The following is a quote from David Shields' brand-new book "The Trouble with Men: Reflections on Sex, Love, Marriage, Porn, and Power", by Carol Lwali.

I had no idea of this. I'm not passing moral judgment, but this just hit me like a bunch of bricks.

Women today shave many parts of their body for some obvious reasons. If you plan on wearing shorts or a skirt, of course you’re going to shave your legs. If you have dark arm hair, you may shave that hair. Some women even shave their upper lip (which isn’t a good idea; you should always go with waxing when it comes to that area). And of course we shave our bikini lines when we go to the beach. But there wasn’t always such a need for shaving anywhere near our pubic area.

Before the 1980s, women didn’t really shave around their vagina area at all. That era’s swimsuits covered the bikini line area pretty well (they were a little like the boy-shorts women wear today), so there wasn’t a need for it. But when the ’80s-style bikinis, with a thinner strip of material between the legs, became popular, women started to worry about their pubic hair poking out of the sides of these skimpier suits, so they started to shave their “bikini lines,” as we call that area today.

This is still a long way from what women do now, however. Girls today act as if not shaving their pubic hair is a sin. To have hair down there is viewed as dirty and vulgar, and letting it grow out is just letting yourself go and showing that you don’t care how you look. However, these girls would be very surprised if they knew exactly what started the whole craze of shaving pubic hair.

Long ago, prostitutes shaved their pubic hair, possibly as a way to avoid getting crabs, so other women would never even consider doing such a thing, but the invention of the VHS is what ultimately would start the trend as it exists today.

In the ’80s, sadomasochism, or S&M, or SM, became very popular. SM porno VHS tapes were readily available, and since men could watch them in the comfort of their own homes, sales took off. In these videos, women were often portrayed as being very weak. One of the ways they tried to make themselves look weaker was by shaving their pubic hair. This made them appear completely naked, child-like, and extremely vulnerable. The look became popular with fans of the tapes, and men probably started convincing their girlfriends to imitate the look. Girls who were fans of the videos also followed suit. This was not as widespread a phenomenon as it is today, though. It was more of a cult movement. That is, until Playboy decided to imitate the look.

While women today see the era of the ’90s as when the look became popular, the first Playboy centerfold featuring a shaved vagina didn’t take place until about 2002. Eventually, Playboy started using the look in all of its photo shoots. This is when the trend really took off. Strippers and women in the adult entertainment industry probably were some of the first to follow the trend, since they needed to be aware of what men were into sexually at the time. Guys also probably started to convince their girlfriends to imitate the look, and it just continued to expand until it became the norm with women in the US.

Women today shave because they think it’s sexy and it’s the look that’s “in” right now. Little do they realize that they’re imitating a look that became popular because it made women look weak and submissive.