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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Why don’t you just leave the hairy men to us girls who love it? Thank you.
AG,
I wish for you, and all the ladies who love it, the hairiest of all men.
That said, I’m not so sure I would be willing to cast away a good man on the basis of body hair.
Besides, your request is the equivalent of my empty pleas to all the short girls that they leave the tall men for us ladies of stature…
xxoo
LG
hmmm… as much as i agree with you that there is nothing sexy about a whole lot of body hair on a dude, i kinda agree with ag.
i wouldn’t want anyone to ask me to change anything i like/am comfortable with about myself in order for them to be happy dating me, so i’d be loathe to ask a really hairy guy to was, shave or laser his body for me. the end result is that i take a pass on the chewbacca types. as far as i’m concerned ‘thems the breaks’.
Skye,
Perhaps “thems the breaks” as you say. Or perhaps the answer is to accept or not to accept and simply move forward.
I wouldn’t want anyone to feel a need to change something about me, be it something I like or not, in order for them to be happy dating me. Nor would I be happy dating someone whom I felt a need to change. But what of someone who is happy dating me and thinks I’m even better than sliced bread when I wear my hair a certain way or don dresses rather than slacks? Or a certain perfume? Make-up? Or no make-up at all? Is asking for such a thing really changing a person?
My ex didn’t like when I wore my hair curly. He preferred it straight. He told me so. And I didn’t mind doing that for him. I liked knowing that I was somehow more irresistible to him with straight hair. I’m not talking about ultimatums. He was still there on the curly-hair days. He just had a preference.
Back hair isn’t a turn-on for me. But neither is it a dealbreaker. If it were, I’d presume there was something more that was the real dealbreaker…
What about the flip-side? I’m currently dating a woman who possesses a good amount of hair on her upper lip…I really like this woman but I have to admit that it bothers me. How do I broach the subject?
KA,
If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t have posed the question. But when I think of your situation and cast myself in the role of this woman, I can’t help but think it would be hard and possibly hurtful for me to hear such a thing from a man I was dating. I can’t help but think that I might run to the nearest salon for a wax and then to the nearest singles bar for a new beau. So maybe that’s my answer. Maybe it’s not something I could ask for because it’s something I wouldn’t want to be asked of me…
Foreplay.
Numbers Gal,
It’s an interesting suggestion. Although, I wonder whether that might be a fast way to turn “foreplay” into “no play”…
Staci,
This is a tough one. Much of it depends on what you really want and on the guy’s personality. Having read your opinions about who even gets a date, I suspect that you’re not going to go for a guy who is insecure, but everyone has fundamental insecurities. This is inescapable. I can say this: I have been given manscaping advice by friends and partners before, and it’s been a mixed bag. The suggestion to groom my eyebrows? Well taken; I don’t want a unibrow more than anyone else. Knowing that the reward for being clean-shaven is more eagerness to kiss? Lovely. The suggestion to trim my back hair? Harder to stomach, but now that I have it makes perfect sense.
The advice part of this is a little tougher. Guys don’t choose to be hairy, and some of them get hairy at a pace that’s less than serene. I ask this: would you be bothered by a guy who was scratchy by morning? I mean it this way: you’re going for an early morning romp, but there’s a bit of scratchiness to kissing him. One could easily see this as a discomfort to be tolerated, the idea that it is unreasonable to forgo spontaneous morning sex for the sake of a tiny niggle, a little discomfort. I would like to think of it this way: sometimes it’s the imperfection that defines a moment. You don’t choose to get caught in the rain, you don’t choose to have awkward sex in a strange new place, you don’t choose to take on a totally new topic of conversation and find it difficult. But with all of these things you can choose to find what works in it and make that a part of whatever the next thing is.
I sense I’ve lost a bit of the thesis here but without breakfast yet I’m not going to get much more out of this writing. I’ll finish with one other thing from my perspective: sometimes the important, kind thing to do is to tell someone something that they just plain don’t know. First impressions are shallow and can deny someone access to experiences that others would easily get to. You see this all the time in your dating experiences; Mr Very Right may have been missed just because he handled the first few interactions with you horribly. You take this as part of the process and accept that eventually someone who will be right starts out right. I didn’t know until a dear friend showed me just how much making the stronger first impression on others could allow me to have greater experiences. She was able to present it as an opportunity rather than a deficiency, and with that I took it to heart.
Keep writing, keep enjoying. Your blog is one of my favorites.
