When I was a kid, and naturally hairless below the scalp, I couldn’t wait to grow up to be a man. The act of shaving one’s face was a rite of passage I was eager to reach as a pre-adolescent. The grown-up guys with hair on their chests, on their forearms and on their legs (and between them) were symbols of maturity and virility. I was a kid in the 70s, when the hairy-chested Burt Reynolds aesthetic was the ideal.
Now there’s an altered breed of adult male who reverts back to the hairless look we had when we were children. Legions of naturally hairy adult males who were once so eager to buy fake I.D.s and demand to be perceived as grown-ups are now spending good money to literally strip themselves of one of the physical traits that marks them as grown men. Body hair is suddenly something evil that must be destroyed, or at least clipped to a manscaped stubble that chafes when touched.
I can only presume that such rigorous pursuit of hairlessness is really a pursuit of youth, or the appearance or feeling thereof. Or maybe it just feels good to be so Epilady smooth. (Though I can assure you that when the hair starts to grow back, it’s rough – literally – on the person sleeping with you.)
One could point the finger at the fashion industry, pushing hairless models in front of us as the ideal. Another influence could be the porn industry, which hasn’t seen body hair on men for decades. (Lord knows the bad influence porn has had on cheap bedroom dialog.) I was recently made aware of a hairless aesthetic for men that surfaced during the height of the AIDS epidemic. While body hair could mask or hide signs of illness, a bare physique became a way to show that one had no physical signs of the disease, like Kaposi’s Sarcoma lesions, advertising that one was “still in the game,” sexually. “Hairless” meant “healthy.”
Whatever the motive, I can’t help wondering if this declaration of war against body hair all boils down to a clinging desire to be fresh, young, and boy-like. Hairlessness became an aesthetic ideal somewhere along the line for a lot of adult males. It doesn’t stop at the chest, arms and legs, either. I’ve seen platoons of dolphin-like guys at the gym and in personal ads on “dating” websites who wax, shave or sugar themselves to complete hairlessness below the neck, looking something like freakish overgrown eleven year olds. Perhaps these guys are chasing the little boy inside. It’s officially out of control. Mow the front lawn if you have to, but leave some grass!
But, alas, I’m one in the minority of hairy-chested adult males who simply can’t relate to the impulse or the attraction. I haven’t been interested in being a child or looking like one for decades. Nor am I attracted to young boys or anyone who resembles them. The allure eludes me completely.
A man’s natural life sequence is birth, infancy, boyhood, adolescence, manhood, middle age, old age, dotage and, ultimately, death… in that order. When passing into the next phase, previous ones can only be remembered, not regained, no matter how much one waxes.
Obviously, men who are naturally bare-chested/armed/legged are exempt from this petty diatribe. They naturally possess a quality that many men spend a fortune in money and time to achieve. So while others continue to wax away the years, I’ll be rolling my dice at the grown-ups table, which looks like it has plenty of extra chairs from where I’m sitting.
A little favor…
This little blog, my social media nonsense and my occasional podcast run on elbow grease, midnight oil and the frequent bad idea. Access is totally free. Any help you can give so I can continue to produce content and keep the lights on would be immensely appreciated. There is a one-time support option or a recurring subscription through Patreon, which also features exclusive content like my one-man podcast ‘Hahn, Solo’. Thank you so much!!!
4 Comments
Who doesn’t enjoy cuddling up to a nice furry chest 🙂
But trimming your body hair is no different to keeping your head hair neat and tidy or your beard… Isn’t it about just keeping yourself tidy?
It’s totally acceptable that men shave their beard completely and they don’t get accused of trying to look like young boys? It’s just personal preference. I don’t think anyone is really trying to look like anything, they just want to feel good in themselves. I don’t understand why its deemed acceptable for men to shave one part of their body that grows hair after puberty but not another?
To be honest, there is nothing worse than seeing people with untidy and unkept head hair and facial hair and the same can be said for body hair too.. Why let it grow wild if you don’t let your head or beard do the same?
Did some manscapping last week, the only problem seems to be like spring grass, it grows back at light speed!
I know this post is old but I’ve got to point out a flaw in Rob’s logic in his post above. Facial hair and head hair never stops growing just like poodles and other dog breeds that must be regularly groomed because they have hair that doesn’t stop growing at a pre-programmed length. Body hair DOES stop growing at a preprogrammed length so it really has no need to be trimmed.