Framed by my knees in the classic stirrup position, a terry cloth towel draped across my lower belly, she tells me of a common occurrence she’s experienced with male clients: “The first time they tell me ‘Never, ever again. “I think it’s more the anticipation than actual pain,” says Natalia Romanenko, an esthetician at the New York-based body waxing salon Strip, who spent the better part of a half-hour smearing warm purple wax on, and in, the crevices directly surrounding my nether region before swiftly and efficiently ripping it off.
While getting your balls and asscrack waxed is certainly not painless, it’s hardly the paralyzing torture that movies would make you believe it is (though the cursing of Kelly Clarkson’s name is welcome, it’s not required). Which, if you must know, feels like a bolt of lightning traveling back and forth from your butthole to the back of your throat-which is where, incidentally, the involuntarily gasp or grunt you’ll no doubt let out originates. The worst part about getting a male Brazilian wax isn’t the pain.