Awkwardette’s Ill-Advised Guide to Getting it On: On the Pubic Record, Pt. 2: Dude Pubes

So, I’m kinda into beards. Not like full on beards, but a little scruff or 5 o’clock shadow is a nice, manly distraction from the fact that I am more likely than not making out with an emotional infant. I know a lot of women who are into men who actually have preferences on facial hair. I wonder whether or not we hold as strong of opinions on dude pubes.

After obsessing about the grooming of women’s pubic hair for a good week solid, I decided to do a little investigating on how both women and men think about guy’s pubic hair. It’s obviously something s women consider–do guys sit in the shower (when they’re not fapping or contemplating the meaning of life) and wonder how they’ll trim the hedge?

“I don’t think it really occurred to even think about my pubes until I had kind of an awkward sexual experience,” says B. “One of my girlfriends from college was giving me head and then we had to stop because I guess one of my pubic hairs got caught in the back of her throat and was kind of tickling it and it made her cough a lot. We had to actually stop fooling around so she could drink a ton of water.”

If this scenario sounds like a scene straight out of Curb Your Enthusiasm, that’s because it is. In the Season 3 episode,  “Mary, Joseph and Larry,” Cheryl gets a pubic hair caught in her throat. Later in the episode, Larry also gets a pubic hair stuck in his throat. Curb Your Enthusiasm has taught me very little, but one thing it has shown me is how the hazards of pubic hair are universal, regardless of gender. At least we have that equality.

That’s not to say that men’s pubic hair is nearly as closely policed. I watch a fair amount of porn, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen any Playboy bunnies shaved into a dude’s bush (though that would obviously turn me on a bunch).

So, I’m going to take this opportunity to give women a chance to do a little policing (sorry gentlemen, I totally meant moderate to large sized policing). I would like all men reading this article to be aware that you should not take anything said here too seriously and that you should just do what you please with your pubes–but perhaps you could extend that same courtesy to your partners if you don’t already!

C. is one of the few women I’ve spoken to who likes her men bare. “I don’t like hair down there on myself, and I don’t like it on guys. Like, I’m not going to kick them out of bed if they don’t have it, but I’m also not a fan of it. I like it totally bare.” I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen a bare dude, so I’m curious as to why C. has this preference. “I guess because everything is more slippery that way.” Fair enough.

G. takes a more middle of the road approach. “I like just a bit of trimming. I don’t like it too crazy bushy, but I don’t think removal of the hair is at all necessary. There’s some guys who actually don’t even need the trimming,” she says. In fact, that seems pretty representative of what most women I’ve spoken to think about dude pubes.

While I find it difficult to figure out what I prefer in terms of manscaping, I can certainly tell you what I don’t like–stubble. It’s kind of cute when you’ve made out with someone for hours on end and their face stubble makes you break out a little. Looking at your face and seeing the unsightly red bumps isn’t so bad if you can fondly look back at what may have been a positive, nice make-out session. If you’re looking back at sucking a dude’s d, that is a totally different situation, even if you really enjoyed it in the moment. First of all, when you start making connections between genitals and bumps, your imagination can run wild. Secondly, and I admit this may be completely unfounded and false, the genital region seems way less sanitary than the mouth. And of course, this is highly dependent on the guy in question.

So if a guy wants to shave, it’s fine, but I think once you take that plunge (and this goes for all genders), I think there is an unspoken rule that you need to keep on top of it. And I know intimately what an undertaking that can be. This means shaving every other day at least if you plan on having impromptu sexual encounters, or at least a few hours before a planned encounter. Otherwise, you are setting me up to get some serious bush burn. It’s a risk I’m willing to take, but I admittedly find it very uncomfortable, and it’s not my favorite.

While some of us women are clear on what we want and what we don’t want, I’ve found it more common that a lot of us haven’t really given a whole lot of thought to what our preferences are re: dude pubes. AM says she’s never really paid all that much attention. “Honestly, I barely have an opinion on it. I feel the same way about theirs as I do about mine: I don’t expect anyone to shave for me because I’m not going to do it for them.” Interestingly enough, the women I spoke to who reported giving blow jobs less often are the ones who have no opinion, while those of us with strong opinions one way or another, usually find our faces closer to the heart of the matter.

