I’ve had a subscription to Playboy for several years but I find the magazine amusing at times. In the last few years, they’ve discovered such obscure topics like BDSM, ass-worship and today’s topic: Brazilian waxing. It’s a good thing they have their reputation as a literary magazine to fall back on. Playboy’s no sex guide.This month’s issue of Playboy features an article by a woman who gets a Brazilian for the first time. In 2006. And Playboy pays her for her story because apparently it’s news to their readers.

The article itself is humorous, although not as thoughtful as I was hoping for. It probably isn’t as detailed as the readers want, either. But it is nice to have a completely female perspective in the magazine.

The article also contained a sidebar by a male staffer who got his bits waxed. Surprisingly, he reported very little pain. In my opinion, he had a very good waxer (known in the female world as an esthetician). Playboy models have been grooming their mons venus for years. Only now their little secrets are out and forging a huge industry.

Waxing and removing body hair has been around for ages. My first esthetician was a Middle-Eastern woman who told me about learning to wax and thread at age 11. It wasn’t that she came from a long line of estheticians, but that it was a cultural norm for women to remove all body hair except for the eyebrows, eyelashes and the hair on the top of their heads. (Some of this may’ve been motivated by religious beliefs, but I never asked.) What she told me has been confirmed by other reading I’ve done.

Before wax was invented, women used (and still use) the process of sugaring, which is a mixture of honey and sugar that is rolled over the body. Super-sticky, it yanks out every hair, sort of like multiple tweezings. (Waxing yanks out every hair at once.)

The ancient art of threading is even simpler. A piece of thread, wrapped in a certain way between three fingers (two on one hand, one on the other) and anchored in the mouth, is twirled around individual hairs and pulled. Every hair comes out. It’s sort of like what happens if you roll a rubber band around on your arm. Threading is used for grooming the face and for picking up stray hairs left by waxing/sugaring.

Using these two methods, Middle-Eastern women have been getting hairless for centuries. Of course, now that Middle America is doing it, it’s news.

Women like nice, neat and tidy, so it stands to reason that we enjoy tidying up our already streamlined genitals. Then there are the obvious sexual connotations that most people seem to get a kick out of. (And men like it, but that’s not my focus right now.)

I think it’s gone to extremes though. Flipping through Playboy these days is like viewing the porn star next door. I like it when a model has an honest-to-God triangle of hair on her. It looks womanly and kind of exotic. A few years ago (while still stripping), I was changing at the gym and talking with another woman. She stepped out of her panties and I caught myself staring. She was completely ungroomed. It wasn’t gross to me, instead, it was strangely wild and exotic. No, I wasn’t turned on; it was that after years of seeing girls’ bits on plain view, it was shocking to see one left natural. I think I embarrassed her; I know I embarrassed myself. (Compare this to my nonchalance when I checked out a stripper’s new anus piercing. And yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.)

A nice, groomed V is a thing of beauty. It’s what inspired those little black patches at the Crazy Horse in Paris. Unlike men, women can have a manicured topiary without anything to spoil the lines. It’s not that I feel hairless pussies are childlike (when they’re attached to women who obviously aren’t children), but that they’re lacking adornment. I hope the trend takes a step back from adult industry-level grooming and settles for just groomed.

Unless, of course, everyone just wants to look like a stripper or porn star, although no one wants to actually be one. (This is another blog topic.)

To answer the commonly asked questions….

Yes, it hurts. During my very first waxing session, I kept thinking my skin had been ripped off. I visually checked myself several times just to make sure. There was that much pain. Not to worry, I was completely intact; red, swelling and in pain, but I was okay. (I reacted so violently to that first rip that I sheared off the end of a nail.)

I started getting waxed when I was 22. The first time was a few days before I started stripping. It took about three days for the swelling to subside, but boy! was I smooth. (I also managed to burn my ass in a tanning booth, but that’s another story.) I was getting every hair removed in the days when there was no name for it other than “everything” (now it’s known as Brazilian; I don’t know what the Brazilians call it, probably maintenance).

I’ve gotten waxed every three weeks since then. After six months, it stopped hurting so much. After a couple years, I barely noticed. After I changed estheticians, I discovered the one I had been seeing was an (effective) sadist. It hurts even less now.

I have become aroused during waxing. Not because another woman was handling my genitals, but because it hurt so good. There are women who become aroused when getting tattoos. Same concept.

Yes, I get rid of all hair. While stripping, I left a little patch on top because I liked hair there. While escorting, I got rid of that bit since it was dark and my hair was blonde. I didn’t like the disparity. Now I have a little patch again. Why? That little bit (front and center of the pubic bone) is directly over the clitoris. Waxing the hair there is pain that never dulls and never ends. Much easier just to leave the hair there.

Yes, everything includes the butt crack. This is not something that was directly discussed in the Playboy article (she made a small allusion that left questions). Every adult has hair there and I like it gone. I discovered this thanks to my first esthetician. After she finished mauling my crotch, she commanded that I get on my hands and knees and spread. It was far more humiliating than painful. Ever after, I could bend over in strip clubs with impunity.

No, I will not bleach my anus. Put bleach on my white clothes, my teeth, my hair, or some carpet stains (in the house, you pervert!), but not anywhere near my genitals; thank you.

No, I’ve never noticed that the lack of hair made me more sensitive. I’m extraordinarily sensitive all over my body and especially my crotch. Being hairless doesn’t up my pleasure quotient a bit. In fact, I’ve often thought that my life would be much easier if I weren’t so sensitive.

Yes, I still get waxed. Not as religiously, but about once a month. I just like it that way. I feel cleaner and neater.

For all my talk about having the perfect triangle, why do I get waxed? The simple answer is that after years of very regular waxing, my hair will no longer grow into lush profusion. It’s stunted and patchy (I had some laser treatments as well, but not to completion). It looks its best by not being there.

The more complex answer is that even without waxing, I never had that sort of bush in the first place. Sometime in high school, I read an article about the Crazy Horse. In the article, the owner stated that the perfect triangle had equal sides of 10cm. Being the type of person that I am, I started taking a ruler into the bathroom. Even then, before a drop of hot wax had ever touched me, I had irregular hair that would never form a perfect 10cm triangle. I shaved and measured and tried, but it wasn’t going to happen. I realized I would be better off just getting rid of it all. So I became a Nair addict and graduated to waxing a few years later.

Extreme waxing that I will probably never indulge in:
I read about one esthetician in LA who follows her waxing sessions with a chemical peel and microdermabrasion. Forget the pain involved, I imagine her clients are smooth because they have no skin left.