Wax On, Wax Off

Okay, you and you and you and you. So I guess there are plenty of guys out there who don’t mind hairy chests after all. So, no, I don’t think I’m going to get my upper body waxed. I guess I really don’t mind my hairy chest. But I’m still curious to see if it would look more defined were it smooth.

We homosexuals evaluate our own bodies differently than heterosexuals do. After all, when a gay man looks in the mirror, he’s looking at a potential object of his own desire; if you know what you want in a guy, then you know what you want in yourself, right? Men know men’s bodies. That’s why guys give better blowjobs.

From whence this aversion to body hair? I’d like to blame Hollywood and Calvin Klein and Bruce Weber and so on. But would they not have perpetuated the smooth body image if smooth bodies weren’t inherently better-looking to begin with? Or have we just been inculcated with that belief? Have we just been led to believe that everyone wants a smooth man? Have we leafed through so many catalogs and seen so many movies or gone to so many clubs where we’ve seen smooth shirtless guys dancing together and kissing each other that we think that that’s what everyone wants? Do we think that if you don’t fit that ideal, then nobody will want you?

What about goatees? Nobody in an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue ever has a goatee. Some of the guys in the boy bands have goatees, but they’re the “dangerous” ones. We want the thirteen-year-old girls of America to swoon and scream over the baby-faced and wholesome Lance Bass and and Nick Carter; if they start dreaming about Howie D or Joey Fatone, well then, moms and dads of America, you’d better lock up your daughters, because the next thing you know they’ll be dropping out of school and shooting up with heroin. American pop culture today hates anything edgy. If it’s not straightforward and unironic and squeaky clean, if it has any subtle shades of meaning or any hidden mysterious depths, we don’t want it. Go back to Europe.

Hairless equals youth. We are obsessed with youth. When I was 25, I dated an 18 year old. I dug younger guys, and because I did, I thought everyone else dug only younger guys too. I thought nobody younger than me would want me. And when you go into chat rooms and you see some guy whose profile says he’s “looking for dudes 25 and under,” that reinforces the stigma. I still dig younger guys. But now I also dig guys who are a little older than me, and I didn’t used to, so for me that’s progress.

We reminisce about our youth and we fear the future. We want no hidden depths, we want everything to be out there in the open. We want to be able to see all the rocky outcroppings and slopes and depressions and curves. Plain. Shiny. Squeaky clean. The past is known; the future is a fog, a mystery, unknowable.

The next time I go to a club — if I go — all the shirtless guys will be smooth. But that’s okay. Because who the hell cares what they think? Screw ’em. By this point I’ve had enough people tell me that they like hairy chests or that they like my body for me to realize that it’s okay.

Of course, look what I just wrote: that I’ve realized my body is okay because other people have told me it is.

Well, okay. And you know what? Somebody likes your body, too. If you’ve got acne, if you’ve got a little too much hair, if you’ve got a little paunch, that’s okay. And anyway, if someone likes you, they like you, and it won’t matter if you don’t meet the impossible Queerasfolkian standards of the modern gay world.

Remember the wise words of Mr. Rogers.