Brazilian Wax

Rocker Amanda Palmer has a PSA: shaving off your pubic hair to conform is "so wack." Her new video for "Map of Tasmania" is a fierce (and sparkly) rebuttal to those who say hair-free is the only way to be. It makes a good point: women are often faced with derision if they don't shave, and that's totally wrongheaded.

On the other hand, Amanda comes off as very aggressively anti-shorn in this song, saying that women without pubic hair "look like an eight-year-old," adding "it's sad." As someone who genuinely likes smooth skin, I was a little bummed at the put-downs. It's undermining and seems out of character, especially since just last year, Amanda told The New York Times: "You know what’s really cool? Wake up every morning, decide what you feel like doing, and do it." Well, I woke up and decided, and I'm pretty happy with it; I just wish Amanda was, too. What do you think about the "necessity" to shave? And if you want to see Amanda's (extremely, really NSFW but fun) video, just keep reading.

• Bikini or Brazilian? — Très Q + A
• Crisis pregnancy centers and tax fraud — Life Forward
• Contacting the guy who rejected sex — All the Single Ladies
• Making out on a second date — Group Therapy
• Share your love stories to get featured on Très — Fall in Love

Now here's one instance of guy grooming we really and truly hope doesn't get repeated: a 24-year-old British guy recently almost lost one of his, ahem, surfboard fins when the Brazilian wax he was getting went horribly awry.

Joe Cooper, who seems like an extremely affable young man, had volunteered to get his manly parts waxed in order to raise money for his local hospital, but wound up there himself when he made the mistake of letting the highest bidder pull off one of the wax strips. The overenthusiastic (and obviously totally new to waxing) bidder managed to remove six layers of poor Joe's skin, although luckily he's recovering nicely. We've definitely had bad waxing experiences before where skin got removed instead of hair, but nothing as horrendous as this. Would you ever encourage a guy to wax his area? And do you think that, as manscaping gains in popularity, we'll hear about more incidents like this?

Some people are taking the overshare to the next level. Ice-T's wife Coco decided to tweet her Brazilian (Twitpic removed the picture, but if you must, the NSFW nakedness is here). Last week, Kathy Griffin had a pap smear done live poolside—for a good cause, but still. And vajazzling videos galore are popping up on YouTube. (Thanks, Jennifer Love Hewitt.) It's not just celebrities who seem to be eager to make their ladybits subject to public scrutiny, though. There's a lot going on here, so to see more about it, just keep reading.

Do you really need a Brazilian wax these days? That's the question a woman posed to the Times of London, after a new beau was "shocked" by her presence of pubic hair. In her letter, she says, "I don’t think that a permanent tan and Brazilian wax should be dealbreakers in a relationship. Or am I just hopelessly outdated?"

Long story short, advice columnist Suzi Godson tells the woman to let 'er rip. "Grooming down there is now considered to be normal, on a par with manicures, blow-drying, and eyebrow waxing," she says. "There is something hugely irritating about being forced to conform to an aesthetic ideal instigated and perpetuated by the porn industry, but, like keeping one’s armpits and legs smooth, it is now expected."

Oh brother. You already know that I hate, hate, hate the whole "wax, or else you are gross and undesirable!" standpoint, but I wanted to get a professional opinion on the matter. So I turned to sex educator Debby Herbenick, Ph.D., MPH, author of Because It Feels Good. Her advice is about 10 times better than Godson's, so read more.