Trying to remember a time when most people had bodily hair is a bit like trying to recall the days before mobile phones – we know they existed but we just can’t remember what it felt like.
And you don’t have to go back much further than the invention of the Nokia 1011 to a time when women didn’t think twice about putting on a bikini without waxing.
In fact, if you’d talked about waxing in the 1980s, people would have thought you were preparing your surfboard for a session in the waves – and the only Brazilian anyone ever talked about was Pele!
As for male grooming – well, it just wasn’t a thing. Going down on a guy always left a woman with a mouthful of fuzz, though on the plus-side the female diet has never had so much fibre.

But then the noughties happened and pubic hair found itself staring down the barrel of a can of Veet.
The reason for this rejection of the rug is hard to pinpoint. Was it Carrie Bradshaw’s infamous Brazilian on SATC? Was it the growth in high street salons offering all kinds of tweakments? Could it have had something to do with the rise of that little known thing called internet porn where every woman (and man for that matter) has such smooth genitalia that you may as well film your Barbie and Action Man dolls bumping their privates.
But that’s all in the past now… because it’s time to put your razors down and save those wax strips for your surfboard. PUBES ARE BACK!

That’s right, the days of walking around with a foo so smooth that it resembles a billiard ball are over. #WhiskersAreWelcome!
And, according to evolution, the return of the pubic mound is only ever going to be a good thing. You see, nature gave you those short and curlies for good reason. Firstly, that mop acts like a sponge for all your wonderfully whiffy pheromones. If you shave them off, you just don’t smell so alluring. (NB: unless your hygiene habits are so lax that your hairy bits smell like a mixture of mature gorgonzola and the scent of sewers during a heatwave!)
What else are pubes for? Well, if you’re lucky enough to get into one of those situations where you’re going at it for what feels like an entire weekend, the cushioning effect of those fluffy bits are going to act like a sexy suspension unit – that rash and blister-inducing slap, slap, slap can be reduced to a tender and loving whomp, whomp, whomp – just by keeping fur on your foo and pubes on your peen!

And let’s face it, keeping our pubes is going to save a hell of a lot of time. However, it’s not just about managing tight schedules. Oh no. The new hairy trend is believed to have been driven by a backlash to all those ‘lads’ podcasts where men openly talk about their demands for women to be hairless down there, leading to ‘full bush in a bikini’ trending on socials last year.
But let’s not beat about the bush here – the new body hair trend is not quite as straightforward as just letting everything grow au naturel. If you really want to be cutting edge, then you need to think carefully about where you cut.
Those in the know will now think carefully about where to pluck or snip, and where to leave things a bit more bushy to keep themselves hirsutely hip. So, for example, that might mean letting your armpit hair go wild – but keeping your beaver looking like Jeff Bezos when viewed from above. 

For men, there are even more opportunities to experiment. How about leaving your back looking like Koko the gorilla but closely clipping your chest hair? Or waxing your peen and ballbag while leaving your bum crack looking like the entrance to the enchanted forest.
Put simply, the hot new trend is on having fun with your fur. Landing strips, inverted triangles… shave a design into it if you fancy, then grab some hair dye and get busy. Who wouldn’t want to see a red love heart delicately framing a va-jay-jay, or a furry pair of ‘elephant’s ears’ flopped either side of a trunk-sized schlong?
Wax if you must, but whatever you do, remember to keep a little body hair somewhere!

By Andrew Hartley