As summer is fast approaching the question on the tips of tongues all over Britain is "What do we do with our hairy bits?" Our sisters on the continent don’t go in for the palaver of hair removal, preferring the naturalistic, furred look, yet our Brazilian cousins love the sleek hairless apparel so much that there’s even a world famous wax named after them.

Along the Brazilian coastlines the regulation beachwear is excruciatingly skimpy. For girls, it’s a case of four triangles and four bits of string to hold the wobbly bits in. For guys tight and bright is the rule. Tie-dyed rainbow Speedos? A definite yes, as warm sea means an end to the disappearing ball phenomenon. As for knee-length board shorts, I don’t recommend them. They only get pulled down by the waves anyway.

Such itsy-bitsy beachwear calls for the removal of pubic hair, as it’s not really culturally acceptable these days to sport thick tufts spilling out of costumes left, right and centre. As with all hair-dos there are many variations on the same theme, like the Short Back and Side versus the Buzz Cut and the Bob versus Asymmetrical Bob – and down below they each come with their own pain rating.

So, to start relatively tame we have:

The Bikini Line - only hair that is not covered by your bikini is waxed off. You can even leave your undies on for this one.

The Full Bikini - a more severe version of the above as only a small amount of hair is left on the Mount of Venus, otherwise known as the Mons Pubis.

The Triangle – all pubic hair is removed except for a neatly trimmed triangle pointing downwards. It’s also been dubbed as ´the arrowhead leading the way to pleasure´.

The Moustache – now it becomes more extreme. Everything is removed except for a horizontal rectangle just above the genital slit.

The Brazilian - only a vertical ´landing strip´ of hair is left.

Sphinx or Hollywood - favoured by porn stars. Be prepared for extreme pain and shocking hairlessness.

Sunga - the official name of the male version of the Brazilian wax is Sunga. Once again hot wax and agonizing hurt is involved.

Since extreme hair removal is a la mode, I can only wonder when other forms of hair modification become fashionable. Plaits and braids down there anyone? No? I thought not.