Zack's Ramblings: Down With Manscaping, Up With Pubes
Honest question: Do any guys out there rock completely-shaved crotches? If so, can I ask them why? Please tell me in the comments because I think this look is coming back with a vengeance and I’m not completely sure what’s causing it.
If a recent shower at my gym is any indication, DC’s gay men are developing pubic alopecia at the frequency of Sonic the Hedgehog running laps at a meth party. I hung up my towel, turned on the water, soaped myself up and then took around and nearly called Olivia Benson, because it looked like someone was in the midst of a kitty porn video shoot right in Results. No pubes. No happy trails, no nothing. I recently saw a nest of Naked Mole Rats in Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo and it looked exactly like the middle sections of every guy I was bathing with.
I’m not that hairy, so I treat each of my sparse body follicles like firstborn male children in 15th century Persia. They are groomed, pampered and individually said-goodnight-too, lest they decide to abdicate and rob me of the only thing that really seperates my body from that of Kate Moss’. I believe that body hairs are a special, attractive thing, and it saddens me to see nary a thigh sideburn or buttcrack combover in what I thought was the least-high-maintenance of all DC gay gyms.
For one thing, penises are kind of weird looking. Removing the hair is like shaving a Maine Coon Cat. Something that was formerly luxuriant, appealing and endlessly petable turns into an anemic string cheese swamp creature with two swipes of a Gillette hand-held. I have enough trouble as it is opening my eyes while giving head because the site of a close-up wang gives me the giggles. This gets even worse when I’m confronted with an overly-shorn region and can see all the nooks and crannies before I even start. Nooks and crannies are great on a Thomas’ English Muffin, but if your crotch looks like a receptacle for butter and jam I’ll probably not want to get to close to it.
To be clear, I’m not advocating that every guy adopt the “70′s porn pubes” look. If you’re not familiar, these pubes stretch roughly between the knees and belly button on the vertical axis, and horizontally can prevent a particularly hirsute gentlemen from making it through narrow doorways. I happen to be a fan, but I know that look isn’t for everyone. That’s why most people tend to fall somewhere in the middle. Natural pubes have enjoyed a rennasiance in the hipster/Butt Magazine porn worlds, which celebrate hairiness and versimilitude. They also have their own connotations of masculinity and subversion. But what is the accompanying culture of crotch-shaving born from?
The desire to turn your partners lips into hanging strands of roast beef on your unrelenting stubble? The curiosity as to what exactly the base of your penis looks like where it meets your pelvis, and the desire to let everyone else know too? Or, more likely, I fear that this has the same underlying cause as so many other puzzling trends in gay society: A couple people do it, the media portrays it, and all of a sudden Kojak-balls are the hottest thing since sliced Deep-V‘s.
I usually try to respect people’s style-choices, but I can’t really see the case for making your manhood look like Jimmy Dean sausage struggling to break free from a puddle of Elmer’s glue. Everytime I’ve gotten accidentally too enthusiastic in my own manscaping attempts I’ve miserable for days. Walking hurts, sitting hurts and my boyfriend needs a pair of rubber kitchen gloves to get in my pants. So living like that all the time, on purpose, seems like a needless example of suffering for fashion that 90% of the world will never see.
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Love it shaved. Have it shaved, love guys being shaved. Sorry man, but it feels good… feels good having it, and it feels good getting it… can’t say fairer than that!
Agreed. No pubes at all looks ridiculous and is not attractive. It betrays a silly conceit, namely that it’s somehow refined. Hardly.
However, I have to wonder if it’s acceptable to shave one’s balls. The sensation, and the lack of danger that a partner will cough up hairballs, seem to advocate in favor of this practice.
But it feels hypocritical, particularly if one has facial and chest hair to boot.
Thoughts?
Prefer shaved, for sure. I don’t like using pubic hair for dental floss. It interrupts the moment and irritates. And what Andrew said.
Hmm, a little bush-trimming is fine if you must, but fully shaved pubes look like kiddy-porn.
Shaved balls are completely different – I always keep mine shaved purely out of selfishness – they are more sensitive that way., and guys seem to appreciate it.
From a visual standpoint, not interested in the little boy look!!! But this is DC! Seldom is there an encounter ad where an ‘older’ guy is looking for their own age group. And by ‘older’ I’m talking about anyone older than, umm, 30. Everywhere you go it’s ‘same age or younger’.
