The Wife and I are creatures of habit.

At 6:30 p.m., we watch Lester on channel 4, immediately followed by “Jeopardy!” on channel 7. This is old people’s television and I’m not too proud to admit it. Even if I was too proud, the commercials are a dead giveaway: every other ad is for some kind of pill to treat something I’m sure I have or will have, including memory-enhancers, which would help enormously while The Wife and I fumble for answers during “Jeopardy!”

“That guy who was in that movie we saw!” I shout imploringly to The Wife.

“Yes! And he was in that other movie, too!” she shouts back.

Neither of which would win us any money because we won’t remember Zach Galifianakis’ name until halfway through “Wheel of Fortune.” So, we’re dotage-adjacent and we know it and that may explain why both of us were actually shocked to see a commercial during the news for pubic hair.

Well, not for pubic hair, but for touting the supposedly best way to get rid of pubic hair. Specifically, the Gillette Venus Razor, “for pubic hair and skin.”

On TV. During dinner.

Neither The Wife nor this columnist are easily shocked. How could we be? We live in Los Angeles. Still, after being raised in an insanely puritanical TV universe as children, where Jack Parr got in trouble for saying “water closet” on the “Tonight Show” and Rob and Laura Petrie had to sleep in twin beds with a nightstand between them,  he word “pubic hair,” both spoken and in big bold letters, seemed like crossing a cultural Rubicon.

A young, attractive woman in a halter top and panties, with nose ring and tattoos (including on the palms of her hands) goes about shaving “down there” with her new Gillette Venus while a female voiceover says:

“Coarse hair (and) thin skin down there requires a special kind of care. New Venus for pubic hair and skin, uniquely made to prep, prepare and maintain whether smoother-than-smooth or au naturel. This is the new way to care for down there.” And by “down there” she doesn’t mean Australia.

I suppose it was inevitable we’d end up with pubic hair on TV. After all, for decades we’ve been treated to suppositories for hemorrhoids, irritable bowel remedies, adorable animated bears selling toilet paper because we know what bears do in the woods and a plethora of nostrums for diarrhea, constipation, flatulence, bad breath, body odor, dandruff, jock itch and the “monthly visitor.”

It’s not just women’s hygiene products that have pushed the boundaries on taste. Ten thousand erectile dysfunction commercials have exhausted the lexicon for penis euphemisms, with a company called Xiaflex selling a treatment for Peyronie’s disease (Google it) featuring various men looking worriedly at bananas, peppers, carrots, cucumbers and other oddly shaped fruits and vegetables. It enough to turn the most committed vegetarian into a meat-and-potatoes guy.

And speaking of guys, there’s now a booming market for “manscaping” products, the male equivalent of the Gillette Venus Razor, including one called the Lawn Mower: “Your nuts will thank you.” And if that’s too on the nose, maybe the animated rhyming spot for Duluth underwear will be more to your liking? “A pillow for your package — spread the word, like a cuddly panda hugged your gird.”

When did we become France?

Personally, I find all this candor long overdue. The oddly sanitized world of perfect TV people presented a perversion of actual life. Nobody on “Father Knows Best” ever had halitosis or dandruff or flatulence, so pubic hair and the gush were inconceivable. By advertising products we all use but never talk about, maybe we’ll absolve the next generation of shame or embarrassment for being carbon-based life forms with bodily functions?

In 1934, Cole Porter wrote:

“In olden days a glimpse of stocking

Was looked on as something shocking

Now heaven knows, anything goes!”

Who’s Cole Porter? You know, the guy who wrote the show about the thing ,,,

Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: Doug@DougMcIntyre.com.

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