History of Pubic Hair

Summary

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Episode: History of Pubic Hair
Host: Kate Lister
Guest: Professor Jill Burke
Release Date: November 26, 2024

---

Introduction

In the latest episode of Betwixt The Sheets, host Kate Lister delves into a topic that is both intimate and historically rich: the history of pubic hair. Joined by Professor Jill Burke, an expert in Renaissance beauty, the episode explores how attitudes and practices surrounding pubic hair have evolved from ancient civilizations to the modern day. This comprehensive discussion uncovers the cultural, social, and political factors that have influenced perceptions and treatments of pubic hair across different eras.

---

Ancient Practices: Egypt and Greece

The conversation begins by examining ancient civilizations, particularly Egypt and Greece, where evidence suggests that pubic hair removal was already prevalent.

Professor Jill Burke [08:07]: "There's evidence of pubic hair removal from very ancient times. Probably ancient Egypt and certainly ancient Greece."

In Ancient Greece, pubic hair was seen as an adornment for both men and women, reflecting societal standards of beauty and hygiene. Sculptures from this period often depict well-groomed bodies, indicating that hair removal was considered fashionable.

Kate Lister [09:34]: "They look like eels. Why are they doing this?"

---

Middle Ages and Islamic Influence

The discussion transitions to the Middle Ages, highlighting the significant impact of Islamic bathing practices on European attitudes towards pubic hair.

Professor Jill Burke [10:05]: "When the bath plays a really important role in many different Islamic cultures, and certainly you start to get European travelers from the Middle Ages, from the 10th or 11th centuries, saying, what are they doing? These people in their baths are completely removing all their body hair for both men and women."

European practices, especially in regions like Spain influenced by Islamic culture, began adopting hair removal techniques. This cultural exchange was further propelled by the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492, leading to the dissemination of hair removal recipes across Europe through Italy's burgeoning printing industry.

Professor Jill Burke [11:08]: "When you get the Jewish expulsion From Spain in 1492, a lot of these women come to Italy... spreading all over Europe."

---

Renaissance Trends and Cultural Differences

During the Renaissance, pubic hair removal became increasingly fashionable, particularly in Italy. Italian beauty texts from the 16th century, such as Alessio Piemontese's "Book of Secrets" and Giovanni Marinella's "Ornamente", emphasize the importance of hair removal for women to maintain societal standards and appeal to male expectations.

Kate Lister [19:04]: "There's a real sense that, like, bushes, lush... the Italians and us today look at it as this kind of super smooth."

Conversely, British attitudes during the same period were markedly different. British texts often portrayed pubic hair as a symbol of natural beauty, leading to cultural bafflement among Italians and vice versa.

Professor Jill Burke [20:54]: "So this idea that you could actually have a pubic wig would be like, why in Italy?"

The Renaissance also saw the depiction of pubic hair in art evolve. Early Renaissance sculptures like Donatello’s David exhibited minimal pubic hair, reflecting the era’s aesthetic ideals. However, Northern European depictions still included noticeable pubic hair, highlighting regional differences.

Kate Lister [17:15]: "They never have pubes, do they?"

---

Witch Trials and the Stigmatization of Pubic Hair

A particularly dark chapter in the history of pubic hair is its association with witchcraft during the witch trials of Northern Italy and Germany in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Accused women were subjected to extreme shaming rituals, including the shaving of their pubic hair, as a means to uncover supposed hidden amulets or marks of the devil.

Professor Jill Burke [33:03]: "There’s evidence in witch trials in northern Italy, near Lake Como in 1485, in which something like 120 women were killed."

These invasive practices served both to humiliate and degrade women, intertwining pubic hair with notions of sin and subversion.

Kate Lister [35:04]: "There's an undeniable sexual undertone to a lot of these trials across Europe."

---

19th Century Developments: Photography and Early Pornography

As the 19th century progressed, the advent of photography and early forms of pornography provided more concrete evidence of pubic hair removal practices. These visual records began to mirror and influence societal expectations, further embedding hair removal into mainstream culture.

Kate Lister [41:29]: "By the time you get to the Victorians... there is pubic hair removal being practiced around here too."

Despite the continued use of harmful substances like arsenic and quicklime in hair removal pastes, the practices persisted alongside emerging forms of visual media that normalized smooth pubic areas.

---

Modern Perspectives: Feminism and the Influence of Pornography

Moving into the modern era, the episode explores how feminist movements and the pervasive availability of Internet pornography have shaped contemporary attitudes towards pubic hair. The discussion highlights the tension between body autonomy and societal pressures, especially among younger generations.

Professor Jill Burke [45:48]: "It's completely related to the availability of Internet porn because it's normal again, it's what's normal."

The influence of pornography has standardized pubic hair removal, particularly among women, aligning with male expectations and perpetuating certain beauty ideals. However, recent trends among Gen Z suggest a shift towards embracing natural body hair, challenging longstanding norms.

Kate Lister [47:54]: "A whole classroom full of Gen Z and all the women have got hairy pits and nobody really gives."

---

Hair Removal Methods Throughout History

The conversation delves into various historical hair removal methods, evaluating their practicality and societal acceptance. Techniques ranged from razors and waxing to more hazardous methods involving harmful chemicals.

Professor Jill Burke [28:23]: "They used a paste made out of arsenic and quick lime."

While methods like waxing and sugaring were employed, the lack of modern safety standards made hair removal a painful and risky endeavor. The use of merkins (pubic wigs) in England is also discussed, albeit with limited historical evidence outside of British references.

Professor Jill Burke [22:10]: "A merkin is a wig, but for your pubic area."

---

Conclusion: The Cyclical Nature of Pubic Hair Trends

The episode concludes by reflecting on the cyclical nature of pubic hair trends throughout history. From ancient civilizations to modern times, societal attitudes towards pubic hair removal have fluctuated, influenced by cultural exchanges, political movements, and media portrayals.

Professor Jill Burke [48:08]: "It's always like all these things. It's complicated. Yeah."

Despite ongoing debates and evolving perspectives, the history of pubic hair removal remains a testament to the complex interplay between individual agency and societal expectations.

