Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow by Jackie Lee Miles

I spend half my time in Florida living in a bathing suit and I definitely don’t want to offend y’all, but I’d like to address a sensitive issue that has been driving me bananas: Why do women have to have hair on their genitalia? I don’t care that men have hair there; they have hair everywhere. (Picture if no man ever shaved again, ever, as in never. You tell me how they’d look. Exactly—that’s my point.) No, I’m talking about we absolutely, positively exquisite and alluring women. I mean really. This genetic predisposition to have a forest growing below the navel is disgusting. And, it’s become more than just a minor inconvenience. I tried to shave the entire thing off (don’t ever use Nair—I thought I’d died and for three days ended up in hell), but after shaving I found five-hundred razor burns and enough razor cuts to surpass all the razor cuts my husband has sustained in his entire lifetime.

Someone told me blondes have a lesser problem with hair in that region, so I died my hair and then, you know, dabbed a bit “down there” hoping to coax it into behaving. No such luck. I developed a severe rash which necessitated seeing my gynecologist who howled when I explained the situation as to how it developed. “Absolutely never die your eyebrows or pubic hair,” she said. “Let a professional do it.” Right! She also gave me a prescription for an ointment my insurance carrier considered not on its list so it cost me eighty-five dollars for a tube the size of an Avon sample of their latest lip color. So, shaving is a major bother, Nair is out of the question, and dying does nothing to inhibit growth and costs big bucks at the pharmacy. What other choices are there?

As a young woman I don’t remember having the density of the forest that I cart around now, and then I realized why! I have four children. I birthed them during the years they “prepped” you for childbirth as though it were an alien experience they needed to get you ready for. In addition to a full-bag enema they shaved every inch of hair that was within two feet of the birthing canal. I remember not wanting to undress in front of my husband. I’d just given birth and my lower body looked age ten. Many years later I found out he thought it was “kinky”. Now he tells me! But the real point is that the birthing “prep” encouraged this forest to grow in leaps and bounds. Had they left me alone, I would not have this monstrous problem each and every time I don a bathing suit. We’re talking class-action law suit here. I simply need to find an attorney who is suffering from this same dilemma and go for it. And a female judge who feels the same way. At the very least I should come out with enough money to have a bikini wax every spring for the next three decades. After that I won’t be wearing a bathing suit anymore. I won’t remember what it is.

However—even with the problem sort of solved—it doesn’t answer my question as to why we woman are total apes when it comes to our genitalia. We can cure polio. We can send a man to the moon. We can invent computers that are so inexpensive that virtually every household in America can afford one. Why can’t we rid ourselves of genital forests, painlessly and permanently? That is the question. Surely someone has the answer. My personal favorite is a pill you swallow three days in a row and hair on a woman’s body ceases to ever grow again. Develop that and you’re richer than Bill Gates. Since it hasn’t been developed I’m back to where I started. As if the area of hair growth on my legs and in my armpits isn’t bad enough; which brings up another subject I must caution you about. I had laser hair removal on my legs. They promised me I would never shave again. It costs as much as three mortgage payments, but who cares if you never have to shave again. They lied. Also, they forgot to tell me not to go out in the sun for three weeks before and after each and every treatment. The reason is you will get brown spots all over your legs. In my case hundreds of them! How can they forget to tell me that? They claim they did tell me. It’s in the fine print right along with the disclaimer that each person’s results will vary and no guarantee of the degree of success is warranted. Add to that, the fact that the appointments have to be scattered over a period of eighteen months and the week prior to each appointment you can’t shave. So one week out of each month you look and feel like a gorilla.

The worst part of all was the pain involved. They stated there would be some minor discomfort. Huh! If having a hot match stuck to your leg three thousand times in succession is minor discomfort I’m the tooth fairy. After screaming my way through seven treatments they let me go. They apologized for my discomfort and said they had a topical ointment for sale that could be applied an hour prior to the treatments that anesthetized the skin and made the treatments much more comfortable. Now they tell me! When I asked why they didn’t inform me prior to the procedure the technician stated the cream costs a hundred dollars for four ounces and most patrons don’t elect to purchase it. THIS patron would have elected to purchase it. There’s no price tag on torture.

Obviously, using this method for the genital area is out of the question. Not to despair! I received a coupon in the mail for twenty dollars off a bikini wax. I made an appointment. They stated there would be some minimum discomfort, too. But I was armed with the hundred dollar ointment I purchased at the laser salon. I figured it might come in handy some day, so I bought a jar. I wasn’t worried. I figured nothing could be as bad as the laser-leg ordeal. Guess what?

I figured wrong.

Jackie Lee Miles is the author of Roseflower Creek, Cold Rock River, and Divorcing Dwayne. Visit the website at J.L. Miles. Write to Jackie at Jackie@jlmiles.com.