Hirsute honies

Men's Fitness, Dec, 2003

My girlfriend has hair on her nipples. Is that normal?--A.C., BRECKENRIDGE, CO

ACTUALLY, ALL WOMEN have some hair on their chest, a byproduct of the hormonal roller coaster that is puberty. It's more a light peach fuzz than the burly chest rug common in men, but that doesn't mean women can't get shaggy in the shirt. "Excessive hair on a woman's chest, breast, and nipples can be caused by Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)," says Chris Karavolas, a certified laser specialist who removes chest hair from two or three women a week. All women produce male hormones in the ovaries, but when afflicted with PCOS the amount increases to the point where body hair blooms all over. Karavolas adds: "Female chest hair can also be triggered by a hormonal imbalance, insulin resistance, pregnancy, trauma, and birth control."

But why did women--and men, for that matter--lose the apish fur that covered most of our bodies to begin with? Around 1.2 million years ago hair was the fabric of our lives. According to researchers Dr. Mark Pagel of the University of Reading and Dr. Walter Bodmer of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, both in England, it's believed that hirsute homo sapiens began to lose their hair to keep cool while crossing the sweltering African Savannah. Since all that body hair was Vegas to blood-sucking lice, fleas, and ticks, losing it was an evolutionary double play.

By the time humans began wearing clothes, around 50,000 years ago, they were practically hairless. Soon, lack of hair became synonymous with sexual selection, as in, "Look, I'm bald and louse-less! Wanna mate?" But why did women lose more hair than men? According to Dr. Pagel, men had greater powers of choice and were more intensely interested in physical attributes. Well, you can take the Neanderthal out of the man, but we still like hairless nipples.