Some gay men appreciate hairy men. There was a time when a hairy chested man with facial hair was really hot. Porn was filled with hairy men. In recent years the trend has been to have hairless men or men with very little body hair. The trend might be changing back to hairy men.

MANSCAPING

Definition: The act of grooming, shaving or trimming hair on the male body. Derived from the word landscaping.

Examples: Mark has more hair on his back than on his head. He needs some serious manscaping.

You get to a certain age when you begin to have hair growing out of different parts of your body where it never previously grew. If you want to remain part of the gay community a bit of manscaping must be accomplished. Guys, you know of what I speak. You know you’ve been there. You’ve watched Queer Eye, you know it must be done. Once a month or so I need to spend some time doing just that, manscaping.

It starts on the top of your head. You must get a nice haircut. You must make sure the stylist trims those hairs that tend to roam down the back of your neck. The stylist must also pay attention to trim properly around the ears and keep those sideburns neat. A decent haircut is just the beginning.

You next move to the ears. Yes, the ears. Around the age of 40 you will begin to notice little hairs growing from your ears. Not only are they unsightly but they also tickle the inside of your ears and make you constantly scratch at the inside of your ears. There are several ways to deal with these little hairs. You can simple use a little trimmer and trim them. Or if you have excess amounts of hair, you can have them waxed. I’ve seen this on TV and it doesn’t look pleasant. One more way would be to pluck them with tweezers. This is my preferred method. I have just a few that stick out. Plucking them gives you that clean look and they won’t grow back for several weeks. Don’t just pluck the ones that are kind of on the inside, get all those little ones that grow along the edge of your ears. If they are light colored and fine like on a baby’s butt, you can leave them for the time being. But be warned, they will change color and grow. So keep an eye on the ear hair.

Move to the face at this point. Begin with the brow or as some men know it, the uni-brow. You know, that little space between your eyebrows that is supposed to be there. Again, this area can be dealt with different ways. Waxing hurts, shaving is never ending, but plucking is the best. Depending on how thick the forest is in this area of course. I prefer plucking. I only have a few trees growing in that area but they are as dark as the hair on my head and must be plucked to maintain the skin color that should be in that area of my face.

Next is the nose. Ouch! This is a very sensitive area. Some men tend to leave this area out of their manscaping regimen. But they must persevere and make this a regular part of their routine. Please men, it is absolutely disgusting to even attempt to kiss another man with hairs sticking out of his nose. Plucking this area works but causes much pain and tears. The easiest way to deal with this area is to get one of those nose/ear hair trimmers. This is a simple process. You simple turn it on, gently insert the trimming end of the device into each nostril and move it around until all the menacing follicles have been eradicated. Any remaining hairs can be plucked but be ready for some pain.

I won’t even go into shaving the face. There are many ways to shave the face. You already know what works best for you. Stick to that unless it’s not working. And if it’s not working, do some research and try something new. I prefer an electric razor. I know, this isn’t what the Queer Eye guys suggest. But it works best for me. I will continue to do it this way. I also keep my goatee trimmed. Sometimes I let it grow out a bit but for the most part I keep it trimmed. Yet another device you’ll need to buy of course.

There was a trend there for awhile (not sure if it’s still around) where lots of guys wanted smooth chests. There are lots of guys out there who like to shave their chests. Many of them are bodybuilders or wannabes. I, for one, don’t care to rub a guy’s chest and feel the stubble of a recently shaved chest. I’d prefer to either feel the hairy chest the way it was meant to be felt or to feel a naturally smooth chest. If I were you, I’d shy away from shaving this region of your body. Natural is always better on the chest.

Another area some gay men (and straight men these days) feel requires some maintenance is the nether regions, or pubic area. Some like to have their balls completely shaved and smooth. I for one will avoid this. Doing this a few times in your life and having to live with the re-growth is enough for me to abstain from doing that much in the future. However, a good trim of the longer areas is a must. Using your goatee trimmer will make this process easier. But please, use the guard. Trimmers such as this have been known to grab some sack skin and give it a good nick. Be careful.

Finally, we must address the issue of back hair. Don’t shake your head. You know there are many men out there who have at least some hair growing somewhere on their backs. I, for one, do have a few small patches of fine hair. Most guys have a patch growing right at the crack of their ass. That’s fine. I think most guys can deal with that. It’s when it grows up on the shoulders or all over the back that it gets to be a turn off (for me at least). There are those who like hairy guys and that’s fine. If that’s the case, feel free to skip this section. For those of you who are unfortunate enough to have this back hair problem there are ways of removing this distraction. You can shave it of course but then you’ll have to shave it forever. You can wax it. And that’s acceptable but you’ll have to do it again in several weeks. You can even use Nair for men. I’ve used this once before. Be careful. It burns if you leave it on too long. This lasts about as long as waxing. One expensive option is laser hair removal. This is permanent. This procedure is very expensive and takes more then a year of treatments every 12 weeks or so. But once it’s done, it’s gone. I will admit here that I’ve had the laser hair removal on my shoulders and it worked very nicely. I can count the number of hairs on my right hand that have grown back or were never zapped in the first place. If I was made of money, I’d have that patch near my ass crack done. I think most guys just accept the fact that they have hair growing on their backs and leave it alone unless they are related to gorillas. Then they do something about it.

I am confident that most gay men (and some straight men) go through just this type of routine. They may not admit it but they do. You can all relate I’m sure. And if you don’t follow a routine such as this, maybe you should, um’kay.