If you worry about the feminization of the American male, if mantyhose and intersex fish have you wringing your hairy hands with concern, boy have I got something to keep you awake at night: pejazzling. It’s the new, alleged vogue for decorating the male genital area with gingerly placed Swarovski crystals. After all, isn’t it high time your weiner had a tiara?

Before you give me the Pound Puppy eyes and ask “But why? Why would men want to look like Bob Mackie had gotten hold of their cocks?” you might want to know more about what it is. Let’s start with the name, which came about, as all good things did, in the 70’s, when the world was introduced to Bedazzler. This was a plastic stapler, which allowed you to festoon your dowdy, serviceable clothes with rhinestones and studs, turning you from Jane Goodall to Cher overnight (there was also Ronco’s Rhinestone and Stud Setter which did the same thing but with a less captivating name). My mother never got me one because I had the tinsel taste of a Vegas drag queen from the crib and would have surely Bedazzled the dog, my hands and her Kotex pads, given time.

|Vajazzling]Leap forward 34 years and we are introduced to Vajazzling, the application of crystals to the female pubic area — you know, where the hair used to go. The Bedazzler may have inspired the name but the crystals aren’t stapled on, just gently smushed into place like a temporary tattoo, or tweezed into an appropriate formation. It looks pretty and could be a nice surprise for a special night, like sparkly underwear that doesn’t get in the way of really urgent sex.

Vajazzling got a lot of press last year when Jennifer Love Hewitt talked it up on TV but just recently the male version — pejazzling — has shimmered into the spotlight. British salons that vajazzle have asserted that 40 percent of their clients are male and the Face to Face salon in NYC has also begun to offer men the allure of a crystal crotch. The iron cross and the red lips are two popular pejazzle designs.

|Pejazzling]Okay, it’s cute and all, but outside of the male stripper/dancer community, I doubt pejazzling is going to going to be a mainstream hit, the mullet or the Nik Nik shirt of 2011.

First of all, maybe it’s because I live in Florida, where closed-toed shoes will get you labeled “fancy pants” but I don’t think most men want to dress up this much. Some (straight) men I know have — I am not kidding — formal t-shirts, which are the ones that haven’t been washed often enough for the black jersey they’re made of to have turned ‘decomposition green.’ The only way I can imagine them gluing anything to their mons pubis would be for an episode of Jacksass.

Also, I don’t think men will endure as much annoyance for the sake of grooming as women will; I know they get Brazilians and manicures, but if they were that meticulous I wouldn’t have seen as much back hair in my lifetime as I have. And frankly I’m glad. I admit it: I’m fine with back hair. It’s manly. Wookies rock.

That doesn’t mean I’m some antiquated yahoo who wants to keep gender stereotypes frozen in carbonite, i.e., crystals are for girls, back hair is for boys. There are plenty of men would benefit from a liberal application of eyeliner now and then, and androgyny is often stunning but I’m still not 100 percent sure I want to see a rhinestone encrusted penis area, and not just because the words “penis” and “encrusted” should never appear together outside a medical text book. One reason is because I’m quick to insert myself into situations mentally and a pejazzled pizzle seems like it would be uncomfortable, like a bunch of well-placed scabs, scaly, off-putting and just another thing standing between me and where I want to be.

The real problem, though, is pointlessness: male nether regions are one of the few things on earth that don’t need a goddamn makeover. Nearly everything else in the world requires a wash and brush-up to make it bearable. Fruit? Better as pie. Air? Better when it’s conditioned. Water? In it’s natural state it’s either full of salt, alligators or something that needs to be strained, boiled or chlorinated away. Nature just doesn’t put out a lot of final drafts.

That’s why, when it does grace us with something as sublime as the male pelvic zone it’s a bit gauche to glue spangles to it, unless your balls are headlining at the Grand Ole Opry. The male hip bones alone (poetically called the iliac crest) peeking out over the top of a pair of Levis are visual valium and penises don’t even need the wrappers they came in (though foreskin — nature’s ascot — is fine, too).



So the male crotch doesn’t need faux finishing, but the pejazzled men of the 21st century didn’t invent the embroidering of their bathing suit parts. The Dani tribe of New Guina wear traditional penis gourds, also called phallocrypts which could put your eye out even if you’re standing across the desk from one (which doesn’t seem likely). The codpiece, popularized during the time of Henry VIII, was originally simply a genital covering but became ever-more exaggerated and attention-getting, like Hummers. And then of course there’s the Prince Albert penis piercing, popular today but made famous by Queen Victoria’s son who, according to The Frisky, had such a distractingly prominent bulge in his aristo-pants that he pierced the tip in order to anchor it to one side. So the pejazzlers aren’t the first to touch up what was fine in the first place.

I’m sure it sounds like a double standard to give vajazzling a thumbs up and pejazzling a thumbs down. That definitely doesn’t mean I think the female crotch needs decorating — it, too, is perfect au naturel. Duding up these wonders of nature just distracts from an already perfect thing, like putting sauce on a really good steak or makeup on a baby. Your “down there” is fine as it is. When so much else in the world actually needs renovation, what’s the point of gilding the willie?