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Our Follicles, Ourselves
Well, the grooming wars have started up again. Is it October already? And sure as winter rain, just like in each of the grooming wars in the past, yours truly gets to play the role of the Universal Consensus Standard of Disgusting. Today’s example comes from Hugo:
[M]y chest hair is not a rebuttal to anything. It is what it is—a tribute to my DNA, which decreed (thank you, ancestors) that I would naturally have hair on my head for life, hair on my chest in moderate abundance, and very little hair on my back. (That constellation of gifts almost makes up for the hopeless nearsightedness.)
Thank god that I was not born a woman, or with back hair! But the gratefully demihursute Hugo is far from the first person to arbitrarily designate this benign trait as anathema. It’s relatively easy to find examples of snide references to back hair as something that, it is assumed, is justifiably loathed by everyone.
Hi. My name’s Chris. I have back hair.
I have enough back hair, in fact, that the last time I got a haircut, the woman cutting my hair tried to clean up my neckline in the back, pulled my shirt collar out a little more as she realized she needed to shave lower, and then when she’d gotten about an inch below my collar she peered down in and said “Wow. where does it end?”
“My forehead,” I replied.
“Ew,” she advised.
I wasn’t always hairy “back there.” It’s pretty much sprouted since after Becky moved in with me. (I’m not implying causality there.) (Nor am I breathing a sigh of relief that it grew after she was already used to me: Becky is not the sort of superficial twit who’d decline dating someone based on back hair, unless it was clogging the tub drain.) I would like to feel proud of that hair: it’s something I inherited from a cherished ancestor, shown here in a pensive mood. I mean, big deal. I’m a mammal, and it’s hair. I can see being upset were it feathers. But it’s not.
I really don’t get it. I mean, it’s not like people haven’t rightly condemned the obsession with removing hair in other places: armpits, legs, crotches, faces, asses, eyebrows. Why is the back the one spot where we’re all supposed to agree hair is a bad thing? For a while, I wondered if it was mere healthy reaction among women to being intimidated by the patriarchy into shaving their legs and pits. But a few years of reflection — and of witnessing far too many non-rhetorical shudders — makes me think otheriwse. Please note that I’m not trying to cop a “but men are oppressed too” line here. First off, the whole running the world thing does mitigate the issue somewhat. Secondly, this issue really cuts across gender lines, as women with back hair face waaaaay worse stigma.
I just wonder why otherwise sensitive people feel free to insult the dorsally hirsute in public. Do we not also read blogs? Do we not have feelings? Should we alone of all the people in the feminist world be forced to depilate based on the cruel and unsupported prejudice? Fashion is not spelled “fascism.” You who style yourselves* metrosexuals will come and go, but those of us who are Me-Troglodytes will always be with you, supporting your right to bear leg fur and Frida Kahlo ‘staches with impunity. Please stop oppressing us. Thank you and goodnight.
* heh
Posted by: Chris Clarke
Note: A database glitch in 2008 ate a bunch of archived comments. Don't be offended if yours isn't here, or confused if the conversation seems disjointed. Thanks!
Yet another reason I’m glad I’m a lesbian.
By: By Jane on 2006 10 16
By the way, that was not meant as an affront to your back. Really.
By: By Jane on 2006 10 16
I like hairy guys, including the back hair.
I don’t shave anything, except every once in a while, my head.
So there.
By: By zhoen on 2006 10 16
I have a bit of back hair. But what I really have is FRONT hair. It is thick, luxurious, a beautifully graduated pelt of brown and white, and I love it. I’m a mammal; this is my fur. I have a pretty good beard too.
Regarding other people’s hair, my only reservation is that there are some guys who should NOT attempt to grow beards. The ones with those weedy, scruffy, pubic-hair beards should probably shave for their entire lives.
One last thing: This business not long back when young men were going in to have their chest hair permanently removed with lasers—that’s frickin’ creepy to me. It’s like volunteering to go in to be castrated—just because it happens to be in fashion at the moment.
By: By Hank Fox on 2006 10 16
I’m with Sara on this one! I want feathers all the way! Fuck the drains!
By: By Elissa Feit on 2006 10 16
Like a lot of gay men, I totally love hairy guys. The more, the better—backs, shoulders, butts, chests, anywhere. So next time you furballs get the “Eeww” response from the opposite sex, just remember you’ll probably get a beter reception from your same sex buddies!
By: By Denny on 2006 10 16
You’ve just added to my list of people it’s still socially acceptable to mock, deride, insult, and say “ew” to their faces:
fat people
Southerners
smokers
and now, new to the lineup:
people with back hair
thanks for keeping us informed.
