Let’s talk about SKIMS’ new “faux hair micro string thong”
Recently, I was tasked with analyzing gender inequality through the misrepresentation of women in the media for one of my midterms. I immediately knew what I would focus on in my response. Seeing that I had the perfect example from class, I could juxtapose two advertisements from distinct time periods in American culture, 50 years apart.
It all began with Love’s Cosmetics’ “Baby Soft” ad for a body care line that aired on television and in print in 1975. This ad was shown to me in Jean Kilbourne’s documentary, Killing Us Softly (1979), (I highly recommend watching it!) where she addressed a room full of women and displayed various advertisements from the time, highlighting their perverse nature in selling products, values, images, and ideologies in grossly sexist and pedophilic ways. In attempts to gain capital and control the minds of female consumers, advertisements utilized “the ideal female beauty standard”—thin, smooth, tall, poreless, voluptuous, and hairless—to market their products. While this standard exists in print and video, it is an entirely false reality —a mirror world full of Photoshop, money, and deception. Infantilization became a refrain in these advertisements, as you can only be sexy when you resemble a pre-pubescent girl. Love’s Cosmetics ad features a fully grown woman wearing a white babydoll dress, licking a lollipop, and pulling the hem of her dress suggestively. The tagline, “Because innocence is sexier than you think,” splashed across the bottom of the page, equates sexuality with innocence and youth, a common trope in Western beauty standards. This disgusting ad is just a modicum of how the advertising industry conflates these two ideas in dangerous and pedophilic ways, sexualizing young girls, and forcing an unattainable standard of “beauty” on adult women, and something we are all becoming increasingly desensitized to as consumers.
Artists like Sabrina Carpenter have come under fire for the same complaint of sexualizing herself while also presenting as a little girl; Carpenter’s petite frame and double-entendre rife songs serve as a basis for this claim. She did a photoshoot with W Magazine that features an image resembling a scene from Lolita (1962), and fans were quick to point it out. She denied any link between them.
This brings me back to SKIMS. Buckle in.
Remember the faux pierced nipple bra? Yeah, that one I can understand, (nipple piercings never heal!) so dressing up and pretending to have them feels valid to me. A faux pubic hair thong? What’s the point? I’m not trying to bash the product or anyone who would utilize it, but Kim Kardashian is even laughing about it. “I’m shocked it got so much attention,” Kim explained in an interview with People Magazine. “We’ve been laughing and talking about it all day long.” It seems to me this is just a cash grab, and a successful one at that. The thong is completely sold out on the SKIMS website.
The advertisement for the thong on TikTok resembles a 1970s game show titled, “Does The Carpet Match The Drapes?”. Three women stand in front of an audience, and the audience guesses if their hair color matches their pubic hair color. Each woman then reveals themselves by lifting up their dress, and showing their different colored thong. It is directly reminiscent of the Love’s Cosmetics ad as it conveys a false message of sexual maturity. When women can grow their own pubic hair—which, btw, is a common cultural symbol of revolution against the patriarchy—is the thong really for women to feel empowered? Or is it for the facade of sexual maturity for men? This thong functions as a fantasy that can be removed at the end of the night to reveal the more preferable bare pubis.
Pubic hair removal (PHR) and grooming practices vary widely in the United States and other countries. However, it is essential to note the commonalities and how they are transposed across continents, grounded in cultural reasoning. I have found two studies, one from the U.S. and one from Australia, that illuminate some statistics regarding pubic hair removal and motivation.
The research I chose to support my argument is rooted in heteronormative practices of pubic hair removal, but it is by no means solely heteronormative. The studies also cover other sexuality demographics.
In the U.S., n=279 participants (83.2%) reported that their motivation for PHR was that it “makes them feel clean.” There was an extensive range of “preferred pubic hair styles, with some of the most prevalent including trimmed (n = 82; 25.4%), partially removed but not fully bare (n = 77; 23.8%), and hair-free/bare (n = 75; 23.3%)” (Javidi et.al., 2023). The sentiment of “feeling clean” is rooted in purity culture and a misunderstanding of pubic hair’s inherent hygiene and protective function, which is often compromised upon removal.
In Australia, n = 471/728 (72%) of females and n = 257/728 (64.7%) of males were likely to engage in PHG. They mention that, “traditionally, men have not engaged in depilatory behaviours, as the presence of body hair was considered masculine, attractive and virile.” Additionally, “male participants in this current study indicated that their preference, when engaging in oral sex with a female partner was for complete removal of their PH.” And finally, “the normative portrayal of women’s genitalia as hairless in mainstream pornography, along with wider access to this type of material, may also contribute to attitudes that PHG is acceptable, expected, and an intentionally self-sexualising practice,” (Deans et.al., 2023).
The study from Australia proved compelling in its discussion. First, it affirmed the cultural value that body hair is “masculine” and therefore undesirable on women. Second, it affirmed the existence and persistence of male preference about what women do with their body hair regarding sexual practices. And third, it mentions a critical intersection between pornography and pubic hair grooming practices, specifically how hair-free representation in pornography negatively affects women’s opinions of their own body hair.
After being sold razors, depilatory creams, epilators, lasers, and waxes, to remove all signs of body hair since the dawn of time, it seems like a smack in the face to then be sold the hair we’ve been trying so hard to get rid of. The fact that the thong is sold out is critical to examining consumer culture, unconscious shopping addiction, and our blind trust in celebrities and their brands.
At the end of the day, do what you want with your body hair. I am not here to judge, and I am very pro-bush!!!! I just wanted to illuminate the power of advertising and how the patriarchy still remains very much in control and consistently privileges the unattainable (and pedophilic) beauty standard for adult women. Analyzing our behavior as consumers of this messaging is also essential in resisting patriarchal and capitalist power.