Viper -
As someone who has been shaving down there for more than two years now, perhaps I might be able to shed some light one things
First of all, remember this: The number one, most effective and most important disease prevention mechanism in your body is your skin. A break in your skin is a direct pathway into your body for pathogens*. Shaving just before a foray into the RLD is therefore not a good idea, for two reasons. One, if you knick yourself, you have just increased your chance of contracting an infection tremedously. Two, if a girl sees blood, she ain't coming anywhere near you and I don't blame her. Shave in the morning and go out in the evening or better, shave before you get there and just let it grow if you're staying a short time or do only light trims if you're staying longer.
Now that I have the mandatory safety warning out of the way...
I don't think that shaving is gay in the least. My cock looks better and bigger(!) shaved and it feels better when I slip it into my favorite ladies. I'm a convert. Anyone who mistakes my dick for one of a prepubescent, simply due to lack of hair, either has not seen adult penises or has other issues IMHO. It's their problem, not mine. If you don't believe me, create an account at
http://www.redclouds.com and search for Dogsafire on the BB pages.
I shave in the shower since everything is already wet, my hair is soft and it's easy to get well cleaned up. I have found that multi-bladed razors produce far fewer nicks than twin blades. Don't even think about a single edge razor if you're new at this. For a couple of weeks, you will get nicks, razor bumps and other undesireable results, so start well before you want to make use of your new look. The reason this happens on your pubes and not your face is simply because you have been shaving your face for years now and the skin has become conditioned to the razor. The same conditioning process (which you have forgotten about, regarding your face) must be repeated for your pubes. When you start shaving your pubes, there will be little bumps that get planed off by the blades and there will be irregular areas that catch the blade.
After you have literally sliced these parts away, your skin and the razor will become much better friends. There will be blood at first. There is no escaping it. But once your skin becomes conditioned - and you become a bit more skilled - it gets better. Shave relatively slowly. Pay attention to what you are doing and especially pay attention to the feel of the blades. It is now very rare that I get a shaving nick anywhere in my pubic area.
I do not use shaving cream. I like to be able to see what I am doing (but I also go a lot by feel). If I need a lubricant, a glycerine soap like Neutragena or Pear's makes a thin, slippery film that doesn't obscure your view the way that shaving cream does. Some sort of lubricant is required though, because your skin becomes a bit sticky in the shower and you want the razor to move very easily and consistently.
The hardest part is right at the base of the penis. There are multiple, changing angles and the hair grows in different directions. Unfortunately, it is these hairs that my ex used to complain about when I tried shaving before. If they are not kept well trimmed they can be very sharp and they hit her right at the entrance to her vagina, so she is very sensitive to their presence. I am now very careful about keeping these well trimmed, but I still find that area to be the most difficult to shave.
Shaving the sack isn't nearly as difficult as it would seem. The hardest part is learning to relax so that the skin will become smooth. The heat of the shower helps also. Don't worry about gettting it perfect. If you shave regularly you may miss some hairs one day, but you'll get them the next time. The hairs on the sack seem to be much softer than other pubes too, at least on me. If a few get a little long, it's not much of an issue.
I like the shaved look and feel enough that recently I have started trying permanent removal using a heat/light device (no!no!) that works in much the same way as a laser. The coloring of your hair is important in converting the laser's light output into heat, so lasers don't work particularly well on light colored or gray hair. I'm getting a few gray ones, so I went with the direct heat. This, too, has its own issues, but I have not been using it long enough to provide much feedback on the unit's effectiveness.
All for now
the dogs
* This is why burn victims have such a difficult time. Besides the pain, with so much skin loss, they are at extreme risk of infection until the skin can grow back.