merkin (n) a pubic wig

Jackson nervously adjusted his merkin as he climbed onto the bed for the romance flick’s first love-making scene.

It’s the first week of December, and the weather outside is getting frightful. Don’t worry: With your warm, toasty merkin, you can let it snow with nothing to fear. A merkin is basically a cute little hair piece that keeps your private parts, well, private. It’s a pube wig—a crotch weave, if you will.

It’s not entirely clear when the term came about, but it may have been as early as the 1400s. Merkins are believed to have been originally sported by sex workers who wanted to decorate the mons pubis they kept clean-shaven for hygienic reasons.

Now it’s mostly used in film or theater to give the illusion of a luxurious bush or to delicately toe the line of full-frontal nudity. A well-crafted merkin is hard to detect, but you can catch glimpses of them in plenty of Hollywood projects: Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Jake Gyllenhaal in Love & Other Drugs and Kate Winslet in The Reader.

The decision to wear a merkin can also simply be a fashion statement, a rebellion against the stringent grooming codes society foisted upon us. Fashion designer Kaimin made merkins one of the most memorable fashion trends of 2018 when she sent them down the runway at New York Fashion Week.

So while we bust out our winter wardrobes, remember you can layer up as much or as little as you want.