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“ I started to pin my confidence in my sexuality onto who I am and how I am, and not what I look like. ”

Jessie

Jessie, a 26-year-old civil servant, told me about her mom's influence on her attitude towards her body hair. "My mom's openness taught me that my body isn't something to be ashamed of; she taught me how to shave my legs and my armpits but we never touched on pubic hair," she says. "In fact, when I started removing mine I was embarrassed and didn't tell her."

She recounts hearing negative comments about female pubic hair when she started secondary school, saying that some boys at the school would joke and jeer about "encounters" they'd had with girls who had pubic hair. "No one really knew what the purpose of pubic hair was, or that it actually protects from bacteria and adds comfort during sex," Jessie adds.

So, at 23, she decided to grow out her pubic hair.

"It started when I decided to be celibate until marriage. I no longer had the 'need' to shave there because no one would be seeing it," she says, adding that her partner is incredibly supportive of her decision to remain hairy. She says, "I asked him about my pubic hair, and he said he doesn't care, it's entirely up to me. He told me that if I'm happy with how I look and how I feel then that's all he cares about."

She continues: "I didn't feel any less of a sexual woman when I had pubes compared to when I didn't have pubes. I started to look at myself differently and started to pin my confidence in my sexuality onto who I am and how I am, and not what I look like."