Some time ago, I met this guy.
Tall. Strong. Eyes like a river of chocolate and a whipped cream smile. Athletic. Confident. Smart. Funny. And hairy as a Grizzly in winter.
Walking gay furballs call themselves bears, and there are plenty of cubs who love them. Some women love a hirsute man. I am not one of these women.
Try as I might, I can’t seem to find the “plus” in a guy fuzzier than my flokati. Running my fingers through a rich, soft, shiny and full head of hair is totally different than dragging my nails over a shag-shrouded back.
While this man that I met wasn’t a dating prospect for me, it got me thinking, bringing me to the question at hand.
Women often improve the looks of our men. We show you how sexy you look when your style meets with our approval. We might name drop a little so that maybe you remember to show up dressed like Will Smith or Daniel Craig because you know how much it turns us on. We buy you “just-because” gifts of clothing and accessories that you look great in. We remind you to shave because kissing your stubbly beard sometimes irritates our faces. We pick our battles, but slowly, subtly influence your style choices. In time, you might even let us throw away the shredded t-shirt that you’ve anything but gently worn since high school.
But I’m at a loss over how to handle the issue of manscaping.
At what point in a relationship can a woman request this? And how?
I’ve been waxing for over 20 years. I’m used to it, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t say that it’s uncomfortable, at best. So saying to my man, “Hey honey, how about we lay you down on a table, paint hot wax all over your body, cover it with canvas strips and quickly yank them off, excruciatingly taking with them every unwanted protruding hair from your body?” hardly seems likely to be met with his enthusiastic agreement. Perhaps if I finished that request with “so I can blissfully run my tongue over every inch of you.”? That might work. Maybe. But I’m really not sure.
I posed this question to my oldest and dearest male friend. Here’s what he had to say:
Ah, the hairy thing is tough. I suspect that at our age the men you meet have grown comfortable with their fur. Rent some Chewbacca porn and watch it non-stop for 2 days, then the intimate moments will feel luxuriously smooth.
Perhaps not the best advice he’s given me over the years. And I fail to see how age has anything to do with it. At the risk of painting a super pretty image for you, I still wax my eyebrows, remove the peach fuzz from my upper lip, shave my legs and even went so far as to, yes, laser, down there. And I cringe every time I see one of those determined and unwanted little chin hairs that like to pop out like rogue weeds on women over 30. I do these things for me, but the men I’ve been with have equally enjoyed them. Imagine if I got so comfortable as to stop all of these treatments. What man would want that? And how long would he wait before asking me to shave, wax and pluck?
How, then, can we women be expected to stay silent? And if we choose not to stay silent, how do we gently encourage our men to manscape?
And, on an entirely different but related note, is there really Chewbacca porn?
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