To shave or not to shave Experiments with, and observations regarding, facial hair By Cecil Pinto
Like most post-pubescent boys of the early 1980s I nurtured my first sprouting of facial hair into a full fledged beard and moustache. When the beard became a bit unmanageable it was shaved off but the moustache was allowed to grow for many more weeks, until it was respectable enough to qualify as a true sign of manliness. One fine day I decided to trim it myself. The scene was the common bathroom sinks of the hostel at St. Xavier's College in Bombay (I had to mention the exact location to slip in the fact that despite my apparent lack of culture I did actually have a good education). Well there I was with tiny nail scissors in hand looking into this huge mirror. I leaned forward and gently started from the extremities till I had trimmed off all moustache hair that extended beyond the limits of my upper lip. Not quite satisfied with the symmetry I trimmed off a little more from one side. This made the other side totally out of sync so I had to trim off some from that side too. After about ten minutes of meticulous trimming, with no symmetry in sight, I more closely resembled Charlie Chaplin rather than the macho actor I was trying to emulate - Shatrughan Sinha. Hey, I mentioned earlier I'm not very cultured! So between Chaplin-esque and Chakka-esque I chose the latter and have been totally clean shaven ever since - with rare exceptions. For a decade after that first late-teen follicle experience I remained clean shaven. But after a lengthy period of sickness, during which I was home bound, the full beard made its reappearance. I sported the beard for a few more weeks following my convalescence and found that it did make me look more intense (read frightful) than usual and I used to get faster service at most establishments. Keep in mind that around this time 'goondaism' was the new trend in Goa and most of the leading 'goons' of the time sported full beards. Perhaps the better service I got was more a case of mistaken identity rather than looking more menacing in any way. Only in South Asia, and the gay bars of the west, do we see the only-moustache style predominant. I personally feel it should be all or nothing. Neatly manicured pencil thin growths, fancy goatees, sideburns only, Van Dycks, in fact anything that needs more maintenance than a stroke of the hand, is in my opinion a sign of vanity - a particularly feminine trait. Before my female readers complain that this column seems to be only about male facial hair let me assure them that I know lots of females with substantial facial hair. My next door neighbour in fact sports a fine orange moustache, whose unnatural colour, I think, is through the regular application of facial bleach. Other than circus freaks the only female that immediately comes to mind who flamboyantly nurtured her facial hair was the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, who in addition to a moustache also proudly sported a unibrow. Since, except for lesbians and middle aged ladies from Salcete, all females unilaterally treat facial hair as something to be got rid of, or camouflaged, I don't see what more can be said about female facial hair. It's going to be painfully tweezed, threaded and waxed away, regardless of what I say. Since I did mention the word, let me mention here that I also sport a 'unibrow'. Medically known as a synophrys, this refers to a 'confluence of eyebrows'; i.e. when eyebrows converge to form just one big brow. Widely caricatured, especially by cartoon characters, people with unibrows were assumed to be fierce, grumpy, over-serious or quite simply having a propensity to criminal acts. All this balderdash has been scientifically proven as untrue but still Brooke Shields, and our very own Kajol, prefer to trim and separate their unibrows instead of leaving them in a natural state like I do. Where was I? My experiments with facial hair. On an average of once in three years I grow a full fledged beard and moustache, cultivate them for a good two months, and then abruptly revert to totally clean shaven again. In addition to driving the wife crazy it also is a nice experiment in 'age perception'. For example in my last hirsute avatar I took a photo of my bearded visage and sent it to friends all over the globe. The responses were quite educative. Straight males sent in witty comments. Gay males gave lots of grooming advice. I don't have any lesbian friends as yet, maybe our desires are too similar! Older straight females, married or single, reacted in terms of how attractive they found my bearded look. Barring a few exceptions, I found a most curious phenomenon emerges. The younger the female the more disgusting they found the beard to be, but the older the female the more attractive she found it. What is it about male facial hair that older women find attractive and younger females find repulsive? Have I hit upon a secret that younger men, seeking the attention of older females, have been searching for eons? Why would they be seeking elder women anyway? Do they have an Oedipus complex? Do the opinions of thirty female friends represent a statistically significant figure? How come in my younger days girlfriends used to love nuzzling the stubble? How much will the makers of Axe brand grooming products pay for my research findings? Globally an abundance of facial hair has always been connected with masculinity, maturity, pioneering spirit, independence, sincerity, sturdiness etc. Is this what mature women seek in a man, whereas the younger women look for just superficiality, smooth surfaces and wash-board abs? Does the onset of middle age result in a diametric shift in what women find attractive? Should men like me, approaching middle age, be doing something useful for society, like maybe petitioning the President for a garbage treatment plant in Panjim, instead of delving into the attractiveness or not of facial hair? A Greek folk saying goes, ""There are two kinds of people in this world that go around beardless-boys and women, and I am neither one." Perhaps the Greek men were onto something. ------ The humour column above appeared in Gomantak Times dated 10th August 2006 ==== _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org