Why do men consider body hair removal?

The reasons behind mens hair removal tends to be personal and a relatively recent trend for men. Gay men were the early adopters, but it has become a lot more acceptable, even expected, for the everyday straight man to trim his body hair and do some proper male body grooming.

In previous generations a man with more body hair used to be associated with higher degree of masculinity. But in the same way the feminism movement has allowed modern women to become more detached from past stereotypes, so has a new generation of men broken lose from the hairy man stereotype.

It will differ from man to man but the reasons why men consider body hair removal include:

• A partner requested it. In the same way that men have expected women to take care of their own grooming in the past (and still do), men have come to accept that women have similar expectations of their men. Taking your male body grooming seriously has become an expression of that mutual understanding.

• For sporting reasons. Cycling and swimming is often mentioned as the sports that require no body hair, but any sport where chafing can happen (think tights) is a good candidate to prompt a man's hair removal quest.

• Image. This is the one that most won't admit, but it is definitely a factor. They might like feeling the smooth skin; they might be sensitive about too much body hair (according to them); they might be going bald so decided to shave their head completely; or that trimming your pubic hair, for example, makes your equipment look bigger. Or maybe they are completely honest with themselves and others and it simply looks much better.

• New minimum grooming standards. Related to the first point above, some minimum standards have come to be expected of your grooming as this quote by the shaving company Gillette illustrates: “Men and women agree hair should not be left to grow on the back, nose and ears.”

• Health. Trimming body hair often leads to less moisture and heat being captured by the hair and thus allowing less bacteria to find breeding grounds on the skin. Though it is often cited as a reason to do it, it is more a nice side effect than the reason we started doing it.

• Once begun... A lot of the techniques lend themselves to becoming ingrained habit since stopping it would lead to complications you'd rather avoid so you just keep on doing it. Ingrown hairs or other problems like rashes often develop the first time you try a technique so you keep on doing it so you won't have to go through it again some later time if you do decide to discontinue it for the time being.

If you are thinking about mens hair removal to impress a lady, please remember that while some women prefer the bare man look, others still prefer a hairy man. All of them will however agree that there is a place for proper male grooming and at least some hair removal might be necessary.