Basketbawful

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

manscaping (man'-skayp'-ing) noun. The artful "landscaping" of a male athlete's body by shaving, trimming, waxing, or brushing the body hair.

Usage example: Dirk Nowitzki's post-game celebration (see below) showed the world that he does, indeed, participate in manscaping.

Word History: The earliest citation of the term "manscaping" appeared in an August 29, 2003 Sacramento Bee article titled "Sign us all up for our makeovers." The author, Anita Creamer (I'm not making that last name up), is not credited for inventing the term, but she was probably the first to use it in print. The term gained widespread popularity in association with the Queer Eye For The Straight Guy reality show, in which it was revealed that gay men enjoy removing any and all body hair from themselves and others. It was probably around the same time that we at Basketbawful started noticing the near-to-complete lack of armpit hair among NBA basketball players. This is especially noticable among the white players. I'm not trying to turn this into a racial thing, but if you're a slow, moderately tall white man (such as myself) who plays pick-up hoops at the local rec centers, then you know white players tend to have pits full of matted, tangled, stringy, sweaty hair. Basically, imagine having Chris Kaman's hair, only in your armpit instead of on your head. The fact that you never see that sort of thing in the NBA tells me that either A) aliens are harvesting armpit hair from our mightiest athletes as part of some body hair-related conquest of the Earth, or B) professional basketball players are participating in some rather unmanly manscaping activities. And hey, I'm all for it. The last thing I want to see is somebody's knotted, dripping pit monster on television. But it's still kind of fruity.

Those pits are smoother than a baby's bottom.Which is wrong on so very many levels.

9 Comments:

Anonymous said...

"optical inch didn't help me"
www.shaveeverywhere.com

5/23/2006 2:56 PM

laura the tooth said...

oh c'mon! that's just good manners! you know how close these players get on the court--imagine the feelings of the unfortunate player that winds up smashing his face into some other player's pits? at least when it's "manscaped", your mug won't get rubbed raw by the armpit rug. i say dirk deserves some love for his grooming habits. now if only he would only extend this principle to his face...

5/23/2006 4:26 PM

Anonymous said...

I like it much better when they trim/shave their pits but still leave some hair follicles there. It's a good compromise.

5/23/2006 5:47 PM

Anonymous said...

That's not weird. Everyone does that. It's pretty natural to me. Hey, it's the year 2006, wake up.

5/24/2006 1:04 AM

Anonymous said...

I don't know what's worse, that I'm grossed out by Dirk's clean pits, or that you wrote a post on male body hair.

And axel, you're gay.

5/25/2006 11:55 AM

Anonymous said...

I just successfully manscaped this weekend. It goes further than the pits. You see I gots some hairy ass legs and they need to be trimmed every so often, especially in the summer. The woman likes it too. It's just common courtesy.

5/30/2006 5:18 PM

Anonymous said...

I think he should stop shaving his pits. Also, he should stop using deodorant, it's unnatural. Anyone who plays basketball should expect the smell of armpits in his face; it's normal!

9/29/2007 4:50 AM

caucasiancream said...

even his pits are sexy. lemme wash em for ya Dirk. I'll manscape your bod for ya no prob!

8/15/2009 3:22 PM

Anonymous said...

Nobody, but nobody has hairier armpits than Pistol Pete Maravich. It was great. RIP buddy!

3/24/2013 7:38 PM