Keith,
Having read and responded to earlier comments, I’ve come closer to what I think may be my own truth. And your comment has served to reinforce my thoughts. The point being that I am unlikely to be attracted to a man governed by his insecurities. I understand that we all battle our own demons, but the men I find irresistible tend to have some modicum of comfort with themselves, of confidence and carriage. I’m not in the situation that I ponder, I’m simply pondering it. I’ve seen myself attracted to a lot of different types of men. The traits they have in common are rarely physical (save my one desperate need for height – a need, I might add, born of my own insecurities).
Your stubble story is my reminder. I recollect waking one morning next to a former boyfriend years ago. We were camping. We’d been drinking the night before. We woke dirty, smelling of alcohol and our morning’s breath further crying for a cleanse. I woke before him. I lay there, watching him, next to this stinky, dirty, absolutely adorable man. I was overcome with warmth. I knew that if anyone could see (or smell) either of us, they’d run for the hills…and then the showers. But, strangely, in that moment, I loved how he smelled. Because I loved him.
Maybe a man will come along who needs a back-wax. And maybe he’ll get one. Maybe it will be something I asked for. Maybe it won’t. But I don’t think some unwanted whiskers are likely to be the thing standing between me and a meaningful connection. At least I hope not.
Thank you so much for reading, Keith, and for posting such a thoughtful comment. I’m flattered and delighted to know that you enjoy How Very Lucky. I’ll keep writing. Please keep reading. Let’s both keep enjoying!
xxoo
Staci
women are always trying to change their men, its just another form of control. My girlfriend is constantly buying me gifts that clearly she likes more than me. I have spent the last 15 years having my shirts and suits handmade in Thailand and HongKong, I am not about to change for her Armani crap, especially Pink shirts. I am not that hairy at all, which has always been a constant source of irritation to me. My father has some Indiana Jones thing going on with his chest hair and my younger brother, who delights in calling me bitch, has the hairiest chest in the world. If I was a girl I would never even need to shave my legs. For men hairy chests are a sign of virility.
Toni,
I’m not sure I agree that women are always trying to change their men. I can’t speak for all women, of course. I can only speak for myself. I don’t want someone that I feel the need to change. I tend to think that such an endeavor is almost always a failed assignment.
Here’s something I’ve learned along the way: You can ask someone to change. And they can choose whether or not they wish to. But there are some pretty important questions that one must ask themselves before we ask anyone to change. One is: What if they don’t? And the other is: What else is going to change as a consequence of the change I’m asking for, and can I live with that?
I had a friend whose husband had irregular work. He chose this. He was a free-spirited, creative man who simply didn’t fit bound by convention. This meant that their life was sometimes harder. They struggled more. She could have asked him to pursue a lucrative career. To spend more time working, making more money, to make things easier. She didn’t. Because with that change would come another change. One in which he had less time to be the loving, active, wonderful father and husband that he was. That was far more important to her than money, and so she accepted this as part and parcel of the whole man that she loved. Had her own answer been different, perhaps so would their lives.
I happen to think this is quite different from a choice in wardrobe or grooming, but the idea is the same. Everything has a domino effect.
As for virility and chest hair, try telling that to my hairless, extremely virile, exboyfriend.
And tell your younger brother that I hardly think you’re a bitch!
xxoo
LG
I strongly suspect that one’s hairness preference goes out the window for the right guy. I typically like hairless men and I find Asian men especially attractive, partly because of that. I also like red hair. But my new husband fits neither of those categories, and I couldn’t care less. He is, however, not especially hairy. My best friend has a quite hairy husband, and she started loving hairness because of him.
Grooming isn’t even the issue here. Natural hirsuteness, even if a guy shaves/cuts it off, is different from natural hairlessness. A shaved back on a hairy guy is totally different from an untouched back on a hairless guy.
My husband likes long hair. I tried growing it for him, but it bothers me long and is annoying to maintain, so he urged me to return to my usual chin-length hair. He never thought he would find a girl with shortish hair attractive, but he was wrong.
By the way, I sometimes have my husband scratch my back with his stubble. It’s great!
And I once knew someone who was allergic to flokatis.
PT,
Thanks for reading and for your very wise comment. Not sure if you’ve read the chain of comments, but I think you’ll have found that I’ve come to more or less the same conclusion. Hearing stories like yours is encouraging
Also, I’m glad that I’m not allergic to flokatis. Would hate to have to limit my options on account of allergies!
xxoo
LG
Jon Hamm (the guy I’ve been dating for about 3 months now) is by far the hairiest guy I’ve ever dated… but he also happens to be one of the sweetest, most considerate guys I’ve ever dated. It just wouldn’t feel right for me to ask him to wax — I just need to accept him as he is.
But — ha! — I love your usage of “woolly wooer” above — hilarious!
You know I heart Jon Hamm (both yours and the real one), fuzzy or not. And when the man I adore comes along, I’ll love him too, for all his perfection and imperfection.