If you ever turn on the television on a Sunday morning, you will inevitably find an infomercial where a bunch of women, sitting on sofas, in silky lingerie, under soft-white studio lights, swoon over the discovery of a new waxing agent. As one woman demonstrates, on her own hairy leg, just how effectively, and painlessly, the hair rips from its pores with a single motion, the other women smile and nod, knowingly, at each other. The most amusing part of the infomercial is when the demonstrator tells the slumber party gathering that not only will the hair come out painlessly, but you can actually lick the applicator before swiping it in a downward motion across your skin. The fact that these women are shocked that waxing agents can actually be made of natural ingredients is concrete evidence of the power of corporate marketing techniques that successfully stultify the American consumer. It's not a phenomenon that women all over the world have waxed their legs with natural ingredients such as honey, molasses, and other sugars, for centuries. But true to fashion-statement-etiquette, sugar-related words are not mentioned in this infomercial, because that would be positively unfeminine. But the women still dip into the ooze, and daintily lick their fingertips, looking surprised and mystified by the genius of modern technology.

I hope that channel-surfing men don't think that women actually do this, dress this way, or talk to each other like idiots. I don't know if anyone has broken it to these marketing wizards but women don't hold slumber parties to gush over the effectiveness of feminine products, nor do they share intimate details on the mystique of douching as they walk together along sandy white beaches.

So how did I get stuck on this channel for almost 20 minutes on a Sunday morning? I'd like to say it was because I wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of the ad, but like many other consumers, I'm an easy target. At least I didn't pick up the phone and order the gunk. I'm way too cynical to believe that any product will painlessly remove body-hair. All women know that there's no best way, and it always hurts. Like childbirth or menstrual pain, it hurts more for some than for others, and we've all agreed that either you get used to it, and eventually stop getting hideous rashes, or you reluctantly resign to the nicks and gashes of the sharp-edged razor. That's the reality -- a far cry from the hazy glow of soft-white lighting and knowing looks.

That's not to say that women don't share waxing-stories. A friend of mine recently divulged the details of her latest salon visit that included a bikini wax (a polite way to refer to the removal of unsightly pubic hair) without realizing that she was talking to the unconverted. Perhaps I'd never told her that I don't believe in torture. I've tried to rip the hairs of out my body with creams, waxes, and electronic devices with large spinning coils, but I stopped doing that several years ago, and several scars later. Besides I'd rather use a sharp-edged knife on my own body, than trust a torture tool to the hands of a stranger. I would have really shocked this friend if I had told her that I had my first manicure at the age of 30.

To be perfectly honest, all this female goo and ooze, scraping and filing, ripping and shaping, plucking and peeling, has always slightly intimidated me, and the older I got the more intimidating it became. It's fine behind my own closed doors, where I can pretend I know what I'm doing, but to actually go public, taking my cracked nails, inked-stained finger tips, and callused heels to a specialist seemed a little too exposing. Whoever heard of a 30 year old professional woman who'd never stuck her feet in a vat, or her hands under a fan. It's not that I didn't want to try it, but I was going to have to admit that I had no idea what I wanted them to do. It was like venturing into a foreign country without knowing the language. Still, lying infomercials or not, I had to know what it was all about.

So I decided to take the plunge one day, and found myself standing in the middle of an art-deco room, lined with little tables, hoping to pass for one of them -- and, as expected, I wound up feeling like a complete idiot. When all I thought I would have to do is pick a color, I suddenly found my cuticles being ripped from their sockets. How was I supposed to know about wraps, tips, and gel? It was as embarrassing as I had expected. The Korean ladies, who owned the salon, laughed and nudged each other when I asked the obvious like `why does that burn?' I became quite the focus of attention as the other women in the salon, customers and filers alike, realized that this was my very first time. But I finally lost all perspective when one middle-aged woman came up to me, admiring my new look and said "now you're hooked." I looked at her garishly-long, fire-engine red, two inch tips, and looked at my new pink glow, and wondered what she could possibly mean. I could never be like her.

When I was all unwrapped and lacquered, I sat amongst the best of them, admiring my new hands as they baked under the dangerous rays of an ultra-violet cooker. The other women talked about their upcoming cruises, their kids, their husbands, boyfriends, and jobs. They talked about the new neon colors they'd never try, and the latest movies they'd rented. They flattered each new look that was presented to the table, hideous or otherwise, and showed me how to turn off the fan with the flat of my palm and grope for my car keys without chipping or gouging. As I maneuvered my way out the door with my hands in the air, and my car keys dangling from my pinkie, I knew I'd go back. I had demystified at least one of the rituals as I allowed myself to be instructed in the art of beauty by the veterans of femininity.