Kate Lister [48:47]: "Thank you so much for talking to me today. I thoroughly enjoyed myself."

---

Notable Quotes

• Professor Jill Burke [08:07]: "There's evidence of pubic hair removal from very ancient times. Probably ancient Egypt and certainly ancient Greece."

• Professor Jill Burke [10:05]: "When the bath plays a really important role in many different Islamic cultures... completely removing all their body hair for both men and women."

• Kate Lister [19:04]: "There's a real sense that, like, bushes, lush... the Italians and us today look at it as this kind of super smooth."

• Professor Jill Burke [33:03]: "There’s evidence in witch trials in northern Italy, near Lake Como in 1485, in which something like 120 women were killed."

• Professor Jill Burke [45:48]: "It's completely related to the availability of Internet porn because it's normal again, it's what's normal."

• Professor Jill Burke [48:08]: "It's always like all these things. It's complicated. Yeah."

---

Final Thoughts

Betwixt The Sheets successfully navigates the intricate history of pubic hair, offering listeners a nuanced understanding of how cultural, social, and political forces have shaped perceptions and practices surrounding this intimate aspect of the human body. Through engaging dialogue and expert insights, Kate Lister and Professor Jill Burke illuminate the enduring significance of pubic hair in societal norms and individual identity.

For more episodes exploring the saucier areas of history, subscribe to Betwixt The Sheets on History Hit or your preferred podcast platform.

---

This summary was crafted to provide a comprehensive overview of the episode "History of Pubic Hair" from Betwixt The Sheets, ensuring that key points, discussions, and notable insights are effectively captured for those who haven't listened to the podcast.

Transcript

[Kate Lister]

Hi, I'm your host Kate Lister. If you would like Betwixt the Sheets ad free and get early access. Sign up to History Hit with a History Hit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every single week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe. Thanks for listening to Betwixt the Sheets. To get all History Hit podcasts, ad free early access and bonus episodes, head over to historyhit.com subscribe or you can sign up on Apple Podcasts with just one click.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us we brought in a reverse auctioneer which is apparently a.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Thing Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless 3030 better get 30, better get 20, 2020 better get 2020 better get 151515 15. Just 15 bucks a month sold.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch $45 upfront.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees, extra speed slower above 40 gigabytes.

[Kate Lister]

You detail so good, so good, so good.

[Nordstrom Rack Ad]

Just in and so good. Thousands of winter deals are in Nordstrom rack stores now and that means thousands of fresh reasons to rack because we.

[Kate Lister]

Get the latest trends for way less caus.

[Professor Jill Burke]

The best deals go fast, save big.

[Nordstrom Rack Ad]

With up to 60% off Sam Edelman, Sorrel Free people, Cole Haan and more. Cold weather fines. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

[Kate Lister]

Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. I am here once again with your favoritest of favourite podcasts Betwixt the Sheets. And probably one of the reason it is your favourite is because we do stray into the saucier areas of history. And because of that I have to tell you this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adultery way covering a range of adult subjects. I used to be an adult too. And if you're not an adult too, be off with you. And if you are an adult, you're hanging around. Well, fair dues. We have now told you that this podcast might get a little bit spicy. So if you hang around and you end up clutching your pearls, well, tough. Quite frankly, we did let you know for the rest of you, on with the show. Here in the Islamic bathing houses of the 11th century, some fantastic work is going on. I am here with my fellow European travelers and guys, it's seriously rude to stare the body hair of Both men and women is being very carefully removed. Not from us Europeans. We're all right. Hairy bunch. But they are having the whole lot off. Not even a tuff left. They look like eels. Why are they doing this? Well, dear listener, in today's episode, we are finally going to find out about the history of pubic hair and its removal and the keeping thereof. And to do that, we will be traveling back to Europe, where a culture of sharing beauty tips and secrets is blossoming. This is one of our most requested episodes. You like our pube Crazy. So, to find out more, who else could we possibly talk to other than Professor Jill Burke, who is an expert on Renaissance beauty, and she knows an awful lot about pubic hair as well. So, on with the show.

[Ryan Reynolds]

What do you look for in a man?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing a button. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness.

[Kate Lister]

What a beautiful time.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Goodness has nothing to do with it. During.

[Kate Lister]

Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. Do you want the classic bikini wax, a Brazilian wax, the Californian wax, or the Hollywood wax? Or perhaps you just prefer an entire Brazilian blowout and just go au natural? The way we treat and think about pubic hair is something that most of us are probably familiar with, and there are plenty of options available. But how was it approached throughout history, from the ancient Egyptians and Grecians to Italian women in the Renaissance, they all had fashions for pubic hair. I told you that. This has been a very, very heavily requested episode, and one of the many people to request it is Sister, who works at a waxing salon in the Netherlands. And who better, quite frankly, to ask about this one?

[Sietse]

Hi, Kate. It's Sietse from the Netherlands. I really enjoy the podcast. I love history and I like a good, fun fact. I work in a waxing salon and I'm often chatting to customers about those weird facts. Sometimes I talk about how the history of body hair and what we like or dislike about it has really changed a lot. But I'm a bit low on the fun facts. I know one or two, so maybe you can do an episode. Thank you. Bye.

[Kate Lister]

Well, we would be thrilled to supply you and your customers with some historical pubic hair facts. So get your tweezers at the ready. Betwixters, me and Professor Jill Burke are gonna get pubic. Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the sheets. It's only Jill Burke. How are you doing?

[Professor Jill Burke]

I'm, as always, delighted to be talking to you about a subject close to.

[Kate Lister]

Our hearts and apparently close to a lot of other people's hearts, because this is one of our most requested episodes, History of Pubic Hair. It just like people just want to.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Know it's an important topic.

[Kate Lister]

It's deceptively important. It is, actually.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. I mean, we joke about it, but actually it's really fascinating when you get. You delve into the history. It's going to be so many puns when you delve into the history of it. Because it's really about how people change their bodies in the light of things that are happening around them, in the culture that's around them, but in a way that it's really hard to find out about as historians. So it's a really good topic for history, I think.

