Bikini waxes wipe out crabs

I first heard tales of something called the Brazilian Bikini Wax probably around the same time as Carrie Bradshaw did. It was the late 90s, Sex and the City was a cult hit and I was working at Vogue magazine. Several of the other staffers started buzzing about a little salon on West 57th Street run by a crew of Brazilians, called the J. Sisters, where you could be rid (or perhaps robbed?) of all or most of your pubic hair in a matter of minutes. Being the good investigative journalist that I am, I figured I’d better check it out.

Well, it was an eye- (and leg-) opening experience I wouldn’t soon forget. The intimacy of the event -- and the smooth, disconcertingly pre-pubescent results -- was something we all felt somewhat self-conscious about. Fast forward more than a decade, and the procedure is now so commonplace that some women would be much more embarrassed to be caught with hair down there than they would be to admit to waxing. And it’s not just women who are offering up their no-longer-that-priva​te parts to get waxed. “Manscaping” has moved into the mainstream with more and more guys -- both gay and straight -- choosing to go hairless, or at least, less hairy.

But not even the gals of Sex and the City could have foretold what would happen as a result of all this pubic deforestation. According to Bloomberg News, doctors here, as well as in England and Australia, are reporting the near-extinction of pubic lice -- one of the most contagious sexually transmitted diseases. Crabs, as the disease is more commonly known, is no joke. Just ask Charlotte, who got them from a fling with her Hamptons boy toy in SATC’s second season (before the girls discovered the Brazilian, obviously).

The Bloomberg report states that the main sexual health clinic in Sydney hasn’t seen a woman with crabs since 2008 and cases in men have declined about 80 percent. Crabs like to lay their eggs in a nice soft mound of pubic hair, something the poor little buggers are having a tough time finding these days. Bloomberg quotes a British sexual health consultant who calls the waxing trend “habitat destruction” for pubic lice that is causing them to become “an endangered species.”

But unlike the spotted owl or the gray wolf, don’t expect anyone to launch a big “save the crabs” campaign anytime soon. So far, no one seems to be missing them -- or their bushy former habitat at all.