Methodology

Most guys I spoke to keep some degree of their full, natural bush, a contrast to the few women who didn’t shave at least some part of their nether-regions. However, they don’t seem to go nearly to the same degree of extremes to remove their pubic hair. When I polled guys on how they remove their pubic hair, most report using an electric trimmer, similar to whatever they use to remove their facial hair (and often it is the same exactly instrument).

Only one man I spoke to used a razor, and most men reported feeling very uncomfortable with having a razor near their balls (yes, specifically their balls). A. says, “You never know what can happen. I can be poised and perfectly steady while shaving and then I slip or an earthquake hits, and there they [the balls] go.” A’s perhaps being a bit cautious, but understandably so when you put it in those terms.

T. shared with me a story about testing out his mom’s Nair on his pubic region. “When I was 17, I was really concerned about it for some reason, I think because I was about to finally have a girl around there for the first time, and I thought for some reason it’d be better to remove everything. So I tried shaving it, and that was awful, and then I found my mom’s Nair or Nads or whatever was under the sink. I put it on and at first it was okay. I’d even say it actually felt really good for like thirty seconds, a kind of warming feeling, and then it burned. And it burned so bad. I may or may not have cried.”

So, uh, maybe sometimes guys can take their pubic hair removal to extremes too.

Genesis

Why do guys decide to remove their hair in the first place? T. talked about feeling insecure before a first sexual encounter, which I think was echoed by plenty of women as well. But do straight men really remove their pubic hair for their partner’s benefit?

AM says that a few guys she’s been with actually reportedly trimmed because of comfort. When giving a hand  job, “If there’s too much, you can yank it on accident.” B. agrees. “If I let things get a little too crazy down there, then things get pulled which can really ruin the moment. I was once with a girl who had a piercing and uh, well, it got caught. That was not fun.”

M. says he removes his on occasion because he thinks it’s gross if he doesn’t. “I like to just start over every few months or so because if I don’t, there can be kind of a build up on the hair because it’s so coarse. That’s nasty, so when things start to look funky, I just do a quick removal of everything, but growing it all back definitely sucks for like a week.”

Psychology

Since we’re women, we obviously don’t care about the physicality of pubic hair, because that would require us to be sexual and not frigid, cold bitches. What we’re really concerned with is what our man’s bush says about his soul. Right?

Well, that’s what Cosmopolitan thinks. Holly Eagerson wrote “What His Down-There Grooming Says,” an enlightening attempt to pathologize a guy’s choice of pubic hair. Not only that, it can tell you what kind of boyfriend he’ll be. Oh, Cosmo. You’ve come a long way, baby.

Guys who don’t shave at all are one of two types (because we as human beings are very black and white): they either think it’s gay to think about pubic hairs or they’re lazy.

Guys who trim are “the jackpot.” Cosmopolitan confirms this as one of the most popular manscaping methods, but makes the completely rational leap that a little trimming means this guy will be guaranteed to satisfy you sexually and is sensitive. Total relationship material.

And guys who shave around their testicles are insecure, obviously. They’re worried about their peens looking bigger, and are high-maintenance and constantly need reassurance. But because he feels so insecure in his masculinity (but I thought shaving was gay?), he’ll go above and beyond to be a good lover.  And those who shave or wax everything (there’s a huge distinction between the two) are sluts and watch a lot of porn. Eagerson (the irony of this name is not lost on me) uses the phrase “train to Naughty Town” to describe a sexual encounter with this pubic hair type.

Obviously, all of this is a load of crap, just as much as our different pubic hair removal methods say anything about us as women. Can you imagine this being written about a woman and the uproarious laughter that would accompany it? Women who shave are sluts, and women who don’t are lazy. Actually, it sounds kind of familiar.

So, Persephone readers, what are your thoughts on manscaping, if you will? Do you have preferences? Do you have any idea about how we can stop being such assholes to each other about our vag and peen hair?

Speaking of assholes, next week will conclude our hair-down-there series. We’re gonna talk some butt hair! Comment about anal hair or send me a message on Twitter or Tumblr (psst, you should be following me by now anyway). Do you remove it? Why? How? Share your methods and opinions!