Allure magazine this week touched on seemingly innocuous beauty topic, the subject of one to do with one’s hairy pubes. Just as the title of the story reads, “5 Women Pose for Striking Portraits of their Pubic Hair,” the Allure article includes images of women’s private parts (shot by Samantha Casolari) and how women choose to groom (or not) their pubes.
To publicize the story on its Instagram account, the magazine used a soft focus image of a women’s shaved but not bare pubic area.
While there aren’t comments on allure.com, on Instagram the response to the image has been surprisingly prudish with comments including, “I have followed Allure for a very long time, but this is the last post I will see. Goodbye,” and “Somethings , should be private and not posted or advertising purposes. Not happy at all. No classy either” with another adding, “This picture is not appropriate to post. I often look at Instagram while at work and would be horrified if a colleague saw this on my phone while at work. This should be a NSFW picture that you have to click on to look at. Not a picture on my news feed.”
At the same time, there were plenty of commenters praising the image and the story idea. A waxer was happy for the controversy, commenting, “I make six figures a year brazilian waxing. Personal preference and articles like this keep it relevant & keep them coming into my business. So thank you.” And multiple wrote comments expressing surprise at the push back. “Omg people!,” wrote one, “All you can REALLY see is hair…NOT A BIG DEAL! I bet the same people who are all wound up about this picture are the same people who get outraged and triggered when they see a mother breastfeeding her baby! Grow up people!
Count us in at surprised and disappointed that a post on pubic hair maintenance could create such controversy. Images featuring endless layers of makeup along with fake eyelashes and hair extensions are deeply praised while one showing a woman’s body au naturale is viewed as scary and offensive. While pubic hair may seem trivial, at its root it’s another reflection of built-in societal misogyny that demands women hide their true, unairbrushed selves from the public eye.
p.s. It will be interesting to see if the picture stays up on Allure’s feed given Instagram’s no-nudity policy (though granted blue-check accounts with big followings get away with more). At the same time, we chose to use a different image from the one Allure posted on Instagram because Google Ads has a similar policy and flags pages featuring nudity.
