"Mom, Dad, I shaved off my pubic hair!"

When Fosco was in college, Playboy did a pictorial feature of the "Girls of the Ivy League." My organic chemistry lab partner ended up being one of the two featured models from the Big H (and she's a doctor now). One day I ran into her in the Science Center and she crowed the news (and showed me the polaroids from her session). I never quite understood why she wanted to do it (and her quotes in this Crimson article make it seem even more confusing--posing nude isn't that much different from posing semi-nude). But it was actually fascinating to see a person that you see everyday (and who doesn't actually look that much like a model, although she's cute) airbrushed into full pinup glory.

I think there are a number of interesting questions when college students pose for skinmags. How can you not be fascinated by the idea of generally enlightened and intelligent college women lining up to pose for Playboy? What is life on campus like for these women? What do their parents think? And, ten years from now, do you worry that it will come back to affect your professional reputation? So interesting!

So let us consider Playboy's "Girls of the Big 12"(link SO not safe for work) pictorial (I don't follow these things, truly, but there's this thing called Fleshbot...). What can we learn from this?
[N.B., I used to have direct links to the individual pix below, but they get redirected. The curious reader will have to go to the "Girls of the Big 12" link above and figure out which picture is being referred to in the items below (it's not too hard).]

• If you pose wearing only a cowboy hat and chaps, it's important to do it tastefully, according to Texas A&M student Tasia Bauman:
  

  Bauman said she thinks the photo is "tastefully done," and her parents and grandparents agree.

  You can tell it's a tasteful photo because she's wearing her dress thong. Read the rest of the story in the local newspaper.
  
• And what if haven't exactly told your parents that you posed? Oh, and what if you're so worried about their reactions that you don't want to reveal their names? Well, then you probably shouldn't do an interview with the local paper.
  
• It seems that future playmates should probably major in kinesiology or exercise physiology. Apparently, knowledge of the physical limitations of the human body is useful when you want to sit in a sink (she's the one from UTexas who is posing with a huge jug of popcorn).
  
• Did you know that, in addition to cattle-rustling, naked women also enjoy making out with each other in the snow? Although such behavior is apparently noteworthy enough to merit a column in the Denver Post.
  

I feel like I've learned a lot from this exercise, but there is still a major unanswered question: why do none of these women have pubic hair? Granted, Fosco hasn't had sex with a woman in a number of years, but he's pretty sure he remembers some hair down there. When did shaving become so standard, so common, that every woman in this pictorial does it? How did this happen?

Heterosexual porn is so strange.