Manscaping

Women today feel the pressure, or preference, to rid themselves of body hair, and now society has paid men back by increasingly expecting them to do the same. "As hairless torsos have become the norm for male models and actors" explains the New York Times, "below-the-neck hair removal has gone mainstream."

Unfortunately the paper discovered that the task of male shearing often falls on the woman. After all, it's pretty hard to reach the middle of your back. Luckily, Remington shaver makers have invented a telescopic handle that will help men with unwilling partners, or no partner at all, shave those hard-to-reach places.

It's one thing to cut the hair on a friend's head, but have you ever helped your man manscape?

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Do You Groom Your Dude?

Yes! I help him out.

Nope. He or a professional takes care of his grooming.

No way! I like my man natural.

A fascinating New York Times article charts the history of manscaping — the practice by men of removing hair from their chests, back, armpits or groin area. It used to be the province of male models, athletes, and homosexuals. No longer. If you look at the mass marketing of body razors (watch the commercial below for Braun bodycruZer razor "with a special attachment for sensitive areas"), you can see that every Tom, Dick and Hairy is supposed to manscape whether or not he's an athletic, gay, male model.

One survey of 364 male students at the University of South Florida on the subject of "male body depilation" found that more than 80 percent of them depilated. (I don't think I've ever used that as a verb.) The most interesting factoid? The graduate student who is conducting the survey said that there was no statistically significant difference between the number of gay men versus straight men who manscaped. How times have changed! I'm telling you, men are the new women.

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How Manscaped Do You Like Your Men?

Not at all — no body-depilating for the guy I'm seeing.

Anywhere and everywhere — I depilate, why shouldn't he?