At last, science has furnished women with a legitimate reason to submit to the physical and psychological discomfort required to maintain a state of prepubescent hairlessness. For the first time since “the beginning of history,” humans have virtually rid ourselves of pubic lice, a.k.a. crabs, and doctors say Brazilian bikini waxes are to thank.
Bloomberg News reports that Australia’s top sexual health clinic hasn’t seen a woman with pubic lice since 2008, and public health officials in the U.K. have noticed a similar trend. “Pubic grooming has led to a severe depletion of crab louse populations,” Ian F. Burgess, a Cambridge medical entomologist told Bloomberg. “Add to that other aspects of body hair depilation, and you can see an environmental disaster in the making for this species.”
Also noteworthy is how quickly and completely the pubic-grooming trend took root. J Sisters brought the Brazilian bikini wax to New York in 1994; now, more than 80 percent of college students in the U.S. remove all or some of their pubic hair, according to Bloomberg. That includes men! Plus, here’s a fun new euphemism for a Brazilian, courtesy public health experts: “habitat destruction.”
