Pubic Hair

There is an area of your body that tells a story in its very name — and the story is already contained in the word "pubic." The German word carries it openly: Scham — shame. In Hebrew it is no different; the term for pubic hair contains the same reference to that old, primordial feeling: that the region of sexuality is something that must be veiled, something you do not show openly, something from which the eyes of others should be kept away.

With puberty something begins that nobody really explains. Suddenly hair grows in a place that was childishly smooth before. The body announces something that has not yet been put into words: you are now sexually mature. You can conceive or receive. You are part of an ancient, physical order that has existed for thousands of years — and at the same time you stand as an individual, entirely new, before the question of what that means for you.