Well here’s something special, truly bizarre, and a little bit delicate, so be warned, it might not suit everyone’s taste to read about an activity involving the anus… You have been warned! My Kiwi mate Naomi mentioned a recent episode of the Kardashian sisters (I have no idea why they are still on TV but there you go – voyeurism I suppose) and apparently they got their anuses bleached. I immediately thought what? Sometimes I wonder if I’m really behind the times, because until this week, I’d never even heard of it. Click on the title for a link to a Marie Claire article on the topic.

Naturally I had to look it up, and while it’s a tad obvious, I am more interested in the why. According to Wikipedia, “Anal bleaching is the process of lightening the color of the skin around the anus. It is done for cosmetic purposes, to make the anus more uniform with the surrounding area.

“Procedure – some treatments are applied in an office by a technician and others are sold as cream that can be applied in the privacy of your own home. Many people have started to lean towards treatments that can be done at home for privacy reasons and for the fact that most at home anal lightening creams do not contain the potentially carcinogenic ingredient hydroquinone. This ingredient is banned in many European countries but is still used in the USA at a potency of up to 2%.”

Hydroquinone is used in whitening products all over the world, however its use is now banned in many countries because it is considered a carcinogen. Check out the skin cancers people are getting because of skin whitening products – especially in the poorer countries where the ethics of businesses providing these creams are not as good as in richer countries – although the US doesn’t rank too highly.

In case you didn’t know, hydroquinone is used in photo production. Most of us have been in the vicinity of photo production facilities – imagine putting something that smells like that on your bumhole? Hello!

Apparently porn stars and exotic dancers started this trend, and obviously most of us will understand why to an extent – it does get pretty close and personal for the viewer after all. I can even understand transsexuals (male-to-female) taking this path as they feminise themselves, but for the rest of us, with the risks so high – WHY? And who actually sees it?

According to Gay Life they suggest that “prolonged use of hydroquinone can thicken collagen fibres, resulting in a spotty skin appearance. Long term mercury, a known carcinogenic, strips skin of its natural pigment. Prolonged exposure to either can cause cancer, mercury poisoning, liver or kidney failure. Anal bleaching can also cause chemical burns to an already sensitive area.”

The reality is, from what I uncovered, there are always risks with this stuff, no matter how “safe” it is purported to be. People are dabbing hydroquinone and mercury on a very sensitive part of their body to make it paler, and all the while, the body absorbs it upwards. Livers and kidneys are going. Can you imagine the future of organ donation – people who desperately need new organs will be competing with anal bleaches? Another reason the illegal organ trade will continue to flourish.

I ain’t got a problem with people beautifying themselves. Get your boobs done if they make you unhappy, get unsightly things chopped from your body, a tummy tuck, do the botox thing if you really need to… but this? Something that can kill you or make you very very sick? Because it’s a bumhole people.

After the Kardashian sisters’ did their thing on anul bleaching, I saw lots of comments on one of their sites asking the girls for recommendations on creams to use. People are really getting into it. It is shows like this with a strong following and influence, that need to start appreciating they have a responsibility by not encourage potentially lethal cosmetic activities. I mean shouldn’t they? Am I being too extreme here? Maybe a bit sanctimonious?

Check out the comments beneath the article (on a different story – one of them bikini-waxed the other and she’s talking about her puffy vagina – nice!) and you’ll see what I mean. What demographic follows these women? Frightening.

I am often stupefied by what people are willing to do to their bodies to be “beautiful.” If people spent as much time working on their insides as they did on their outsides, the world would be a much better place – I reckon anyway.

So any anal bleaches out there willing to admit it? Anyone sitting on a hot ring piece ‘cos they had a reaction?

Yours, without the bollocks
Andrea