Don’t knock the bizarre new perineum sunning fad – after surviving childbirth, I support giving your rear end some TLC

Good news, I’ve got another great fad for you. 2019 has been great for these, you may recall the other week I brought you dopamine fasting, the practice of laying off all forms of stimulation – including food and drink – in order to reset your pleasure receptors.

Well, talking of pleasure receptors, here’s a new health trend for you known as perineum sunning. In case you’re confused (you probably are), it’s the fine art of positioning yourself with your legs akimbo and facing the sun so that the general area between your legs gets a nice healthy dose of vitamin D.

For many people, physically getting their perineum into a position where it can soak up the rays in the first place, can be a problem. According to the online photos, what you really need to do is adopt the happy baby yoga position in order to really get that perineum pointing skywards. This involves lying on your back (which is the easy bit) and then bending your knees in order to hold onto your big toes. Think: six-month-old baby on a changing mat and you’ll get the idea.

Being naturally quite flexible and generally a massive big baby, I find the pose quite easy to adopt. My big problem is finding any sunshine in December in the UK and I’m not sure pointing my perry at an electric bar fire really counts.

According to practitioners, just 30 seconds of sunlight up the fundament will provide you with more energy than an entire day being outside with your clothes on – butt (hahaha) I’m not quite convinced. It’s also meant to keep the area healthy and free of germs. Well, that depends on what goes crawling up there while you’re out there sunning yourself.

At the moment, the epicentre of perineum sunning is in California, but its said to originate from Chinese Taoism, which is one of those religions that is terribly complicated to understand but – when it comes to western followers – inevitably turns out to involve a great deal of funny tie-dye juggling trousers and sex.

The medical profession is poo-pooing the craze, warning that the skin in these tucked away places is usually quite delicate, and therefore not best exposed to direct sunlight. So if you’re thinking of giving it a go, maybe consider applying some factor 50 first?

Of course, it’s very easy to be sceptical about the whole thing and a great many of us will be relieved to live in a country that is both cloudy and uptight. Imagine walking through a public park in California surrounded by bum-sun worshippers.

But before we all dismiss the fad, damage to the perineum is one of the most common side effects of natural childbirth; it doesn’t matter how many classes you’ve been to and how much perineum massaging you’ve attempted, tearing happens in 90 per cent of cases to some degree or other and I swear mine ripped like a pair of old curtains.

Stitches following tears to the perineum are one of the most uncomfortable and boring postpartum recovery problems for new mothers and one of the biggest causes of sexual anxiety, which can obviously be a big factor in postnatal depression.

In my case – and I’m talking 30 years ago – I apparently had quite a ragged tear which was then badly stitched by someone who wouldn’t have made it past the audition stage of Sewing Bee. This caused huge discomfort and embarrassment in the months to follow, to the point where my kindly NHS GP offered me some revolutionary, new light-treatment.

This, I gratefully accepted and was signed up for a course of infrared sessions at a brand new clinic in Kennington. My memory is a little hazy here – so do forgive me if not every fact is gospel – but from what I can recall, I had to lie down with a silicone bag of water over my terrible botched stitches, while a beautiful gentle heat was conducted through the liquid and I grinned with pleasure throughout.

Now when I say this Kennington clinic was brand new, I mean it hadn’t really been officially opened and the cutting of the ribbon ceremony actually took place while I was having one of my treatments. I tell you, I have never seen a dignitary back out of a room quicker than Labour-MP Neil Kinnock who, in all innocence, was being led around the sparkling new facilities only to stumble across yours truly in what is commonly known as a compromising position. Years later, I bumped into him at an airport and the temptation to say “I bet you don’t recognise me with my clothes on” was almost overwhelming.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say was that the heat sensation on my poor old perineum was delicious and if we have a summer anything like the one we had a couple of years ago, then I can’t promise not to take my perry and my yoga mat up onto the roof and get myself some rays where the sun don’t usually shine.

Apologies to the neighbours in advance.