When it comes to manscaping (aka “manscaping,” “dude pruning,” or for those more old-fashioned —“male grooming”), the latest word on the street is that proportion matters—at least to women. Too much body fuzz off, and it’s a turn-off; too much left, ditto.
The Sun recently published research findings from the popular porn site PornHub on the kind of men women like to have sex with. And those of you with hairier or “daddy” bodies, rejoice! You’re the preferred sex partners over those with chiseled, sculpted, smooth-as-a-baby-bottom physiques.
A survey by Mensfitness corroborates this finding. It asked 105 women if they found body hair attractive. Seventy-three percent nodded approval, while only 27 percent expressed a preference for a hairless body.
Still, the hair-aficionados had an important proviso: moderation in most places. As one woman wrote in the survey, “Not like carpeting, but at the same time I don’t like when you look like Peter Pan.”
So, in the interest of knowing a little more precisely where women who like some hair on their men stand on this issue, here are a few guidelines.
- A couple of hair-growing parts of the body should always be completely hairless— namely, ears and the nose—plucking here is strongly recommended. But shaving your arms and legs are crossing the border to your feminine side, so unless that’s the objective, leave these appendages with hair follicles intact.
- The hair on the back is a debatable attraction. Some women go for that gorilla look, but most don’t, so the recommendation here is to have it shaved or professionally waxed. (Do not attempt a self-shave in that area, or you’ll end up twisted like a pretzel, with hairless but bleeding backsides and the unreachable fur in the middle of the back more prominent than ever.)
- For the rest of the body (chest, armpits, and everything below the belt, big and small)—well, control and maintenance are key.
Think short, appropriately shaped, and showing where naturally expected, rather than long, plentiful and wildly abundant. The object here is to trim and keep, rather than ax and jettison.
The overarching guideline to keep in mind when you plan to impose some order on that forest growing on your body? As one of the survey’s participant put it, “I don’t want a man who looks like a little boy…I don’t want them to have got rid of all body hair, or it feels a bit like I’m with a Ken doll – and not in a sexy way.”
