Hairless beefcakes and dimes impose their godly model bodies on flyers and street billboards while big-shot singers rub their bold, oiled up, torsos in front of the video cameras. Sport players show off their perfectly smooth beard-less faces while advertising the latest Gilette razor and waxing models demonstrate how easy it is to remove that nasty hair out of their somehow hairless legs. Despite from the obvious profit of selling products or advertising, why do we hate hair so much? What did it ever do to deserve such cruel punishments like being sliced off with a razors, peeled off with wax or caramel and burnt off with lasers?

How and why did we start killing our thin skin residents and when did all this hair-genocide start. Ironically enough, it started by a Greek King. Alexander the Great was his name. He encouraged his army to shave their beards so that the enemy forces don’t grab on to them.  Apparently beards were way longer back then… So Alexander was the first to introduce shaving as a mainstream task or duty for the average guy. Shortly after, beard styles were followed and way later during the 70’s, after the world had enough with hair chest bushes and Freddie Mercury mustaches, we were introduced to the total hair extermination fest of the 80’s brought to us by guys like the Terminator and Rambo. We had every male action actor flash us with their shiny, oiled up pecks and abs and made every guy go “Huh, If I shaved I’d probably look like them.” Eventually some of them did and without having Arnold or Sylvester’s body type they just ended up looking like naked mole rats.

Hair has been, criticized and condemned, loved and hated, eradicated but always regrown and most of all beards and moustaches should be especially kept untouched. Great men throughout the history have had  beards and moustaches and took pride in them. Abe Lincoln, Salvador Dali, Charlie Chaplin, Wolverine, Ron Swanson, Ron Burgundy and Leonidas all had and have their facial hair as personal trademarks to this day (unfortunately, now we associate Chaplin’s moustache with someone else’s moustache who’s less likable from the public…) By leaving all hypocrisies behind, as a Greek I have lots of hair. And I mean a lot! I’m sure that I have more hair than some people’s fathers out there and I’m only 16 ! I started shaving at 12 and by the time I was 14 I could grow a complete beard. But nothing bothered me more than the hair growing on the rest of my body. I wanted to peel it all off! I wanted to look like those Calvin Klein underwear models you see when you go to Macy’s , I wanted to wear my belt without pealing off 20 pieces of hair, I wanted to have less freaking hair than my grandpa! And I tried all the horrible “punishments” mentioned above to get rid of it; but none of them worked, those thin, tall bastards kept growing back up. Eventually I gave up. I acknowledged the power and will of my hormones and admitted that I am one hairy guy. All of you teens who are disgusted by the sight of your body hair I want you to lift up your shirt, look at your torso forest and thank it. I want you to thank it because you have to think what it has done for you to be in a position to hate it and kill it. It keeps your body warm during cold nights by forming an insulating coat on the body. It traps a layer of still air just outside the skin, and thereby reduces loss of heat. It also captures all dust and dirt particles before they can land on your skin and it absorbs the sun’s lethal UV radiation. More blatantly, it can prevent skin cancer! And you know that awesome feeling when the music is so good or when the movie is frightening you to death and you get Goosebumps? Well thank your hair for that.

But besides its practical uses, hair is a status of masculinity. Especially when it comes to beards, a man can impress, intimidate, attract or repulse. He can also look more sophisticated while stroking his beard and looking up in the sky while he is around people. He is a man with all the meaning of the word. But of course, to perfect one’s beard, one has to shave, or trim, so he can strengthen and dense up his facial hair. This temporary absence of the beard doesn’t take away one’s hairy pride though because he still has his body hair to admire. While all the girls on the beach run after other boys’ empty-bodied, blank skin, a real man should laugh while gently stroking his chin beard and eating a stake. A hairy man has nothing to lose, for he would not sacrifice his beard or hair for girl, otherwise he is worthy of neither. He would wait for a real woman who sees the man in him to approach him, for a real woman would not care about her man’s hair. On the contrary, she should be happy that he’s hairy on account of the warmth she will be feeling while they are snuggling together.

On the bottom line, hair is a man’s wingman in both his personal and business endeavors. We all have it for a reason and it has a purpose to serve, by taking it out also defeats its purpose, to elevate a guy’s status from a boy to a man. No negative comment should make a man shave off his luscious chest hair or his legs or arms, no feminine temptation and no Abercrombie model. Hair is a life companion, a warm partner for cold nights, a health defender and status elevator. A man is born and dies with hair, in fact, his hair keeps growing even after he dies! And there is nothing one can do to shave that off…

Art Credit:Tyler white