Ouch! New study says 27% of women have injured themselves grooming their pubic hair

Grooming pubic hair is a personal decision, but it’s one that people have a lot of opinions on. For some, it’s a fun standing appointment with your waxer. For others, it’s a constant battle against the patriarchy and beauty norms. Regardless of how you feel about the subject, we’d be surprised if the phrase “pubic hair grooming incident” doesn’t make you cringe.

A study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that 27% of women have injured themselves while grooming down there.

That’s seriously tragic. 24% of men report grooming relating injuries as well. What is equally interesting is that the study also provided how many people groom their pubic hair in general.

Over 85% of women sampled groom their pubic hair in some way. The sample was culled from over 7,000 American men and women between the ages of 18 and 64. The injuries mostly comprised cuts and burns, but 1.4% of men and women said they needed to seek medical attention for their injuries.

And just to wreak havoc on your brain as you’re reaching for that razor blade, shaving and/or waxing down there is correlated to higher instances of STIs. Doctors at the University of California, San Francisco reported in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, that individuals who remove their pubic hair more than 11 times each year are more than four times as likely to have had an STI. This, of course, is only a correlation — there’s no proof that the grooming caused the STIs — but it’s one to consider anyway.

The only way to prevent these grooming-related injuries is to throw out the razor and cancel that waxing appointment. Otherwise, best of luck on your grooming adventures!