I hate to break it to you, but your bush is currently the object of an international obsession. Every newspaper, magazine and Hollywood actress appears to be preoccupied with what’s going on in women’s knickers right now. Putting aside the fact that male bush never seems to be up for discussion, it’s at least encouraging to see that the debate around women’s hair-down-there has broadened recently.

At the turn of the millennium, press coverage was focused on whipping almost all of your pubic hair out from the root, Brazilian-style. The trend became so ubiquitous that for the last 10 years, it’s been hard to mention any pubic hairstyle other than ‘almost bald’ without eyebrows being raised and friends quietly noting you down as an un-groomed woman of the wilderness.

This time around, the trend is for growing it all back. There’s been a gradual increase in sightings of bush in recent years, with the fashion industry leading the way: Crystal Renn’s pubic hair was the star of a photo that appeared in Vogue Paris  in 2010, while Kate Moss showed hers in LOVE magazine in the same year and again in her recent Playboy shoot. 

"I work a 70s vibe, you know what I mean?" - Gwyneth Paltrow

Then there were the actresses. Gwyneth Paltrow wore a sheer dress to a premiere last year and then joked on The Ellen DeGeneres Show that ‘Everyone went scrambling for a razor … I work a 70s vibe, you know what I mean?’ Cameron Diaz’s new publication The Body Book includes an entire section called ‘In Praise of Pubes’, in which she implores readers not to wax away the ‘enticing’, ‘pretty draping’ between their legs.

And finally, last month, fashion brands started to get in on the act – American Apparel added pubic hair to the mannequins at its New York store, a move that was applauded and derided in equal measure. Still, all of a sudden, the bush has gone from taboo to talking point – from pubic to public.

This movement to destigmatise body hair is music to my ears. Not because I’ve been yearning to go au naturel, but because the very fact that pubic hair is subject to trends is an argument against one procedure that I’m uncomfortable with: permanent laser hair removal.

Until a few years ago, I thought of laser hair removal as something that was only used by the unfortunate few for whom hair had become A Serious Problem. I was wrong. Once the price of the procedure dropped, it quickly started to come up in conversation as often as shoes or haircuts. Statistics around laser hair removal are hard to come by, because the procedure is unregulated – anyone can qualify as a practitioner by taking a short course. Yet, I lost count of the number of female friends in London who were having it done.

They didn’t have A Serious Problem with hair. What they had, like the majority of British women, were daily, weekly or monthly hair removal habits that they couldn’t be bothered with. Why go through the agony of waxing your bikini line every three weeks, or the inconvenience of shaving your armpits every other day, when you could get all that hair zapped away for good? To them, laser hair removal is nothing more than a practical solution to an everyday pest.

To me, it is more than that. Since my mid-teens, shaving my legs, armpits and whatever else has become as normal a part of my grooming routine as brushing my teeth. But removing that hair permanently feels like something different: the removal of any future choice.

"Pubic hair is a symbol of adult sexuality – a trophy that we win for reaching maturity"

When I say to my friends “I don’t like the idea of never being able to grow back my body hair if I want to,” they reply, baffled, “But why would you want to?” It’s a fair point. I can’t imagine the circumstances, but I know it could happen. Like my skin, my fingernails and my eyelashes, the hair that grows on my body is a part of me. It’s something that shows that I’m alive, healthy and a grown woman. Though I remove it on a regular basis, I’m not resentful of it. In fact, I’m almost proud of it.

Pubic hair is a symbol of adult sexuality – a trophy that we win for reaching maturity – and though we might choose to keep it neat and minimal, I think it deserves respect. Underarm hair, for me, has similar connotations – it’s grown-up, sensual and soft. I choose to remove it, but here’s a confession: on the rare occasions when I haven’t shaved my armpits for a few days (too busy; too cold; too lazy), I find the growth makes me feel empowered and sexy. And then there’s leg hair, about which I feel completely differently: I don’t know why, but it’s the only kind of hair that I am slightly repulsed by. My inconsistent feelings don’t make sense, but like all of this, it’s just my personal taste.

And that’s the thing. As the recent ‘Bush is back’ headlines show: our tastes and lifestyles change. The things that we find sexy have a funny way of changing over the years too. I don’t criticise anyone who chooses to remove their hair permanently – it’s their body, their call. But for me, the effort of shaving or waxing on a regular basis is not too much to bear. I’m happy to carry on with that chore, in exchange for the gift of always being able to choose.