I’ve been pretty vocal across various performance outlets (internet TV shows, podcasts, stand-up comedy performances, other blog entries, tweets) about my pubic grooming habits. Some might even say that I’m an advocate for pubic grooming, since I’ve discussed it at quite some length, and I regularly recommend it to my male and female (though mostly male) friends alike. Though I used to shave my arms and legs in high school to fit into those tights I’d wear for Godless shows, then my own band’s shows, I stopped short of shaving my man-muff. I guess it just seemed like a weird thing to do, or maybe just too much trouble, but I never really bothered. Pubic hair on women was still pretty common in the late 90s, so I wasn’t exactly racing to catch up.

One night when I was around 19 (and living in the shithole), just after a round of drug-addled sex with a stripper friend-of-a-friend-of-a-neighbor’s-roommate (long story) , she said “you should trim that shit”. She, herself, was bare, so she wasn’t being hypocritical. She said “I like licking balls, but your balls are hairy… and you’ve got all that pubic hair on top, it chaffs on me when I’m grinding”.

Few things motivate me in life quite like a woman suggesting a more improved/enhanced sex life if I made a small change in my own life. Shortly after she left the morning after, I took my hair clippers out and mowed down the man lawn. With the pubic area reasonably trimmed, I finished the job with some shaving cream and my face razor. It was a surprisingly short and easy process and my bait and tackle was looking mighty fine.

When the aforementioned stripper drunkenly stumbled into my apartment and said “tonight was shit! fuck me already!”, I threw her down on my bed¹ and when she pulled off my pants, she said “OH MY GOD IT’S SO CLEAN!”. That was the first time a woman ever literally placed my balls in her mouth instead of just a short licking. It was goddamned fantastic.

I haven’t had pubic hair longer than about 1/8th of an inch (for more than a few days) since².

Over the years, I’ve tried various razors, shaving creams, and techniques. I even bought the Norelco “Bodygroom” whose advertising campaign was basically “shave your balls with this”³, and that thing fucking sucked.

For me – nothing beats just hopping in the shower, using a soap-soaked loofa, and a Venus V3 razor to take care of the job. I’ve got a borderline-conspiracy theory that Gillette’s men’s razors – which use the same physical blades as Venus razors – are engineered to appear “ready to replace” (via that little strip on top) quicker than a Venus razor. Since the Venus razor covers much more ground in daily use than their men’s razors, the “ready to replace” strip needs to stay in tact longer. Meanwhile, I’m only shaving a very small area⁴, and I replace my Venus blades maybe once a year.

About 2 years ago, a random Reddit session led me to discussions about a special hair removal cream specially engineered for “sensitive areas of the body”. When companies use that phrase, they mean “get the hair off your dirty bits!”. It was called Veet, and the Amazon reviews were positive, and also hilariously trying to avoid saying “oh yeah, I put this shit on my balls and it’s awesome!”. I bought myself a bottle and got excited to try it.

The instructions state to apply it like a lotion, and leave it for at least 5 minutes. They include a plastic mini-squeegee they call a “spatula” (for reasons unknown, since it’s more squeegee-like in nature), and to try and remove a small area as a test. If it doesn’t come off completely, they say to leave it on longer, but (this part is literally in all-caps on the bottle) DO NOT EXCEED 10 MINUTES. The final step is written in bold letters, exactly like this : RINSE YOUR SKIN THOROUGHLY with warm water after use, and dry.

Seemed easy enough. I applied the creme, it tingled, and I walked around my apartment bottomless for a few minutes. I didn’t want to sit on anything, lest I get the cream on my sofa / chairs / bed, so I awkwardly just paced in circles and browsed the web on my phone. Once my phone’s alarm went off, indicating 5 minutes, I went in to “spatula” this shit off of a small area on my crotch, as instructed. It got most of the hair in that patch, but I figured I should go the full 10 minutes. I set another alarm for 4 minutes (not wanting to exceed the 10 minute barrier) and went back to awkward bottomless web browsing on my phone.

When the alarm blared, I did my spatula-removing. This shit worked great! It was tingling, and almost burning, but I still had a minute to get it off before I could just hop in the shower and do a warm wash-off.

There was only one problem : I didn’t actually have hot water. Since gas bills are so damn cheap, and only billed every 3 months, you tend to forget about them, and then your gas gets shut off. When you call to fix the problem, you’re without gas (and therefore a stove, sometimes central heating, and – in my case – hot water) for about 3-4 days. This was day 1 of that. And I had totally forgotten, because I was so excited to try a new method of pubic hair removal. Yes, I’m that stupid and/or insane.

Cold water on the balls is terrible. It’s probably a form of torture somewhere that isn’t Russia. Also, cold water doesn’t negate the effects of Veet. It requires warm water to wash off. I couldn’t heat water on the stove instead cause.. well, no gas. So I just kept trying to dip my balls into a freezing cold sink full of water and then toweling off. By the time I got anywhere near getting this shit rinsed off, it’d been on my balls for well over 20 minutes. The burning continued. I must’ve tried cold-washing my balls for almost an hour.

Over the next 2-3 days, I felt a pulsing heat on my balls that ebbed and flowed every 10 minutes or so. My balls felt rough and scaly. Leading to me telling my friends that I had “Reptilian Testicle Syndrome”. The only thing that could stop the burning sensation for more than a few minutes was dipping my balls in ice-cold water. Even then, I only got about an hour of not feeling like my balls were being set on fire at a time.

Most of my friends thought I was insane for shaving my balls all these years in the first place, some of them thought I was absent-minded for not thinking about the hot water in advance, but they all agreed I was an idiot.

I’m happy to report that my balls healed just fine, and I’ve suffered no long-term effects from this adventure. I still have that bottle of Veet, but I’m too gunshy to try it again. I’m gonna stick to my Venus razor and doin’ it the old fashioned way – just me and a razor.

Y’know… like god intended.

1. well, my fucking twin-sized mattress on the floor with a single blanket, but let’s call it a bed ↩

2. if you’re doing the math, that’s over 17 years, and I shave religiously when I think someone might actually see them that day/night/weekend ↩

3. their website at the time even said something about “gaining an optical inch” ↩

4. ahh damnit.. I just called my crotch “a very small area” didn’t I? ↩