Do You Feel Alienated From Your Own Facial Hair?

Whiskerino 2005 // The North American Free Beard Agreement

We are alienated from our own facial hair.

Society tells us that full beards are unacceptable. Businessmen, politicians, bankers, and the like are all clean shaven; all demonstrating the standards that middle class society expects us to maintain.

In other words, these are all examples of "the man" keeping down nascent beards everywhere. These are the people that alienate us from our masculinity, forcing us to shave and adopt public personas which might not reflect our own true inner animal.

But it wasn’t always so.

Beards used to be glorified as signs of virility and manliness. A man that couldn't grow a strong beard was privately ridiculed. Some societies would only allow males to grow beards once they were married, thus denoting a sign of stature and respect in the community. To be shaved was to be emasculated.

In early America, societies with men that could not grow facial hair were demeaned less advanced and civilized. Native Americans and the Chinese were both ostracized, in part because of their hairless men. And now we have come full circle where our own society promotes this emasculated version of maleness. Where to be a man is to be clean-shaved; to be respectable is not to have a beard

Let us return to our roots! Let us return to true masculinity! Let us cry out with one voice:

"I WILL HAVE A BEARD!! I WILL BE A MAN!! I WILL NOT CONFORM TO YOUR RULES!"

(HT: Sheriff Benjamin )

Comments

[Wes]

Kevin, your nuts. But, I do second that motion.

For a man like me, lacking growth in the head hair, you got to grow it where you can. Funny thing is since I've been losing it on top it seems to grow like crazy everywhere else. I've got a beard as a write so I say...let it flow....even if the gray starts coming and especially when the wife finds it sexy.

Leave the shaving to the ladies.

[peter magelssen]

yes. i agree. i made my feeble venture into this topic recently. :) i will say this, having a beard does do something to the man inside ya. http://magel.blogspot.com/2005/11/my-beard.html

[Van S]

Yes! Let us rise up in hairy glory!

[Daling]

Welcome home, my brothers. Welcome home.

[Ben]

Hear hear! (This was in its early stages; it's gone now.)

[Kevin Cawley]

this could be my best documented effort to date-- though my current student ID gives this a run for its money-- my current ID card looks a bit more terrorist-ish and a bit less terrifying obese pervert-ish.

[Daling]

Kev -

Is your Mennonite beard symbolic of your manly pacifism, or are you just unable to grow a mustache?

[Pete Wmson]

Kev...

Re: your picture. Mohammed would be most pleased.