Nancy Redd is a former Miss Virginia, a former cheerleading captain--and also a Women's Studies Harvard graduate and author of the uplifting and hilarious book Body Drama: Real Girls, Real Bodies, Real Issues, Real Answers. (See? We told you not to judge ex-cheerleaders.) The book features a vulva centerfold that would make Hugh Hefner turn in his grave (oh wait, that's right, he's not dead yet, just irrelevant), and is pretty much guaranteed to make you feel better about your least favorite body part, whichever part that may be. We decided to chat to Nancy about one of her favorite crusading topics, pubic hair. (Actually, it's one of ours, too...come on, Nair for pre-teens?!)

E&L: New York mag accused your book of having a bit of an anti-waxing slant, though we actually thought you presented all the pubic hair styling options fairly evenly. Why do you think we're so obsessed with manicuring our hair down there these days?

NR: First and foremost, I don't care what you do as long as you do it for you and not because you think future sexual partners will think you're gross if you don't get rid of your body hair. 

Bikini waxing is big business with a huge profit margin.  A few marketing geniuses in the 1990s started touting it as the newest, coolest, modern and sexy thing to do, and we believed them. In 1999, as I struggled to fit in with my classmates my frosh year at Harvard, getting my first Brazilian was like a rite of passage, right up there with buying a pair of Tiffany earrings, a Bobbi Brown lipstick, and a Coach handbag. Having only ever wielded a razor down there with not-so-hot results, the smooth feeling afterwards, as well as the powerful feeling of maturity, got me hooked. That Christmas break, when I asked an esthetician in my hometown in southern Virginia for a "touch up," she looked at me like I was crazy. No one outside of big cities was doing them then. Today, bikini waxing has become popular everywhere, even in tiny southern towns. 

What started as an interesting whim for a few women has now, sadly, become mandated by many sexual partners (and bathing suit cuts) across the country. American guys, while sporting full bushes down there themselves, often have the gall to proclaim women unclean to their face if there's hair down there, which is ridiculous and hypocritical.

E&L: You said that researching this book turned you from a Brazilian fanatic to an au naturel gal--why?

NR: If you scoured as many pictures of herpes and genital warts as I have had to for Body Drama, and if you heard as many horror stories from unlucky women as I have, you'd start to eschew many salon services, too. The wax used in salon services is often not hot enough to kill many microorganisms such as the ones that cause genital warts (though it's supposed to be, but that's another story). Sadly, most salons (and not just a few) do not adhere to safe waxing procedures. Even many of the fancy, super-expensive ones aren't following proper guidelines.  

Think back to the last waxing service you received--the "esthetician" probably dipped a popsicle stick into a vat of wax the size of a cereal bowl, smeared the waxy stick onto some part of your body or face, and then dipped the stick back into the same vat of wax, repeating the steps for every strip of hair she removed from you. Think about the size of that vat, and how many sticks will be dipped into it. If your esthetician is running an unsafe and unsanitary business (and there's a huge chance that she is) then she's potentially smearing the bacteria, viruses, and germs from hundreds of other peoples' faces, toes, vulvas, underarms, and anuses directly onto your open pores. So, yeah, now I only remove facial hair by threading (which I explain in the book) and I do all my leg and underarm waxing myself at home. It saves me money and stress about finding a properly sanitized salon!

E&L: And how come for you, it's a Brazilian or nothing?

NR: I dunno--I'm a creature of habit, I guess. It's the pube-do that I cut my teeth on, so anything in-between feels half-hearted.

E&L: Why do you think so many men are into the fully shaved/waxed look on women? Can we blame it all on porn?

NR: Yes, porn is the culprit. I blame porn for America's newfound obsession with anal sex as well as for popularizing the "money shot," too. Also, overly airbrushed nudie magazine spreads don't help, either. Seriously, flip through a Playboy sometimes--the airbrushing is so amateur and ridiculously obvious! Not a single razor bump, ingrown hair, color variation...nothing normal is left by the time the graphic designer finishes wielding his Photoshop wand.
 
E&L: What do you think of guys who wax everything down there?

NR: Ah, yes, the good ol' "sack & crack" wax. To each their own, I say...to each their own.  

E&L: What are some of the benefits to having a full (or fullish) bush?

NR: Having a fuller checking account is a great bonus! During the peak of my waxing obsession at the age of 22, I was waxing everything on my body, from the nape of my neck to the tips of my toes, even where there was hardly any hair. Just bikini waxing alone cost about $60 after tip. I went twice a month, for a total of $120 a month.  That's $1,500 a year of my hard-earned after-tax money, which is the equivalent of $2,000 that I could have invested in a tax-free retirement fund...which would have grown to at least $24,000 by the time I'm ready to retire at 65. And that's just one year's worth of down there hair removal.  

E&L: If someone insists on taking it all off, what are your top tips?

NR: Splurge on a safe place. In Body Drama, I talk about how to choose a safe salon, and my main tip is to call the salon before your appointment and politely ask either the esthetician or the receptionist whether or not the esthetician 1) is licensed by your state to practice 2) uses gloves 3) uses an individual, disposable cup of wax for each client, and 4) offers disposable underwear, because HPV (which causes genital warts) has been found on the underwear of infected individuals. If she hesitates or says no to any of these issues, it's in your health's best interest to cancel the appointment.

Also, bring your own tweezers. In even the nicest, most expensive and rule-following waxing salon that adheres to all the safe practices, I have yet to find an esthetician who sanitizes her tweezers, so bring your own and insist that she uses them. If you're feeling awkward, remember that this is your life that we're talking about. Think about where your tweezers go and where your estheticians' tweezers have probably been.


Read more about Nancy Redd and Body Drama at NancyRedd.com.