[Kate Lister]

And change their bodies in a way that isn't visible to most people. Unless I'm wrong about that. Unless you have uncovered cultures where pubic hair was on full display 247 and it was like a really big deal.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, there might be.

[Kate Lister]

I haven't heard of any of them.

[Professor Jill Burke]

You know, this is a disclaimer. You know, my expertise is mainly in European cultures and certainly I'd say in most of European history that's not been the case. And so a lot of the kind of history and the delving into this. You keep using the word delve. Yeah. Delving into this subject that me and other historians have had to do. You've got to be a bit kind of creative about the kind of sources that you're using and also aware that sometimes quite small sources. You have to use quite small sources to make quite a big story with subjects like this. But I've checked. I've double checked everything. I'm going to try, honestly. And everything that I've been looking at is based on this primary information.

[Kate Lister]

Because we think of pubic hair fashion as being something that dates from the 90s. It's very easy to think that with the advent of the Brazilian wax and sex in the city making us all think about pubes. And there's a sort of temptation to think that from day dot until about 1997, everyone was just full bush, a thicket, just rocking that 70s, that 70s vibe themselves.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Go wild.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And beautiful and. Yeah. No, not. That's not true at all.

[Kate Lister]

No.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So there's evidence of pubic hair removal from very ancient times. So probably ancient Egypt. Yeah, certainly ancient Greece. And it's a fashion that comes and goes through history. People sometimes tell this story like there's a straight line that goes no hair removal to complete hair removal. But that's not how it works. Different cultures and different historical periods have fashions for this. So it's got a history that's thousands of years old, with particular points in history where it becomes more fashionable and more possible for women to remove their pubic hair and where people start to discuss it in sources.

[Kate Lister]

And has men's pubic hair been subject to as many changes as women's have?

[Professor Jill Burke]

That is a good question. I think in ancient. I've come across discussions of men's pubic hair some of the time. It tends to be in many societies. And again, this is Western societies, Masculinity and hairiness are associated with each other.

[Kate Lister]

Yes, they are.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And so although there's a bit of evidence for men shaping their pubic hair, in ancient Greece, for example, there's less discussion of men's pubic hair. Generally. There's ancient texts that say that pubic hair in both men and women kind of adorns the body. It's there to adorn the genital.

[Kate Lister]

I like that.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, that is nice. I think that's a really nice way of looking at it. But there's probably less discussion of men's pubic hair. It just tends to hang around men's pubic hair.

[Kate Lister]

It does, doesn't it? I hope that they've trimmed it, though, throughout history. I think that that's important.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I mean, certainly if you look at the sculpture, like ancient Greek sculpture, looks very groomed, doesn't it? Yeah, it does.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And this probably does react, you know, it might well be late to practice.

[Kate Lister]

Ah, so in Islamic history and custom hair removal was incredibly common.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yes. There's two separate histories, really. So you get this classical history where people sometimes remove their hair. There's less patchy evidence for it. And then you. From the early Middle. I'm sorry, Middle Ages, you get, you know, the start of Islamic bathing practices.

[Kate Lister]

Yep.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So when the bath plays a really important role in many different Islamic cultures, and certainly you start to get European travelers from the Middle ages, from the 10th or 11th centuries, saying, what are they doing? These people in their baths are completely removing all their body hair for both men and women. And that kind of feeds into European practices in Spain, because there's Islamic cultures in Spain right up to the 15th century, and Jewish and Christian and Islamic women are sharing beauty recipes, sharing recipes for medicine, sharing recipes for all sorts of cosmetics as well. And also sharing recipes for hair removal.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And so then when you get the Jewish expulsion From Spain in 1492, a lot of these women come to Italy. Italy's the centre of printing in the later 15th, early 16th centuries. And so then you get these recipes for hair removal start to be spread all around Europe. So I think that, again, we're talking about evidence. It's really difficult to get secure evidence for this, but that seems to be probably how Islamic mixtures for hair removal spread around the rest of Europe. But stop. But it's mainly the Mediterranean. There's different kind of. In Germany and England, they're a bit suspicious of hair removal.

[Kate Lister]

That sounds about right for us, to be completely honest. There's lots of accounts of British people and Celtic people being very confused by what they saw during the Crusades, which was mostly people cleaning themselves, really baffled by it.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I mean, you get that a lot in northern Europe. Like, why, what's happening?

[Kate Lister]

God Almighty.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I mean, I suppose that a lot of the hair removal, particularly in hotter places, is to do with hygiene.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, it probably is, isn't it?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, certainly some of it, I reckon, because if, you know, the. You know, how common lice were. Yes, scabies, that kind of thing, it's really common as well, all over the place. And so presumably removing all your body hair would have prevented some of that. Contacts, particularly for little insects like lice, would have. Would have prevented.

[Kate Lister]

And in Islamic traditions and Jewish tradition, body hair removal is also about being clean. And you see this idea repeating and changing and other people reacting to it. The idea that taking the hair away somehow makes you cleaner.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. I mean, this is something that you get repeated right up to now.

[Kate Lister]

Right up to now, yeah, yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And so that's, you know, it's part of what was happening in baths, you know, a lot of these rituals. And what was happening in baths wasn't just to do with what we would think of as Washington with soap or whatever. You know, they're scraping the skin as well, and what we might think of as exfoliation. So there's a big range of bathing practices that go on, but it is associated with cleanliness, the idea of hair removal. But yeah, mainly in these Mediterranean cultures, which makes sense because they're hotter and maybe. Certainly there's pictures from the 16th century. They're European pictures, so they're quite, you know, orientalizing and they're kind of fetishized. What's going. They really do fetishize in Europe. What goes on in Islamic women's baths, particularly Turkish Baths and baths in North Africa and Egypt and there's pictures of women with like see through gowns on when you can see that they've got no body hair. So. Yeah, it's associated with cleanliness, both ritually.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

But also probably in practical terms as well.

