This kind of stuff is definitely on the upswing. It started with males raised on post-90s porn who were led to believe women's vaginas were innately hairless, and that all pre-1990 porn was gross because gals had pubes in them. Every time Britney or Paris has her cooch caught on camera in a tabloid, it's bald.
Women responded in kind: Men, you, too, must be hairless from the neck down, now. Nair for Men is a product I first saw a couple of years ago. In the cosmetics section, but usually near mens' razors, is a growing area for men stocked with nose hair trimmers, waxing kits (with pics of rugged guys on the box), anti-aging and anti-wrinkle creams. You look at the ingredients, and a lot of them are the same as anti-aging creams, Nair, etc., for women, but men won't buy it unless it's packaged in an extreme sports-looking container and reassuringly mentions "FOR MEN" on the label.
Austin is hosting the annual Hairy Man Festival next weekend: http://www.hairymanfestival.org -- I guess Hitch won't be a contestant. It's sponsored by some Baptist Churches. I have no idea.
-B.
Doug Henwood wrote:
"Hitchens, who's writing a three-part series in Vanity Fair on self-improvement, visited the J Sisters on Friday for a full male Brazilian bikini wax, which his editor-in- chief Graydon Carter gleefully described four months ago as 'the back, the crack and the sack.'"