This past week a friend of mine had the courage to finally ask me, “do you remove all your body hair?” I say courage because we have been going to the gym together for years and I figured he noticed but never brought it up. I guess curiosity finally got the cat.
To answer his question, I casually told him, yes I have pretty much lasered my whole body. He didn’t seem phased by it, rather he asked, “why”. I told him I prefer it that way. He was cool with the answer and the conversation stopped there.
That said, as I reflected on the discussion, I was thinking to myself, why did I spend years shaving and ultimately thousands of dollar on laser hair removal. I came up with 3 answers:
1) I prefer it
Ever since I started growing pubic hair, I shaved it off. I simply prefer to be hairless. Nothing beats the feeling, as far as I am concerned.
2) Its more comfortable
I prefer the comfort of not having body hair. When I wear clothes, I like the feel of my body better under the clothes, when I sweat I find not having body hair easier to manage and when I have to go in for needles (unfortunately I get a lot of them) not having any body hair makes the removal of band aids much easier.
3) I got addicted to removing my body hair
I started removing only my armpit and pubic hair and that eventually led to legs, arms, chest, back, buttocks, feet, etc. I hear that when people start with tattoos that you can get addicted to it, well in my case, hair removal become an addiction. I couldn’t stop when I started.
Point #3 is my only word of caution. If you start you may not finish until it is all gone. Just saying.
One common question that seems to float around the Internet is how long does it take to do complete body hair removal on a man. My marathon first session was 3.5 hours and it included the following areas:
Armpits
Chest
Abdomen
Brazilian including the perianal area
Buttocks
Lower back
Full legs
My take after the first session? I love the results, they are pretty good and the technician that I went to is really good. The problem is that with this long of a time frame you eventually run out of things to talk about. The second problem with this time is that it is very tiring. You are either laying on your back or your stomach the whole time which after a couple of hours of snapping pain it becomes quite tiring. The technician was really good. I could tell she was getting tired from standing, but she held in there. For the most part everything seems to go quite quick, the area of the body that took the longest and in my opinion the most tedious was the legs, they just seemed to go on forever.
Would I do this again. Short-answer is that I have one more session like this booked. Then I plan on breaking out the legs and doing them separately. Two reasons for this; the first is that the schedule for legs, according to my tech, is every 8-weeks while the rest of the areas is recommended 4-6 weeks and the second reason is that the legs take about a little over an hour, so they themselves are the biggest chunk to the full body.
If you have done full body or a large portion of your body, I would love to hear your experience
Brown University psychologist Michael Boroughs began studying male body depilation (hair removal) in the early 2000s, and his 2009 dissertation found surprisingly high rates of body hair removal among male participants. His follow-up research since has continually confirmed this emerging behavioral pattern, which is consistent among gay and heterosexual men alike.
What we found most interesting is that according to this research study, 81% depilate their body hair. Of course this is not just in the pubic region but covers all aspects under the nose, so perhaps the study itself is misleading compared to the 2010 Study done on Women’s Pubic Hair Removal preferences.
For starters, the gender gap in body hair removal (not including facial hair) is narrower that you might think. According to Borroughs’ and others’ research:
90.1% of women depilate
80.9% of men depilate
Moreover, for both women and men, a negative correlation exists between body hair growth and dissatisfaction. In other words, the more body hair that grows on the groin, chest, arms, the less people tend to report liking that anatomy.
Anyway, we encourage you to check out the full article, it is a good read.
What do you think? As a man do you remove your body hair? As a women what is your preference for male body hair removal?
Although this is not a new study, we downloaded some very interesting research regarding women and their pubic hair conducted by the International Society for Sexual Medicine. This report is from 2010. You can download the complete .pdf version of the report located here.
Extract from the .pdf report, here is the abstract:
Introduction. Although women’s total removal of their pubic hair has been described as a “new norm,†little is
known about the pubic hair removal patterns of sexually active women in the United States.
Aims. The purpose of this study was to assess pubic hair removal behavior among women in the United States and to examine the extent to which pubic hair removal methods are related to demographic, relational, and sexual characteristics, including female sexual function.
Methods. A total of 2,451 women ages 18 to 68 years completed a cross-sectional Internet-based survey.
Main Outcome Measures. Demographic items (e.g., age, education, sexual relationship status, sexual orientation),
cunnilingus in the past 4 weeks, having looked closely at or examined their genitals in the past 4 weeks, extent and
method of pubic hair removal over the past 4 weeks, the Female Genital Self-Image Scale (FGSIS) and the Female
Sexual Function Index (FSFI).
Results. Women reported a diverse range of pubic hair-grooming practices. Women’s total removal of their pubic hair was associated with younger age, sexual orientation, sexual relationship status, having received cunnilingus in the past 4 weeks, and higher scores on the FGSIS and FSFI (with the exception of the orgasm subscale).
Conclusion. Findings suggest that pubic hair styles are diverse and that it is more common than not for women to have at least some pubic hair on their genitals. In addition, total pubic hair removal was associated with younger age, being partnered (rather than single or married), having looked closely at one’s own genitals in the previous month, cunnilingus in the past month, and more positive genital self-image and sexual function.
For those of you who want to cut to the chase and get the real story about women’s hair removal method, we have summarized the following from the report:
On average 37% of women don’t indulge in any form of pubic hair removal.
Women aged 18-24, 12% prefer the au natural look
Women aged 25-29, 16% prefer to simply let it go
Women aged 30-39, 18% prefer to spend their time doing something else other than hair removal
Women aged 40-49, 28% prefer to keep doing what their are not doing
Women aged 50+, 52% like kicking it old school
On average 34% of women indulge in some pubic hair removal.
