WAX ON, WAX OFF

It's like any form of female body hair is reviled these days. Viewed with immense disdain. A slight screwing up of the nose and an almost imperceptible shudder. Similar reaction to when I see, say, a dead cockroach on my kitchen floor or that Paris Hilton music video. Or when Lover Bloke asks me to get him another beer from the fridge.

Eeewwwwwwww.

Women have been shaving the hair off their legs for an eternity. Well, actually I don't know whether it is in fact an eternity, there's certainly no reference to it in the Bible, but let's just generalise and say quite a while.

I know there are some women who espouse more liberal views and enjoy a more hirsute look. And that's about choice. One woman's Matthew McConaughey is another woman's Kevin Rudd. Etc.

We shave it off from under our arms. How else can we be expected to grace the beaches, bars and boulevards of south east Queensland in our fabulous Escada singlets and Lorna Jane gear with under arm fuzz. Unthinkable.

The face is an entire stand-alone episode. A postcode if you will. Correct eyebrow shape and definition is a facial must. Ignoring your eyebrows is like ignoring a 75% off all stock sale at Tiffany's-it's something that you just don't do.

Women will shell out $50 without hesitation to get the perfect eyebrow shape. Eyebrow salons now account for over half of this country's GDP. Sydney eyebrow doyen Sharon-Lee Hamilton is worshipped globally. Even my adored Princess Mary popped into her parlour for a reshape last time she was in the harbour city.

A hairless top lip is also essential. No woman needs to resemble a walrus, even if it is that time of the month. I was holidaying at Coolangatta earlier this year and popped out for a top lip wax, as you do. The beautician was telling me that every three months she actually waxes the entire bottom half of her face. Now that's commitment.

And so it has come to pass that the area our mothers told us to stay away from, the one we later found out is reserved for bedroom romps and birthing babies, is under scrutiny.

Let's not beat around the bush. If you're not sporting a Brazilian you're no sport at all. And so somehow I ended up in a salon with my knickers on the floor, my legs in the air and my modesty out the window.

My good friend Hot Wax, which to date had spent its time amusing my face had found a new playground. My playground. Mei, this tiny Chinese woman unapologetically splashed the wax around my mound, then had the temerity to not only rip it off, but to show me the offending strip. There's a few things in my life I'm not interested in seeing and that's one of them.

Let me tell you about the rip. It goes like this. Turn up the music and let it rrrriiippppppppppp. Apparently it is customary for the waxer to throw your legs over their shoulder or ask you to moon them so they can get the strays. Without even asking me out for a drink first.

The pain was like nothing I have experienced. Well apart from that time I broke my foot and was in plaster for eight weeks. I told everyone that it was dark, the stairs were slippery and the strap on my sandal was a bit loose. The truth is I was pissed off my nut and forgot that walking down stairs involves the careful placement of one foot in front of the other. A simple mistake that anybody could make.

Or the first time I went to a sushi restaurant and thought the wasabi was avocado. And I really love avocado.

The worst part was knowing that the searing pain wasn't going to happen just once, or, at the worst, twice. The whole rrrriiiiipppppppping process was going to continue, over and over and over, until the dear thing was bald.

I felt comfortable in letting loose with a few expletives because Mei, bless her, didn't appreciate compound English words. I'm not sure if f*** is a universally interpreted word or whether each dialect has its own derivative, but I didn't care. I let them rip. Or should I say rrrriiiiipppppppp.