Japan’s oldest known book on the subject of sexual matters, the “Ishinbou Bonaihen” published in 984 AD, contains the first historical reference to the shrub that shields the
adult female pubis. “Her bush was luxuriant and quite rough,” it soberly noted. Over the eons, reports historian Koshi Shimokawa in Asahi Geino (11/22), hair down there has been referred using such terms as “inmo” (hidden hair), “sosoge” and “chijiregami” (short, curly ones). Now in Japan, spoken and printed references to the female bush generally apply the inelegant English borrowing “hea” (hair) — which may have been initially inspired by the eponymous 1969 Broadway musical, which at its climax featured the entire cast flaunting their full frontal fuzz. Of course, the downside of unkempt shrubbery has also been known for over a millennium: in 1185, toward the end of the Heian Era, a medical text titled “Byoso-shi” noted that public fur served as a snug haven for body lice. Read more Japanese history at the notorious Waiwai.
Also see a previous post here.
