In conclusion: men with beards are strong, smart, adult, scary, threatening, and possibly sociopaths.
Hermits. You forgot hermits.
beards
Bearded Weirdo
The beard’s absence from modern American politics can be partially blamed on the two scourges of the 20th century: Communists and hippies. For many years, wearing a full beard marked you as the sort of fellow who had Das Kapital stashed somewhere on his person. In the 1960s, the more-or-less concurrent rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba and student radicals at home reinforced the stereotype of beard-wearers as America-hating no-goodniks. The stigma persists to this day: No candidate wants to risk alienating elderly voters with a gratuitous resemblance to Wavy Gravy.
…And yet, though beards might not be all that common, they’re actually well received among the general population. “I do a lot of work with visual communications, facial expressions, how people read faces,” says Jeff Jacobs. “Facial hair poses no distraction or causes no aversions whatsoever.” Academic research bears this out: In a 1990 paper for the journal Social Behavior and Personality, J. Ann Reed and Elizabeth M. Blunk reported “consistently more positive perceptions of social/physical attractiveness, personality, competency, and composure for men with facial hair.” More recently, researchers Barnaby J, Dixson and Paul L. Vasey rejected the notion that “facial hair decreases a male’s perceived social status because it is associated with traits such as vagrancy.” In fact, participants in their study “rated bearded men as having higher social status than clean-shaven men.”
Whatever, man, whatever. I’m the type of fellow who shudders in horror at an assertion like Eric Hobsbawm’s that politics could ever have anything to do with being a “key to our truths as well as our myths.” I mean, I suppose it’s true, though I would suggest a less-aspirational phrase like “the distillation of all base convention” instead. There are many who affect an ironic embrace of their own marginalization while still yearning to see it validated and affirmed by someone with power and influence, but I’m not one of them. The last thing I would want to see is a president who shares my taste and appearance, ye gads.
Pogonophobia
It is a finding that Brad Pitt might do best to take on the chin: women don’t find beards attractive. Men were rated more highly when they shaved their beards off, a study found. Being bearded also made them seem older and more aggressive. But there is some good news for gents who are fond of their facial hair – having a beard commands respect, particularly from other males.
Fine with me. Let the naysayers have their irrelevant opinions so long as they fear me. I even prefer wearing sunglasses as much as possible to create extra tension. For God’s sake, dear, avert your eyes! You can’t see what he’s looking at! You don’t know what he’s thinking, his face all swathed in mystery like that! He might snap at any moment!
But let us move away from the realm of idiosyncratic taste to the objective territory of science:
Science gives us various theories as to why men are able to grow beards, from protecting the delicate facial skin from sunlight to buffering blows to the jaw in a fight.
Two questions. One, women’s facial skin isn’t susceptible to the damaging effects of UV light? And two, has any man outside of a Chuck Norris joke ever grown such a magnificent bramble patch upon his face that it could absorb punches? This is something I would surely like to see.
It is even suggested that a beard is a sign of a strong immune system. The theory goes that disease-carrying parasites thrive in body hair and so if a man can sport a beard without getting ill, he must be extra healthy.
This is true; my immune system is so strong that it started beating itself up for want of any viruses or bacteria worthy of posing a true challenge. Still, this slanderous association of hair with disease is, unfortunately, all too typical of the propaganda you’d expect from Big Electrolysis. Those bastards won’t rest until all men look like giant walking thumbs.
I have severe reservations about the methodology here, though: this study defined a “full beard” as six weeks of growth with no trimming. No trimming? I’m sorry, what kind of clinical depressives or barbaric hill folk are we talking about here? Is this really representative of the population? I trim mine every week! I daresay any fellow who lets his beard grow that wild and unruly encounters more wildlife than human females in a given day, or he’s simply given up on life altogether.
This, Then, Is the Mark of the Man, the Beard
In the spirit of the season, I can forgive Shmuley Boteach his religious beliefs in order to come together in agreement on the issues that really matter:
A full beard is a sign of the robust mountain man… Second, a bearded man is an honest man by choice and not by circumstance… The bearded man knows he can avoid liability for any untruths. He can hide behind his muttonchops, and no one would be the wiser. But he chooses to have his words mimic his heart. His beard lends him conviction. Third, a beard is also the sign of patience and commitment in a man… Fourth, a beard represents confidence and individuality. A man who grows a beard is a man who is sure of himself. A man who grows a beard is not afraid to stand alone. He does not let himself be swayed by the opinions of his wife (“Oh, no honey, not a beard!”) or of American pop culture. A bearded man knows what he wants and sets out to get it… So, in a moment of half-seriousness, let me say that it seems that so many trail-blazing individuals throughout history have born beards. From literary giants like Allen Ginsberg, Ernest Hemingway, and Walt Whitman, to business visionaries like Andrew Carnegie to the entirety of the Impressionistic Art movement… Of course only bearded men can be artists. They have to fashion that facial hair every morning into something presentable, a challenge and a pleasure that the devilish clean-shaven man will never know… And my final point: a bearded man has the perfect paradoxical relationship between raw instinct and careful cultivation… And only a man with a beard can combine the bohemian and the bourgeoisie in a manner that we can read upon his face. Literally.
