Every couple of months the search engines go wild again looking for that Demi Moore Bush pic. It usually coincides with either Demi Moore or her husband, Ashton Kuchner, doing something or other. A couple of months back it was the result of a Comedy Central show, Tosh.0.



The presenter was (at least the presenter claimed to be) upset that Ashton Kuchner had so many Twitter followers and so suggested that people search for the Demi Moore Bush pic so that they would "unfollow" Kuchner.



Quite why such a picture should make people do so is an interesting little piece of social history. The picture itself comes from a shoot that Demi Moore did as a young starlet in Hollywood. It's not unusual for those who wish to break into the movies to have professional pics taken of themselves (well, at least for the women) wearing less than the normal amount of clothing. The pictures themselves vary between what we might call softcore and cheesecake: no underwear, a blue dress that varies in its positioning.



In Moore's photo set there are pictures that show a breast, and in another her dress rises up so that one is presented with rather more of Ms. Moore than would normally be seen in public, even on a French beach. So far, nothing really all that unusual for those trying to make it in the movies.



The interesting thing (apart from their being pictures of a beautiful young woman in the prime of life, something often of interest to most men) is that as was the style then, Demi Moore is untrimmed. In more detail, she has not had a "Brazilian", her pudenda has not been waxed. What is interesting is that those 25 or so years ago, this is what adult women looked like. In fact, without intervention this is what adult women would look like now.



It's over those 25 years that the style, the fashion, has changed markedly. Just as Ms. Moore those years ago shaved her armpits, as most American women did (and most French women might still not), now it is expected that women will shave, wax or somehow or other trim their pubic hair. At least, they will if they are to show it in public in this manner.



That's the change in the social mores: but that interesting question is why? What on earth has happened to make adult women decide that they should look like pre-pubescents? Hair there is, like hair on the chest of a man, a secondary sexual characteristic indicating sexual maturity. Why or how could there have become a social standard that one should not show that one is indeed mature?



This change is not limited to pictures of Hollywood starlets of course: a brief viewing of the history of pornography (something which you humble reporter has undertaken so that you don't have to) shows that exactly the same has happened there. At one point adult women had hair where adult women have hair: a decade later and everyone is clean shaven.



What happened? Surely it can't be just that we remember the 80s as the days of big hair and we've decided not to go back there again? If anyone does know the answer please enlighten the rest of us.