By Rachel Krause, Refinery29
Unkempt
bushes were peak sexy in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but a lot has changed since
the Summer of Love and the decade that followed — including the way
people tend to their pubic hair.
We’ve since become a society obsessed with the act of “grooming,”
opting to shave, wax, laser, sugar, and depilate our way to our
individual desired levels of hairiness, or Brazilian
it all away if we so choose. But this cultural shift hasn’t been
without its disadvantages, namely the fact that injuries sustained
during pubic hair grooming are on the rise.
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In an actual study conducted by an actual team of researchers that was published in JAMA Dermatology
today, 66% of American men and 85% of American women between the ages
of 18 and 65 copped to grooming their pubes in some fashion. Of them,
27% of women and 24% of men reported having been injured while doing so.
Over half of those injuries were cuts or lacerations, followed by
burns, then rashes. Men most frequently reported cuts to their scrotums;
women, the pubis, followed closely by the inner thigh.
Alarmingly,
1.4% of the injuries were severe enough that they required medical
attention, but the vast majority were minor, as in the case of wax and
razor burns, ingrown hairs, and irritation. But a previous study
observed an estimated 11,704 emergency department visits for these
types of injuries between 2002 and 2010, with 83% of them caused by a
razor. (This is according to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance
System, which collects data from patients with “consumer
product-related” complaints. Corporate America is weird.)
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The
results of the study, while illuminating, should not come as a shock to
anybody who’s ever trimmed their own hedges. There are so very many
things that could go wrong — a slip of the hand, a dull razor, wax
that’s just a few degrees too hot. May we all be more mindful of what
we’re doing down there, lest we become part of the unfortunate 1.4% who
have found themselves in the ER for their mistakes. We can't even
imagine the discharge forms in those scenarios.
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