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Guys say they love a hairy ass. When I ask them if I should shave it, 9 out of 10 say absolutely not. However, I'm a very clean person, and I trim closely to my hole for sex and hygiene. But when I don't shave it fully, they almost never rim me, but when I go clean-shaven, I'm way more likely to have my ass eaten. So is there like an unspoken rule that shaved butts mean you like or want a rim job? I don't know the rules. I like the look of my butt either way, but should I shave it to attract what I want? - Seattle
Hey cowboy,
There is no official rule. But you've noticed something real. My experience echoes yours. Something about a hairless butt says, "Stick your tongue in me! I'm ready!"
Last year, I wrote a rimming guide for Out. It offers tips on how to remove butt hair, but nothing on whether or not one should or which is better — honestly, because the question is highly personal. Some guys love to eat hairy butts, some simply will not.
From the guide: "Trimming or shaving around the area can make things smoother, literally. It also prevents getting a butt hair caught in someone's teeth. Trimming or shaving isn't required, but I prefer rimming a buzzed butt."
That's my preference as a rimmer, and I suspect it's shared by more guys than will admit it when asked.
Here's something I love about the internet and being a sex writer on it: There is always shockingly little real-world, practical discourse or study on topics like this. Much like more extreme subjects (street drugs, body modification), often the most useful sources of information on even mild, harmless topics like rimming come from online chat threads and forums. Hardly professional, but they do offer a kind of vox populi consensus that is real, underground info, even for a subject that feels decidedly above-ground now in the age of Heated Rivalry. People talk about rim jobs on TikTok. Why have so few experts weighed in on this?
I love old gay chat forums and pored through some. Here's what I learned. On r/askgaybros, a seven-year-old thread asking "do guys like hairy butts?" drew nearly 250 responses, and the verdict was overwhelming: Gays love them. The top comment, with over a thousand upvotes, compares eating a hairy ass to organic orange juice, and "only children complain about the pulp."
Breeding Zone has a rawer and more explicitly sexual chat started in 2023, in which the pro-hairy sentiment runs even stronger. Multiple commenters write that hairy holes taste and smell better. One writes that "ass hair holds the musky manly stink that is a big turn on." Several say manscaping turns them off, and butt stubble is near-universally condemned.
On a forum on a site called Company of Men, though, the split is more even, but crucially, it’s here that commenters touch on what your letter is about. One writes that he prefers "a nice clean hairless hole" for rimming. Several echo this, with one writing that "the licking/rimming portion of butt sex" is the reason he likes ‘em smooth.
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So, gay men, broadly, love hairy holes, but rimming is a different ask. On Company of Men, a current runs through the comments. Several admit that anal hair triggers an association with uncleanliness that they can't quite rationalize: "Somehow, hairy equals dirty on some level, and I cannot avoid it," one commenter writes. Another: "I also tend to equate hairy with dirty. While mostly my own personal phobia, I just think and have convinced myself that it can be more of a challenge for a hairy butt to get as clean as a smooth one."
These men aren't saying your ass is unclean. They're saying that hair seems to activate a feeling that bypasses logic — the knowledge that hair and the skin beneath it can be perfectly clean — and that feeling, I'd wager, is what's keeping guys' tongues off your butthole.
A shaved or closely trimmed hole reads as prepared. Even if it's not fully douched, it seems to signal: I have done something here, quite deliberate, with my body in anticipation of being touched here. That's not a formal code, but it sort of functions as one. A lot of guys do shave before big sex events. We have created a kind of code that isn't consistent and won't be universally responded to — no sexual practice is — that says a hairless butt is an invite.
I think that’s because most men, at least in my experience, aren't naturally hairless there. On male butts, there is a lovely unnaturalness to it being hairless, and that unnaturalness conveys work and preparation and — let's state it outright — submission.
Research on male body depilation backs this. Psychologists Michael Boroughs and J. Kevin Thompson, who have studied male grooming practices, found that body hair on men has been "indelibly associated with masculinity" throughout Western history, and that hairlessness was historically prescribed for women and proscribed for men because of those gendered associations. Writing in Psychology Today, Dr Ari Berkowitz goes further, noting that what we think of as the most masculine body is one shaped by androgens, and that a hairless body is essentially what you get in their absence. When a man removes his hair, he is stepping, consciously or not, out of that coding. In a sexual context, particularly in a dominant-submissive context, this is why subs often go clean-shaven on their heads and faces. It’s why, in sex spaces, a hairless hole on an otherwise hairy man reads that he wants to get fucked.
This is often why even bottoms who are very hairy elsewhere will try to be smooth on the hole, because of what it can signal. But that signal won't be read the same everywhere or responded to in a universally predictable way, so it's not a rule. They'll miss out on all the tops, like ones on that Breeding Zone forum, who love hairy holes and abhor anything else.
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Hair also creates a practical concern. As I noted in that rimming guide in Out, hair gets caught in teeth. A smooth hole removes that friction, literally. (For fisting, many guys go hairless just because it makes the whole area more slippery and slick, and lube goes further. Nothing seems to eat up fisting lube like butt hair.)
None of this means you have to shave. Shaving is a pain; there are few ways to do it without risking bumps and irritation, and we have online proof that many men all over the world specifically prefer and desire hairy holes and are turned off by smooth ones. So what to do?
Gay culture is an image culture, so I won't be blithe and say "Don't worry about it, be yourself!" and call it settled. We do make decisions about ourselves based on the men we want and the kind of sex we like. I say it's always a toggle between personal ease and comfort versus potential payoff, and I've found in my own experience that there is no correlation whatsoever between the times my hole is shaven and the times it isn't and the number of sex partners who want to get in it.
Which means that when I'm weighing whether to shave or not to shave, I'm just weighing what I personally want. Sometimes I do want to go for a hairless hole moment. It's fun! It’s a vibe! I like how it looks! And it does make me feel like more of a bottom. But sometimes I can't be bothered, and I still have fun, and many guys still like how it looks, so the choice is for me, not anyone else.
I hope it's obvious that the same is true for you. If you're really gunning for rim jobs as a main sexual pursuit, maybe you should keep it trim and accept that, in doing so, you'll turn away men out there who prefer hairy holes. But in the end, the choice is yours. It’s about how you want to look and feel, what you want to serve. It always has been. It's your one, beautiful gay body.
Finally, if you want something in sex, just ask for it. You want your ass eaten? Say so. Don't rely on hair to be a clue. People can't read minds. For those who are into it, there’s nothing hotter than hearing someone say, "Hey, are you into rimming?” Ugh, bend over!
Alexander Cheves is a writer and former sex worker who spent more than 12 years in the adult industry. He writes Out’s sex-and-culture column Last Call and is the author of My Love Is a Beast: Confessions (Unbound Edition Press), which Kirkus Reviews called “not for squeamish readers.” In Go Ask Alex, he offers candid advice for readers with real questions they’re afraid to ask anywhere else. Send your question to askbeastly@gmail.com —it may be answered in a future column.
