I don’t have a lot of bad things to say about monogamy. Most of the time it’s a sweet deal: I never worry I’m going to blurt out the wrong guy’s name in bed, and I always have someone to drag with me to the office holiday party. But there’s an undeniable downside to sharing naked time with just the one person. And that is this: I am the last one to know about fascinating new pubic-hair trends.

While I’ve been hibernating in holy matrimony, it turns out that an increasing number of men — from pubescent teens to been-around-the-block bachelors — are going utterly hairless in their private regions. And thereby giving a whole new meaning to male-pattern baldness.

I first heard about the fad from a single girlfriend of mine. “I haven’t seen a male pube in a long time,” she said.

Then a pediatrician told another friend that it’s getting harder and harder to recognize when his patients hit puberty because that primary indicator has vanished — on both girls and boys.

There’s even a new men’s grooming product called Edge Body, the first-ever shaving cream designed for shaving “below the neck.” (Its thicker formula is supposed to “combat irritation and bumps on sensitive areas.”) And some salons now cater to guys who want to be waxed in zones where previously only females dared to be bare — giving rise to the term “Brozilians.” Yes. That actually happens.

Continue reading Men Are Going Bare. Down There.

A new California law will allow K-12 public-school students to use restrooms and join sports teams based not on their sex — but on their gender identity. That means that starting January 1, transgender students who are biologically male will be allowed into girls’ bathrooms and those who are biologically female will be welcome on football teams and in boys’ locker rooms.

So, naturally, some folks are freaking out.

Signed by Governor Brown in August, the School Success and Opportunity Act is the first of its kind in the U.S. But a group called Privacy for All Students has gathered thousands of signatures hoping to bring the issue to a public vote — and ultimately overturn the law. They say it’s unfair to regular guy-guys and girl-girls to have to share their facilities and, I don’t know, bonding zones with someone who has differently shaped private parts.

This particular fight centers around urinals and communal showers, but the transgender rights movement neither begins nor ends at plumbing. It’s happening on Dancing with the Stars, where Chaz Bono cha-cha-cha’d; and in the U.S. Army, where Wikileaks whistleblower Bradley Manning reinvented himself as Chelsea; and in the Girl Scouts, where a Colorado troop’s decision to allow a 7-year-old transgender child to join its ranks inspired a cookie boycott; and in the Miss Universe pageant, where a transgender Canadian contestant won the right to compete in 2012; and so on, and so on.

Continue reading Transgender Students