About

Meredith Dault is a graduate student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She is writing this blog as part of my thesis research.

If you’re looking for a bit more background, check out an earlier posting – it should help fill in some of the gaps.

The best way to reach Meredith is by email:

mdault [at ] meredithdault.com

You can also follow her on Twitter  (where she only writes about pubic hair related stuff) — she’s @thelasttriangle

Join her on Facebook at The Last Triangle: Sex, Money and the Politics of Pubic Hair

For more about Meredith, please visit www.meredithdault.com

 

 

  • Karla

    Interesting blog, great topic. I’m looking forward to reading more of your posts…found your blog through the article that was published on Huffington Post.

  • Joshua

    Great blog. In addition to the very valid points you have listed on this website I can think of three other reasons to avoid body hair removal (and arbitrary beauty standards in general) off the top of my head.

    One reason is that throughout the course of our lives it is a monumental waste of time. I don’t know how much time the average women spends shaving, applying makeup, painting their fake nails, etc, but with life being all too short as it is, can’t we find something more meaningful to do with our time?

    Second, it is a waste of limited resources that could be put to better use, or just simply left unused. How many oil spills, mined out mountains, and deforested rain-forests are acceptable to trade for social conformity? Because, unlike we are taught to believe, our decisions – purchasing and otherwise – have ramifications larger than ourselves.

    Third, to me it seems silly, and arrogant, to assume that we can artificially improve upon the desirability of bodies that have been molded for reproduction by eons of evolution. Or, for the religious, can we improve upon the body that God designed and gave to us (Gillette can one up God!)? It is amazing that the human species did not die out entirely prior to high heels, Versace handbags, and hairless vulvas.

  • Rob

    Wow a blog about pubic hair, you really can find anything on the internet!

    For the record, I like your blog.

    To me, women are removing one of the features that make them unique when they remove their pubic hair. Your bush gives your cooch an identity all it’s own. Why would a woman want to look like a manakin with no defining charateristics?

    What a pity for those men who are anti-pubes, they will never appreciate the thrill of seeing a new lover’s pubes for the first.

    For whatever the reasons, shaving has become mainstream, but all is not lost. Recently a couple of my female friends who were regular shavers til lately, decided that work, and kids, and life in general wasn’t leaving them the time to constantly shave. I hope that many more women will think for themselves, and decide that they have better things to do with their time.

  • http://www.radicalroles.blogspot.com/ Chy

    I just “stumbled” onto your blog and I’m loving it! I thought that you might be interested in my thoughts on body hair and why I’ve made some simple but powerful choices in not removing hair.
    http://radicalroles.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-i-dont-shave-my-legs.html

    • http://www.meredithdault.com Meredith Dault

      Chy- thanks for the link to your fabulous blog! What you are doing takes an incredible amount of courage, and I’m so impressed (I look forward to reading more!). Glad you like what I’m writing, too…

  • http://www.wix.com/maggie_laidlaw/mfl maggie laidlaw

    Just found your blog… and I’m enthralled. I’m currently considering ‘doing’ my honours dissertation on the rise in labiaplasty and the media’s role in this… (if there is one). Im very interested in the representation of women in the media…esp concerning the raunch culture.
    It worries me that so many women are dedicating their time and bodies to looking almost exactly alike…. They seem to be hand picking body parts out of (catalogue) line -ups…. So much so, that we’re rapidly losing our individuality and uniqueness and becoming, what I can only describe as barbie doll cyborgs… what a frightening thought!
    l I will be reading your blog regularly – Hopefully I can pick up some useful reference material along the way…

  • http://www.insteadofdiamonds.com/ Instead of Diamonds

    Hi Meredith,

    We’ve been searching for pubic-hair related images/videos/social sites/anything online! We are creating a sculpture encrusted in short ‘n’ curlies and need to get the word out there as we’re after 6767 pieces of unqiye DNA. Think a backlash to Damien Hirst’s diamond skull. Spread the word to your hairy followers…

    And keep up the all the fuss on the fuzz!

    Instead of Diamonds
    http://www.insteadofdiamonds.com

  • http://twitter.com/brittbritted Brittany Edwards

    Hello Meredith,

    I’ve been a fan of your blog for awhile, and I came across a statement from the radio show, “Loveline,” stating, “Tonight’s Open Forum: Grooming Etiquette. What do you expect from your partner when it comes to the ‘hair down there?’”  This means there will be many people sharing their opinions on pubic hair, and so I thought of you. 

    If you want to check it out, you can listen online: http://www.lovelineshow.com/

    Keep up the blogging!

  • Steve

    Hi Meredith,

    I’ve been reading your blog for a while now & really enjoy it!  I saw an interesting article from December that you might like:

    http://jezebel.com/5869771/is-pubic-hair-coming-back-into-fashion-nsfw 

  • K B Lesnik-Oberstein

    Hello Meredith,
    Because I have only intermittently been working on body hair since the publication of my book, I only just came across your MA dissertation on pubic hair today and read it and very much enjoyed it: great stuff. So now I am having a look at your blog. I thought you and your readers might be interested to know that a few years ago I was filmed for a tv programme in the UK on ‘Natural Beauty’ that never ended up being broadcast. The producers asked me to walk around town with an interviewer and camera-person filming me while I pulled up my trouser-leg to show my unshaven (I have not shaved any of my body hair now for over thirty years), hairy leg to people in the main shopping street. Although the programme people were nice and sympathetic and actually really interested in the issues, they also wanted a predicatable response: people who did not respond with shock or surprise were left quickly. One young man, for instance, responded with ‘sexy!’ when he saw my leg and that was not the response the tv people were interested in! One young girl, touchingly, wistfully said to me that she wished she had my courage. One lady shrieked and then demanded if I had a boyfriend and then seemed to be horrified at her own spontaneity and ended up apologising profusely while I tried to reassure her she had not offended me. I did not expect anything different from the responses: after all, it took me twenty years to get ‘The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair’ published and during those years I talked to hundreds of people about the project and I always got (and still get) the same responses: either people are disgusted and think you are mad, or they wish they could dare to let go too of the sense that they must engage in these and other practices, but then feel they cannot. It is only rarely, as in some of the comments in your blog and dissertation, that people find they can make their own choices, whatever those may be, including not necessarily stopping with (all) shaving — or make-up/ cosmetic surgery/ dieting/ over-eating etc — but finding at least that they can connect their thinking and their feelings to make meanings of their own.
    Warmest best wishes, Karin
    Karin Lesnik-Oberstein