Don’t ever shave your body. Really, trust me on this one. No good can come of it.
Okay, I suppose that there are exceptions to this rule: Olympic swimmers, Mr. Universe contestants, exotic dancers. Members of those professions can violate this rule if they so choose. But let me tell you, as a hairy man, I recommend against it.
I know all of this first hand because of a party I attended last week. My friend Sylvia was having a birthday party, and being a lover of theme parties, she chose “Cross-dressing” as the theme for this particular evening.
Now, I love a good party. I’m the type of individual that really loves to go all out and theme parties really give me a chance to shine. So when I got the invitation to this particular party, my mind was a flutter with ideas. Being a large, hairy man, I knew that I would really have to go the extra mile to win first prize at this one, and go the extra mile I did.
I selected a hot little purple satin number, complete with eye shadow, lipstick and nail polish to match. It was divine! Silky and spaghetti strapped, I knew I’d be the hit. However, it also showed quite a bit of my skin and quite a bit of that skin was covered in bushy man-hair.
Well, I knew that no woman (or respectable cross-dresser) would allow this to stand, so I knew what I had to do: shave my body. Never again. Blinded by my desire to be sexy, I rush headlong into the most uncomfortable experience in a long time.
First mistake: Nair.
I had no real idea what exactly Nair was, and I certainly had no concept of how it worked. I thought I did. I was horribly, horribly wrong. See, all I knew was that I really didn’t like shaving, period, which is why I usually sport a beard. So the idea of shaving my whole body was pretty unappealing. However, I knew that if I used Nair, I could bypass the pain of cutting myself and razor burn. Oh, sweet, sweet razor burn. How I long for razor burn.
I was so happy that I’d thought of Nair. I wouldn’t be wasting razor blades: just wipe on, wipe off! Hair be gone! So I came home from Target, pink bottle in hand, all ready for my depilatory adventure. I squeezed a little bit out onto my arm, rubbed it on my arm hair and waited. After five minutes, I rinsed the arm off, and viola! No hair! I was psyched! This was going to be nice and easy!
So I stripped down, hopped in the shower, and began to smear Nair all over my body, not thinking about silly little things, like nipples. I stood there, waiting for the Nair to do it’s chemical wonder, when my whole body began to tingle and get warm. Warmer and warmer. Soon, my nipples were hot and suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps, just perhaps, smearing the Nair all over my body might have been a mistake. So I wiped the Nair off my nipples, but decided to leave it on the rest of me.
A quick test showed that the Nair wasn’t having the desired effect on my chest hair, it still wasn’t ready to come off, so I kept waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Now, during this time, my skin was getting pretty hot, and the directions said, don’t leave it on longer than 10 minutes, so it was time for this crap to come off. On came the shower, and off came my hair.
Or most of it.
Seems some of my hair is Nair resistant. I have no idea why, it’s not like I built up a resistance to Nair from repeated exposure. I guess I just have good genes. So, now I was mostly hairless, but had several patches of extremely irritated skin. In retrospect, I’m amazed that a chemical compound that dissolves hair can even be used on skin, but I digress.
Second mistake: the razor.
So, I had these patches of Nair resistant hair to deal with, and a patch of hair on my back that needed to be dealt with, too. So out came the razor. Bring on the razor burn. Unbeknownst to me, Nair makes skin very sensitive and subject to razor burn. So slowly, and painfully, off came the remaining hair.
(Allow me to interject here a note about true friendship: Anyone can help you move, make you dinner, cheer you up when you’re feeling down. But a true friend, a genuine true friend is one who will shave your back. Thanks, Mikey. 🙂
Finally, I was ready. Showered and clean shaven, I slipped into my silky drawers and got ready for the party. That’s when I discovered some interesting, body shaving facts:
1. Body hair does help keep you warm. I’ve never been so cold in the summer in my life.
2. Clothes feel weird on bare skin.
3. Shaving your entire body and putting on a silky dress will make you a hit at the party.
4. It is absolutely not worth it.
So here I sit, itching madly as the regrowing hair pokes out of my skin, irritating 70% of my entire body. Even if Ihad know the sheer terror of the shaving experience, nothing could have prepared me for the hell that I endured as the hair returns.
Little did I know that I would be uncomfortable between the sheets without my hair buffer. And how ill prepared I was for the pin-pricks of stubble over my entire body as my natural fur returned. I sit around at work scratching my legs. And my arms. And my chest. And my back. Dante never envisioned a circle of hell this unspeakable.
So if you’re ever thinking about shaving your body: don’t. Trust me on this one. It’s just not worth it. The next time someone invites you to a cross-dressing party, forget skimpy. Forget sexy. Think Victorian.