The hairier sex has launched a high-tech war against the mercilessness of male genetics.

Men have – suddenly, it seems – adopted hair removal anxieties that have long beset our human counterparts. The natural male body pelt, that which warmed us against the elements during our evolution, now covers us like a hair shirt.

And as we turn on our former selves, a new sense of narcissistic male urgency has become the mother of invention for technology makers anxious to fulfill our DIY shearing wishes.

The volume of men chopping down their chest forests and below-the-belt bushes has created its very own marketing category: bodygrooming.

And it's booming.

Independent research firm NPD measured changes in the bodygrooming market – which refers to grooming below the neck – between November 2008 and November 2009 and found about a 30 per cent increase in both units and dollars.

Multi-purpose trimmers were down nearly 16 per cent in that time, while old standbys like nose/ear and beard trimmers were basically steady.

Clearly, the contemporary male has turned his personal grooming attention downward.

And while we have the option of handing over our humiliating hair issues to professionals, the very notion is unthinkable to many men. We're instinctively hands-on, self-reliant and vigorously opposed to turning our personal grooming needs into a social event.

There is a range of options on Canadian store shelves, including highly personal machines from Braun, Remington and Philips that dare go where no shavers have gone before.

Braun's bodyCruzer, for example, is a kind of hybrid device that combines a traditional Gillette razor for total cropping along with a Braun electric trimmer for more tempered trimming and shortening. Consider it the Swiss Army Knife of male personal landscaping.

Plastic guards let you control the length of your privates. Choose carefully.

And consider the potential advantages of optical illusion. One prominent bod grooming theory holds that the smaller the nest, the bigger the bird.

My take on the bodyCruzer: Lots of moving parts that work pretty well individually make this seem like a utilitarian wonder. But, like many multi-use machines, it does lots of things with pedestrian competency and nothing particularly well.

The Philips Bodygroomer, recently reinvented with some minor tweaks, is a dandy de-tufter with a gentle foil screen that digs deep without reverting to the old grab-and-rip electric razor technique.

That's helpful for sensitive skin. And, I can now report authoritatively on this point: Tender skin down under is not used to the hostile arrival of metal blades flattening the landscape. The more carefully this exercise is conducted, the better.

But even with surgical precision, know this: That sleek new hairless look comes with delayed repercussions in the form of relentless itching in inopportune sections of the male anatomy.

You will need to excuse yourself from several meetings during the course of the day to relieve the excruciating need to scratch. And just try to resist playing pocket hockey. Just try.

Ancient strains of DNA don't like to be challenged.