Manscape portraits

Ever had somebody share with you a piece of information that they should have kept to themselves? Of course you have. We all have. The phrase “too much information” was invented because of folks who don’t realize that sometimes you have to play your cards close to the chest. 

 

So when a former co-worker of mine started talking about his “manscaping,” I was suitably horrified.

 

“Manscaping” is one of those words that’s crept into the common vernacular the past few years, and it means what you might guess: The shaving, trimming, and overall care and maintenance of a man’s body hair. Explaining it may be superfluous on my part, because the word, and the concept, have spread faster than swine flu, and caused roughly as many instances of retching – mostly among men, like myself, who’d rather not think in detail about other dudes’ body hair. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, naturally; if the thought of a freshly shorn man-chest gets you through the cold winter, then more power to you, and I wish you a Christmas stocking filled to the brim with Edge Pro Gel. But it’s not my thing.

 

Writing about it, though, and sharing my misery: That is my thing.

 

As revolted as I was by the details of his grooming habits, in truth I really liked the guy. Not to sound too much like a 19th Century English chimney sweep, but he was a swell chap. And while it was mostly amusing that his mouth had no filter, it would sometimes result in unwanted revelations – so one fine day, when the thought of hairy pectoral muscles had never even begun to cross my mind, the guy let slip that, in accordance with his girlfriend’s wishes, he made it his habit to remove all of his body hair. Like a professional wrestler, or a mole rat. Like a shiny golden seal.

 

Gross.

 

Not everyone feels the way I do, obviously, or his girlfriend wouldn’t have made the request in the first place. (Ten to one odds she had a Slip ’N Slide growing up.) But when it comes to things like that, extremes on both ends of the spectrum tend to freak me out. Take abnormally hairy actor Robin Williams, for example, who for decades has slowly been morphing into a hyperactive, wisecracking werewolf. The man could be wearing a full three-piece suit with an ascot and a pair of dishwashing gloves, and it’d still look as though his clothes were covering a layer of the hay they use to make scarecrows. If human overpopulation ever threatens species indigenous to the Brazilian rainforest, biologists can establish a reserve on Williams’ forearms, the skin of which hasn’t seen the light of day since the golden age of radio.

 

The difference, though, is that Robin Williams is a product of nature. Hairless Man makes a conscious effort to become Hairless Man. He clips and snips and trims and shaves, and it’s anyone’s guess as to how long it takes him. I’d have asked, but then he would have told me.

 

I mean, we all groom. Unless we live in a dystopian future overrun by robots, we pretty much have to; society expects it of us. Depending on how far you want to stretch the definition of manscaping, all dudes do it to a certain degree – myself more than others, in fact. Long ago, nature decided that my head would never be adorned with the type of curly Richard Simmons ‘fro that blots out the light of a full moon and harbors warblers and double-crested cormorants. When it reached the point that my hair looked like patches of straw glued to a dinosaur egg, I started shaving it, and once you go down that road, you can’t stop. So I blaze through razor blades in an effort to keep my head in full baby-butt mode, gleefully avoiding shampoo, which for me has gone the way of blankies and Winnie the Pooh pajamas.

 

Every guy’s routine is different. Maybe you grease your mustache and curl the ends in a style reminiscent of alcoholic Civil War generals. Maybe you tweeze your eyebrows because otherwise they’d stay wet a full eight hours after a routine shower. That’s all fine. It’s borderline necessary. Otherwise we’d look like garbage-picking coyotes.

 

Removing hair below the neck, though – that starts getting silly after a while. It’s really only justifiable in extreme cases, like when your upper arms and shoulders start looking like Cosby sweaters. In those rare situations, fine, manscaping is acceptable, as long as you never tell another human being, ever. 

 

Chests, meanwhile, should never be shaved except in the cases of Olympic swimmers and grime-encrusted mountain yetis. If neither hydrodynamics nor hygiene play a role, then there’s no reason left for this bizarre activity. At least none that wouldn’t be cause for uncomfortable squirming in the sauna.

 

I feel like this manscaping thing is a recent development. There’s nothing in the history books about Winston Churchill shaving his chest, or Louis XIV trimming his knuckle hair, or whatever men are doing nowadays. That’s because guys used to roll with whatever nature gave them. 

 

Someone needs to tell Hairless Man that it’s perfectly acceptable to keep it old school. It just won’t be me. I don’t want give the impression of being okay with those conversations, ‘cause honestly, who knows what he’d try to tell me next.