What’s all the fuzz about?

Trimming your pubic hair is nothing to be ashamed ofHere is the news. The Australian bush is being eradicated at an alarming rate. This mass deforestation is taking place with such rapidity, it’s worthy of its own Kyoto treaty. That’s right: research suggests that few people in Australia have pubes any more.

The evolutionary scale of ‘primate change’ that goes from ape to cave dweller to Pete Sampras to modern-day GQ reader is going to have to budge up for a new age of man: a post-pubescent narcissistic waxed work who has clipped, shaved, plucked or lasered off all his body hair. Well, that’s if the latest statistics are to be believed anyway.

You always have to take these surveys with a whole sea full of salt – especially when they have been conducted by a marketing company whose job it is to create a market for the product they are pushing through ‘majority rules’. If they can convince you of a sweeping trend, then peer pressure compels the odd ones out to follow it. So when I saw a press release from Philips for their new electric razor called the BodyGroom, the cynic in me scoffed at the results of their supporting survey that claim that almost half of men admit to shaving their armpits; 41 per cent trim their crotch region; 29 per cent shave their legs. Sure. Who were they asking? Olympic swimmers? Strip-o-grams? Retired circus freaks? What a load of hairy bollocks, I thought, as I absent-mindedly scratched my hairy bollocks.

But in a comparatively agenda-free 2009 sex survey in Time Out Sydney – which I should point out up front is the magazine that I edit – 85 per cent of respondents ’fessed up to grooming their pubic hair. Admittedly this was an online poll of a thousand Sydneysiders, several of whom probably never get out of their bikinis. But when you break the results down further, they are pretty revealing: 96 per cent of women tend their lady-garden. Fur enough. But a more surprising 74 per cent of men get out the pinkie shears on a regular basis. And that number pushes 88 per cent when you look at the hairless figures of men aged 30 and under.

Emboldened by this recent consensus of pubic opinion, I can now confidently expose that I have been trimming my private privet for years. Not continuously you understand; I occasionally do other things too.

What’s the point of men trimming their body hair? Part of it is fashion: the old school 70s medallion men like George “Hairy Chest” Best have been superseded by the smoother operators of the naughties such as David Beckham. Part of it is vanity: trimming back body hair gives you better muscle definition, allows you to tan more evenly and reduces body odour and chafing. And part of it is insecurity: the real reason for pruning the foliage down there is apparently to make the stem look bigger. “Trimming back pubic hair is thought to add an extra ‘optical inch’ to your manhood,” says BodyGroom’s website. I probably get about 100 emails a week from spammers claiming they can add size to my penis. This is the first time the proposition has been bona fide. And now that people like Philips are kindly manufacturing the equipment-enhancing equipment, men no longer have to risk accidental vasectomy hoisting their ballbag over the sink and chopping artlessly at their anal beard with the girlfriend’s nail scissors.

When I was at school, pubic hair was something to be proudly cultivated. It literally separated the men from the boys. My older brother once told me to rub Blood & Bone into my crotch. Which I did. And the only reason I ate my greens was because my mum said it would put hairs on my chest. Although now I think about it, she also said that to my sister.

In You Only Live Twice, an hirsute James Bond smugly explains to a pubeless Tiger Tanaka the secret of his potent attraction to women while taking a bath with him. “Japaneshe proverb shay: ‘Bird never make nesht in bare tree,’” says Sean Connery. That may have been so back in 1967, Sean, but these days if you want a bird in the hand, it’s worth trimming your man-bush. Just ask 00-shaven Daniel Craig.

Body hair is an evolutionary hangover from prehistoric times. It used to make sense. Or rather scents: it trapped pheromones to attract the opposite sex. But now we have alcohol to do that instead. It also helped keep cave dwellers warm until the invention of things called clothes and central heating.

As anyone who ever came across their dad’s vintage porn stash as a kid will remember, pubic hair used to be big. But log on to YouPorn today and you won’t see a ‘map of Tassie’ on the girls so much as a map of Adelaide: i.e. there’s fuck-all down there. While for their part, the blokes have either had a severe BSC – a back, sack and crack wax ¬– or they have sculpted their pubes into something resembling an ornamental bonsai arboretum. You’ve not seen such ridiculous-looking bush since George Dubyer was in power. Although he didn’t need any help when it came to looking like a bigger dick than he already was.

Let me be clear: I am not for one minute suggesting that we take our grooming tips from YouPorn. Otherwise we would have a ridiculous surfeit of potty-mouthed, peroxide-blond, perma-tanned, pubeless preeners. That’s what Cronulla is for.

But done with subtlety, a little trim of the hair down there to keep things neat and tidy will give you a more flattering silhouette. The bald fact is: when it comes to your meat and two veg, going ‘organic’ doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s all about presentation. So gents, have a bit of pride and groom.