Jan. 13, 2013: Bloomberg reports that pubic lice are on the wane worldwide, as young people become increasingly likely to remove some or all of their pubic hair. “Pubic grooming has led to a severe depletion of crab louse populations,” says entomologist Ian F. Burgess. “Add to that other aspects of body hair depilation, and you can see an environmental disaster in the making for this species.”
Jan. 15, 2013: The World Wildlife Fund confirms that the pubic louse, Phthirus pubis, is on its watch list of threatened species. “This animal’s habitat is being shorn away, one Brazilian wax at a time,” the agency’s press release notes.
Feb. 1, 2013: Researchers at the University of North Carolina report the results of a 10-year study. The data suggest that pubic lice are on the verge of a catastrophic species collapse of the sort that hasn’t been seen in millions of years. Says one scientist: “Pubic lice are the dinosaurs, and Sex and the City was the asteroid.”
March 14, 2013: Greenpeace launches its Save the Lice campaign. T-shirts reading PLEASE DON’T SHAVE MY HOME and featuring the organization’s trademarked character Larry the Louse, grow in popularity on college campuses.
April 10, 2013: In a historic move, the EPA officially places Phthirus pubis on the endangered species list. “Americans must reforest their nether regions,” an agency spokesman says at a press briefing, explaining that pubic louse is basically extinct outside hardy colonies in the Pacific Northwest, Vermont, and Berkeley.
April 16, 2013: The National Zoo announces a $6.2 million pubic lice breeding program. Eight hundred mating pairs are secured from Ralph Schumacher, a zoo visitor from Milwaukee. A hastily erected exhibit, which features unclothed models lounging around a precise re-creation of a 1970s New York apartment, quickly eclipses the giant pandas as the zoo’s most popular. Tragically, the entire breeding stock is lost when the models book a calendar shoot.
May 30, 2013: With the pubic louse exploding in popularity if not prevalence, the Obama administration comes under heavy pressure from environmental groups to regulate genital waxing. New guidelines from the administration limit waxing to no more than 60 percent of extant pubic hair, and requires aestheticians to replant hair in areas of former clear-cutting. The outcry from salons is sharp and immediate. “What’s more important?” asks the head of the Aesthetics International Association. “American lice, or American jobs?”
June 1, 2013: Lena Dunham appears in a coy online PSA urging a “return to the bush years.” Public response is bitterly divided. Slate’s Brow Beat declares the ad “an artistic and pubic triumph.”
June 8, 2013: A pubic louse appears on the cover of Time with the headline “The New Spotted Owl?” The issue also features a theological survey, “What Would Jesus Do (about Pubic Lice)?”
June 14, 2013: PETA infiltrates the J Sisters salon on West 57th Street in Manhattan, covering the elegant waiting room with red, spray-painted graffiti. CROTCH GENOCIDE, reads one message. WAX IS MURDER, reads another.
June 17, 2013: Anne Josephson, a waxer in St, Paul, Minn., loses a finger when she attempts to wax a mons pubis that has been “spiked” with a tiny explosive charge. Porn stars and congressional Republicans decry the “eco-pubic-terrorists.”
July 28, 2013: The EPA announces that the world’s last wild pubic lice have been located in Schenectady, N.Y., on the crotch of florist Jessica Fletcher-Boomhauer. “The long-term prognosis for this species is grim,” notes an agency spokesman. “Ms. Fletcher-Boomhauer says she has sworn off the dating scene, because, quote, ‘Dudes are garbage.’ ”
Aug. 15, 2013: The world’s last pubic louse dies in captivity at the National Zoo’s Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. “Even the smallest creatures deserve to live,” says Bob Smith, the keeper present as the louse expired. “All he wanted to do was crawl around your private parts and bite you over and over again.”