[Kate Lister]

I just got back from a week in Pompeii and I was lucky enough to talk to the head curator of the site, Sophie Hay there, and she showed me around the brothel and it was amazing. But one of the things she said did stay with me because I knew I was going to be talking to you. And she said when the brothel in Pompeii was excavated, they found evidence of razors and there was a lot of washing and hygiene equipment, as you might expect, but they found lots of razors there, which has sort of led to this discussion around. Would that have been the people that were working there shaving the clients for like shits and giggles or as I suspect it might have been, is they're removing their own body hair.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, I think that's quite possible. Or each other's body hair.

[Kate Lister]

Or each other's body hair. Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Because there's a lot of associations between sex work and body hair removal.

[Kate Lister]

Yes.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Historically, you know, some of it is. It's really hard to sometimes to extricate historical insults. Right. Oh, you know, this is associated with sex workers and therefore it's sinful. And what actually happened in practice. But certainly in the sources that I know the best, there's a connection between sex work, hair removal and immigration.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, I wasn't expecting it to go there. Wow. Okay.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And a lot of these Jewish immigrants who came to Italy did work in this kind of world where women didn't have much money, were more likely to do sex work and were also more likely to do the kind of jobs like hair removal, beauty stuff. So it might have been the same. Very difficult because it's thousands of years different, because I'm looking at 1500. But it wouldn't surprise me if it was kind of similar. Poorer women, but also the women who were more likely to do the kind of beautician work, that hair removal work. And that's. That's also what happened in baths later on as well. Baths also become a centre for hair removal, but are also a centre for sex work.

[Kate Lister]

What that shows in Pompeii is clearly someone was having their hair removed.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

In the brothel. So that suggests some kind of fashion.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, I think so.

[Kate Lister]

When do we kind of get to the point where we've got any more kind of concrete evidence that we can get our fingers into and be like, this was a definite thing that was happening.

[Professor Jill Burke]

There's a great text that I probably talked about before last time called La Lozzana Andalucia, which is a funny play about an immigrant from Spain who comes to Italy and sets up, like, this beautician, and they talk about removing pubic hair. That women come to them and they say, we want to get our pubic hair removed because that's how our husbands like it. Or they say, we want to get our pubic hair removed. Most of the Roman women don't do this. And it's, you know, it's better for us to get. So that, you know, we stand out from the crowd. This is like 1524. So there's evidence then that gives a good amount of evidence that people are starting to think about this as a fashion.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And that men are starting to expect it. And it's interesting, with classical art, if you look at, like, sculptures of Venus, they never have pubic hair.

[Kate Lister]

They never have pubes, do they?

[Professor Jill Burke]

No.

[Kate Lister]

Do you think that that is, like, related to the fact why so many of the statues have tiny little willies with the women? They just don't have any detail there at all. It's like a Barbie doll.

[Professor Jill Burke]

It's interesting that there's no pubic hair. Such as the Venus in the Middle ages, in the 14th century, 15th century, you do get pubic hair.

[Kate Lister]

Who put pubes on Venus?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Many images of Venus. Yeah. Particularly in Northern Europe and in Germany, but also in Spain. So this fashion, when you get the interest in classical sculpture and the Renaissance, then they start removing all the body hair from all their nudes. But before then, you do get depictions of pubic hair. So I think they go hand in hand. I think this, you know, what's happening in the visual record probably both reflects and affects the way that women think their bodies should look and that men are expecting to see in women. Because, you know, there's that famous story of the art critic John Ruskin, who was allegedly, anyway, yeah, really shocked by his wife's Effie Grey's pubic hair because he was expecting her to be, you know, like a classical sculpture. But I think that's one of the. Also one of the fascinating things, this difference between expectation and the reality of what people's bodies look like under clothes and what visual culture tells people to expect. And, yeah, actual real living bodies by.

[Kate Lister]

The time you get to the Renaissance, and this is your area of study, and I don't know The Italian texts that. Well. But I do know that British texts, there's quite a few of them, by which I mean four or five, but in historical terms, that's loaded in this particular subject.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Absolutely.

[Kate Lister]

And they talk about pubic hair removal as being the Italian custom, that it's something Italian women do, the Italian wenches do it. And there's quite a lot of, again, confusion and bafflement from the Brits about this.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, well, the reason why they associate with Italians is that a lot of the makeup texts, the recipe texts that get published in the 16th century are Italian. So you get things like Alessio Piemontese's Book of Secrets.

[Kate Lister]

Yes.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And that is first published in Italian in 1558, I think. And then it's translated, it goes all over Europe, and there's several editions in English. And the English editions, the first, the early US Ones, change the text about hair removal. Really? And they say, yeah, they say, oh, this is to remove the hair from the chins of young men.

[Kate Lister]

No, it's not.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And it's like, no, it's not. That is not what it's for. Like, whereas the Italian texts quite explicitly say it's to remove hair from anywhere on the body. And then. So you get those books and things like Giovanni Marinella's Ornamente, which I wrote about in my book that has a whole section on body hair, and says, if you don't remove your body hair, especially if you're going around looking like a wild beast, you can't blame your husband for leaving you and going off with another woman. And so it's like by the 1560s in Italy, if you don't remove your body hair, you're not the norm. And it looks like that again, you know, with this abundance of texts about five. But in England. Yeah, it's. It just doesn't translate that.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, the ones that I've looked at, there's a real sense that, like, bushes, lush. Like, I often think of it as. When I was teaching the students, I was like, the way that the Italians and us today look at it is like this kind of super smooth, like, you know, it's like a baby bird. There's no hair on it at all. Whereas the Brits seem to have this idea of, like, it's almost like a big, thick, full thatch of lusciousness, like. Like a cat with a silky coat. And their view in the Italians is like a balding, mangy cat with. And they look at it with the same kind of.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, it's so interesting. This cultural difference, say merkins, which, you know, I haven't come across those in Italian texts at all.

[Kate Lister]

No.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Whereas. So this idea that you could actually have a pubic wig would be like, why in Italy? Because they do kind of fetishize. They're really strict about what you should look like in Italian texts. And they've got such an amount of visual culture. You know, nudes, female nudes, really saturate their visual culture. From the 16th century onwards, they just kind of pop up everywhere, all over the place. And so I think, accustomed to seeing women with that end, pubic hair. So that's. I think that's what they expect.

