“The first porn I ever saw was ’80s magazine porn, which is very bushy,” he tells InsideHook. “Those were my first erections in response to visual stimuli, so that probably strikes deep.”
But Simon likes to think his affinity for the pubic-grooming style that dominated his earliest masturbatory material isn’t just a case of early imprinting. There are other reasons he’s nostalgic for the porn and pubic hair trends of his youth. According to Simon, the porn of decades past holds a certain artistic sincerity, one he’s come to equate with full bush.
“It reminds me of porn from the ’70s, which I like because it’s so earnest,” he says. “I think, or maybe I just like to imagine, that there was a brief moment in cinematic history when people took porn seriously as art, and that porn actors of the time were maybe not as cynical about what they’re doing as I imagine them to be now. This is obviously all just fantasy, but that’s what I mean by ‘earnest,’ and I equate that earnestness with bush.”
Chris, a 26-year-old from Boston, also traces his taste for pubic hair back to his earliest masturbatory influences. For a guy coming of age in the early 2000s, however, that material wasn’t the “earnest” porn of the ’70s nor the bushy centerfolds of the ’80s, but rather the leaked celebrity nudes that dominated Hollywood sex scandals in the early aughts.
Chris caught his first look at a fully nude woman at the age of 13, when Vanessa Hudgens became the victim of a highly publicized nude photo leak in 2007. It was a revelatory experience.
“I had no idea women were capable of growing body hair or being hairy down there,” he says. “From the second I saw that, I was instantly obsessed with pubic hair — partially because [Hudgens] was one of my first celebrity crushes, and partially because of the ‘taboo’ nature of viewing something I was not supposed to be seeing.”
But while his love for bush may be rooted in an early adolescent experience, Chris says he’s actually drawn to the sexual maturity plentiful pubic hair suggests.
“I like the natural look and feel of a full bush on a woman,” he says. “When I think of the difference between a ‘girl’ and a ‘woman,’ one of the first things that comes to mind is the presence of pubic hair. I think it’s a sign of maturity.”
By the way, it’s not just straight guys fighting back against the modern trend of aggressive pubic grooming. While Connor, a 29-year-old from Toronto, suspects members of the LGBTQ community may be more open to untrimmed pubic hair than their straight counterparts, he’d still like to see more guys rocking the full bush.
“Too many guys nowadays are shaving and trimming,” he wrote earlier this year in the subreddit r/AskGayMen, calling for the full bush to make a comeback. Like Chris, Connor sees pubic hair as a signal of sexual maturity, and finds it “off-putting” when a partner goes hairless.
“I’ve always been attracted to men with a hairier physique,” he tells InsideHook. “I find that guys who completely shave their bush look unnatural and very prepubescent.”
Unfortunately, while Chris says he believes full bush “is making a silent comeback,” he finds there’s still a lot of stigma surrounding natural pubic hair and those who prefer it.
“Unfortunately, I do not think there are a lot of men around my age who are into full bush,” he says, adding that he’s even felt some shame over his unorthodox pubic hair preferences. “I’m sure there are more men that prefer pubic hair than the statistics show, but I think it is still taboo — largely because of the porn industry,” he adds.
But while bare vulvas may still dominate mainstream sexual aesthetics today, these men remain hopeful that someday, bush will be back. And when it is, they’ll be ready.
The Men Patiently Waiting for the Full Bush to Make a Comeback