From a comfort/engaged standpoint, many can use a trim, and not everyone or everywhere. Tackle where it counts IF NEEDED and I don’t mean to the skin where your encounter walks away with whisker burn on their tongue or shaft. YUCK!
Looks wise, I really couldn’t care. It’s your crotch, do whatever makes you happy. However, as someone who doesn’t shave and has not had any partners who did, how is stubble not an issue? That’s the part that blows my mind. Do you just put up with it? Shave daily? Wax?
Maybe I’m just lazy…
The shaved look is disgusting. I think smooth and/or soft fur both feel better than stubble. Not into the wrinkly bare scrotum or seeing a bikini trim on an otherwise cute dude. I don’t want my oral to be like making out with baby hitler. A bushwhacking might be ok but pubes will be pubes will be pubes. If you don’t like dental floss, don’t put your teeth there, wait, why are you baring teeth in the first place!?!?
From a very hairy guy’s perspective, I trim and trim a lot. I trim my bush, chest, and underams. Quite frankly, I’m just uncomfortable otherwise. Hair gets caught in things way too easily and I just don’t feel sexy wandering around looking like I belong in a zoo.
I shave the balls though. That’s a matter of comfort and a matter of pleasure for me.
There are advantages to both hairy and smooth. As an artistic and personal statement I do half and half. I shave the right half of my body once a week. My partners can choose whichever side they prefer but the smooth side gives me greater skin sensation.
I’m not a very hairy guy either, except in the one place I’d prefer not to be if I’d had a choice in the matter–my junk and associated area! Nothing bothers me more than when a guy has to make a scene about the fact that he got a hair while searching for treasure with his tongue… *sigh* but part of me wants to say “fuck you – deal with it – we’re men” and the other part of me wants to apologize and immediately go shave my balls. In the end I think it comes down to maintenance and finding a happy medium. I don’t want to see someone who looks like they’re penis is getting chemo, but on the other hand, I don’t want to feel like I need a machete to find their hidden treasure in an overgrown forrest either. I try to keep everything at a middle ground somewhere and I only need to trim up about every 2-3 weeks to reach that point.
Much as I’d love to be less hairy though, there are just some parts of my body I won’t even try to manage due to my not caring enough what some trick thinks of me to put in the effort–namely my ass and balls–just too much trouble to shave for someone who won’t be with me longer then an hour anyway!
Honestly it doesn’t matter to me that much. A crotch is a crotch is a crotch. Yes a totally bare one, will take me aback for a second, but if the guy’s cute and sexy…in the words of Jane Austen…”What’ere.
I like a hairy man..jeez married to one. I had him trim once, then thought to myself it may fall into the whelm of a violation of his personal body and image. I selfishly shave my balls, and it’s purely for my pleasure. Why should I expect anyone to either follow suit or adjust other wise for me. To each his own.
Okay, so the funniest line in this article, there were many, but the most ironic was:
“I believe that body hairs are a special, attractive thing, and it saddens me to see nary a thigh sideburn or buttcrack combover in what I thought was the least-high-maintenance of all DC gay gyms.” REALLY? RESULTS?!?!?!
I lived in DC and was one of the first group of members, in fact, I think I was member #79, or there abouts; and from it’s humble beginnings to what it is now, Results, has always attracted the most high maintenance gay men in the city. To think of Results as the “…least high maintenance of all of DC gyms”, made me gag just a little. Even the bar of the least high maintenance DC gay male is somewhat near perfectionism.
One of the reasons I don’t live in DC anymore is because of the high maintenance deranged “straight-acting, self-important, high-brow, segregated, gay men community that it is. Sorry I don’t mean to be mean or offensive, but you have to see all that going on in DC; and you have to admit the not being high maintenance is the furthest from the reality of DC. Why do you think you wrote a story about all the manicured bushes in the showers?
DC has it’s moments though, fleeting as they may be. Manicured bushes and all.
I’m hairy… and when you’re hairy, trust me, you’ve got your work cut out for you in terms of just keeping it all under control. So if you’re not hairy then be thankful.
I have to shave/trim my chest and stomach, nair my upper back, butt, lower back, part of legs, trim hand and foot hair… remove shoulder hair. Yeah, it’s like a part time job as it is. Shaving the pubes with a razor would push me over the edge I think. Just too much labor.
The problem with all the shaving is that no one can keep at it. After a day, its like licking a cactus. Its a different texture than facial hair. Natural is better, softer.
I keep my pubes shaved totaly bald, feels so much better, it makes me feel more naked too, besides I love the looks i get from othr men when we get naked for the first time….
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