[Kate Lister]

That's what they expect. Whereas the Brits, they wanted, like this kind of lush pelt and you can find, like, odd insults turning up of. Who was it? Was it John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, who talks about having sex with someone and it was, like, rustling because the merkin was moving and he's, like, really revolted by this patchy pubic hair thing. And that's amazing for anyone who's listening, doesn't know what a merkin is. Can you just explain that and why on earth you would use such a thing?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, a merkin is a wig, but for your pubic area. And so they're just like furry triangles, aren't they? Yeah. It's almost got a mythical status of merkins, really, because, again, it's really hard to find very much out about them, but certainly they're not used. I haven't come across them in Southern Europe.

[Kate Lister]

No.

[Professor Jill Burke]

They seem to be talked about in England and we haven't.

[Kate Lister]

I don't think we've actually found any of them. We've got, like, references.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Replicas.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, replicas. References. I think it was John Wilmot, again, who talks about somebody using fat, like goose fat or something, and then like, putting hair on top of that and trying to, like. So that kind of. It sounds delicious, doesn't it? It sounds absolutely yummy. But why would you do this? Why would somebody not have all their pubic hair to the point where they needed a wig and they, you know. To create this luscious pelt thing.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. I mean, that's something that is interesting because there's like smallpox epidemics.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And smallpox causes you to lose your hair, both on your head, but in other places too. And there's just a lot of skin problems. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Disease.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Skin disease that they don't really have many options for getting rid of. So I'm talking about things like scabies, particularly, or Various poxes, a lot of different kind of lice. And I suppose if it'd be interesting to find out in the English context, if you remove in pubic hair to get rid of lice, for example, pubic.

[Kate Lister]

License, they probably weren't they.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Your merkin would come in handy.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Because it would suggest you don't have pubic lice.

[Kate Lister]

I suppose syphilis as well that's knocking around, isn't it?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Quite a lot of syphilis. Particularly obviously if you're a sex worker or just married to a guy. Yeah, unfortunately. So yeah. And again. And you know these treatments as well. So they're using things like mercury and arsenic as treatments for these things as well. So maybe again it's part of treatment that you remove body hair even in an English context. I can imagine that would be something that you might want to do.

[Kate Lister]

There is a link between patchy pubes and illness. You can see that, like where it crops up in the, in the English texts.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Because when we read all these beauty texts you imagine people having bodies that are similar to our bodies today, but actually they're just afflicted by all these illnesses that thankfully we can normally get rid of. If you have them nowadays.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Jill after this short break. So good, so good, so good.

[Nordstrom Rack Ad]

Perfect gifts. We've got them at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Ugg, Nike, Barefoot Dreams, Kate Spade, New York and more. Finds everything on their wish list all in one place.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Steve Madden.

[Kate Lister]

Yes, please.

[Professor Jill Burke]

It's perfect. Did we just. The greatest gifts of all time. Yeah.

[Nordstrom Rack Ad]

Head to your Nordstrom rack store to score great brands, great prices, the greatest gifts of all time.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

Raise your hand if you want your nails to look perfect all the time. Me too. I'm Sarah Gibson Tuttle from Olive June. And this is exactly why we created the mani system. We wanted to make it possible for everyone everywhere to give themselves a beautiful manicure at home with our tools and our long lasting polish. Each manicure with our mani system comes out to just $2. That's right, $2. No more. 30, 40, $50 manis that you get at a salon and they take hours. Now you can paint your nails on your time and love them more than ever. And by the way, when people ask who did your nails? Where did you get them done? You're going to proudly say, I did them myself. Get 20% off your first mani system with code [e-mail] perfect mani20. That's code perfect. Manny20 for 20% [e-mail] perfectmanny20 ready to pop the question.

[Blue Nile Ad]

The jewelers at Blue Nile.com have got Sparkle down to a science with beautiful lab grown diamonds worthy of your most brilliant moments. Their lab grown diamonds are independently graded and guaranteed identical to natural diamonds and they're ready to ship to your door. Go to blue nile.com and use promo code LISTEN to get $50 off your purchase of $500 or more. That's code LISTEN@blue nile.com for $50 off blue nile.com code LISTEN.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Ryan Reynolds here for I guess my hundredth mint commercial.

[Kate Lister]

No, no, no, no, no, no, don't.

[Ryan Reynolds]

No, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought, I only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited to Premium Wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming. Here, give it a [e-mail] switch whenever you're ready.

[Professor Jill Burke]

$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees, extra Speed slower above 40 gigabytes. C details.

[Kate Lister]

If you were a lady in Italy who needed to take your pubes off because that's just what your husband expects because he saw it on a statue and it looked nice, how, how would you do that? I mean, because I'm thinking like now you can nip down the shop and get a disposable razor. But they, the razors they had at the time were those cutthroat razors. And I would feel very cautious about putting that near my chuff, wouldn't you?

[Professor Jill Burke]

This is ancient Greece. They didn't use razors in the Renaissance. But there's an ancient Greek image from a vase of someone using one of those razors.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, my God.

[Professor Jill Burke]

On that pubic area. Yes, there is. But there's another one with someone burning them off. Burning their pubic hair off with a lamp.

[Kate Lister]

All right, back.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I know. Given the choice. Oh, my God. So in the Middle Ages. So this again comes probably from Islamic bath culture spreading through Europe. They used a paste made out of arsenic and quick lime.

[Kate Lister]

Of course they did.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. So you'd make this paste, you'd often use it in a bath because there's not a lot of running water. Remember in this period. So you go to the public bath.

[Kate Lister]

I'm actually next to the person who's decided smear that on themselves.

[Professor Jill Burke]

You're smearing that all over your body.

[Kate Lister]

Oh.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And then you have to. It's like Viet, right? It's like Veeta paste and you have to time it. And of course they don't have watches, clocks, but not in baths. And so they say things like, say the Lord's Prayer twice.