The Beast Inside of Me Is Gonna Getcha, Getcha, Yeah
So why are atheists “among the least liked people … in most of the world,” in the words of a research team led by University of British Columbia psychologist Will Gervais? In a newly published paper, he and his colleagues provide evidence supporting a plausible explanation. Atheists, they argue, are widely viewed as people you cannot trust.
“People use cues of religiosity as a signal for trustworthiness,” the researchers write in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Given that “trustworthiness is the most valued trait in other people,” this mental equation engenders a decidedly negative attitude toward nonbelievers.
Oh, izzat so? Well, good. I didn’t want to borrow your money or babysit your fucking kids anyway. Seriously, whatever. More fuel for the flames of my smug sense of superiority, that’s all.
Let me remind you, though, as I’ve noted before, that we facially behaired people are also seen as untrustworthy. When you combine beardedness and godlessness in one perilous package such as myself, well, as Nietzsche said, I am no man, I am dynamite.
Be afraid.
Hair of the Doggerel
Hair worn on a rugged face
Helps God tell men from boys.
Hair shorn from a sacred space
Perverts transcendent joys.
Mad, Bearded and Dangerous to Know
Beardedness was associated with older age, greater responsibility, and leftist political ideas. In Study 2, respondents were 50 Brazilian personnel managers (28 men and 22 women) who made hiring decisions at different companies in the city of Saõ Paulo. Personnel managers clearly preferred clean shaven over bearded, mustached, or goateed men as prospective employees. In a hiring situation for a conservative occupation, a man who signals disposition to conform to rules may be preferred by personnel managers over another who signals nonconformity.
Oh, you have no idea how subversive my dark heart really is. I’d like to bring back some Civil War-style facial hair, myself.
Ode to a Beard
Although Parks And Recreation is currently in its annual downtime, Nick Offerman has still found a way to bring stability to the world through his facial hair: He’s growing out his reassuringly stalwart Ron Swanson mustache into a full-on beard—not just as a vacation from his character, but as part of an effort to conserve water for World Environment Day, which takes place this Sunday. Offerman has teamed with Budweiser in the “Grow One. Save A Million” campaign, asking other men to join him in not shaving, thereby helping to save the average five gallons of water every guy consumes when he uses his non-electric razor.
So not only does my dashing, smartly-trimmed beard, especially when paired with mirrored shades and my ever-present Fidel cap, endow me with a romantic magnetism, hinting at the secret pain and oceanic depth of sensitivity in my world-weary soul, suggesting that here is a man equally at ease composing poems by candlelight for his beloved or leading a revolutionary uprising of the oppressed and downtrodden, causing ladies to fan themselves and swoon in my presence, eyes a-fluttering and hearts a-thumping, but it gives me environmental awareness cred to boot? Almost doesn’t seem fair, does it?
P.S. Five gallons of water to shave? Fellows, you know you can turn the faucet off when you’re not rinsing your razor, right?
I am Become Beard, Destroyer of Worlds
It’s a common complaint among my fellow atheists that the majority of our countrymen think us to be immoral simply because we don’t fear celestial punishment in a nonexistent afterlife. It’s bordering on cliché to say that atheists have no chance of ever being elected to high office here. But I have even more cause to feel aggrieved, as it appears that 80% of potential jurors would likely adjudge me a criminal just because of my magnificent facial plumage. This, despite scientific evidence proving me to be the most trustworthy person you know. Imagine if I were on trial for a capital crime and refused to swear on “a book of Bronze Age fables”, before smirking insolently and sitting back to stroke my hirsute cheeks and chin! Would I even make it to sentencing, or would they just draw and quarter me right there in the courtroom?
Funny, too, given that I just got the notice summoning me to be on standby for federal jury duty from June through December. I can tell you right now, anyone with even a few visible whiskers is going to walk as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care if they’re sporting a necklace of human body parts. This tyranny of the smooth-cheeked must be brought down.
Weard Beirds
I have never known my husband without his beard, a fact that disturbed me in the early years of our relationship. What was he hiding: a weak chin, a saber scar, a slothful nature, a psychological need for a barrier between himself and the world?…My son, at 25, sports something that alternates between a five o’clock shadow and a two-day stubble. I personally am not crazy about this; it looks as though he has forgotten to shave. But I suppose this is the point — the look is an affectation of forgetting to shave, not a real forgetting. As I think more about it, the shadow/stubble carries interesting resonance. Unlike my husband’s clipped boxed beard with its sense of modesty and stability, my son’s quasi-beardedness is more whimsical, more a self-proclaimed mask. It also announces its transitory state unequivocably: No sooner is it achieved than it is erased in order to be begun again. This seems emblematic of our current Internet culture which is ephemeral and continually in need of updating. My son’s quasi-beardedness may also reflect a slowing of the progress from childhood to maturity, what sociologists, referring to the years between 20 and 30, have dubbed “emerging adulthood.”
