I Don - Ministry of Waxing

Polly Vernon – wax junkie | The Times
political?”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/magazine/article2998891.ece
03/05/2011 21:29
I ask around a little more, and discover that there’s a generational split on not just the
degree to which women are shaving and waxing, but the way they think about it too. The
younger Twitter straw-poll respondents are largely with Daisy: it is sexy and sexual but
certainly not sexist to be a woman and feel the need to wax or shave. It is just what you
do, in the same way that you brush your teeth and shave undercuts into your hip,
bleached hair. They talk in terms of feeling “clean and smooth”. I’m reminded of
something that Jasmine said, about how a Brazilian gives you added swagger, that it’s the
grooming equivalent of wearing high heels.
The tweeters in their late thirties and forties are conscious of the politics, however. They
apologise for depilating and underplay the extent of it. It isn’t until I tweet a confession to
exactly how much time and money I spend on depilation that some of them confess to
being slaves to it, as I am. “I spend the same as you in a month and I’m a part-time
primary school teacher from Newcastle,” says @higgum75 (the 75 is a reference to her
year of birth).
As a 39-year-old, I instinctively think that there are politics buried within depilation. I
know that my principles are compromised by doing it, by how much time and money I
dedicate to it, and by how wilfully I submit to something that – let’s face it – really hurts.
I know because depilating is the one thing that I do explicitly to please men. I do not dress
for men or modulate my (really quite foul) language for men; I do not underplay my
achievements or curb my tendency to shout the odds over practically anything for men.
But I do shave my legs for men, because I think they’ll like me less if I don’t. I think they’ll
think I’m ugly. Not just my boyfriend (who, to be fair, has never once expressed an
opinion regarding my body hair), but all men. And I know this isn’t great.
Mariella Frostrup agrees: waxing for the boys is not great. “I once heard a woman on LBC
[shows how long ago it was] complaining that her boyfriend made her wax ‘every inch of
her body’, or he wouldn’t lay a finger on her. Ouch. I’d definitely have opted for celibacy.”
But what of men, anyway? Would they all actually, secretly, rather we waxed every inch of
our bodies? Or are they less troubled by our depilatory habits than I assume they are? The
male faction of Twitter respond cautiously – coyly, even – to my straw poll on their hairy
lady likes and dislikes. Piers Morgan and his producer Jonathan Wald each try to make
the other tell me what he thinks is acceptable, and where, but ultimately neither one
reveals anything. Someone else – who, if his Twitter profile picture is anything to go by,
seems youngish, in his late twenties – surprises me by telling me that while he can’t stand
hairy legs on a woman, he rather likes hairy armpits. “Sign of confidence,” he says. “Or
being German.” A third tells me he’s appalled at my depilatory budget, but still expects
partners to be thoroughly hair-free.
Andy Jones, a 27-year-old journalist who spent several years of his life writing a weekly
dating column, has a broad experience of female depilation practices. “I’m old enough to
remember just before the Brazilian wax thing happened. My first sexual encounters were
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