[Kate Lister]

Holy God. Oh, wow. Okay, nice.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So you say, you say the Lord's Prayer twice or whatever they do. And then you start to try and take it off your skin and if you don't take it off quickly enough, it starts to burn.

[Kate Lister]

I bet it does, yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So it's all about timing. And then it says, and get the bath attendant or the maid to kind of pour water all over you really quickly. So you take it off with a cloth and then you pour water all over yourself to get rid of it.

[Kate Lister]

Does it work?

[Professor Jill Burke]

You know they won't let me try it.

[Kate Lister]

No, I bet they won't. I know you've done experiments.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Mad.

[Kate Lister]

All right, yeah. Okay, let's, let's not try that one.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I think it would work because it's very highly alkaline and that's how feet works. It just burns.

[Kate Lister]

Those modern day depilatory creams. Other brands are available. They're, they're, yeah, that work and they stick.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And you also, you're trying to leave them on for long enough before they start.

[Kate Lister]

They still burn.

[Blue Nile Ad]

They still burn.

[Kate Lister]

They smell terrible and they don't come out.

[Professor Jill Burke]

It's like lots of hairs that don't come out. They're really rubbish.

[Kate Lister]

It's like hundreds of years on and it's still kind of shitty.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I wonder though if the really hard stuff, you know, that quick line, if we were allowed to try it, people would as well.

[Kate Lister]

We should probably say, please, for fucks sake, don't try it.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Absolutely.

[Kate Lister]

Please. But how about something like waxing or sugaring or threading? Surely someone must have worked. I don't know the history of waxing if they. Because I know that they use like you can't just get a candle and do it, that would be awful. And like you melt it on your. You had to have special wax. But was there any evidence for that?

[Professor Jill Burke]

I'm being very strict with myself here, but the only references I've paired for puberty hair removal is this mixture with Quick Lime and other things that definitely don't work, like ants, eggs and cat dunk, things like that that probably. I don't, I just don't see how they could possibly work. But they do have waxing. They use things like tree gums. So like pine resin that's really, really sticky. You put it on, you leave it to dry and then you rip it off. They use that. They use sugaring in. Some sugar is quite expensive.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, God, it is, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.

[Professor Jill Burke]

They probably wouldn't use sugaring. Yeah, probably later on in, you know, when you get into the sugar gets cheaper in the 18th and 19th centuries. I don' they wouldn't use sugar and they definitely use things like, you know, waxing with sheets of cotton. They do exactly the same thing as we did. It's a quite a simple process, really. Really.

[Kate Lister]

Waxing. I wonder if they were using it on pubic hair. It seems very strange that we would have evidence that they would opt for, like this quicklime stuff over, like, waxing. That, to me, sort of suggests that they hadn't put two and two together, because why on earth would you use that over waxing?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Unless they think there's other reasons for it. So, for example, arsenic was often used to get rid of lice as an insecticide, generally. It also whitened skin a little bit, so it might have been. There were other reasons to use this paste.

[Kate Lister]

That could be.

[Professor Jill Burke]

They did thread eyebrows. But I think that might be a bit complicated. In pubic hair.

[Kate Lister]

There's mention about. In Roman texts about men in baths having their hair plucked. Their body hair plucked with tweezers, presumably.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, with trees. Yeah, there's definitely. But that would take a long time.

[Kate Lister]

That would be horrible.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And. Yeah, it'd be really painful.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. Like your whole bush just plucked out.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Oh, no, not nice.

[Kate Lister]

It would have grown back by the.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Time you got out of the back.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. So that one's not going to work. That's kind of crap.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I think the main way they did it was this paste and razors. They did say in the sources you shouldn't use razors because the hair grows back thicker.

[Kate Lister]

That's true. That's true.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. It kind of grows back coarser, doesn't it, because you've chopped the kind of fine ends of it. So, yeah, they do say not to use razors. And also. Yeah, the cutthroat, you know, maybe given they've not got any safety raises, that wouldn't be.

[Kate Lister]

Am I right in thinking that there's a witchy association between pubic hair and.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, it's quite a sad.

[Kate Lister]

I hadn't seen this one come in at all. It's very sad and very. There's a straggled route to this one. But what's the link between pubic hair and witchcraft?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, people, when they were Accused of witchcraft, the inquisitors would have them completely shaved from top, you know, below, then from the neck, downwards, and sometimes their head as well, in order to check to see if they have hidden signs or amulets or magic implements that the devil has put there. So there's evidence for this in witch trials in northern Italy, near Lake Como in 1485, in which something like 120 women were killed. And it's like a shaming ritual, but it's also like this kind of humiliation, you know, to have that done in front of men. And so in Germany in the 15, 20s and 30s, just as a witch craze is starting, it's before you get this massive swathe of people just chasing down witches, they do have this obsession with pictures of people staring into pubic hair. There's a few images of people staring at pubic hair as if there's something secret hidden there.

[Kate Lister]

I'm not familiar with the trials in Germany and Italy, but I know a few about the ones in the, in the uk. And were they doing what the inquisitors here were doing, which was. Yeah, they're looking for like bite marks or like something that the devil left his mark.

[Professor Jill Burke]

That's it. Yeah. Or sometimes just like kind of tokens or amulets that could be kind of.

[Kate Lister]

Hidden in your pubic hair. And the devil's left an amulet in your pubic hair.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Right.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I mean, it's like an excuse, isn't it, to just degrade women as much as possible?

[Kate Lister]

Do you know what? The shaving women has a really long history as a shaming thing. And it's usually the head that is shaved. And you see that, like right up until you still see it today, I suppose. But certainly after the Second World War, when in France, when women were being accused being Nazi collaborators, they'd be paraded in the street and have their head shaved. Pubic hair removal is kind of. I, I think that it sort of plays into that as well in these witch trials.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Absolutely. And also in a man's space, because when we're talking about pubic hair removal, normally in say, bath houses or at home, you'd be in a female only space.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So what you're doing is taking that kind of very intimate female only experience and putting it out and exposing it in front of a bunch of men who are. When you're on trial, it's really awful. Even the inquisitors who are writing about this, they talk about this in the Malleus Maleficarum, which is this really Famous witch hunting manual that comes out that's written by two Germans in the late 15th century. Even they say it's a really shameful thing.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And we don't actually do this in Germany because it's too shameful.

