Bring on childbirth without an epidural, root canal without an anaesthetic, and a full night of dancing in four-inch stilettos. I can handle the pain. I’ve just had my first bikini wax.

It’s something I’ve been considering for a couple of months. I’ve had my eyebrows waxed a couple of times and it wasn’t that bad. The hair stays away longer and it’s more convenient than plucking. I also think the end result looks nicer. I thought, upstairs is easy, how different can downstairs be?

A couple of my girlfriends swear by it. One, who’s a seasoned waxer, even went as far as to have a Brazilian recently. That’s when they wax off everything, leaving you with a tiny patch of hair. Hardly enough to keep you warm on a cold winters night.  But to take your mind off that you can have your little patch styled into all sorts of cute shapes, like a landing strip, a letter of the alphabet, a heart, or even an arrow. Although, as far as I’m concerned, if he needs directions once he’s down there, he might not be the right man for the job!

We got our friend to draw her Brazilian for us on a napkin over dinner with the girls one night. I don’t think the waiter will ever recover, but I thought it was very impressive.

We chatted about the reasons women do it, and concluded that a Brazilian looks cute, feels sexy and apparently men love it. Of course they love it! It makes their job easier!  For a guy a Brazilian translates into looking for a needle in a haystack that’s only got four pieces of hay in it.

So armed with a drawing on a napkin, the encouragement of my friends and the bravado that comes with four scotch on the rocks, I resolved to give it a bash.

I made an appointment the following weekend to have an eyelash tint, a facial and a manicure. I was like a teenage boy buying a million things at a chemist when all he really wants is a box of condoms.

I wanted to keep my options open in case I decided to chicken out at the last minute. But

I didn’t, which is why late one Sunday I found myself lying on a bed in a little cubicle at a beauty salon having my inner, upper thigh buttered with some very hot wax.

The first strip she pulled off really wasn’t that bad. It happened so fast I barely felt it. Piece of cake, I thought, as I crossed my hands behind my head and relaxed. Big mistake! A girl should never relax when there’s boiling hot wax involved.

The second strip of wax she tore off jolted me straight back to reality. I won’t bore you with the details. But let me just say OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! OUCHEDY! OUCH!

A Little later the beautician told me to look in the mirror and decide whether I wanted her to take off more. At that point I can honestly say I would have rather gone on a date with Osama ben Laden than let her “take off any more”.

“They” say the first time you have it done is the most painful, so I’m looking forward to testing out that theory. I thought I might also test out a couple of different funky shapes. What about a cute little pussycat? The word “HI”, or maybe even the South African flag?

The things us girls do for beauty. Imagine if you told a man that every three weeks you were going to pour hot wax on his crotch and then rip it off taking all the hair and half the skin with it.  And then charge him fifty bucks. Half of them would look at you like you had two heads, and carry on watching the rugby. And the other half would wonder why it was so cheap. After all, the women they usually get to do that to them wear head-to-toe leather, work in seedy little dungeons and charge a heck of a lot more than fifty bucks.

My point is that women are incredible human beings. In comparison to men the amount of pain we endure in a single lifetime, some natural, some self-inflicted, constantly amazes me.

In retrospect it wasn’t such a bad experience. The pain is excruciating, but very temporary which makes it bearable. And now that the swelling has gone down a bit, I think it actually looks rather nice.

But please, while you’re feeling sorry for me and my poor raw thighs, spare a thought for annelize, my beautician. After all she did have to spend half an hour on a Sunday afternoon listening to my screams and looking at my white, flabby thighs. It’s very likely she endured more pain than I did.

By: Paige Nick