The story goes that when John Ruskin caught sight of his wife's 'down there' on his wedding night, he was so repelled that they never consummated the relationship. Possibly apocryphal, but weirdly relevant at the moment.

The explanation I hear most often is "I have a boyfriend, you know."

And I find myself thinking....so?

With the physical, psychological, and political liberation imparted by the woman's movement of the 1970s, I grew up believing that men and women were intellectual equals, that women could compete with men in the workplace, could have sex before marriage -- and that things like bound feet, corsets and belladonna eyedrops (to enlarge the pupils and make women look more like babies) were things of the past.

So would someone be so kind as to explain the current obsession with waxing and shaving?

For those new to my despair at the fall of feminism, may I refer you to a previous rant and a reminder that the biggest consumers of hardcore internet pornography are 12- to 17-year-old boys. Now, the majority of 12-year-olds are not having actual sex, which suggests that internet porn is serving as a classroom for sex. And what lessons about sex does pornography teach?

1. Contraception doesn't exist.

2. Breasts should be surgically enhanced.

3. Pubic hair is disgusting.

Among other things.

So next time you shave or wax in order to suggest to your partner that you are not, after all, a real woman, but a pornografied version of a pre-adolescent girl, why not have a good long look in the mirror and ask yourself where it will end. Will you have your breasts enlarged? Your vagina cosmetically improved? Will you starve yourself like Hollywood starlets, have all your imperfections erased, refuse to age?

Like retailer H&M, will you put a real head onto a digitally created body?

And will someone love you more for it?

With our help, society is evolving an image of women that is impossibly skinny with huge breasts, perfect teeth and the hairless pudenda of a ten year old girl.

Because we're worth it?

Worth what, exactly?

Not a lot, I'd say