[Kate Lister]

I mean, and that comes to something. If the fucking Malleus maleficarum is going, that's a bit too far.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. So you can imagine how. How much stigma there is even to expose women like that, to expose their nakedness like that. It's awful. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

There's an undeniable sexual undertone to a lot of these trials across Europe, like this. Insistent on searching in women's genitals to the point where they're gonna shave them. And it's horrible.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, it's really awful. And, you know, you see all these. And it's like this. Thousands of thousands of women are involved, and it's, you know, because of the way that people talk about witches and it's kind of funny and all this kind of thing, we kind of forget the actual horror of these witch trials sometimes. But this kind of invasion of the most intimate parts of the body is part of this history as well.

[Kate Lister]

Do you think that that kind of leaked out into a sort of a wider narrative around pubic hair and maybe witchcraft? I was going to. Maybe not completely witchcraft, but the idea that there's something subversive about not having pubic hair.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. Not having pubic hair has often been associated with people who are on the edges of, like. Of society. We've talked about sex workers, talks about people with syphilis. Witches. People with syphilis. Yeah. It's kind of not respectable.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. And of course, the people who definitely don't have pubic hair that we often don't talk about in these things are kids.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

It's a strange signifier that as an adult, you would remove this sort of marker of you are fully pubescent and you are no longer a child, isn't it?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. And that's a disturbing thing. That is actually a disturbing thing about what it suggests. Does it suggest, say, you know, girls were getting married often at 14 to 16. You know, what does it suggest about male tasting.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

In women's bodies. So there's also this undercurrent of things. You know, it's like everything to do with, like, altering the body. Sometimes you can say, oh, this is to do with women's agency, and it's to do with women doing what they want with their own bodies and using their bodies to kind of get ahead in society. Whatever. And then sometimes it's about men's taste in taking away women's agency and treating them, wanting them to be more childlike. So it's always like all these things. It's complicated. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Jill after this short break. Thanks for listening to Betwixt the Sheets. To get all history hit podcasts ad free early access and bonus episodes, head over to historyhit.com subscribe or you can sign up on Apple Podcasts with just one click. When you use SAP Concur solutions to automate your business finances, you'll be ready for anything. Except the new office dog running off with your lunch. With SAP Concur, you can be ready for almost anything. Take control of your business finances [e-mail]. i spoke to Professor Helen King a while ago, who is. Who is the expert on all things Greek and gynecological. And I put the small willy question to her. I was just interested. I was just interested to what she would say. And I've never heard anyone give this response before. Oh, okay. She thought that the tiny willies was actually a marker of childhood because they worship the boy, the boy body in Greek history and in Roman history and right up to the Renaissance, this idea of, like, boy love, the young, the young man. And then suddenly, like, the conversation wasn't funny anymore. I was like, wow, okay, Helen. But I thought, that's interesting. And then maybe like what you were just saying there about the women not having pubic hair on their statues and those images. Maybe that's a hark back to childhood, too.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. Certainly in the early part of the Renaissance in Italy, you do get this real interest in young boys. You think of. There's a sculpture by Donatello called the David, as in David Neglia, the bronze David. And he's not got any pubic hair. And he's definitely meant to be kind of younger. But also there's kind of uncomfortable whether it's kind of fetishization, sexualization or not, or whether it's, you know, whether that's not an appropriate question. That's a big debate amongst art historians still. But then you get the things like Michelangelo's David, who is definitely a man.

[Kate Lister]

It's definitely. It's definitely a man. He's got manly stuff going on. But he does have a little boy's willie.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Just does. There was actually, in some of the texts on sculpture, they're very into proportion in the Renaissance, bodily proportion. And they do talk about the ideal proportion of A penis? Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Well, do they. And do they say it should be.

[Professor Jill Burke]

A little one, I'll have to measure it out and see because I haven't done that yet. Next time, Next time. I can tell you, mama.

[Kate Lister]

I'm getting us off topic now. We should get back to pubic hair. By the time you get to the Victorians, like through the 18th century into the Victorians, we're now getting like photographic evidence and sort of some of the earliest pornography. And it looks like there is pubic hair removal being practiced around here too.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I think so. And actually these books, you know that recipes for arsenic and quick lime goes right through to the 19th century.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So people are constantly using it. They're using it in America, they're using it and you know, because printing goes all over the world, so they're using it everywhere and people are warning against it for good reasons and saying, you know, you'd be better off shaving and things like that. But it looks like people are still, still using it and still removing there. But obviously, again, with the edges of society, it's presumably not particularly respectable women who are having themselves photographed naked. So it speaks to this kind of maybe unconventional world of women who confluent sexuality.

[Kate Lister]

Does, doesn't it? When do pubes become political? Because pubic hair is a feminist issue now. Like the arguments about going back again to that childhood thing about like, well, why would you want to move your hair so you can just look like a little girl. And the fact that like Even today, in 2024, there is no real way of removing your hair, that isn't either results. If you shave it, you'll end up with like loads of little ingrowing hairs and it's just shit in its hops. Itchy as hell. You can go a waxer, but even the best waxer who can do it really quick, it's just so there is a kind of like, why are we doing this? But when did that start to happen that feminists decided pubic hair. This is what we're going to talk about.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I think this is. This debate used to be massive, huge a few years ago that you shouldn't remove your pubic hair because it was really anti feminist to do so or anybody hair. Armpit hair as well. And do you remember that time when celebrities like Julia Roberts. Julia Roberts came and she had armpit.

[Kate Lister]

Hair and everyone was like on the red carpet and that was front page. God knows what they were doing. If she got her pubes out, but she had armpit hair. And that stopped the world's press.

[Professor Jill Burke]

It really did. And so I think it's calmed down a little bit now, that debate. But it's Certainly in the 70s, you know, second wave feminism, people were really vehement about, you know, almost betraying feminist ideals if you remove their body hair because, you know, you were bending to male ideas of what women's bodies should look like. So that it was a key kind of matter for debate. This kind of what you did personally became very political. And, you know, last time I talked about this a few years ago, when I first started working the subject and people were like, expecting me to get really angry about other people removing their pubic hair.

