MAN PROBLEMS: WHEN THE HAIR DOWN THERE TAKES OVER

When your job is to talk about sex, you can have some of the most bizarre conversations ever heard like the one I had recently. A friend of mine was dating a guy who has pubic hair on his entire genital area from the scrotum all the way up the shaft of his penis. Apparently, his pubic hair is very coarse, which could obviously make intercourse without condoms unbelievably painful (serious chafing going on). However, even sex with condoms is dangerous due to the coarse texture of hair, which has the potential to poke holes and rip condoms. To make matters worse, she described the sheer horror of the nightmare that could be giving head to someone with his amount and texture of hair. The image of performing fellatio on a cactus comes to mind. The job is already hard enough, and there is no need to make it the sexual equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest with roller skates.

Now, the sexologist in me was just immediately shocked that I wasn’t aware of such a condition. After taking 60 credit hours of human sexuality courses in sex school, I assumed I knew of every sexual condition, dysfunction, paraphilia, syndrome, disease or infection that ever existed. So, the scholar in me got the best of me, and I immediately consulted with my sex school colleagues to see if I had been asleep on the day we learned about hairy penises in class. None of them had ever heard of this condition either. While I was relieved that I hadn’t missed this lesson in sex school, I became even more interested in finding out more information about this condition. I mean I’ve seen some hairy bodies, but never a hairy shaft.

To my surprise, Google images came up with nothing, and the only thing I found on the Internet was a couple of obscure forums with men asking various people about this condition. There was also a pretty lengthy thread on Reddit, but, of course, no one offered any credible information. Even my initial search in medical journals yielded nothing. I had to try at least 20 different search term combinations for before I found two journals, one of them from outside of this country, that had any information on this condition for which there is no name at least not to my knowledge.

CAUSES

According to the Journal of Sex Research, a botched circumcision is one of the major causes of this condition. When too much skin is taken during the procedure, there is too little loose skin to cover the penis during an erection. Because of this, the hair-bearing skin from the scrotum and mons pubis (the area just above the penis that covers the pelvic bone) moves up along the shaft of the penis creating a hairy shaft. Another scenario that can cause the dreaded hairy shaft is in the case of a penile enlargement according to the British Medical Journal. When a penile implant is inserted, it does not elongate the skin along with it. Therefore, depending on how much skin a man has, there may not be enough preexisting skin to cover the enlarged penis. So again, the skin will be pulled from the hair-bearing pubic area resulting in a hairy shaft. If this isn’t an argument to appreciate what you have, nothing is.

TREATMENT

Unfortunately, the condition, according to existing research, is treatable, but not exactly curable. Here are a few suggested treatment options I found in both the aforementioned medical journals and from my colleagues in the sexuality field.

• Use small scissors or pubic hair trimmers to cut hair low. Depilatories, such as Nair, are not recommended since male pubic hair tends to be coarser and the chemicals in depilatories can irritate the sensitive skin on the penis.

• When using condoms, apply lubricant to the inside of the condom to reduce friction. Caution: Do NOT use Vaseline or oil-based lubricants, because they lead to condom breakage.

• Although expensive, electrolysis and laser hair removal can be more permanent options. Laser hair removal is a better option for thicker, darker hair.

This condition is similar to women who deal with excessive facial hair: While it is annoying and slightly (or significantly) embarrassing, it will not kill you. It will, however, take some considerable effort to keep in check and manage. The most important thing to remember is that we all have flaws or something we dislike about ourselves. Many of the men on various forums expressed concerns about being able to have sex with women or even attracting a woman. Have no fear. If the bearded lady can find a man, then the hairy penis can too.