The Brazilian Issue
Having been with my partner now for nearly five years and having only ever owned a Gilette Venus shaver, I am finding one issue about wedding night maintenance harder than most to consider.The idea of the Brazilian Wax, also known as the Thong Wax or the Playboy Wax, which has been made famous by the Sex and the City girls (thanks!), makes my eyes water every time I think about it.
When I was a teenager it was only my posh mates' mums that had their snatches waxed. Then their daughters started having it done. Now everyone is pulling their on paper pants and mooning at beauty therapists in the most unflattering positions.
In my search for reasons why apparently sane women choose to break the pain barrier in such a major way, I found this on the internet:
"The Brazilian wax was introduced to New Yorkers in 1987 when seven Brazilian sisters, Jocely, Jonice, Joyce, Janea, Jussara, Juracy, and Judseia Padilha opened J. Sisters International Salon in midtown Manhattan. And women's bikini lines were changed forever!
"The Brazilian bikini wax is a must-get-done for women who can endure excruciating fashion pain. Gwyneth's done it, so has Naomi. It is now so popular that salons have sprouted right around the world.
"The Brazilian involves the spreading of hot wax on to the buttocks. A cloth is patted over the wax, then rrrrip. That's nothing compared to the next bit. Wax is smeared onto the mons, the cloth is pressed into place...then they turn the music up loud...rrripppp. It's quite normal for the waxer to throw your legs over their shoulder so they can get the strays. The waxer then goes over your red bits with a pair of tweezers to pluck out recalcitrant strands.
"Only a small exclamation mark of hair is left to curtain-off the labia. "The youngest J Sister Jonice Padilha told Salon.com: 'It makes you sexy. Makes you fashion. When I don't have my bikini wax, I don't feel to have sex with my husband. I feel dirty. And even himself say, 'Try a bikini wax!' I feel free. I feel clean. I feel sensuous even when I take a shower. I feel like I've been taken care of.'"
I don't know about you, but this didn't exactly sell the idea to me. In fact, especially listening to Jonice, has really convinced me I just shouldn't have it done. There just seems something inherently sexist about it, something that has infiltrated our culture through a desire to be pornographically subjugated to the male ideal of what our sex is meant to look like.
Then I watched a programme called Sex in the 70s on Channel Four, one episode of which looked at the history of the Joy of Sex that showed an exclusive and one-off interview with the couple who appeared in the really quite beautiful pictures in the book.
She was, at the time, a German woman in her 20s who was quite amazingly beautiful and who had body hair that would now only be seen in public behind the bars of a zoo. The fact that they are still together 30-odd years on, were sitting there holding hands and laughing and flirting naturally was enough to convince me that love - and marriage - is not about Jonice saying in her Latin way that "When I don't have my bikini wax, I don't feel to have sex with my husband". It is in fact about feeling natural and happy with yourself, your body and that of others, however hirsute you are.
My mother, for example, has never tampered with her bodily hair and she has experienced a wonderful, long, loving relationship with my father - the words "landing strip" have no double entendre in their world, unless they have some airport-related fetish I am thankfully unaware of.
So, without wanting to draw too much attention to what I will be sporting beneath my wedding dress come September, I think its safe to say I will 'feel to have sex with my husband' when we retire to our honeymoon suite without asking him to take some candles and a lawn-mower down there with him.
posted by Sadie Kenshall @ 12:42 AM
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