Removing body hair

Understand one thing: a woman's greatest enemy is unwanted body hair.

When it comes to depilation, no expense is spared, no discomfort avoided, no measure left untried in our ongoing battle against those hated follicles. The stuff is everywhere - legs, bikini lines, arms, underarms, upper lips, eyebrows, unruly hairlines - and, for the most part, it just keeps growing back.

The thrust that drives the pharmaceuticals to come up new and parade-worthy treatments for erectile dysfunction is basically the same thrust that women apply to the eradication of unwanted body hair. More than anything else, men want to get it up, and women just want it gone.

(There's a neat little rhyme I could make at this point with the word pluck, but I leave it to your imagination.)

Waxing, bleaching, shaving, lasering, sugaring, plucking, threading, nuking. All of which must be following by loofahing, exfoliating, and moisturising to prevent rashes or the much-feared ingrown hairs. As a result, the amount of products and accessories you accumulate is astonishing. In my closet alone, there is hot wax (with a spreading knife and reusable cotton strips), disposable razors, post-laser treatment balm, three kinds of loofah, an exfoliant for my face, and more face and body creams than you can shake a stick at.

And I'm not even that hairy (which is astonishing for women of my tribe).

With the amount of money that we spend on hair removal, it surprises me that women don't already receive spam email. Like instead of "Your size DOES matter" and "Impress beautiful ladies with your massive weener", I can see "Never be embarrassed about the size of your eyebrows again" or "He can't get enough of your smooth legs".

But seriously, people, as utterly frivolous as this may seem, it really isn't. We've even named different wax jobs - the half-Brazilian, the Telly Savalas, and other things that sound vaguely like wrestling holds. Would you let some stranger stand over you while you're lying on your stomach - wearing no underwear - and spread hot wax in the valley between your cheeks? No? Women do. All the time. That's how serious it is, buster.

My own modest routine includes: self-waxing of the legs, aesthetician waxing of the bikini line, laser treatments on the underarms and threading of the upper lip and eyebrows. It's time-consuming, but it must be done. Some would justify it as the price you have to pay to be alluring and sexually attractive. While I admit this to be true, I would also like to point out that having smooth skin is a pleasure for me as well.

There is much satisfaction to be had in taking care of yourself - in letting others take care of you.

I especially love going to the threading salon and being ministered to by a beautiful Indian woman who sings along to Bollywood-sounding music on the radio as she unroots my facial hair with surgical precision.

I also have a really sexy girl aesthetician, but that's another story for another time.

Right now, I have an ingrown on my thigh that I need to look at again. And maybe even squeeze this time. Just a little. With the edge of my nail. A little.

Please note: 'weener' was mis-spelled on purpose. I cannot bear to have anyone think I  made a spelling mistake and didn't correct it.