. I now love to admire myself in the mirror and I love how soft it feels between my fingers; I pretend I’m a cute cave girl and remind myself that men were delighted to have sex long before the dawn of Bic razors. I won’t apologize for my choices and am all the sexier for it.