How did your wife feel about the stubble when everything started growing back in?
That’s the thing about shaving for me; I’m smooth for about six hours, then I’m covered with tiny stubble. It’s not bad on my head, where the hairs are naturally very fine and soft, but on my beard it’s very coarse and prickly. The few times I’ve shaved my chest or other body parts, the stubble takes a day to get started, then it’s prickly and not pleasant at all to touch. 2 days after a shave I’m a walking cactus. So I would have to shave every day. And once I get started, how do I know where to stop? That would mean shaving about 60% of my body. Every day. Since I have soft, sensitive skin under that coat of coarse body hair, one disposable razor is completely used up after a full body shave. So I would be going through one disposable razor every day. The reason I don’t shave my head or face every day is because my skin gets iritated and I develop ingrown stubble and razor rash. Very uncomfortable. Not at all sexy.
Just as body hair obscures muscle definition, it also obscures lack of muscle definition and all the little bulges that are less than flattering. I’m not 19 years old. I look good, especially for a man my age, but even clean shaven there’s no way I look like a 19 year old gym rat with more time and money than I’ve ever had both at one time.
So if I meet a girl who doesn’t like body hair, I usually assume she is the type who can’t stand getting dirty, that she’s squeamish about insects, bodily fluids and other facts of biology. That I could never take her camping, that she wouldn’t appreciate either of my comfortably broken-in pickup trucks or the fact that I do a lot of my own mechanical work and home improvement. Or that she wouldn’t appreciate my 2 pit bulls because full-sized dogs are dirty animals. I assume that a woman who thinks a man’s body hair is “icky” or “gross” isn’t woman enough to handle me.
I’m 50 and have been shaving for twenty years, or so. It started with my armpits when I tripped to the fact that my anti-persperant was ending up as a bunch of white flakes decorating my axillary hair. So off they came.
Later when age started giving me a bushier, how does one say, dorsal pelt I started taking that off too. It wasn’t a huge leap to cutting everything off.
For what it’s worth I don’t use a razor but rather an electric barber’s shears. I go down to sub-crew-cut length. I must have fine-ish hair because I’ve never got the cactus-back feel.
…And I’m going to buy a Norelco Bodygroomer just based on that ad: it’s purely brilliant.
I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO QUOTE SOMEONE, so to BMAX, my wife never complained about the stubble when it grows back. What I do is take my Mach razor that I use to shave my face with. About a week after I start using that, that is when I reshave my body. If I get lazy and do not feel like shaving, I just shave a la porno star. I think my wife likes this part more than anything.
As far as my armpits, sometimes I skip that part. You said that you did it because of the white flakes from the deoderant. I use a gel deoderant, but do not use it right after I shave because I am afraid of clogging recently opened pores. So it is probably best to shave prior to going to sleep.
My wife is not squeamish at all.
NOW, as far as who started the thing where men shaved, that is a really good question. I am not sure if the Romans were hairless, but if you look at the statues from the past, they all look like they are. Anyone familiar with that?
The Romans plucked. They had professional pluckers who went from bath house to bath house and plucked people for a fee. I have read that on plucking day the screams were audible all over the neighborhood. With plucking it takes a couple weeks for the hair roots to grow back, and after repeated pluckings they will often die out completely. No cite, I’m going from memory so I may be wrong. I’m guessing that the Romans of imperial times were naturally less hairy people than Germans or Greeks, or maybe it’s the Irish that gives me so much body hair.
I’m glad to hear that your wife doesn’t complain about the stubble and she’s not the squeamish type. The thought of a woman asking me to shave or wax my body just seems IMO like asking me to sit down when I piss. Not saying tht it is, that’s just how it strikes me. I’m one of those take-me-as-I-am-or-fuck-off kind of guys.
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So if I meet a girl who doesn’t like body hair, I usually assume she is the type who can’t stand getting dirty, that she’s squeamish about insects, bodily fluids and other facts of biology. That I could never take her camping, that she wouldn’t appreciate either of my comfortably broken-in pickup trucks or the fact that I do a lot of my own mechanical work and home improvement. Or that she wouldn’t appreciate my 2 pit bulls because full-sized dogs are dirty animals. I assume that a woman who thinks a man’s body hair is “icky” or “gross” isn’t woman enough to handle me.>>
I’ve got to disagree there - at least on my part. I think men are more attractive with smooth skin unhindered by hair. It has nothing to do with “icky” or “gross” for me. I can’t say I’m fond of 5 inch spiders, but aside from that, insects don’t bother me, I like dogs of all sizes, I’ve gone camping on occasion and I have no problem with either getting dirty or bodily fluids.
