A lot of guys just want to be completely hairless. Like, Michael Phelps–style.

Why, though? I asked a bunch of my peers, and it turns out most aren't shy about their body-hair-removal habits. Even the most reticent of gentlemen are happy to tell you why they obsessively remove all—like, all—their body hair. Spoiler alert: It's usually for sex reasons. The more candid guys will go into paralyzing detail about where and how they pursue this Sisyphean task.

Finding hairless men to interview is not terribly difficult if you know where to look. At the Metropolitan Recreation Center, where I can be found swimming laps at 7 A.M. two days a week with the rest of Brooklyn's octogenarian crowd, I met Pat—a pool regular in his 30s. (Pat asked that I not use his government name.)

Pat's torso is utterly deforested. He keeps it that way by shaving relentlessly "with a Gillette razor and that Gillette Cooling Gel stuff," he explained. When I asked why he shaves his upper body, Pat told me that his girlfriend appreciates it, and said it makes him look more "cut." But when I asked if he'd ever shave south of his waist, he balked: "Never." Really? But why? "Nope. Not for me. Sorry." So ended my encounter with Pat.

In contrast, my friend John, a 27-year-old UX designer, was willing to discuss his experiences with undercarriage maintenance—within the first eight minutes of our conversation, he unleashed the word "taint." Unlike Pat, John relies exclusively on laser hair removal, the relatively expensive alternative that occurs in uncomfortable $70 monthly installments. John manages his pubic hair. "I make a clean V, so there's still hair, but I laser the upper inner thigh and everything south of it." Everything? "Everything."

Laser hair removal doesn't hurt, according to John, but it's not a very pleasant experience. Especially because pubic hair is coarser, which calls for frequent zapping appointments: At press time, John was about to get his 16th treatment. That's equivalent to a full year and change of shaving everything first—an appointment prerequisite—and then nuking it. Despite the fuss, it's made John a hair removal obsessive. "I'm always asking, what more can I do? What other hair can I get rid of?" He confessed. "I kind of want to do my cheeks next." (He was referring to his face.)

John's motives for grooming are more or less congruent with Pat's—a gesture towards romantic partners. "It's not at all something I do for myself," he said, "It's [mostly] for sex. There is an aspect of sexual hygiene, but mostly, I don't want to worry about what [the other person] is thinking." This is an emergent theme among the body hair removalists I met: Good sex. Getting it, having it, and the omnipresent possibility of it, minus the 24-hour notice required to self-groom.

The sentiment is true among single guys and less-than-single guys. Anthony, 25, agreed to be interviewed via his girlfriend of eight years. I wanted to know why he still took such care with self-grooming, even though he already had a long term partner. Anthony bristled. "If you stop caring about yourself eight years into a relationship," he said, "you shouldn't be with that person." He uses a trimmer all over his body, and sets it to the lowest guard for his valuable merchandise. "But I use a straight razor on my balls," he specified. He explained to his girlfriend: "Babe, if I didn't groom, you wouldn't go down there."

Before we get any further, I want to point out that some guys do this for purely aesthetic reasons, though they're in the minority. A friend of mine who asked to go unnamed explained, "I don't think a partner would mind, but I prefer to keep everything groomed. I just think it looks cleaner." He shaves "everywhere but his legs" with the Phillips Norelco Multigroom, without a guard. He takes a hot shower afterward. No ingrowns to report.

To get a little more perspective on this obsession with body hair removal, I wanted to talk to someone on the other end of the laser—or buzzer.

"Guys aren't asking for it as much as their wives are asking on their behalf," said Losi, a groomer at Martial Vivot Salon in midtown Manhattan. “Partners tend to not like the long hair. It’s like, ‘Honey, I’m the one who has to look at you. Could you not be so hairy?’” In general, though, there’s been an uptick in her clients’ body grooming requests, and barbers are happy to remove that tuft of back hair as a courtesy. Or, in Losi’s case, as a necessity: “I just think it looks cleaner, and more polished. And it’s more comfortable, too. I consider it basic grooming.”

A good rule of thumb: If it is not visible to your barber, it is perhaps inappropriate to ask for it to be shaved. Losi suggests asking a significant other for help with the tough-to-get-hair. For everything else, all you need is a good trimmer. “Most of grooming is less about shaving and more about trimming. Maybe you use a clipper everywhere, but on the 2 setting, so you have hair but can still get a tan.”

There you have it. Embrace some body hair, destroy the rest, have a very sexy summer. Just be careful between the cheeks. (I’m referring to your butt.)

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