Good question! I answered this a few years back, but it was a fun topic so I'll pull that answer back in to play and polish it up to my current standards.
Luckily for us, there are a few sources that discuss this, my favourite one being the famed poems of Ovid - which we know today as the Art of Love. Also luckily, I happen to have a solid translation of books 2 and 3 handy. We'll be looking specifically at book 3, section 4: "Make-up, but in private," which begins with the lovely lines:
How near I was to warning you, no rankness of the wild goat under your armpits, no legs bristling with harsh hair!
Considering that The Art of Love is essentially a mock guide for teaching men and women how to get laid (emphasis here: it's satirical), it's got some hilarious stuff in there, if you want to give it a read :) However, this small section already does note that Roman women did distinguish themselves with depilation, and the most common ways they would accomplish this was with either plucking (generally with tweezers, eyebrows were also plucked), razors (not always the most desirable option, because the razors of the time had the unlucky tendency of leaving lots of nicks), and, the biggest one, rubbing your skin with pumice to remove unwanted hair, which honestly also sounds incredibly uncomfortable. Being absolutely fair, I've never done it.
Their artwork just confirms this - some ALL of the following being a bit NSFW (Quite a few of them are of people having sex in different positions).
Here's a cowgirl scene. And another. And another. I'm sensing a theme here. This was pretty popular, that's the theme. Oh, I suppose we could go on to missionary. And again, because creative. Another one? Okay, one more. How about a threesome? Flagellation? Oral? A topless lady? A depiction of pubic hair? (Okay fine, Priapus is cheating but hey). How about some popular art? Seriously though this was a popular scene. Are mosaics cheating?
If you click through those, there's a pattern that does make itself clear - there's no body hair on any of the women in question, which does lend itself to the idea of depilation.
So how about men? Well, we also have attestation for that, from multiple sources. The more entertaining one is gonna be Martial Epigrammata IX, 27: (quick translation):
You have epilated testicles, Chrestus, and a cock that's like a vulture's neck, and a head smoother than a prostitute's ass, and there is not a single hair on your thighs, and merciless tweezers groom your bloodless lips. And you only talk about Curius, Camillus, Quintius, Numa, Ancus, and every sort of hairy thing that we might read about, and you are loud and threatening with grand words, and you argue with the theatres and with the present time. If some other butt-boy (sodomite) should come along, now that he's free from his teacher, and whose throbbing cock has been unleashed by the artisan, you, calling him with a nod, lead him off; and Chrestus, it shames me to say what you do with your Catonian tongue.^1
...ahem. Filthy Latin poetry aside, you get the idea. In slightly...tamer Latin, Suetonius gives lascivious accounts of Julius Caesar (of stabbity fame), giving a very specific nod to his....wanton ways:
He was somewhat overnice in the care of his person, being not only carefully trimmed and shaved, but even having superfluous hair plucked out, as some have charged; while his baldness was a disfigurement which troubled him greatly, since he found that it was often the subject of the gibes of his detractors. Because of it he used to comb forward his scanty locks from the crown of his head, and of all the honours voted him by the senate and people there was none which he received or made use of more gladly than the privilege of wearing a laurel wreath at all times. They say, too, that he was remarkable in his dress; that he wore a senator's tunic with fringed sleeves reaching to the wrist, and always had a girdle over it, though rather a loose one; and this, they say, was the occasion of Sulla's mot, when he often warned the nobles to keep an eye on the ill-girt boy.
Finally, the job of "hair plucker" was a literal job. Seneca mentions depilation a few times in his Moral Epistles. First off, in his letter that's best summed up as "don't treat your slaves like shit. They're people too."
Another, who serves the wine, must dress like a woman and wrestle with his advancing years; he cannot get away from his boyhood; he is dragged back to it; and though he has already acquired a soldier’s figure, he is kept beardless by having his hair smoothed away or plucked out by the roots, and he must remain awake throughout the night, dividing his time between his master’s drunkenness and his lust; in the chamber he must be a man, at the feast a boy.
