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Big bush energy: From feminist statement to body hair trend

Happy Talk: Just because you no longer need to buy razors doesn’t mean the beauty industry isn’t still after your money

Christine Manby
Sunday 30 June 2019 15:15 BST
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Julia Roberts (unintentionally) bares all at the premiere for ‘Notting Hill’ 1999
Julia Roberts (unintentionally) bares all at the premiere for ‘Notting Hill’ 1999

As a writer, I sometimes worry about my Google search history. If anyone of my acquaintance is found dead in unusual circumstances, the evidence on my computer will be compelling. Anyone wishing to blackmail me would find plenty to suggest that my squeaky clean image hides a yawning pit of moral turpitude. Of course, it’s all for research. There’s nothing this writer won’t look up (except that). So, when my editor asked me to look into “big bush energy”, the “feminist” response to “big dick energy”, I typed in the search term fearlessly.

I need not have worried. Most of the results were about the energy policies of former US president George W Bush. Those that weren’t about George W were unlikely to break the internet. Though the first link tantalised with the suggestion, “The vagina is basically taking over the beauty world”, the first image I saw was of a slim white female in a pair of slim white pants from which sprouted a few sprigs of fern. That’s not a euphemism. It was actual fern.

Big dick energy is about channelling the charisma that seems to be the birthright of a man with a big penis. Meanwhile, big bush energy is… the latest trend in women’s personal grooming. Big bush energy advocates are stepping away from the waxing parlour in order to… um. Well, its heroines are such Hollywood greats as Julia Roberts, who dared to walk the red carpet with hairy pits at the premiere of Notting Hill. What a woman! What a statement! What was the statement again? Er…

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