There have been many occasions in the history of art and photography where pubic hair has been strictly no-go. We’re currently in a similar phase of that, but it is now a decision made more by women for women (or by their partners for the benefit of their partners).

Bare breasts, in art, have always been largely seen as ‘OK’, whereas the pubic region, pubic hair and the vagina itself, have often been left firmly off the artistic agenda. In artistic history, the male genitalia has always generally managed to be on the agenda. Strange, as the advent of photography would have strictly seen male genitalia ‘disappear’ in a manner of speaking, or lurk behind posing pouches after centuries of being visible to all who witnessed great art.

Live, I seem to recollect that the girls who performed at cabarets such as the Folies Bergere (Paris), the Ziegfeld Follies (New York) and the Bluebell Girls (Paris Lido) appeared nude, or almost nude, and were instructed not to move. Motionless, they were passed off as statues. If they moved, they were deemed human and thus their nudity offended public sensibilites.

I’ve not been able to confirm this by research, so perhaps someone with a greater knowledge could either confirm this or reject what is (currently) a recollection of mine through either text or aural format.

I also seem to recollect that the pubic area was shaved, in order to make it appear there was nothing ‘down there’. Despite this, many of the Ziegfeld girls photographed are resolutely hirsute. You can check out many photographs of the Ziegfeld girls through a simple web search.

What I can tell you, for certain, is that there have been times where naturist magazines airbrushed out genitalia, a fact referenced in the following photograph

 

Typically, then, we had odd looking photographs appear in the likes of 1950s and 1960s copies of (British naturist magazine) Health and Efficiency which looked a lot like that (below)

 

I guess for generations of schoolboys, for whom H&E was a regular source of nude photography, there was maybe the curious notion of what women actually did have in the way of genitalia. Or was it just a lot of nothing?

Pookes pointed me in the direction of Ella’s post about Prism design, and told me that one of the free gifts on offer was a tintable crotch cover that could be matched to the skin. I’m not entirely certain what the purpose of it might be in general SL existence, but I immediately connected with the historical ‘airbrushing’ on nude photos, in and out of the nudist realm.

I decided that I should utilise this gift, with one of my models, and attempt another of those occasional ‘replicating real life’ things I do on occasion.

To begin with, here’s the model wearing the crotch patch in its original, white, state.

 

After that, the model and I spent time tinting it to match her skin. I didn’t, quite deliberately, make it an exact match for the purposes of this shoot, just so it would be a little bit visible, but we did experiment enough to make it pretty much invisible without careful scrutiny, and I may utilise it in future ‘vintahe’ shoots.

The ‘crotch patch’ is just barely visible in this sepia tinted photograph, set in a vintage sim to creature the impression of it being shot in the past.

 

And since we were there, I got my model to pose, in the same setting, in a 1940s vintage dress.

And here’s a photo of us working on the tinting process. We tweaked this for ages, and when I took this snap we were probably 

only about half-way through the tinting experimentation. With further tweaking it would be possible for you to give a female

(or male, for that matter!) an airbrushed, sexless, look. I guess there may be several ‘Barbie’ type avatars who will

readily embrace this look! 🙂

Harry