Women aged 18-24, 29% prefer taking a little off the edges
Women aged 25-29, 39% prefer to tame the beast by clipping its claws
Women aged 30-39, 50% attend to the garden to clean the weeds
Women aged 40-49, 50% like it neat and tidy
Women aged 50+, 37% have discovered that cleaning it up can is alright
On average 30% of women indulge more in pubic hair removal
Women aged 18-24, 38% regularly remove most of their pubic hair
Women aged 25-29, 32% like a more polished look
Women aged 30-39, 23% will go the extra mile
Women aged 40-49, 16% will indulge their fantasy for themselves
Women aged 50+, 9% are progressive in their age group and think and feel young
On average 29% of women indulge in complete pubic hair removal
Women aged 18-24, 21% take it all off baby
Women aged 25-29, 13% are walking around feeling sexy as hell
Women aged 30-39, 9% have done the full monty and likely will never return to the before state
Women aged 40-49, 7% they do say that the new 20 is 40 and these women are feeling it
Women aged 50+, 2% not to be outdone by the younger ladies
Some other interesting data from this research study was the data related to Laser Hair Reduction. It doesn’t appear that with all the laser hair removal daily deal offers (read our post on 1.2M laser hair removal sessions sold by Groupon) that the % of women in using laser hair removal in their bikini area is that large.
Here are the quick stats
In the age group of 18-24, 99.1% say they have not used laser.
In the age group of 25-29, 97/9% say they have not used laser.
In the age group of 30-39, 99.3% say they have not used laser.
In the age group of 40-49, 99.5% say they have not used laser.
In the age group of 50+, 100% say they have not used laser.
By far the most common method is still shaving. Anyway, we suggest you download the full PDF if you really want to understand the study and data. BTW – it is only 9-pages, so a pretty quick read.
In a nutshell, the most common styles that women will do with their pubic hair.
Thinking of getting laser treatment on the male pubic region? With the number of clinics now advertising that offer male brazilians it would appear that the procedure is getting more and more common. Although I don’t have any concrete evidence of this, I can say that in September I joined the ranks of men who have decided to permanently remove their pubic hair via laser hair removal.
The purpose of this post is not to explain the results of the treatment, this is coming in a subsequent post, but rather to explain what I did prior to the treatment to get comfortable with the laser clinic as well as the laser technician. Considering I was about to get partially naked in front of a complete stranger and have them yield a laser that would be touching my testicles, shaft and anus this was not a decision that I was planning to simply run into.
Here are my words of advice for any male (or female) that is looking at getting laser hair removal in their private area done.
#1 – Ask a lot of questions
Some of the questions that I asked my technician:
– What date did you first do a male brazilian?
– How many brazilian’s have you done?
– Can you explain exactly what will happen during the procedure and what you require of me? (This is an important question as some clinics will say you do nothing, then will shift stuff around, and others will say they won’t touch your private area but instead will ask you to participate by moving your junk back and forth)
– Have you had any clients that were not happy with your work?
– How long will it take?
– What % of your clients have started with a brazlian and then moved to other body parts or started with other body parts and moved to brazilian?
– How do you communicate during the procedure?
– Have you burnt any clients?
The purpose of asking a lot of questions is to build rapport. The way a person answers the above questions will show genuine knowledge. If a person is irritated by your questions or wants you to make a decision in a hurry, run away, they clearly don’t care about making you feel at ease. What I was really looking for was to ensure that the person had experience, the rest was building rapport.
#2 – Build Rapport
Starting with the questions you want to make sure you are comfortable with the person doing the procedure. The key comfort level is to make sure that you have good communication to and from the technician to ensure the procedure goes smoothly. Considering how intimate this procedure this (and by intimate I don’t mean anything that would reasonable a turn – just that you are naked with your junk exposed in front of another person) you may also want to have a technician with whom you can have a conversation about general subject matter while the procedure is being performed.
In my case, I like a talkative laser tech. Somebody who can talk intelligently on a variety of subjects. Granted this is a personal preference but I could not spend 20-30 minutes with a tech who was completely silent.
#3 – Get Over the Embarrassment
When you actually go in for the procedure the technician will tell you to remove everything from waist down. In my case I was also doing armpits at the same time, so basically besides socks, I was completely naked on the table. Perhaps for some freakish men this is considered a turn-on, but truthfully, it is a little embarrassing laying on a table naked waiting for a laser tech to come in.
To point #2 of building rapport, the tech came in and immediately put me at ease by jumping into conversation (can’t actually remember what the conversation was) while she setup the machine and gave me the glasses. This immediately put me at ease and brought my tension level down. First she did the armpits and then when she was about to start the brazilian portion she took some time to explain again what was going to happen and when she was going to need me to move stuff around. Probably the most embarrassing part was lifting your legs up to your stomach and spreading slightly while she did the anus area.
When the procedure was done, she left and I got dressed. As I was dressing I was thinking to myself, I am about to go out to the counter and pay the bill to a women who has intimately seen all my nether regions. Going back to the importance of rapport when I got out of the room to pay, she was completely professional, asked how everything was, cracked a good joke and gave me the bill. When I was paying we set-up the second appointment.
As mentioned, I will put up another post on the results (so far after two sessions, I am impressed) but I wanted to share my experience in selecting a technician and the first procedure. Before selecting a clinic I interviewed 4 clinics and 4 technicians who offer the service and I think my list of questions and the initial rapport has paid off in finding a technician who is professional, knowledgeable and makes me comfortable. By the way, the clinic that was selected is called the Hair Free Laser Institute in Calgary.
I hope that you find the information in this post useful.
