Facial hair is political

Over the many years of this blog I’ve written very little about what sort of man I’m attracted to. I’ve also said very little in person to family and friends. I didn’t want to make people feel weird. I have a reason to say a bit about it now.

My first gay experience – my first experience where being gay made a difference in the event – was when I was 13, maybe 14. I grew up in a small town (though many, like my father, commuted to the nearby city to work) and my church youth group did a Trick or Treat for UNICEF. The time was the late 1960s. At one house the guy who opened the door had a blond beard. That beard was fascinating and I looked at it as I went through my short spiel about why I was there. I don’t remember if he donated any coins to my little box.

Since this was the late 1960s I had seen few beards on the men around me. Yeah, there were more beards as youth rebelled against the Vietnam war, but those were mostly confined to newspapers and magazines. So this beard was memorable. It was memorable also because it was blond.

At the time I did not know what the beard fascination meant. It was another 13 years before I did. In that time I always looked for beards, especially in passing cars. I still look at beards when I’m out in public. That makes the current mask wearing annoying – the mask hides beards.

It was this fascination that prompted me to grow my own beard, even though I hadn’t figured out I’m gay. I stopped shaving while in college in the middle 1970s. I haven’t shaved since. Once it was obvious I was growing a beard and not just looking scruffy between shaves a professor asked me if I thought I might have difficulty getting a job while having a beard.

That might be one reason why I had 13 job interviews the summer after college graduation before getting a job, though nobody said they didn’t hire me because of my beard. I eventually ended up in the auto industry where nothing was said about having a beard – and in my last 15 years there my boss and several colleagues also had beards.

Alas, my beard started turning white in my late 30s. When in my 40s I was asked how close I was to retirement. Even though it makes me look older it stays. I feel a kinship with Isaac Asimov. When someone told him he would look ten years younger if he shaved of his big sideburns he responded, why would I want to look like a ten year old?

All that explains that once I saw the book Of Beards and Men by Christopher Oldstone-Moore I knew I had to get it. I finished reading it this morning. It is a history of facial hair, well, a history of facial hair in the middle and upper classes of Europe and America. The book is scholarly, though lighthearted, complete with extensive reference notes.

In the introduction the author lays out four principles of beard history:

* The face is an index of variations in manliness.

* Facial hair is political.

* Look at who is shaved and unshaved in a society.

* The forces shaping male faces requires the long view – decades and centuries.

The first chapter asks why do men have beards? Why did humans evolve with bearded males? The beard is either an ornament, something to aid sexual attraction, or a weapon, something to intimidate an opponent. I read this chapter thinking I knew from personal experience that the beard is an aid to sexual attraction. The author eventually agrees. Experiments showed that women don’t necessarily want a man with a beard, though they favor a man who can show (with stubble) that he can grow a beard. Whether or not the beard evolved because of its intimidation it has been used that way in history.

The history begins with King Shulgi of Mesopotamia, who ruled about 2094-2045 BCE. At the time the lords were bearded (better to intimidate enemies) and the priests were shaven. At different times Shulgi filled both roles, so is sometimes shown with a beard and sometimes without.

At the time of King David of ancient Israel the nobility and priests had beards, which were considered sacred. When the king of the Ammonites died and was replaced, David sent emissaries. The new king was convinced they were spies. He humiliated them by shaving their beards and cutting off the lower parts of their robes. The Bible portrays plucking a beard as a grave dishonor.

The story of Samson and Delilah doesn’t specifically mention beards, but does talk about a man’s strength coming from his hair. That was a common idea at the time.

In 331 BCE Alexander the Great was in his campaign to conquer the known world. He was only 22 when he started. Leading up to that time the depiction of the Greek gods changed from bearded to smooth faced so they could be seen as immortal and eternally young. So Alexander chose a shaven look to correspond to his claim of divinity. Before an important battle where he was outnumbered he commanded his army be shaven so they could more readily identify with him and his goals.

Alexander’s clean look held for a few centuries, which is why the author says facial hair is not a fashion statement. The predominate look, hairy or clean, changed too slowly to be under the whims of fashion.

The next change in beards came with Emperor Hadrian, who ruled 117-138 CE. Before becoming emperor he spent time with Stoics. They believed one should live in harmony with nature and if nature had given man a beard he should let it grow. A few other philosophers added to the debate. A man should let his beard grow to show he isn’t a woman. A man’s hair shows he is superior to a woman – an argument made better (ahem!) by throwing in some misogyny. This bearded age lasted only a couple centuries until the first Christian emperors.

“Jesus is the most recognizable bearded man in Western civilization.” However, we don’t know what Jesus looked like. Art in the first five hundred years after Jesus depicted him with and without a beard, sometimes both ways in the artwork of one church. Jesus was declared both fully human and fully divine. So in scenes of Jesus on earth he was shown as clean shaven to represent divine on earth – see above about Greek gods being portrayed as eternally youthful and heroic. This was on contrast to the bearded men in the scene. In scenes of heaven Jesus is shown with a beard to emphasize his human side in contrast to the beardless angels around him.

What shifted in favor of the bearded Jesus was the icon, a portrait used in worship as a focus of veneration. He didn’t need to be shown in contrast to other men – there weren’t other men in the image. In the icon the human side of Jesus needed to be shown. Otherwise he would be too distant to be the one to have shared human suffering. Thus the beard.

