Thursday, January 17, 2013

KPC Readers: The BEST

KPC readers are the best, the very best around.  The sharp-eyed MK saw this, and just knew right away it was KPC-worthy.

Excerpt:


Waning infestations of [pubic lice] have been linked by doctors to pubic depilation, especially a technique popularized in the 1990s by a Manhattan salon run by seven Brazilian sisters. More than 80 percent of college students in the U.S. remove all or some of their pubic hair -- part of a trend that’s increasing in western countries. In Australia, Sydney’s main sexual health clinic hasn’t seen a woman with pubic lice since 2008 and male cases have fallen 80 percent from about 100 a decade ago.

“It used to be extremely common; it’s now rarely seen,” said Basil Donovan, head of sexual health at the University of New South Wales’s Kirby Institute and a physician at the Sydney Sexual Health Centre. “Without doubt, it’s better grooming.”

The trend suggests an alternative way of stemming one of the globe’s most contagious sexually transmitted infections. Pubic lice are usually treated with topical insecticides, which once included toxic ones developed before and during World War 2. While they aren’t known to spread disease, itchy skin reactions and subsequent infections make pubic lice a hazardous pest.

Clipping, waxing and shaving the groin destroy the optimal habitat of pubic lice. The practice has helped spur sales of depilatory products for companies such as Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) and Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc. (RB/). 

...About a block from New York’s famous Fifth Avenue shopping strip, women in fur coats and Louis Vuitton handbags are filing in and out of a beauty salon on a recent Friday afternoon. They perch on metallic silver and red floral sofas in the reception located in a Midtown Manhattan office building, waiting for a woman dressed in white to escort them to a waxing room.

The shop run by Jonice Padilha and her sisters Jocely, Janea, Joyce, Juracy, Jussara and Judeseia may be ground zero in the war on pubic lice. Growing up in the Brazilian coastal city of Vitoria, the sisters, like other women there, routinely waxed their pubic hair off to accommodate the ever shrinking bikinis worn on the beach.

In 1994, they introduced the waxing technique at the J Sisters nail salon they opened in 1986. Things exploded from there, Padilha said.

About 200 clients a day, including celebrities such as Sarah Jessica Parker, come for treatments ranging from complete hair removal to custom designs. Regulars returning every four weeks pay $75 for a Brazilian. Men of all ages and sexual orientation are going for the “Sunga” wax, a $90 treatment in which all pubic hair, including on the testicles, is removed.  Hygiene and comfort are key reasons customers keep coming back, she said.

“It’s like a freedom,” said Padilha of the salon’s signature bikini wax treatment. “When we started the salon 26 years ago, we never thought it would be a success.”

Nor was it expected to aid in the fight against pubic lice, she said.  “Pubic grooming has led to a severe depletion of crab louse populations,” said Ian F. Burgess, a medical entomologist with Insect Research & Development Ltd. in Cambridge, England. “Add to that other aspects of body hair depilation, and you can see an environmental disaster in the making for this species.” 

1.  First of all:  Sunga wax?  Good God.
2.  Is the Obama admin going to outlaw waxing?  Suppose, for the sake of argument, that pubic lice really do become so scarce as to endangered, and that waxing really is the reason.   As MK put it, in an email:  "When the last pubic louse is gone from Mother Gaia, we will all be the poorer for it."

9 comments:

John Thacker said...

More than 80 percent of college students in the U.S. remove all or some of their pubic hair

Male as well as female? Or is the 80% a women-only statistic? The article later talks about "one in seven men 25 to 34," so it would be pretty impressive for the 80% figure of college students to include men.

Anonymous said...

I can't wait for the federal government to put pubic lice on the endangered species list. It will then be illegal for those with crabs to kill them or destroy its habitat.

I feel sorry for whoever had to see Sarah Jessica Parker's goods...yikes!

Gerardo said...

Waxing is Pubic Enemy #1

But when waxing wanes, lice populations will wax

Thomas W said...

For a contrary view:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/physician-calls-for-an-end-to-bikini-waxing-8008628.html

In this case claiming the shaving increases the chance of STDs and other infections.

TimmyD said...

In the words of the immortal Don King, "Only in America!"

Pelsmin said...

Hey Timmy D -- Funny you should mention that. I hear they have a few different services, ranging from the complete "Brazilian" to the let-it-be "Don King."

MK said...

Read the linked article on Sunga. Guys, it tells you to prepare for the waxing by first rubbing a product called "No Scream Cream" all over your genitals and groin.

Remember Iwojima....

Zachary said...

I believe the 80% stat. Some or all? Then any trimming counts. It's not the same as 80% sunga. That would be something...else.

sfw said...

We made smallpox extinct, perhaps that was bad for Gaia. Maybe we should stop trying to extinctivise polio.