Smooth and hairless

We aren’t supposed to talk about body hair. Either you have it or you haven’t and that’s that. You might have problems with it but nobody wants to know about that.
 
Fair enough for blokes because we’re allowed to have as much body hair as we want, including beards and moustaches. Some men would even say the hairier the better. But other men like to remove their body hair and that’s fine as well.
 
Very different for women, who’re expected to have no body hair whatever and keep themselves permanently smooth and hairless. So they have to spend time waxing and shaving and plucking and electrolysing until they’re as smooth as a baby’s bottom.
 
But I’ve known several women who complained frequently that they had prolific body hair and it drove them mad trying to get rid of it all. They would wear clothes that completely covered their body and hid the offending hair.
 
Why can’t we just decide for ourselves what to do with our body hair? Either leave it as it is or remove it all, as we wish?
 
Personally I have very little body hair so it doesn’t bother me. But if I was one of those heavily hirsute males I’d definitely want to get rid of it all. It might be hugely laborious but the truth is I would want to be as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

Hairlessness

Apparently there's an increasing trend to remove body hair as hairlessness becomes more desirable - in men as well as women. I've never had the urge myself, but then I don't have much body hair anyway. If I was one of those men with rampant body hair I might very well be keen to lose some of it.

Shiyan Zering, a beauty analyst, says young men in particular are opting to remove their body hair. She reveals that 49% of 16 to 24 year old men remove underarm hair and 62% pubic hair.

That's an extraordinary shift from my younger days when teenage boys never had any desire to get rid of their body hair. Why so many of them now see the need isn't clear. Is it to please their girlfriends (or boyfriends)? Is it because they find body hair unattractive?

A few years back I did get laser treatment on my facial stubble, which was profuse. I found it embarrassing because I'd have five o'clock shadow by lunchtime, as if I'd forgotten to shave. I didn't get rid of my stubble completely but it's now much lighter than it was.

I recall one of my blogmates from many years ago saying she liked her husband to be without body hair as she found hairless skin more attractive. She said "If I could make my husband wax or shave from the crotch on up, I would. But he doesn't want to."

I must say I'm so used to seeing images of immaculately-depilated women with super-smooth arms and legs that if women suddenly decided to stay hairy it would be quite a shock. I know many women are so used to purging their body hair that they simply can't bring themselves to leave it intact. But it must be a tedious and costly business removing it all.

The hair thing

It's a good thing men aren't expected to get rid of all their body hair. Some men have such jungles of the stuff it would be a Herculean labour to purge it all in favour of smooth, silky skin.

Not only that but all those men with beards and moustaches would be very reluctant to part with those cherished patches of hirsuteness (though why they cherish them so much is beyond me; for some reason beards and moustaches just make me want to laugh).

Luckily my own body hair is fairly sparse, so a sudden fashion for male depilation wouldn't be too much of a chore. But men are so proud of their corporeal undergrowth, even if it serves no purpose whatever, that I can't see a runaway desire to rip it all out any time soon.

A bit unfair though, isn't it, that men can leave all their body hair serenely intact while women are expected to remove every last trace of it (even the pubic shrubbery nowadays), with all the time and expense and nuisance that involves.

Some women go to absurd lengths to conceal those rampant thickets of body hair in places their menfolk* expect to be smooth as a baby's bottom. They dread the shock and revulsion their supposedly body-friendly bloke might suddenly display if they weren't scrupulously bald.

There's a sizeable minority of men, though, who do prefer to remove their body hair (sportsmen, gay men, models) and don't see anything odd about it. And there are quite a few women out there who like their men to be hair-free (although the men won't always oblige).

So who knows? Maybe one day men will be as preternaturally smooth-skinned as the opposite sex, and just as furtively slipping down to the beautician for an urgent waxing session.

*and womenfolk for that matter