TMI

If we are friends on facebook, you may know that I got my first Brazilian wax last week.  Because that’s the kind of thing I share with my friends and family. So when I am telling you that this blog post is about to be TMI, you should probably run away. 

Really, you should stop reading now.

Because I’m going to talk about my lady garden. Like, a lot. In detail.

Run.

No???

OK, you people still reading, you are my people.  Hi. 

Here’s the thing.  I got my Brazilian and I had it all planned out.  I was going to write a super funny blog post about how this friend of mine, someone I see socially, someone who knows my kids and whose kids I know… had to come eye to “eye” with my butt hole and how effing weird that is.

But that’s not the blog post that wants to be written about this experience.  I kept trying to go funny, but the stuff inside me isn’t funny.  Not, like inside me inside me. I mean, like, in my head, not in my snatch.  Just to be clear. 

So a bit of background.  Why am I forty-one years old and only getting my first Brazilian?  We have already established here on the public interwebz for future employers to see that I like to be relatively hairless down under.  I went so far as to try laser hair removal.  Apparently, my pubes are too light in color, so it didn’t work. 

And now you know the carpet is lighter than the drapes or whatever.  Yes, I have very light brown pubes.  You can sleep at night now that you know that.  I initially called them dirty blonde, but I don’t really want to use the word dirty in reference to my hoohah… you know?

Anyway. 

I like fewer pubes in the way of my general enjoyment of that part of my body, so I was shaving.  I tried getting waxed once, maybe eleven or twelve years ago.  It was the worst pain of my life.  And that includes gallstones.  I just remember thinking, something is wrong.  There is no way in hell that women do this every month.  I stopped her. It was awful.  I was very badly bruised for days after. 

On my junk, people.  Badly, badly bruised on my junk. 

So I swore off waxing until recently when friends convinced me that my first experience was an anomaly and I should try again.  So I tried again.  It hurt the normal amount.  I wasn’t bruised.  And now my vag is all smooth and soft and feels like the skin on the inside of my wrist.  It’s amazing and I love it and will totally keep doing it if I can afford to.

And yes, I know vag refers to the internal canal, not the part that was waxed.  But I’m not saying that word with two v’s.  I hate that word.  I can say moist all day, but I will not say the word with two v’s in it. 

Shudder.

OK, so here’s the part I need to talk about. 

OMG, I’m over 500 words in and I haven’t even started getting to the point.  I am a terrible writer.  You should all leave now. 

Still here?

OK.

I want to talk about shame and the lady garden.

Here’s what happened.  My good friend is an aesthetician.  She tints my eyelashes for me, and has waxed my brows.  She gives facials and knows a lot about skin care.  But mostly, she pretty much spends her work days ripping out pubic hair. 

Someone has to do it. We can’t do it to ourselves.

She was one of the people who convinced me to try again, and a few of our other mutual friends go to her to have it done.

I had already decided that I would give it another try.  But when faced with the idea of someone I knew down there looking at my junk, I balked.

Because that thing is not cute.

It’s not cute.

I didn’t know it wasn’t cute until pretty recently.  The first time I heard about labiaplasty, I was so confused.  I mean, what??  People are getting plastic surgery on their hoohahs??  What could possibly be going on down there to justify such a thing? 

So I did what any voyeuristic freak would do, I googled before and after pictures. 

Obviously.

And that was when I realized that the kind of labia I have is the kind that people think they need to get plastic surgery to fix. 

This wasn’t something I understood before.  No one lucky enough to get face to face with my taco has ever had any complaints.  I had seen a bunch of other people’s.  They all looked different and pretty.  Mine seemed fine and was in the mix.  It’s not freakish or anything.  Just… you know… sort of external I guess. It had never occurred to me to be bothered by this.

I’m in this group of women online, and several months ago, someone posted about the term, “busted ravioli,” to describe the kind of junk which is more inner labia than outer labia.  Like the opposite of the closed clamshell.  A couple of people said they couldn’t imagine having a busted ravioli type and how embarrassing it would be. 

This is generally an open and supportive group of women. 

I was like, uh, I’m not gonna lie.  Mine kind of looks like a ravioli.  Ravioli are delicious though.  I mean, yum??  Ravioli??  Right??  Or roast beef curtains?  I like roast beef too.  But I didn’t say anything.  Because I didn’t want anyone to know I had the bad kind.

What the actual fuck?  Is this really something to worry about??

My sausage wallet works awesome.  I have joked that I can orgasm from a stiff breeze.  I can have multiples.  I can come from just penetration.  It smells good.  It tastes good.  I don’t need synthetic lube most of the time.  My not-so-bearded-anymore clam is the effing bomb.  It’s awesome. 

I love that thing.  I love it long time.

But… I didn’t want anyone to know.  I wanted to go to a stranger, whose waxing skills were unknown to me, rather than to a friend because I didn’t want her to know. 

You know, about the ravioli.

Seriously??  This is something I’m worrying about?  It’s total bullshit.  She does this for a living.  She has seen all of the labia.  She has seen all of the buttholes.  She has no doubt seen inner thigh scars like mine before too, from ingrown hairs/cysts.  She has seen all of the junk.  She doesn’t give a fuck that mine looks like a ravioli.  She doesn’t care about my thigh scars.  She doesn’t care about the extra skin from my twin pregnancy that kind of migrated down to the lowest point on my torso because of pesky gravity, except inasmuch as she has to make sure I pull that skin tight so she doesn’t damage me.  She doesn’t care about my hanging belly skin except to get it out of the way.

Why am I feeling shame about this?  It’s stupid!

So I sucked it up and went to my friend, because I trusted her not to hurt me.  (Well, not to injure me, anyway.) And you know what?  It was fine.  She was very professional, and I really wasn’t worried about it once it was happening.  I was more concerned about the decidedly unpleasant sensation of hair being ripped out of my vajungle. 

But I still felt like I needed to talk about it with you guys.  Because this thing?  With the body shame?  It’s insidious and it feeds on silence.  Shame loves it when we keep our mouths shut.  So no silence.

I know women who are worried about how they smell.  How they look.  How it works.  Women who think that everyone else can come without clitoral stimulation and something is wrong with them because they need that.  Women who use damaging douches or weird perfumes because they’re worried about their natural smell. 

Fuck.  That.  Noise.

Enough.

Shame, I will not feed you.  You don’t get my silence. 

And ravioli are delicious. So there.