The hair is located on and around the sex organs, and sometimes at the top of the inside of the thighs, even extending down the perineum, and to the anal region.

In some cultures, it is the norm for pubic hair to be removed, especially of females; the practice is regarded as part of personal hygiene.

In some cultures, the exposure of pubic hair (for example, when wearing a swimsuit) may be regarded as unaesthetic or embarrassing, and is therefore trimmed (or otherwise styled) to avoid it being visible.

[11] In December 2016 NPR reported that "Frequent removal of pubic hair is associated with an increased risk for herpes, syphilis and human papillomavirus".

[14] However, the medical community has also seen a recent increase in folliculitis, or infection around the hair follicle, in women who wax or shave their bikini areas.

For example, Gene Weingarten, writing in his book I'm with Stupid (2004) states that "Ruskin had [the marriage] annulled because he was horrified to behold upon his bride a thatch of hair, rough and wild, similar to a man's.

Peter Fuller in his book Theoria: Art and the Absence of Grace writes, "It has been said that he was frightened on the wedding night by the sight of his wife's pubic hair; more probably, he was perturbed by her menstrual blood."

[8] With the reintroduction of public beaches and pools, bathing in Western Europe and the Mediterranean early in the 20th century, exposure of both sexes' areas near their pubic hair became more common, and after the progressive reduction in the size of female and male swimsuits, especially since the coming into fashion and growth in popularity of the bikini after the 1940s, the practice of shaving or bikini waxing of pubic hair off the hem lines also came into vogue.

[23] In some Middle Eastern societies, removal of male and female body hair has been considered proper hygiene, mandated by local customs, for many centuries.

[24] Muslim teaching (applicable to males and females) includes Islamic hygienical jurisprudence in which pubic and armpit hair must be pulled out or shaven to be considered as Sunnah.

[25] Women working in pornography typically remove their pubic hair by shaving, a practice that became fashionable in the late 20th century.

[26] According to feminist writer Caitlin Moran, the reason for the removal of pubic hair from women in pornography was a matter of "technical considerations of cinematography".

Some people remove pubic hairs for erotic and sexual reasons or because they or their sex partner enjoy the feel of a hairless crotch.

[31][32] According to one academic study, as of 2016, approximately 50% of men in the United States practice regular pubic hair grooming, which can include trimming, shaving and removal.

A Cosmopolitan study found that a plurality of respondents, both male and female, preferred partners who shave or at least trim their pubic hair.

[42] In 16th century southern Europe, Michelangelo showed the male David with stylized pubic hair,[43] but female bodies were depicted hairless below the head.

[citation needed] In the late 18th century, female pubic hair was openly portrayed in Japanese shunga (erotica), especially in the ukiyo-e tradition.

[45] L'Origine du monde (1866), by the French artist Gustave Courbet, was controversial for its realism, which pushed the limits of what was considered presentable at the time.

In 1985, four weeks before his death, Rudi Gernreich unveiled the pubikini, a topless bathing suit that exposed the wearer's mons pubis and pubic hair.

[46][47][48][49][50] It was a thin, V-shaped, thong-style bottom[51] that in the front featured a tiny strip of fabric that exposed the wearer's pubic hair.

[54] In Western societies, after the spread of Christianity, public exposure of a woman's bare skin between the ankle and waist started to be disapproved of culturally.

However, it never came to have a full hold in Western culture in wide tracts of Central Europe, until the encroaching of Protestantism during the 16th century on formerly more tolerant customs.

The curls were, for instance, worn like cockades in men's hats as potency talismans or exchanged among lovers as tokens of affection.

[57] The museum of St. Andrews University in Scotland has in its collection a snuffbox full of pubic hair of one of King George IV's mistresses (possibly Elizabeth Conyngham), which the notoriously licentious monarch donated to the Fife sex club, The Beggar's Benison.

[57] In the erotic novel My Secret Life the narrator "Walter", an evident connoisseur of female pubic hair, talks with clear delight of a fine bush of a Scotswoman's thick red pubic hair: The bush was long and thick, twisting and curling in masses half-way up to her navel, and it spread about up her buttocks, gradually getting shorter there.In another part of his autobiography Walter remarks that he has seen those "bare of hair, those with but hairy stubble, those with bushes six inches long, covering them from bum bone to navel."

In like vein, in The Memoirs of Dolly Morton, an American erotic classic, the attributes of Miss Dean are noted with some surprise – her spot was covered with a "thick forest of glossy dark brown hair," with locks nearly two inches long.