Once upon a time, manscaping and trimming body hair was unthinkable for a guy. You got what you got—if nature made you smooth, so be it. If it made you Grizzly Adams, that was also the work of Mother Nature.
Today in a consumer driven society, it’s great that we have options to experiment and express ourselves. But products for smoothing, buffing, trimming, removal, moistening, lightening, refreshing, and more can also mean a surplus of uncertainty. A guy with a lot of body hair might feel he should choose some of these products to remove a supposed surplus.
Body hair trends come and go with seasons, generations, and fashions. One year it’s all about rugged glamour, another it’s about boyish charm.
Read: How Men’s Hairstyles Have Evolved Over the Last 50 Years
Ultimately, it’s up to you how you prefer to rock your body. Body hair or lack thereof are entirely natural and all manifestations are normal and masculine.
Just as you have your own preferences on maintenance and manscaping, some women have very strong preferences of their own.
Many of us love snuggling into a warm fuzzy chest, or get hot kissing a bearded beau.
5 Reasons Women Love Hairy Men
1. Hairy Is Associated with Bad Boys
The sexiest men in the world are bikers. Outlaws live by their own rules, follow their own roads. Give me a big, burly, bearded bad-assed Daddy on a Harley any day. In bed, these boys are just as wild and free, and they are very generous lovers! The bushy beard and wild-haired old rocker look gets me crazy every time. – Dee, 36
Untouched body hair and long beards or facial hair often goes with rebel lifestyles like bikers, rock singers, country crooners, outlaws, or pirates, and there are women who find the wild ones irresistible.
Read: 6 Bad Boy Types and Why Women Love Them
2. Some Women Prefer Less Artifice on Men
We may nip, tuck, embellish, and subtract, extend, gloss, highlight, and inject—but that’s us, not you. Many women say they don’t want a Ken doll. We love makeup, perfume, and synthetic glam on our gay male besties. We like longer lashes and armpits that smell like roses. For me, not for thee.
He can be scrubbed and flossed, but soap and water is all I want for my man’s beauty routine. I love my man’s scruffy jaw, dark pits, and the flash of curls under his open shirt. Keep it real. – Madeline, 24
3. Facial Hair Is Self-Expression
Women can have a lot of fun with glamour or dressed-down looks, adding accessories and playing with hair and makeup. You can tell something about her personality from her style, and she can show different sides of herself from one day to the next.
For guys, you get to choose smooth-shaven, or rugged; goatee, soul-patch, the understache, sideburns, and moustaches. You can do a Freddie Mercury or a Bob Ross or the biker look. Instead of seeing your facial hair as a daily chore to remove, you can explore a variety of looks that will get different responses from different women.
I am dating a couple of guys who are involved in those moustache competitions. They are fun-loving, intense, comical and sexy guys who express themselves through their facial hair. – Valerie, 28
Read: 10 Facial Hair Styles Every Man Should Know
4. It’s All about Testosterone
Bring on the fur. I love Mediterranean men, Middle Eastern guys, guys who have dark hair on their arms, belly, thighs, calves, heck, I even love the fuzzy butt. Women are soft and curvy, men are hard and hairy. It’s a match made in heaven. Guys with high testosterone have more hair. I’m not settling for less. – Anita, 26
Body hair is in part genetic inheritance from your family line and ethnic heritage. Guys from Greece on average have more body hair than guys from Vietnam. There can also vast differences between those with a similar background or from the same family—you get what you get. Many women perceive the guy with more hair on his chest as “manly,” but bare guys can take comfort that they are also “real men.” Body hair patterns follow diverse genetic traits and testosterone is only one part of the picture.
That said, for women who love the look and feel of more hair, part of it is the perception of virility. As Anita points out, opposites attract!
5. Kissing, Touching, and Sex Feel more Intense
My guy grows his beard out now and again, or rocks a stache in Movember. I don’t know what it is, but the sex is different. From the moment he kisses me, I’m hotter. The feel of the bristle against my cheeks, the roughness of it on my lips, I’m hotter and higher. I like the looks any which way—wouldn’t want him to always have to be the same. But my body likes the beard. Kissing is more intense, more primal. I can’t explain it. – Chloe, 33
Read: Primal Play & 8 Ideas for Primal Sex
Lots of women report being surprised at the jolt the first time their guy sports a stache. A friend of mine had a definite preference for smooth, groomed guys, but one day she had a hook-up chance encounter with a “dandy rocker type” who was “burlier than Burt Reynolds.” She said the heat in the make-out session may as well have been the sex.
Don’t rush out to buy a goat-skin rug and a bungee cord, though. Lots of women prefer the sculpted smooth aesthetic and find it just as hot in bed. They point being, it takes all kinds, and variety is the spice of life!
What is your grooming style? Do you change to suit your lovers’ preferences?
Tell us what you think