I live with a gorilla. No, really.

A hairy, loud, monkey-butt gorilla. He’s my male genome project, my dirty sex maniac and my boy roommate. He’s endearing, inebriated and completely incapable of cleaning anything. I love him, but…

I am a freak about hair. I meticulously blow-dry, primp and chemically tease my hair anytime I have to go out. I shave everyday, Mach 3 or nothing, and I’m dead serious. I’ll flip out if I have to use anything less or if I get less than 20 minutes in the shower. I need time to deal with hair, everywhere. I’m not high maintenance, I just have the Pantene girl complex.

My roommate, however, has very little concern about hair. Which is troublesome because he has so damn much of it. It’s everywhere. I have not seen so much body hair since Pete Sampras in the 2002 U.S. Open. Which leads me to hair – and what guys should be doing about it.

First of all, if you’re not shaving your balls, you should at least be trimming them. I understand not wanting to take a blade to the tender two, but there is nothing wrong with keeping it neat. Hair should be the same length (like cutting grass), and you should check for stray hairs. There is nothing worse than “going down there” and a) discovering a mouthful of fur and b) finding that one stray hair has grown three times the length of its neighbors.

Two, if you are a hairy man and you like to make out, you should shave your beard regularly – unless you can pull off the sexy Jude Law unshaven look; in that case we won’t care about chaffing. If you aren’t a hairy man, don’t try and grow it, you idiot. You’ll look like the top of Yoda’s head. And by the way, don’t do any funny stuff with the beard. Aye, my lucky charms, I don’t want to date a leprechaun.

Three, chest hair. It’s a fuzzy issue. I used to be repulsed by chest hair. I wanted to date the swim team. But then I dated chest hair and now I’m converted. It’s manly, and it doesn’t have to be disgusting if the guy knows how to use it to his advantage. Essentially, the guy has to be adorable in all aspects of the word. The best I can say to the man with chest hair is, “May the force be with you, Luke.”

Anything else is either fine or completely wrong. Happy trail, fine. Lots of ass hair, wrong. Leg hair, fine. Back hair, so wrong. Sideburns, if you can pull it off. Unibrow, wrong. Men must deal with these things, and women don’t want to know about it or have anything to do with it. You’re on your own. We don’t want to know about your Nair habits, we don’t want to shave your butt, and we don’t really want to pluck your eyebrows. We do our own.

Which leads me to what men don’t even begin to realize about a woman’s hair routine. Let me give you the Cliff Notes version.

It starts when we wake up. Bed head. Eyebrow plucking. Move to shower. Before the shower, we might have to bleach. Which means application of a foamy white substance and letting it sit for 15 minutes while we deal with the putrid smell.

Shower: Shampoo, which may mean different kinds for different reasons, conditioner for longer than the bottle says to leave it because of damn tangles, and shaving. Pits, legs and maybe down there, or you could have a waxing.

Imagine hot wax being spread across your pubic hair while a 40-year-old hovers over you with her tearing machine, perspiring as she rips away at your tender tulips.

All this and I’ve heard men complain: too much hair, not enough, the design is wrong. What the hell is wrong with people? If you make elaborate designs out of your pubic hair, please go jump off the nearest cliff. No, seriously.

Too much hair down there can be a dilemma. You really should trim. Do unto others as you would have done to you. No hair can be disturbing. If you’re going to shave or wax, make sure it’s clean. Only you can prevent forest fires!

And this is only the beginning. Just know that if you own a penis, it’s all very beyond you. Simply respect it. And don’t give her a hard time about the extra 10 minutes she needs in the bathroom before you go out.

She’s got fucking fabulous hair, and you’re the gorilla.

Daily Nexus sex columnist Beth Van Dyke just uses shaving as an excuse to do other things in the shower.