By: By Jezebella on 2006 10 16
back hair is an issue?? gawd, i’m so out of it.
the purely local male hair-related issues in my household have to do with not enough. my husband once sported curly thick locks to his waist [along about 1974, before my time], and now he is subjected to in-house teenagers teasing him about the increasing presence of skin on top of his head. meanwhile, when teen son skips shaving for a couple weeks, all he manages is a little stubble on the upper lip. he is quietly and patiently hoping that the hair hormones keep flooding in.
By: By kathy a on 2006 10 16
By: By Ann Bartow on 2006 10 16
ann, the shaven alliegence might be more meaningful if there wasn’t another number growing out under the 3. just sayin’.
By: By kathy a on 2006 10 16
Oh for the love of Peter, John, and James.
Chris, mea culpa.
My wife wishes it known that I have a small and unsightly pocket of back hair just above the belt line.
By: By Hugo on 2006 10 17
=v= Get back! Get back! Get back to where you once belonged. (Baby got ....)
By: By Jym on 2006 10 17
I was in the lunchroom one day with a group of women discussing a movie we had all watched, specifically, a scene in which the very hairy lead guy takes off his shirt. At the mention of the scene, in unison, another woman said “Bletch” as I exclaimed, “Yummmm”! I love a good pelt.
It takes all kinds.
By: By Sage on 2006 10 17
My name is Rob and I have hairy legs, but am pretty much otherwise fur-free except for the acceptable and totally-attractive-with-hair four other areas.
I think that this is not about back hair per se. I’ve seen pictures of the host of this fine blog, and it is quite possible that he has some Scottish Highlander blood coursing through his veins (indeed, the ancestral portrait you linked to looks like a typical MacDonald contemplating a raid). For centuries, Highlanders were reviled by Lowlanders as hairy, uncouth louts. The hair itself is merely an adaptation to lounging around the cold, damp braes and glens. Our current attitudes are inherited from the fine sensibilities of the Lowland Scots, summarized in this description of an early example of “ethnic cleansing”;
http://www.glencoenet.com/McDonaldClan/Glencoe.htm
By: By Rob G on 2006 10 17
We can’t pick on back hair any longer? Oh well. Time to move onto people with attached earlobes.
By: By Amanda Marcotte on 2006 10 17
Oh, come on! It’s sexy! The whole suggestion that there are hidden depths to your testosterone. Plus if you sleep with someone with back hair, you don’t need the flannel jammies.
By: By Deborah on 2006 10 17
Thanks Deborah. We’ve gone from fully bipedal apes whining “We don’t get no respect”, to <strike>blatant</strike> implicit insults to the masculinity of us more refined males. It’s a good job we are sufficiently comfortable with our masculinity that we forego complaining about this slur.
By: By Rob G on 2006 10 17
Personally, I find that the only problem with back hair is the occasional hair up my nose when I’m spooning him. I like fur.
By: By Stephanie on 2006 10 17
“So how do you feel about back hair?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBiNP_BEBAA&NR;
By: By Hank Fox on 2006 10 17
“that was not meant as an affront to your back”
Thank you for that, Jane. That cracked me up. :D
By: By Space Kitty on 2006 10 17
You know, until Space Kitty pointed it out, I didn’t even see the pun in that aside.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2006 10 17
Rob G wins for most-oversensitive.
Rob, for the record, it’s possible for something to be sexy without its opposite being un-sexy.
Watch me, it’s easy:
Small breasts: Sexy
Large breasts: Sexy
See?
By: By Deborah on 2006 10 17
I’m not angry about being called oversensitive. Just deeply, deeply hurt.
There is one very nice thing about having a hairless back. Having a close friend run her fingers ever so gently around it cannot possibly feel as good if it is covered with a thick layer of hair.
By: By Rob G on 2006 10 17
Oh my, am I included in the “otherwise sensitive” club? Hiliarious! I always thought I was kind of a b*tch.
Thanks for the link, though. Esau.
By: By Redneck Feminist on 2006 10 19
I am gay, and only i can say is some one dosen´t like your back are nuts. I love put my hand and softly make cuddles in a hairy back is part of be a man, in another words a hairy back is something to play, to be sensitive, to make a massage, is part of the sex appeal of someone whose like men, women whose don´t like fur don´t love the real men, only the models of Men Health, believe me don´t change only for the stupid stigma of the beauty in the comercial minds of the women of today. you must be happy of you and your appearence some can be blind to see with the hart.
By: By killbo on 2006 10 26
If it is any consolation, I am covered with freckles. I bet I have more freckles than you have hair.
By: By The Truffle on 2006 10 31
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