I used to think I had a high tolerance for pain.  I lived under this happy delusion until last weekend when I got my first Brazilian.  Perhaps I should have started off with a bikini wax and worked my way up, but since I’m the type of person who likes to do something 100% or not at all this did not seem like a viable option. Oh, silly, feeble-minded woman.

I have been in a death match with the hair on my body since I was a little kid.  Imagine being the product of a gorilla who mated with a Venezuelan and you will still only minimally understand the anguish I suffered at the expense of my hairy arms in middle-school.  When I was 14 or so my mother finally introduced me to waxing and the mental anguish was over, but the physical had only begun. Who invents these tortures? The same person who invented the bra, or the paper towel contraptions at the gyno’s, or the speculum for that matter.  That’s who.  The person who thinks Let’s pour hot wax on ourselves and then rip the hair on our bodies out by the follicles with tiny strips of paper.  Fun!

Okay, I can’t help but go on a little femi-nazi rant here: why are women the only gender expected to subject themselves to this torture? I guarantee you if you told your man that you would gladly wax your private tickle parts if he waxed his testicular hair the answer would be something like:  HEH-HELL NO.  It’s okay for men to be hairy beasts but god forbid a woman have a mustache! Can’t we all just take a deep breath and read the Third Chimpanzee together while collectively holding hands and remembering that there was a time when women had beards and cavemen still loved us? Alright maybe not, but I thought it was worth a try.

Back to the Brazilian.  The only part of my body I have never waxed is my crotch.  Why? Because we have an understanding.  Because we love each other and we always have. Because she has threatened to go on strike when I have considered it in the past.  However, I turned 29 last week and I like to try something new every year for my birthday and anal sex is on next year’s list so Why not?

The day of my appointment I was led into a sterile looking very white room with a Sade song being piped in through a speaker on the ceiling and a bed covered with a sheet of paper and  I thought, “Uh-oh,  it’s like they perfectly recreated my own personal version of  hell.” Then I was handed a tissue paper in the shape of a thong.  I’m sorry, but are you freaking kidding me? Why do we always insist on keeping up appearances during the times in life where it is virtually impossible to escape a situation with even a shred of your dignity left intact?

I decided not to flee despite my inner putang begging me to run like hell.  Two minutes later as I was screaming HOLY SHIT at the top of my lungs I was fairly certain that I had made the wrong decision.  In fact, by the end of the ordeal, I’m pretty sure the esthetician never wanted me to come back since we were both covered in sweat and she actually told me that she had never had such a traumatic waxing. Traumatic? That is not the word.  There needs to be a better word, one with more severity for what she did to me.  I was actually afraid to even look at my crotch when she was done for fear that it might spew balls of fire at my head and then spontaneously burst into flames.  When I finally did work up the courage to look down all I managed to say was, “My poor poor cooter.”

Despite the Brazilian being the MOST painful thing I have experienced since I watched an episode of Housewives of Atlanta sober, I have to admit I love my new gine gine.  I finally know what she really looks like outside  the confines of her former jungle, and it’s like we have a whole new secret relationship.  We can not wait to go out and take over the world together: one testicular hair at a time.  Or at least one handsome Southerner’s.  Because in my book, football and a Brazilian= my serotonin levels are obviously so high I’ve temporarily lost my mind.