Recently, I keep seeing adverts for a company called Manscaped, who sell male razors specifically designed for body hair removal. In theory, I am not against the existence of such a product, but in practise these adverts make me downright angry. They’re so toxic.
The all follow the same general premise: a man with body hair (and not ever really any excessive amount) will be out somewhere where his body hair is visible, usually a beach or something, then he’ll end up being shamed for it and end up shaving it off. To quote one of them directly “the thought of hair down there is disgusting!” and then some of them give statistics along the lines of “Did you know 80% of women hate body hair?” one even had a woman saying “If I’m going to be smooth, I expect you to as well!”
I hate it. It is a simple fact of life that people have body hair. Almost every single adult who ever lived has the capacity to grow body hair. And these adverts, by the way, tend to focus specifically on pubic hair. Nobody should feel self-conscious about this, because who’s even going to see this? Besides which, it’s a normal part of the human body. I’ve not seen a large number of people naked, but all of those who I have, have had pubic hair – male or female, it’s just a part of us and nobody should be made to feel it’s disgusting.
To clarify, I am not anti-shaving. All people are entitled to do as they please with their bodies. Some may want to shave, some may not and that’s fine, but what’s not fine is pressuring people to shave or telling them that they are disgusting because they don’t do it.
As a final side note, I also don’t like the implication of the advert that men should care about whether or not women find them sexually attractive. Absolutely not. Aside from the fact that it ignores homosexual and asexual men who won’t have any reason to care, even those who are seeking a female partner shouldn’t pay too much attention to it – this is not the path to confidence (the most attractive quality), rather it is the path to self-consciousness and insecurity.
I appreciate that this issue is one which disproportionately affects women rather than men, but it’s these adverts specifically targeted at men which have gotten me worked up recently. By all means, everything I’ve said in this blog posts applies to every person, regardless of gender. So if you have ever been made to feel that your body hair is gross, it isn’t – please don’t worry about it.
