Bushwhacked

I have a dear friend who after she found out–and was utterly horrified–that I had never had a Brazilian wax, bought me one for a birthday present.  I never used it.  I was too chicken-shit and had absolutely zero desire to ever have my pubes (they do the ones in your butt too!!!) covered in scalding wax and ripped out by the root.  And I considered any man who expects a woman to do that, an asshole.

Over the years I have discovered nifty devices that can be used to trim down the density of the foliage between my legs, since for the majority of my post-pubescent life the only trimming it got was a few precursory swipes along the bikini line with a razor before I went to the pool or beach.  If there’s no pool or beach in sight, it is au naturale all the way.   My partner doesn’t seem to mind what I imagine to be my body’s most-uncanny resemblance to my cave-woman ancestry, or at least he’s smart enough not to say he does.

I never understood the desire to be bare-down-there.  It offended my feminist sensibilities that women would want–and men supposedly like–the girl-like bare vagina.  I found it downright creepy and would rather spend $30 ($40?) bucks on about anything else.   Just the thought of all the stubble coming in like a man’s day-old beard makes me itch.  And I simultaneously despise and am victim of beauty-industry-mores that convince us that our natural body is unhygienic and that we need to buy x, y, and z  to be clean or beautiful.

Then women started telling me about the increased sensitivity and feeling they experienced during sex when bare.  And I became intrigued, and my feelings evolved a bit.  I now understand why a woman would wax as an added component of excitement during sex.  And with my sage old age, my way of seeing the world has become a tad more nuanced, and I’ve realized that liking it bare, an asshole does not necessarily make.

That is, as long as you don’t expect any woman you are with to always keep it waxed, because if you do, then yes, you are an asshole.  (I said a tad more nuanced.)

If I were a better blogger and more dedicated to this craft, I would now regale you with my own Forty-Year-Old-Virgin-like experience of having had a Brazilian just so I could write about it.  I can tell you of women I know who will not have sex unless they’re waxed.  Or who waxed before giving birth (seems like arsenic-laced icing on a cake of pain to me).  As for me…

Nah.  Still too chicken-shit.

But I remain intrigued nonetheless.  Do you wax?  Do you do it because of aesthetic reasons, or for your partner, or because it increases sensations?  Do you wax because it is makes you feel sexy?  How long did it take until it stopped hurting like hell?  If you are a mother of daughters, do they ask about why you wax–how do you talk to your daughter(s) about it?

In the meantime, maybe I will get a Brazilian one of these days, for (tax deductible?) research purposes, of course, though I’m pretty sure that that gift certificate is expired by now.