I’ve had it with beards. You can’t go anywhere without seeing them. And men think beards are so ‘trendy’ and ‘hot.’
Why?
I’m a gay man who has never liked beards. And I know there are a lot of women who share my distaste for that pesky facial hair.
First there’s the scratchiness when you kiss the guy.
Then there’s just the general grossness of the fuzzy monster, things get caught in beards (egg salad — yulch!).
Finally — truth be told, what I find attractive about men is — their faces. (No, not that other thing!) Give me a good face — really, it doesn’t matter what’s going on anywhere else. Of course there are lots of different faces out there, and thank God, there’s something for everyone. But what defines male attractiveness for me (and this is just me, I know) is the square jaw with a hint of peach fuzz around the edges, and a hint of nature’s own pink blush on the cheeks, and a big pair of lush pouty kissable lips plunked right smack in the middle.
Yup.
If the guy’s got a beard all that luscious male beauty is covered up.
So what’s with the mania for beards these days?
In the gay community — where everything always tends to get out of hand, for some reason — guys are going nuts with this beard thing. You can’t get a date with a guy if you don’t have a beard. Remember obsession over penis size? Gone. It’s been replaced with obsession over beard size. The bigger, the messier the beard, the better. We even have a name for the (many) gay men obsessed with The Smith Brothers — we call them ‘lumbersexuals.’
So what are all these ‘beardos' trying to prove?
(Because it is my contention that they are definitely trying to prove something.)
The clue came to me when I was looking up at a sign for a store in the gay village that sells stuff for ‘men with beards and those who love them.’ The sign said: “Be proud of your beard — it’s what your Dad gave you!”
Ahah.
So it’s all about Dad.
And then I remembered that other era where all the men in North America and Europe had beards. It was called the Victorian era.
You see it’s my theory that the beard equals patriarchy, oppression, and celebration of all things masculine.
Yulch, again.
I hope you don’t think I’m crazy if I tell you I have great deal of old fashioned affection for the feminine virtues: vulnerability, beauty, grace, tenderness, kindness, etc. And I’m a bit worried that after coming a long way baby — and celebrating women — we may have come to a full stop. I mean even some women these days value all that’s ‘masculine’ over what used to be called ‘feminine.’
So this celebration of Dads and ‘maleness’ just makes me what to puke.
I mean are we going back there again?
To the Victorian era?
Is that why the Christian Right is working so hard to get rid of Planned Parenthood?
Okay, so you may think I’ve gone too far, that I’m reading too much into this whole beard thing.
Maybe I am.
But that doesn't change anything.
I HATE beards.
