#Bushtok: Meet the pro-pubes influencers taking over TikTok

“Lily-Rose Depp? Well, it may not be entirely obvious, but she has a full bush,” declares Adia, the lead singer of the shoegaze band Stammer, who also holds the title of President Bush on Bushtok. “She trims the hedges (AKA shaving the bikini line), and it’s concentrated in one spot in the middle, not evenly covered.”

This is a bush aura reading, somewhat akin to a tarot card reading, but instead predicts the status of a public figure or celebrity’s pubic hair based purely on vibes. The ‘predictions’ are categorised in various ways: bald, landing strip, embraced in full, patchy and shaved with stubble. “It’s all about a subject’s energy,” Adia explains. 

The concept emerged from Adia’s initial bush videos, which she created while “cracked out on Vyvanse in the bathroom stall at work”. The video reads, “Real ones don’t have to see a woman naked to know if she has a full bush; we just know.” The video quickly gained traction, and her comments were flooded with users requesting personalised readings from President Bush. Everyone, it seems, yearned for the “cool girl” vibe that accompanied a full bush. “If someone exudes a lot of confidence and an attitude of breaking the mould, they’re likely to have a full bush aura,” she says. Those holding the title, according to Adia? Scarlett Johansson, Charli xcx, and Kamala Harris, apparently.  

These conversations exist within a greater cultural movement of #Bushtok, where users bond over their shared love and appreciation for embracing their natural body hair and rejecting cultural expectations. Discussions include whether women with full bushes are more trustworthy and celebrate full bushes in bikinis. But unlike traditional movements, they blend humour, are more lighthearted, and, as Adia declares, “not that serious”. “It’s about empowerment, self-acceptance and not being embarrassed.”

Users are embracing the movement with comical spins, like “Nobody on the street knows I have a gorgeous 70s bush”. Some are even predicting that the bush will be the hottest summer beach (or even runway) accessory this year. But could this online trend really change how we perceive our bodies IRL? 

Breanne Fahs, a professor of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University, recently published Unshaved, exploring the political connotations of women’s body hair. From Fahs’s perspective, any media or art featuring women embracing body hair is a form of resistance against patriarchal norms of hairlessness. “Remember that body hair removal for women has a compliance rate of over 95 per cent! That’s extraordinary for something with no health benefit,” she says. “It’s hard for 95 per cent of people to brush their teeth, which actually has a health benefit.”

Women are expected to be hairless and smooth at all times, but that’s unrealistic. Hair removal – whether waxing or shaving – is time-consuming and may irritate the skin, leading to bumps, redness, inflammation, in-grown hairs, and uncomfortable stubble. What makes these online conversations important is the visibility they unlock. Fahs believes it has the potential to make body hair on women feel normal while developing a visual language to understand bodies as sites of resilience.

“One of the best ways to understand and challenge the power of social norms is to intentionally violate them,” says Fahs. Women instinctively recognise and feel the unfair pressures imposed on their bodies in a patriarchal society, and #Bushtok serves as a means for them to resist and perceive their bodies in a new light, she shares. “These are sinister times, and we all need humour, levity and playful forms of embodied resistance.”

Emma Webster, the founder of fashion label Haus Dahlia, welcomes the trend, deeming it “quite radical but also very liberating”. After facing fatphobic comments about her silk dress, she decided to take part in #Bushtok by highlighting two societal discomforts at once: fat people in form-fitting clothes and a full bush. Her involvement in the movement was not merely about reclaiming her body hair but also about challenging the dual expectation placed on women to uphold “perfect” bodies – whether that entailed refining their figures or shaving their bodies. Following the post, Webster saw commenters feeling empowered and bestowed with confidence. Others pushed back, echoing outdated views about body hair and hygiene, especially from men.  

Naturally, any conversation on women’s body hair is met with backlash (criticism that even extends to women that don’t exist). Body hair activist and visual artist Queen Esther usually receives a mix of online responses. “The negativity is expected. The topic of female body hair is offensive to many,” she says. “Some are racist remarks; others repeat that it is unhygienic; those comments are ironic because many come from hairy men themselves.” 

While #Bushtok has provided a platform for online discourse, some worry the conversation is being boiled down to a “shave or not to shave” debate. Webster argues that this diminishes feminism to mere discussions about body hair, overlooking the more significant issue of how deeply entrenched beauty standards are (while existing within restrictive capitalist systems).

Gwynneth (@gar1icparmesan), a Bushtok creator based in LA, has also encouraged her followers to grow out their own bush. However, she is sometimes a bit sceptical of the body hair movement, particularly when observing how men engage in the conversation. 

“It’s not the men who are discussing their own body hair that concern me – it’s the ones who take over the discourse and turn it into something sexual,” Gwynneth shares. She points to content from straight, cisgender men who explicitly desire a girl with a bush, seemingly co-opting the movement and reframing it as something intended for their pleasure. There are also those who leave vulgar, sexual comments under her videos, demanding a “bush reveal” or telling her to “show the bush”. This response leaves her questioning how “truly progressive” Bushtok can be, as it risks being overshadowed by the same patriarchal attitudes it aims to challenge. “These kinds of remarks feel like deliberate attempts to reduce a woman openly discussing body hair into a sexual object, which is both disheartening and frustrating,” Gwynneth says.

Beneath the critique and scepticism, Gwynneth explains that this community serves as a safe and empowering space for women to discuss body hair openly. Through humour and resistance, these long overdue conversations challenge dated expectations of beauty and offer a refreshing approach to self-acceptance.