Another classic canard-killing, Greta. Another post bookmarked for the purposes of dealing an instant crushing riposte to religious people foolish enough to trot that canard out again...

Quite agree, Greta; this is one of my bugbears. I'm a hetero male of the generation that went through adolescence in the seventies and to most of us pubic hair was a huge turn-on. Not because of what we saw in porn (we really didn't see that much in those distant, pre-internet days) but because, I think, it represented sexual maturity. It was a clear and visible secondary sexual characteristic that we found as enticing as any other. And that seems to be a very healthy sort of sexual response, to me. I hear many younger hetero males these days not merely expressing a preference for shaved (or heavily trimmed) pubes but, more disturbingly, expressing revulsion towards unshaved pubes. And that seems to be a very unhealthy sort of sexual response. It seems to be a response moulded, as you say, by phoney porn. And sometimes, when I see the popularity of hentai-style porn featuring wide-eyed, pre-pubescent girls (and boys) I wonder if this preference doesn't also feature a disturbing element of paedophilia. Non-hairy genitals are, after all, normally a sign of prepubescence. It's certainly worth talking about. Oh, nice to meet you and Ingrid at the AAI Convention by the way. I was the Brit who said hi. :-)