(Cross-posted here.)

Once again, repetition pulls a draft from dusty storage. Four things prompt this topic’s rebirth:

1. This post over at Dodson & Ross;

2. Vagazzling video (YouTube) that I don’t exactly endorse, but it showed up three times this week in my RSS feed.

3. A conversation that included revelations about varied body hair patterns.

4. My waxing appointment.

Opinions about body hair and its removal abound. Some friends express horror, for various reasons, if they learn that I like to have my labia waxed bare. They assume that I will “look like a little girl!” or that it displays some sort of body hatred. On the contrary. As I recently told a friend, not all body hair is created equal. As you can see in genital galleries, bodies have great diversity. The same goes for body hair. Some women, my lover included, are blessed with little or no hair on their labia. Lucky. Lucky lucky lucky. My own body hair grows in a thick woven thatch between my legs, denying access, dampening pleasure and sensation. I’ve tried trimming and shaving, but prefer the more ancient practice of waxing.

Brazilian waxes became common for me when I more fully started loving my body and prioritizing my pleasure. I wax because it feels good and is something I’ve come to adore and anticipate. It’s rare that I shave anymore, and I usually regret it when I do. Scraping a blade across my skin feels barbaric, and the results are less than ideal. But waxing, smoothing a hot substance over my skin, pulling the hair out by the root, treating the skin underneath with coconut or shea butter – that’s what I like. After several years of doing it, the pain is barely noticeable. Even in the beginning, when the pain was more intense, I enjoyed the sensation. Though not a pain slut, I find there is a fluid line between pleasure and pain, and the results of the particular pain of waxing are intensely pleasurable for me.

When working with a new esthetician, I explain to her the compromise I’ve reached with my lover, who doesn’t want my bush gone. Whether it’s age difference or otherwise, she is distinctly turned off by an utter lack of pubic hair. So I tell the esthetician, “No heart-shape, no landing strip, no vagazzling, no dying the pubic hair a ‘fun’ color. Leave an untrimmed, unruly bush up top. But underneath, from the top of my cleft downward, I want it bare.”  This compromise works well for both of us who have an interest in my genitals. If I ever go long between waxing appointments, my lover is reminded why waxing matters to our sex life. Minimizing the necessary bush-whacking increases my pleasure, and hers as well.

Mileage varies on all things body-related and sexual. I understand that some relish copious bush, and some genitals feel over-stimulated without fur and appreciate the buffer. My fur aesthetics, however, resemble a backwards mullet. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.