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Bikini Wax Diaries

by LAUREN BANS

Waxists have flitted in and out of my life like boys or gynos or anyone else who ends up causing me high levels of anxiety at times when I'm not wearing pants. I laid down for my first bikini wax in high school, after I had finally snagged myself a boyfriend (an underweight nerd whose bedside table was lined with model Ferraris and worn Kohl's catalogues used for...), mostly because I figured if I was fat I should at least be really well groomed.

That way when he met up with his friends for D&D or whatever, and they were like, "Duuuude, what did she look like?" he would say, "Her bikini line is impeccable" rather than “Her midsection is Homer Simpson-esque, but not as tan." Note: I have since owned up to how fucked up these thoughts are (internalized patriarchy!), but that’s how I felt at the time.

Anyway, I don’t remember at all how much the first time hurt, but I think it was a lot, because I cried and the fact that I can't remember points to undiagnosed trauma. I recall that the very nice blond lady at the Aveda salon in Minnesota called in one of her nice blond lady coworkers to hold my hand and I don't think the second nice blond lady was even a waxist. She was like an actual hair dresser who happened to be on lunch break. After it was done, the original nice blond lady told me she shaped the top like a pretty little flower. So in the end, no harm, no foul, plus the lyrics to “Kiss From a Rose” as my senior quote in the yearbook.

In college, I ended up semi-regularly visiting a mean Bulgarian woman who spewed hateful rants about the beauty salon "fags" she worked with and their unnatural sexual unions as she spread my butt cheeks apart and coated the crack with a hot sticky substance. Hahahahaha. Seriously.

"Bad Boy", oil on linen, 66 inches x 96 inches by Eric Fischl

In recent years, as I have grown up to be an actual adult woman who buys interview outfits at Ann Taylor and can pass both a Forever 21 store and a bong without making contact with it, I have treated myself to more luxurious waxists, because science has proven the more you money you throw at the world the less pain the world will throw back at you. The last time I got waxed it was at a fancy spa in Park Slope, the kind of place where they dim the lights and romance your vaginal area with a warm lavender-scented towel before getting into the thick of it (pun intended). There was also a TV ON THE CEILING playing music videos on loop.

It’s actually really nice to focus fully on a Creed song rather than letting your brain go to its default setting, which is something like: "Fuck, she's doing it now. 1...2.. oh wait, she’s putting more wax on, OH MY GOD, she’s about to pull... IT’S HAPPENING MUTHA#@!#$%%%" On this particular occasion, the music video for Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved" came on just as my waxist was finishing up the last little vanity strips. She was already humming along, and as she stepped back to take a proud look at her final masterpiece, which looked like a mute newborn trying to scream, she poked her index finger into my thigh, and sang, in tune with the song, "YOU. YOU will be loved, now!" Then she laughed hard at her own joke.

Lauren Bans is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. You can find her website here, and she twitters here. She last wrote in these pages about the best TV dubs.

"Never Gonna Leave This Bed (acoustic)" - Maroon 5 (mp3)

"Makes Me Wonder (live lounge acoustic)" - Maroon 5 (mp3)

"Mine (Taylor Swift cover)" - Maroon 5 (mp3)

Comments

[Yvonne]

i got my first wax ever a couple of month ago. so painful. unbelievable. burned like hell. never doing that again. the spreading of the butt cheeks moment was just too much. this piece is great.

[distaste]

I had hoped this piece might focus on why women put themselves through this torture on a regular basis, only to perpetuate lolita fantasies. I do it out of love (and he pays for it) but it comes with a level of resentment. Since I'm not one to sleep around, the single life would find me carelessly ungroomed-- to avoid the pain, for starters, but also out of ease and maybe even to make a point. We've had to shave underarms/legs to fit into society's trivial standards since puberty, and now waxing has (relatively quickly-- in the last ten years) become similiarly integral to a woman's level of attractiveness. It's not humourous, it's sad... sadder still that I'm apparently the only one acknowledging this.

[luke]

^because hairy ass cracks ruin what's supposed to be a sexy moment.

[jenny]

say patriarchy one more time. maybe in your next piece about how you hate yourself. seek help, not wax.