An Appreciation Of Hairless Men

Beards these days—everybody has one. We’ve been saturated in dank, swarthy beardy-ness for a while now, with no sign of the trend abating. But we know that it must abate, as all trends do. Let us take a moment, then, to appreciate the hairless man.

He’s still around, you know. Take a gander at any upper-class and gay area in a larger American city and you’ll find him. You might even say that in this type of neighborhood smooth men run rampant, like herds of hairless cattle in nylon running shorts, charging down the street past Sephora and Starbucks and smashing into the windows of the Apple Store.

The metrosexual is what we’re talking about here. The sort of fellow who really does spend fifty dollars on a T-shirt. This man, be he gay or un-gay, probably works out at a gym. He probably has a Craigslist Missed Connection written about him by a guy who looks like a more feminine version of him. He takes pride in his appearance. He spends a lot of money on it. He primps and preens. He’s sexy and he knows it.

And he shaves. His face. His chest. His neck, his back—perhaps even his pussy and his crack. He takes on traditionally feminine characteristics. He emasculates. And god help me, there is something so sexy about that.

We all get the appeal of the overgrown man. The man who is self-assured, confident. Manly. The man who doesn’t care, who knows you’re going to be attracted to him and can therefore do whatever he wants to you. He holds the cards. He holds a big, hairy cock. His chest is a carpet one can curl up upon like a pussycat on a bearskin rug.

Beards are sexy; of this there is no doubt. I have a beard, because I think it makes me look sexy. But what of a slippery lady-man, with skin that is oh-so smooth, stroke-able, and poke-able? What of two-day stubble, the ritual of shearing and regrowth, the lushness of rich lather whisked away by the steely edge of a blade? What, I ask you, of Daniel Craig?

We may judge the hairless men of the world for their consumerist tendencies. Isn’t it easy to assume that, in a world where everyone is out for your money, people have been sold a look and a lifestyle that requires them to disguise their primate heritage and purchase products such as razors, Nair, and anal-bleaching treatments so that they might conform to a certain look? Perhaps, but we all make choices and concessions in this life. We are all doing our best in our little slices of corporate hegemony.

And besides, passing judgment is for the birds. Let us raise our razors to the hairless men of the world for all that they do to make themselves beautiful. Let us remind them—and ourselves—that there is nothing quite like the sensation of a beard rubbing against a shorn taint.