About a month ago I was helping a girlfriend of mine celebrate her birthday in Palm Springs. In a scene that replays itself across the U.S., six girls had gathered together to have crazy-fun times and use a single bathroom. While the birthday girl lay passed out from vodka and 120 degree heat, the rest of us were getting ready, preparing for the moment when she might at last wake and want to keep the scheduled reservation for the big birthday dinner...

As I stepped out of the shower I heard a: “Whoa.” One of the girls, who was applying her makeup had spotted my, what will henceforth be known as “bush”. I grabbed a towel to dry myself off and asked why that was so surprising. As the interrogation began, another girl came into the bathroom and remarked: “Yeah, you need to do something about that thing.” Let’s get it straight right now that there was nothing going on down there that might place me at a hippie commune in the 1960’s. I had prepared for copious bikini-time in the requisite manner, although the requisite manner did not include a Brazilian. I demanded at that instant that all the girls in the bathroom show me their bushes. And in a scene that replays itself between pubescent girls across the world, they lifted their skirts and showed me.

Nobody had a Brazilian. Though, much to the disappointment of any readers who were hoping for a little Girls Gone Wild Action, I didn’t get a very close look. They might have been less “bushy” than me, but I don’t think anybody had stripped the hair from its very root (I know because I’ve watched lots of porn). So what was wrong with mine?

The very first time I got a Brazilian bikini wax I did it myself. In fact, every time...I’ve done it myself. The first time was in college when Brazilian waxes were a relatively new thing and when I was young, naive and probably wanting to impress a then-boyfriend. I remember the pain going beyond pain and into some sort of semi-euphoria brought on by the rush of dopamine meant to lessen the pain. I remember the cold sweat, the cursing, the counting to ten before I pulled the wax off, then chickening out and counting to ten again, then again...and still not pulling. I remember the stickiness of the wax sealing my thighs together.

Things had certainly changed since the fifth grade when, at a particular sleepover, the rest of the girls held me down and pulled off my underwear to get a look. I was the only one in the group who was even growing pubic hair at that point. They all wanted what I had, to be grown up, to be a woman, now we can’t wait to get rid of it. What the hell happens between girlhood and womanhood?

Is it that the unrelenting pressure to sexualize ourselves brings about compulsory hair removal en masse? Should we just accept this as a normal fact of life and not question it? Of course not; we must question everything. Especially if it’s in regards to our beautiful bushes—the source of all human life on this planet.

What exactly, is the point of putting ourselves through the process of taming the wilds of our bush? Sure, we don’t necessarily have to wax. We could chemically destroy the hair shaft with Nair (that stuff smells nasty with a capital ew), we could shave (razor burn anyone?) or we could trim (and risk an accidental and unfortunate partial clitorectomy). But all those things really only lead to our bush being more visually pleasing based on a standard created by men. I don’t know about you, but the last time I trimmed, I wasn’t no dude.

The world of men should have little to no bearing on what we do or don’t do with our bushes. We get to create our own standard of beauty and I’m going to tell you why. Again, I may be giving away some very well kept secrets here, but as Inga Muscio so accurately points out in her book Cunt; we are the source and they are the seekers. Men will have sex with you no matter how big your bush is. Why: Because they have a penis. Penises aren’t picky. They sort of go where they’re told.

It’s the same reason why, if all women in the world put down their lipstick and their mascara and their push-up bras today, we’d still be as desirable as we were yesterday. We have the bush, the most valuable thing there is, yet there’s a constant message being told over and over to women every moment of our lives that there are certain things we absolutely need in order to be seen as feminine or sexy or alluring. They’re all lies. Feminine isn’t all lace and pink and pearls, it’s about the peaceful energy you create around you. Alluring isn’t about having perfectly made-up, smoldering eyes, it’s being so sure of yourself, one can’t help but stare. Sexy isn’t cleavage popping out of your shirt. Sexy is a big bush.