[Kate Lister]

I don't mind. You can have the energy. Put dreadlocks in it if you like.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, exactly.

[Kate Lister]

But, you know, macaroni, pasta and sparkles, whatever you want.

[Professor Jill Burke]

You know, I'd like to go on record. I don't mind what people do with their pubic hair. But at the same time, it's very interesting how politicized that debate got in the 70s, how it represented this kind of years of oppression. And I can understand why, because it is work, you know, it is bodywork, but a lot of that body work, and not just talking about hair removal, but it can be pleasing as well. You know, it's not just painful. There's also good things about it as well. So it's always a bit more nuanced, I think, than just saying it's the.

[Kate Lister]

Patriarchy and of course, the proliferation of porn, which we've always had. Like, you've spoken about the nude statues and the nude. So it's always influenced us. Although, you know, it's not porn, it's erotical, whatever you want to say, but images of nude bodies. But the fact that we can now access porn as easily as we can. I mean, you might remember, as I do, that really the only way you were going to see porn as a kid was if you found it in a hedge.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yes. By the side of a railway.

[Kate Lister]

Station. Yeah, I'd remember that. You'd find, like stashes and, like, rips, bits. And maybe someone at your school would have a video that they were sending around and everything. But now if you've got a mobile device, you can see anything that you want. And that's got to have had an impact on.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I think so, yeah. Because there's some evidence that pubic hair removal is much more common now. It started to go up, you know, with the advent of the Internet and it's Age related as well. So people who are between 18 and 30 are much more likely to move their pubic hair than people who are older. So it's definitely a cultural thing. It's completely related to the availability of Internet porn because it's normal again, it's what's normal.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, that you can see visually normal.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So that makes people think it's normal to remove their body hair and also for women to remove their body hair because men, it's more mixed.

[Kate Lister]

They've never really had to deal with this. Maybe just a bit of a quick trim and they are on their way.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Because it's what men are expecting as well, even more than women maybe because a lot of men might not have had much experience of seeing women's bodies.

[Kate Lister]

No.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So that's the way that this encountered women's naked bodies is mainly via porn. So in fact, anybody should be very grateful for people showing them their bodies.

[Kate Lister]

Just quietly grateful.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I think whatever state they happen to be in, just say thank you.

[Kate Lister]

It's sort of a weird one anyway because I don't know the history on this, but I'd be willing to bet that nowhere in the history of men, straight men having sex with women has there been a man that's gone. Well, it was a bit untidy, so I thought I should just go home.

[Professor Jill Burke]

If they do, they should go home.

[Kate Lister]

They should go home.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Quite frankly, that's unacceptable.

[Kate Lister]

That's unacceptable. He's gonna be a shit shag.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Quite frankly, I think a lot of these pressures are not to do with individuals and not to do with like individual that you might meet and whatever. But it's more to do with the sense of pressure, the sense of we're guessing what other people, what people are gonna be expecting.

[Kate Lister]

We're guessing what we're gonna expect. Absolutely. And as a final question to you, I know that you're a lecturer at the university and I was too, which means that we have regular access to Gen Z and their conversations. And it does seem that there is something AF foot with the youngsters when it comes to body hair. They're bringing it back, Jill. I've noticed that.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I think it's great. No, I mean, again, people should do whatever they want. But I think it's great that, you know, a big fan of Gen Z generally, big fan of teaching. 18 to 22 year olds love it and they're just really feisty and they.

[Kate Lister]

Don'T give a shit about body hair. Like we've got like Julia Roberts when that was absolute front page news. Like oh, my God. And now it's like a whole classroom full of Gen Z and all the women have got hairy pits and nobody really gives. It's not even a statement.

[Professor Jill Burke]

No, it's not a statement. It's like, I couldn't be bothered or I just don't want to.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And that's absolutely fine, too. Right.

[Kate Lister]

So I think they're going to come through and save us all, but then eventually, eventually there'll be another push back against it.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, yeah. Because all this stuff, if history teaches us anything about this, it's that it comes in waves and it goes. Comes and goes again.

[Kate Lister]

Well, as long as they're not using our sketches.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yes. I hope we haven't inadvertently brought that into fashion.

[Kate Lister]

No, let's not bring that one back. Oh, Jill, you have been wonderful to talk to. You always are. And if people want to know more about you and your research, where can they find you?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, I am at the University of Edinburgh in the history department. And you can always buy my book. It's called how to Be a Renaissance Woman Profile. It's in paperbacks, it's not massively pricey, and it, you know, it's quite good. I like it.

[Kate Lister]

Very good. Thank you so much for talking to me today. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Thanks so much for knowing so much about pubic hair. It's so great to talk to another pubic hair officiant.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Jill for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to, like, review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject, or maybe you just wanted to say hello, then you can email [e-mail] Coming up, we have the next installment in our limited series, the Secret Lives of the Six Wives and Michelangelo's Sex Life. Those two things do not have any crossover, by the way, but those episodes will be with you very soon. This podcast was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, a podcast by history hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic. Sound. So good, so good, so good.

[Nordstrom Rack Ad]

Just in and so good. Thousands of winter deals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now, and that means thousands of fresh reasons to rack, because we.

[Kate Lister]

Get the latest trends for way less.

[Nordstrom Rack Ad]

Because I've been looking for these because the best deals go fast, save big with up to 60% off. Sam Edelman, Sorrel free people, Cole Haan and more Cold weather fines. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

[Bolin Branch Ad]

You've been waiting all year and the moment is finally here. Bolin Branch is the betting brand for better sleep and their best sale of the year is happening now. Right now you can get 25% off the organic cotton sheets loved by millions of sleepers. They feel breathable, luxuriously soft and get softer with every wash. Shop. Bolin Branch's cyber event with extended returns for the holiday season. Hurry to bolinbranch.com and use code buttery for 25% off everything. Limited time only exclusions apply. See site for details.