The waxing comments start at about 3:10 in the video above. Warning – the audio is very loud.
Former Air America commentator and current comic Janeane Garofalo made headlines a couple of weeks ago when she called it anti-intellectual of President Obama to call for prayer in the wake of the Gulf oil leak. They covered it on The View and Elisabeth and Joy had a tense moment during that discussion, with Elisabeth calling Joy a “bigot” for declaring that prayer wasn’t logical. (Which is not the same thing as calling it anti-intellectual, but of course Elisabeth took offense.) I considered covering that story, but passed on it because I didn’t want to open that whole can of worms.
Now Garofalo is taking on a less controversial topic – that of female intimate grooming. She thinks it’s not true that anyone has a preference for a hairless intimate area and if they do they have a problem:
Janeane Garofalo takes on Brazilian waxing in her new standup special “If You Will,” and she explains her anti-pubic grooming stance in a new interview with Uinterview.com.
“It couldn’t possibly be true that there are a lot of guys who find adult females with genitals that look pre-adolescent that attractive,” she said. “If they do, that’s a problem.”
Janeane chalks up the obsession with hairlessness to a “national myth.”
“I feel like we’ve been conned into thinking it’s desirable to have that waxing done and that people like it,” she continues. “I think it’s a national myth that we have all gone along with for some reason.”
[From The Huffington Post]
I’m wary of giving TMI in this post, but unless I give some personal background it will be hard for me to comment. I’m just going to get this out of the way right now – like many women, I’ve never had a full Brazilian wax. Once I tried with some wax at home and did a whole strip before gradually peeling it off in complete agony. There’s probably no way I would pay someone to do that for me. That doesn’t mean I don’t go periodically bare, just that I use other means to achieve it. (Antibiotic ointment really helps afterwards and that’s all I’m going to say about that.)
I don’t think there’s anything mentally wrong with men or women who like waxed/shaved parts. It makes certain things easier down there and it has nothing to do with reverting to a child-like state. Plus it helps some of us feel cleaner. If you’re wearing a bathing suit, you have to groom in that region if not make it hairless. It’s not a “national myth,” it’s a personal choice. You wouldn’t expect Garafalo to grasp that anyone with an opinion other than hers is also right, though. She doesn’t seem like the most stable or tolerant person.