(A small reminder, Roman slavery was horrible. The above example is a small sample size of many, many horrors. Sen. Epistulae. 47.)
Then, in a slightly less grim context... (describing the noises that disturb the person who rents out an apartment above a bath - Ep. 57):
Then, perhaps, a professional a comes along, shouting out the score; that is the finishing touch. Add to this the arresting of an occasional roysterer or pickpocket, the racket of the man who always likes to hear his own voice in the bathroom, or the enthusiast who plunges into the swimming-tank with unconscionable noise and splashing. Besides all those whose voices, if nothing else, are good, imagine the hair-plucker with his penetrating, shrill voice,—for purposes of advertisement,—continually giving it vent and never holding his tongue except when he is plucking the armpits and making his victim yell instead. Then the cake-seller with his varied cries, the sausageman, the confectioner, and all the vendors of food hawking their wares, each with his own distinctive intonation.
So yeah, the Romans plucked, pruned, shaved, groomed, and did what they thought looked pretty. Grouchier conservative voices would squawk about how gay it was, and the youth would wholeheartedly agree, making gay jokes at each other while getting their armpits plucked.
If you have any questions, feel free to let me know!
1: Cum depilatos, Chreste, coleos portes
Et uulturino mentulam parem collo
Et prostitutis leuius caput culis,
Nec uiuat ullus in tuo pilus crure,
Purgentque saeuae cana labra uolsellae ;
Curios, Camillos, Quintios, Numas, Ancos,
Et quidquid unquam legimus pilosorum
Loqueris sonasque grandibus minax uerbis,
Et cum theatris saeculoque rixaris.
occurrit aliquis inter ista si draucus,
iam paedagogo liberatus et cuius
refibulavit turgidum faber penem,
nutu vocatum ducis, et pudet fari
Catoniana, Chreste, quod facis lingua.
I translated this one because it's hilarious, the other two, I just borrowed from the Loeb translations.
I am a little late to the party this time, but I want to give some insight about the situation regarding this issue in late 6th century/early 7th century Arabia. Removing pubic hair (and armpit hair) was considered very routine in Arabia at that time. Both for men and women.
Al-Bukhari narrated in his book (Hadith no.: 5889) and Muslim narrated in his book (Hadith no.: 257) that Prophet Muhammad (570 - 632 CE) (PBUH) said: "The natural instincts are five: circumcision, shaving pubic hair, cutting the mustache, cutting nails and plucking armpit hair." So, it was not only thought to be something that is recommended religiously but it was looked upon as part of basic instinctual human hygiene.
Also, Al-Bukhari (5247) and Muslim (715) narrated that Jaber ibn Abdullah (died 697 CE) said: "We were once with the Prophet in a battle, and when we returned back to Medina, we went to enter (the city). The Prophet said: Let us wait and enter (the city) after nightfall, so that women with unkempt hair can have time to fix their hair, and those whose husbands were away can have time to shave their pubic hair." We can deduce from that that it was routine for women to shave their pubic hair in preparation to meet their husbands.
Al-Bukhari (3989) also narrates a long story about a man called Khubaib ibn Adiy (died early 7th century) that has a part where he was captured by some non-muslim enemies, and they were about to kill him so he asked them to lend him a shaving razor, so that he can shave his pubic hair before they kill him, and they did lend him the razor. This can show that not only was it routine for men to shave their pubic hair, but it was also considered more dignified to die clean shaven.
On another note, most people used to pluck their armpit hair instead of shaving, although there has been reports that some people would find it very painful and would shave instead, but I'll keep the sources for other time not to derail the main discussion.
Follow up: does it make historical and logical sense that a lot of hair removal was originally to stop vermin and stank? Armpits are a theme, and armpit hair is lovely bacterial substrate; pubes are nice warm bushes for lice of all kinds.
You might also be interested in an excellent monograph on the history of hair removal in the United States: Plucked: A History of Hair Removal by Rebecca Herzig. I read it cover to cover (something I never do with academic books!).