Though Jesus remained bearded from then on the debate of whether his followers should also be raged on. Does having a beard make one more like Jesus? Is shaving a sign of discipline? Is the body corrupt and could only be cleansed by shaving off part of the corruption? Does a beard make a man more manly and prevent him from being too feminine? Does a beard make a man vain? Is shaving holy? Shaving won that contest. Eventually that decision was enforced by kingly or papal rulings.

Last summer with my brother and niece I visited a Monastery which had monks whose job was to pray and to attend to religious duties. They also had lay brothers, whose job was to do the work of the monastery – grow the crops and prepare the food for the monks. In some of these monasteries the division of labor was written on the face – the monks were required to be shaven and the brothers required to have beards. There was theological justification for both states.

In 1520 Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France met for a few days of rivalry and partying. Both had beards. This solidified a shift towards beards started by Pope Clement V. His rule was under assault and he and the priesthood “would need to replace the timidity, softness, and self-indulgence of shaven manhood with renewed dedication and firmness. Beards were the ideal signs of those qualities. In addition, according to Pierio Valeriano, a beard “helped to expel the bad humors from the body, prevented tooth decay and other ailments, and protected the skin from extremes of hot and cold.” And the ancients had equated beards with moral strength.

This era of beards ended towards the end of the 1600s with King Louis XIV of France. He was all about image and a man’s natural hair and beard might be too uncontrollable to meet the demands. So no beards and natural hair covered with wigs. Other rulers copied him, as did the general aristocracy.

Peter the Great of Russia also demanded no beards. He wanted to modernize his country and beards were strongly tied to a highly traditional way of life, including the traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Across Europe in the 19th Century a person with a beard was seen as a rebel and a radical. Various groups wanting to disrupt the status quo adopted beards. The exception to this was the mustache worn by military men. This mustache was seen as intimidating, and the soldier was required to grow it and dye it black if it wasn’t already. Prince Albert had such a mustache (though I don’t know if he dyed it) when he met Queen Victoria. That meeting drove away thoughts of her wanting to remain celibate a couple more years. His mustache was important for the history of England.

Those radical groups with their radical beards were put down in the 1848 revolts. Once that had happened the beard lost its association with radicals and became very popular. The time from 1850 to 1890 became one of the great eras for beards. See US presidents Lincoln (who did not grow the military mustache), Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison.

During this era beards were associated with the rising sports movement. But after the turn of the century men decided muscles were enough to show manliness and beards, such as on bicycles, got in the way. In addition, a shaven face showed willingness to be a team player in the new corporate world. That developed to the point where corporations, most notably McDonald’s and Disney, required employees to have no facial hair. They even took the case to the Supreme Court and, in 1976, won. A man’s face was not his own.

So, yeah, I was fortunate to work for an employer that didn’t demand a shaven face.

During this time there were movie stars, such as Clark Gable, with a mustache. The effect was that of a rogue, the kind of man other men dreamed of being but didn’t dare.

Two tyrants of the 20th Century were known for their mustaches. Joseph Stalin had a mustache, already seen as militant because of its association with the military in the previous century. Adolph Hitler didn’t want a full mustache because it invoked the failed past, the failure being Germany’s loss in WWI. Clean shaven “suggested the bland and unromantic modernity of Germany’s western rivals. The famous square of dark hair under the nose became the ideal alternative. It delivered just enough of that forceful distinctiveness that Hitler needed to project an aura of command.” It also helped him avoid looking vulnerable.

I remember the photo of Harry Truman holding up the newspaper with the big headline “Dewey Defeats Truman” from a newspaper that called the race a bit early. It was that close. Many people thought that if Thomas Dewey had shaved his mustache he would have won. No president or candidate has tried facial hair since.

For the rest of the century the beard was the symbol of the radical. An example was John Lennon and Yoko Ono and their bed-in protests. There were also the beatniks and Vietnam protesters.

In the 21st Century the metrosexual appeared. An example is David Beckham and his famous 70 foot underwear advertisement poster outside Macy’s in San Francisco. This is a reconfiguring of what it means to be a man. It included sharing power with women and eliminating the gender divide. The metrosexual took cues from gay men who grew beards to show that homosexuality does not mean femininity. Other bearded gay men include bears, large hairy men, and leathermen, who like to show off in leather clothing.

The author wrote there are four main reasons for growing facial hair today. First is gender bending, such as the metrosexual. Second is nonconformity. This includes Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church in California, part of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention. Warren oriented his particular church to appeal to the younger crowd. To do that he has a goatee and sponsored a beard contest.

The third type of modern beard is for religious identification, such as grown by Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and the Amish. And the fourth is the quest beard. This is a beard that is kept for the duration of a mission. During that time quest beards help with team cohesion and unity, creating a brotherhood. A baseball example is the 2013 Boston Red Sox. They came from behind to win the World Series in 2012. To help them win again in 2013 they all grew beards. It worked. Here’s a site that rates their beards. Quest beards are traditional in the National Hockey League. Whatever teams make the playoffs grow beards until their part in the season is over.

A couple years ago while doing my exercise walking at a local mall I decided to count the number men and the number of mean with facial hair. I was pleased the ratio was close to 50%. Though that study was in no way scientific, I am delighted I live in an age where beards have become an individual choice that more men are choosing.