HOWEVER, any person of EITHER gender who says “I will not date you unless you shave (area)” isn’t worth your time. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a preference for body hair/lack of body hair, as long as it’s not so obsessive that it makes or breaks a relationship. Hairless chests “do it” for me, but I wouldn’t throw away a nice guy on that basis. I might hint to him once that I had a fondness for it, but beyond that? It’d be an unhealthy fixation.
On the flipside, though, it goes both ways. I don’t think anyone who doesn’t shave/wax has the right to demand that the opposite sex does. If it doesn’t bother X on their legs, it shouldn’t bother them if Y has it on theirs. I don’t buy that it’s cool to demand women shave because it’s “traditional,” since a tradition to me is something a lot more than a hundred years old. I personally do shave, but I’d get ticked off if my SO harassed me about it, so I can relate with that. I just don’t think it’s horrible to have a preference if it never goes beyond that.
Welcome to the world of what women do every day. Hair doesn’t just grow on the legs and armpits, and while the myth of us having soft delicate down is nice, it just isn’t true. Women do exactly what you described, all the time, and it sucks. Have some newfound respect for what ladies do because hair is “unfeminine”.
As for men, I’d never ask a hairy guy to shave, but I also probably wouldn’t be in a romantic relationship with one that needed to. There are plenty of naturally pretty-smooth guys out there for me. It’s just a matter of personal preference.
Also, in one month I am going to be moving in to hut (well, a house with “mud walls and a tin roof or a hut on a family compound”) in Africa with insects, bucket showers, pit toilets and most likely a dog for protection. I don’t think body hair is gross, I think it’s unattractive and doesn’t feel so good to snuggle up to. To each their own.
I have yet to meet a woman who shaves her legs every day. In fact, I know quite a few women (my ex-wife being one) who would stop shaving above the knee once the weather turned to “not shorts all the time”.
As I’ve said before, and I’ll say again…
My wife wants me to keep my scraggly goatee. I want her to shave her legs.
Sometimes my other facial hair gets a little… well… scruffy. Nerf-herder, even.
Sometimes her leg hairs get… braidable. It’s a delicate balance.
I love her for her, and while I like her to be smooth and shiney in the legs and armpits area, I’d love her just as much if she wasn’t.
Also, it hasn’t come up, but I’m pretty sure she’d be opposed to me shaving my chest. She loves my little patch o’ chest fuzz.
Agreed. I think their is a vast unconscious conspiracy of young females who have glommed on to the idea that the degree of male grooming as a measure of love and respect
My wife has never shaved her legs once in her whole life. When young, she had fine down there, very feminine. Now as she matures it begins to thicken a little.
My skin cannot stand the razor, but it tolerates wax. Waxing produces no stubble for weeks, and then the stubble that grows back is soft. The pain is strong for a couple seconds, but fades quickly, which allows a body to tolerate it. Besides wax, I also use preparations of sugar or balsam. The “Persian cold wax” you may have heard of isn’t wax at all; it’s sugar. Sugar goop is sloppy, but easier to clean than the other materials.
When I shaved my legs I shaved them every day. If I happened to shower twice in a day I would also shave a second time. I hate stubble. This is part of why I haven’t shaved my legs for several years. I am a woman.
It seems to me the deal isn’t shaving vs. going all natural. Those seem to be cyclical fashions, as Walloon pointed out about the '70’s.
The trend these days is more about trimming & grooming what you’ve got. The back, chest, pits, groin. I don’t think anyone gets grossed out if a man is wearing a tank-top or going shirtless, raises his arms and people can see pit hair. What grosses people out is if you raise your arms and it looks like a tribble got into the powdered donuts.
I read an article recently - can’t find it - but it was about women’s changing perceptions about what they want in an man. As women make more money and feel more comfortable being independent, what they look for in a man is becoming a bit more discriminating than just, “does this guy have a good job?” Time to break out the trimmers & moisturizers, boys.
I decided men should shave their pits, but it looks like you’re one of the few to get that message If we did a thread about “why don’t men shave under their arms too?” would that be a GQ or IMHO thing? I’m not sure that there’s a real reason, so maybe it’s an opinion question…
If we did a thread about “why don’t men shave under their arms too?” would that be a GQ or IMHO thing? I’m not sure that there’s a real reason, so maybe it’s an opinion question…