A little pain won’t hurt?

What is the most intimate thing you have gone through in your life?

Maybe it’s childbirth. It must be painfully intimate to allow medical personnel to interfere with your most secret places of your body.

It could also be when you finally open up to your sexual partner and allow them into your world with the deepest secrets, wishes, desires and passions.

For survivors these kinds of situations don’t come easily. It is our genital area that was the site of violence, inappropriate touching, embarrassment, often at a very young age. These intimate encounters in our adult lives it can be scary if not a downright impossible task, and I must say that at least for me the thought of one day giving birth is just unthinkable.

There are things that I am more and more comfortable doing – open up more and more to my boyfriend in a sexual way, for example. I did decide to push my boundaries a little bit more and I booked a Brazilian wax. Now, again this might not seem like a big deal for some, but for me it’s huge.

The thought of getting naked in front of a stranger, spreading my legs and experiencing pain are not on top of my wish-list for how to spend an afternoon, but I did it anyway.

So I made my way to a salon in North London where I had booked the waxing through using a KGB deals. I got there early and was already sweating it – I had all these questions in my head like what if it hurts, what if she is like ewww about my private parts, or what if I get too embarrassed and can’t continue.

It was fine though – I had to strip down below my waist and lie on my back. I was too embarrassed to ask any questions, but I did ask if it was going to hurt. The lady said yes. And I panicked. It was humiliating to lie exposed under a bright light, but I thought I have to go through this to prove to myself that I can be okay one day.

The lady was right, it did hurt. Every time she pulled the wax strip off I screamed. After a few areas and I was shaking, it’s really intolerable pain (of course not compared to child birth I’m sure, but painful in any case) . It was over in 10 minutes, and the lady left me alone in the room to get dressed.

I can’t say I felt good – I had wanted to get rid of the hair (usually I shave, FYI, or should I say, TMI) but somehow I felt humiliated and dirty and disgusting afterwards as I had just done something to alter that area; I felt super-sexual in a bad way, like enhancing that part was dirty and naughty in a disgusting way.

I walked out and swallowed my feelings. I showed it to my boyfriend and he liked it, and I guess now I like it too. It is…enhancing and making areas pretty that survivors often feel are dirty and disgusting, and actually doing this has made me more comfortable being intimate.

Not sure if I’d recommend it to just anyone – I know survivors or abuse that can’t handle massage, so an experience this intimate and painful, with a sexual innuendo, could be harmful for some.

For me it worked, and I’m sure to do it again. Maybe it gets  less painful, and as the lady explained, she has been doing this for 15 years and is used to it, I can be more comfortable next time as they probably really don’t care what mine looks like as they’ve seen it all.

Comments, anyone? I’d love to hear from a beautician if they had an experience with a survivor as a client.

Love&Life, LittleGirl