When did women start shaving their private parts?

Whereas one would think it's only a specific cultural thing (because female body hair still naturally exists), it seems that dislike or even repulsion thereof (including by women) constantly popped up independently in various cultures over at least the last 5,000 years. The trend seems to be that when the clothes come off, the hair follows suit.

As early as 3150 B.C., Egyptian women removed 100% of their body hair. Cleopatra hated hair so much that she even shaved her head (but that was an outlier and kind of irrelevant to my points). At any rate, this was the golden standard in their eyes.

In Ancient Greece, 900 B.C., women also hated their body hair and removed all of it.

In the Roman Empire, 27 B.C, many men even followed suit and decided all of their body hair was repulsive. It's generally women we see doing this, but this appears from time to time as well.

Modern days Muslims, male and female, shave their armpits and pubic hair as they believe this to be more hygienic.

We know less about how it came to be in ancient cultures, but in most modern ones it followed typical skin exposure amount. In the US for example, it's apparent that women hated their leg hair long before they shaved it, as they panicked when stockings became unavailable due to materials being reallocated to WWI manufacturing processes. Too embarrassed to buy razors, they all almost universally started sneaking their husbands' razors.

The cat was basically out of the bag from the get-go though and Gillette shortly thereafter marketed "women's razors" to absolve women of the shame they felt secretly doing this (using a razor was previously seen as this superduper, hyper masculine thing like smoking cigars while punching people, so what they were doing was mortifying to them until someone decided to also brand it as a traditionally feminine, make-up and dress-up type of thing to neutralize the gender of shaving overall).

Not all women shaved their entire legs immediately. Many did just around their ankles, then their knees, and so on as hemlines rose to whatever length they wanted as women were more liberated. Sleeves got shorter and underarm hair went out the window. It's almost as if each of them felt the general public always assumed they personally didn't have body hair and they needed to make this assumption true as needed when new parts were revealed.

Naturally, women with a particularly strong aversion to their body hair started removing it all as soon as they had razors if they could maintain the motivation to, but most did so gradually. I think pubic hair removal became common along with sexual liberation of women and the possibility that women could more likely end up being seen there, no different than underarm hair going when sleeves got short enough to make its appearance possible.

One thing is clear though: Out of all the horrible things men have done to women over thousands of years, it really doesn't seem making them shave is one of them. That narrative is flawed. While it might be true that modern women who don't want to shave might feel a pressure from society overall to shave so as to conform to the norm now that it's in place, it's abundantly clear that this is something women have simply wanted to do over the years, creating the norm.

Why though? That's a good question. To look more attractive to men? Not likely, actually, as I'll touch on later. It's not even entirely certain that most men find this more attractive by default rather than that they're simply seeing a deviation from the norm as unattractive now that it's the norm. Maybe men find shaved women more attractive naturally. Maybe they don't.

Perhaps because many women believe men with more body hair look more masculine, they apply this to themselves and remove it to look more feminine. Either way, while it may or may not attract men, it seems to be something women who want to shave actively choose to do as their right whether it be to attract men or feel more attractive themselves and feel better.

Surveys have shown that the majority of women (well, men too actually) who remove body hair state that they do it not to attract others, not to feel better, not to appease society, but because they simply find their own body hair gross as a personal opinion.

Why do some people find it gross? That's a tough question. Perhaps because it can hold in scents? Perhaps because of loose hairs (of course this occurs with head hair too)? Perhaps because it's an evolutionary relic and possibly on the way out entirely? Who knows?

A bigger question is why the hell I typed all this.

I think it started in the ‘90’s when shows like Baywatch made the V-shaped bikini bottom popular and women didn’t want to risk showing any pussy hairs, so they either got the French bikini wax or figured what the hell might as well go full Brazilian.

If you're talking about the most recent trend of women being hairless from the neck down, it was probably late 80s/ early 90s, from memory.

This trend has come and gone throughout recorded history.

A friend of mine once told me that it started in the mid 1980's. He didn't seem too happy about hairless women. XD

Was born in 90 and seemed like girls always have shaved my entire life. Youd see some new pornos where the girl had a bush but by 2000 that was gone.

The woman I am with currently dose so every so often. She wont let it get super bushy but it's hairy down there.

i am 37 and i have shaved my whole life. as my pubic hair began to come in i hated it so i would sneek a razor and shave it off. i have no idea what i would look like with hair, never had it.

All the dang skinny models keep their sex object shaved because I think most are into each other or have relationships with each other and that's find I just like a little patch it's a turn on for me just saying from hard rock dude