Best Laid Plans

Two hours before the Brazilian I have a fantastic idea. Emla cream! The numbing cream I use for O when she has her inoculations! Oh, the sheer brilliance of it makes my innards warm. To venture to Brazil pain free. Why isn’t every vain porno star as much of a genius as I clearly am? Two problems: 1. I need to procure the cream and apply it one hour before the ‘procedure’. 2. I can’t see my hoo-hah let alone reach it - I need a co-conspirator to help me apply said cream. Which is where my poor mother comes in. A desperate phone call and dash to the chemist later and my mother is crouched beneath my belly asking me how low I want her to apply it. I have clearly lost all self-respect. The last time my mother touched my nether regions was when she was changing my nappies, but here I stand, legs sprawled apart, as she applies the source of all my hopes to my la-la.

It starts to burn at the core of my womanliness. I want it OFF. My mother urges me to not do anything hasty. She grabs two wads of cotton wool and shoves them in my innermost sanctum. The pain stops. See, this is a brilliant plan.

I arrive at the wax buzzing with excitement. The cream’s only been on for fifteen minutes but I’m convinced it’s a winner. I don’t want the waxer to know what I’ve done because I feel like it’s cheating, plus I don’t think you’re meant to put cream on your skin before you wax. So I gently ask where the toilets are and take the emla patch off my snatch, securing it tightly in my purse. (This is my actual purse, you understand, not a euphemism for my poonda).

I waltz (ok, waddle) into the room, brimming with confidence.

Gentle friends. No matter what anyone tells you. DON’T. EVER. HAVE. A. BRAZILIAN. WAX.

This is not pain. This is a zone beyond pain, fear, hurt and torture. This is a cruel, violent place I have seldom been to and to which I hope never to return. This is a place where a woman I barely know asks me if I would like her to “do my lips”. And she’s not talking about the ones I speak with. What sort of barbarism does our society condone? Who are the people who do this regularly? Who am I? Why am I lying on a bed paying a grown woman to rip out my pubic hair as we chat about whether twins run in my family?

As for my astute plan to circumvent the pain, the good people at Emla should be sued for their promise of anaesthetising me against this horror. (To be fair, they don’t actually list ‘Brazilian waxing’ under the ‘Indications’ section). I am ashamed to tell you I made it only three quarters of the way to Brazil before the journey abruptly stopped. The waxer chucked me out just short of the border. The evil masochist in me asked her to please take me all the way, but fearing litigation, she explained that she’d taken off enough for them to do the C-section. Apparently I was sweating so much she couldn’t get the wax to stick anymore. And telling her to get the fuck away from me or I’d throw hot wax on her head also did little to encourage her to go further.

Yes, I’m a brave woman. And on Tuesday a group of men are going to slash into 7 layers of my fat and muscle with sharp knives. This, I can handle. But by God, if anyone so much as tries to get a piece of wax near my Velvet Underground ever again, I’ll be forced to return the favour. Strip by vicious strip.