manscaper's challenge

i'm a hairy guy. i'm no beast; i don't have to have my back waxed (yet), but those days are inevitably coming. if i were a hundred pounds heavier i'd have to identify as a bear, or at least a "cub." let's just say that. and, in my life, i seem to have dated a whole lot of guys who are smooth. if they weren't naturally hairless (ahem, brian, phong), they shaved their chests with practically no irritation (i'll not name names here). now, i don't know about those of you who have chest hair like i do, but i've shaved my chest several times in my life, and here's what happens, in sequence, every time:

1. shaved chest looks good for roughly 3 hours
2. redness and irritation starts coming up around 3h15m
3. 12 hours in i have red bumps all over my torso
4. 12h15m to three weeks after the shaving i'm dealing with ingrown hairs and the hell that is a shaven chest.

so, needless to say, i don't shave my chest very much. those people who do and never have problems have always puzzled me. they must not be part sasquatch like i am. don't even get me started on the summer that i waxed it.

the point is, i've had a hard time accepting my body for what it is. i'm not going to launch into a tirade about how gay porn and gay magazines and fashion and the media only promote shiny, trim, hairless guys. i'm not going to talk about how, unless you're a fetishist, body hair is regarded as nothing more than a curse by the gay community. it's all true, but you all know that already.

the whole reason this issue is at the front of my mind, i hate to admit, is that i haven't "manscaped" in wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too long. for those of you who don't watch queer eye for the straight guy (and i can't say i blame you), "manscaping" is taking a pair of clippers, the kind usually confined to shaving heads, and trimming up your body hair. when you're done, your bathroom floor looks like a barber shop, albeit with much wirier hairs and much less snappy repartee because ice cube is nowhere in sight. i've made peace with my body hair; i've even started to think that it looks a little hot sometimes. i cannot, however, allow it to look like it does at the moment: basically i'm the bastard stepchild of david hasselhoff and austin powers.

why does it matter? how many people, after all, see me shirtless in the middle of february? since all those underwear modeling shows in milan are over, not many. whatever. pass me the clippers.