Getting ready for oral sex or 'liking feeling soft' are people's top reasons for shaving or waxing their public hair.
A study of more than 4,000 men and women delved into reasons behind people's intimate grooming rituals, revealing 60 per cent remove all or part of their hair.
Women are far more likely to get out the razors or wax strips, with eight out of 10 of them admitting to being hair-removers.
Meanwhile just 39 per cent of men said they did so – even women in the groups with the lowest levels of preening were more likely to do it than the best-groomed men.
Perhaps surprisingly, men over the age of 60 were considerably more likely to tame their pubic hair than the under-30s, although the opposite was true for women.
Both sexes did agree on one thing, however, with men and women listing 'I feel more comfortable when receiving oral sex' as their number one motivator.
Researchers from KU Leuven in Flanders, Belgium, surveyed more than 4,000 people and found women who were under 20 or lesbian were most likely to go hairless (stock image)
Researchers from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) in Flanders, Belgium, surveyed a total of 4,422 Belgian people over the age of 15.
They asked whether people groomed themselves, why they did it (but not how) and what their relationship status and sexuality were.
Young women between the ages of 15 and 20 were found to be the age group most likely to remove their pubic hair, with 87.8 per cent of them doing it.
But fewer than a third of men in the same age group did so.
Males were more likely to trim when they were in their 40s – the only age group with more than half of blokes admitting to doing it.
The scientists also found lesbian women were the best-groomed group.
Among men, bisexuals were most likely to be hairless, along with those who were married. But women were most likely to groom if dating someone they didn't live with.
The top three reasons people picked for removing their pubic hair were also revealed in the study.
Comfort during oral sex topped the list for both, with 39.3 per cent of men and 74.9 per cent of women choosing this reason.
Exactly two thirds of women said they did it because they 'feel more feminine when I remove my pubic hair'.
Some 63.2 per cent of women said 'I like to feel soft' and 62.2 per cent of them said 'my partner wants it'.
Source: Journal of Sexual Medicine
Cleanliness was a close second