Ahem. You know, I’m all for indulging in fanciful, quasi-poetic digressions about ordinary topics, but if I may, a prosaic explanation: perhaps, like myself, some men grow beards (to whatever degree) because they like the way they look with them. Maybe they simply have no fucks to give when it comes to fashion and the chattering imbeciles who pay attention to it. Could be that they spend enough time outdoors in cold weather that every little bit of extra insulation helps.
All valid reasons, and ones I personally endorse. I would add that sporting a beard also associates one with a sort of bohemian-poet-musician archetype, which suits me fine, and when paired with my favorite style of hat, the Fidel cap, it adds a bit of revolutionary panache to my proclamations of being a Grouchomarxist.
You’re Not a Whore If It’s for Charity
For the past several years, Asylum and other men’s media organizations have taken the Movember challenge by growing a mustache for the month of November to raise awareness and funds for cancers that affect men. This year, concerned about the role of women in this illustrious holiday, we (in cooperation with the American Mustache Institute) decided to launch Have Sex With a Guy With a Mustache Day. This is a day on which women can support the cause by making love to a man with a glorious, wooly mustache.
Yeah, well, I rock the full facial hair all year long, unlike these trendhoppers with their temporary taint-ticklers, so I guess that makes me more cancer-aware than all y’all. I’m available for the rest of the day, ladies! Unless you want cancer to win!
Titus Androgynous
Via PZ, this is funny:
In western countries in particular, a few years ago beards were often confused with a segment of society that reflected rebellion, namely the “hippy” movement of the 60’s and 70’s. It was felt that we should not in any way resemble those that reflected an attitude like this, or the drug culture that went along with it. We have to separate ourselves from that, and to have a beard a few years ago could be confusing, especially to an older generation of people at that time that were especially repulsed at the conduct of those of the younger generation. Even though we are some 30 or 40 years removed from that situation that existed during the late 60’s and early 70’s, it has been proven by experts that some people on some subconscious level do not trust a man with a beard. The underlying message that some get from a beard is that if you have one, you have something to hide, as if you are hiding behind the beard. I have even heard that idea expressed in sales courses that I have taken for secular activities. Beards are discouraged by some sales trainers because of the subconscious message that some people receive from a person with a beard, and some feel that a person without a beard generally speaking has a more professional appearance than a person who does.…In the 1950s, in the the USA, beards were widely unpopular among the general public and most men who wore one were immediately perceived as beatniks (and later, hippies). In that American, Cold War climate, a young man who didn’t sport a military-esque brush cut and bare chin was out-of-hand labeled a communist or homosexual.
Beatniks, commies and homos, oh, my! But wait a minute…so, acting too stereotypically feminine will get a man accused of being queer, but sporting a beard, the quintessential symbol of masculinity and testosterone…also means you’re a gender traitor? Damn, they’ve got us coming and going, don’t they? Sort of like how they used to say that a witch could present herself as a beautiful young girl or a repulsive old hag. If I didn’t know better, I’d think all this paranoia was reflective of some weird psychological turmoil on the part of the accusers.
In all honesty, one of the greatest things about living among such uptight reactionaries is that they make it so easy to be subversive. No need to actually do anything confrontational or destructive, just let your facial hair follow its natural course!
Speaking of which, here’s another slander I’ve heard a time or twenty in my life:
Paul, the apostle, said something similar in 1Cor 11:14 about long hair being a dishonor to a man… Obviously Paul’s words were intended for his militant Roman contemporaries. That society started the cropped military haircut and clean-shaven face to keep lice to a minimum and avoid giving an enemy something to grab, in a skirmish.
Well, we might have many parallels with ancient Rome, but I’m pretty sure modern hygiene and grooming have rendered the lice issue largely irrelevant. And we blow our enemies up with robot planes from the safety of a control center far away from the battlefield, so I don’t think hand-to-hand combat is as prevalent as it used to be, either. But that’s okay; like I said, hidebound traditions make such easy targets. And at least we don’t have to worry about being crucified for undermining social cohesiveness anymore.
And speaking of that, I find it most amusing of all that these people have no problem worshiping a savior who is constantly portrayed as having…long hair and a beard. Imagine the mental strife that would result should they be additionally forced to admit that a man born 2,000 years ago in Palestine wouldn’t have looked like a white Westerner.
And He That Hath No Beard Is Less Than a Man
You may now add “very trustworthy” to the list of superlatives you use when describing me to your friends.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to training.
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