A man’s struggle to overcome shame and self-consciousness of the body hair he was born with.
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You’re a secure young man, Mr. Patalive. For your whole life, my dear friend, you’ve stood naked in front of a mirror and told yourself that you were good looking when no one else did. Whatever part of your body that you hated, whatever you wished you could change or undo, you’ve managed to lie to yourself until you’ve overcome these issues.
What about yourself have you always hated but are becoming more secure about? What do you always think is the grossest thing about you? Is it your jawline? No, that’s ridiculous. Is it your long toes which you’re always curling back and forth, always moving; those long toes that everyone points out and says are gross? No, not that either. You couldn’t give two shits about your toes. Well, than what is it? I know you know, just tell me. Is it your body hair? Bingo.
\/\/\/
From a very young age, you’ve had body hair. The pubic hair came earlier than your friends, and you could grow a nice looking mustache at the age of twelve. By fifteen you could grow a beard and also by fifteen you started to get chest hair. Not just one or two, though. You’d say it was closer to a fuckin’ million. Whenever you took your shirt off, people would tell you to take your sweater off, too. Guys and girls would poke fun at how hairy you were and you would feel ashamed to be shirtless in front of anyone. Going to the beach was the worst. You wouldn’t want to take your shirt off and be the hairiest guy under forty-six years old. You used to stand shirtless in the mirror, like you did for all of your other insecurities, and tell yourself that you weren’t gross because you had all of this hair on your chest, stomach, arms and shoulders. You would try to reason with yourself and remind yourself that you were a beautiful person regardless of the fact that you would never be smooth. You would never see your true, bare skin. That’s when you got the idea, one night, to stand in the shower, take your father’s beard trimmer, and come as close as you could to being the way you thought boys should look. With the hair falling in clumps onto the shower floor, you felt happy because now no one would make fun of you and you could take your shirt off without feeling ashamed.
\/\/\/
It’s no surprise that you’re as hairy as you are. Your father’s side of the family is Italian and very hairy. Your father has as much body hair as you and, when you were fifteen and all you had was chest hair, when you looked at your father’s hairy back, you thought to yourself, At least I only have hair on my chest and not my back. Your mother’s side of the family is mostly Lithuanian—another extremely hairy people group—and your mother has told you many times about her own insecurities with her body hair as a young girl. She used to take you to get you and your brother’s hair cut at the same place she would get her waxing done. You used to have to wait for an hour (or sometimes more) while she got her entire body waxed. You tried it once, one summer. When you were extremely bored while waiting for her to be finished, you imitated the woman who waxed your mother. Taking the wooden popsicle stick out of the warm, gooey wax, you put a little bit on your hairy thighs, taking the cloth strip, placing it on the wax, making sure it was on real good, and ripping it off. A tear came to your eye but you liked how it felt. (Was this the beginning of your masochistic behavior? Was this when you first realized you like inflicting pain on yourself? It should be of no surprise that you are one hairy somethin’ else.
\/\/\/
Your older brother’s not as hairy as you, which used to upset you and make you silently resent him. Why do I have the bad eyes, you would think to yourself. Why am I the shortest one in the family? Why am I the hairiest? Why am I the least intelligent? You used to believe that your brother got all of the good genes and you got the garbage genes that were just left over; like if, when you were being formed in your mother’s womb, God said to Jesus or the Holy Spirit or whomever was in the room at the time, “I’m just not sure what genes and traits to give this kid. Well, I guess I’ll just reach into the garbage can of genes that aren’t incredibly detrimental to his future but will make him hate himself a lot of the time and throw ‘em into his mom’s belly. Sound good?” And then Jesus or the Holy Spirit nodded their head in agreement that, yeah, that sounds good to me/us.
\/\/\/
Around the age of sixteen you were starting to get hair on your back. This was the most detrimental bodily-growth to your self-esteem. Now, not only were you ashamed by the fact that you were perpetually wearing a shirt of hair on your front; you were ashamed of the patches of disgusting, dark brown hair on your back. You know that, when humans were and didn’t have many warm clothes, back hair was necessary for their survival. But, in this glorious modern age we’ve been living in, with the invention of long sleeved shirts and sweaters, back hair is no longer necessary. Yet, if you’re one of the unlucky ones, it still grows. In the summer when you would swim at friends’ houses, swim at your house, or go to the beach, you would stand in the bathtub and your mother would shave your back like she shaves your father’s back. With your voices echoing off of the white, plastic walls and your hair falling listlessly to the ground, you would talk about how shitty it was to be so hairy. Then she would leave and you would begin your work on the front of you, constantly staring into your bathroom mirror to make sure you didn’t miss a spot while reminding yourself—forcing yourself to believe—sthat you were beautiful and this hair was an endearing quality to you. The whole process would take forty-five minutes or longer, and afterwards you would put your shirt on and feel the stubble all over your body. When it grew in more and more the fabric of the shirt would catch on the sharp hair covering your everywhere and would sometimes hurt.
\/\/\/
It was your freshman year of college when you learned to love your hair (maybe not love it per se, but accepted it). Your mother would ask you if you wanted your back shaved when you visited home and you said no. You stopped shaving your chest. Now, you realize that you grew to accept your body hair because you stopped caring about what people thought of you. It still bothered you when people made references to it, but all in all you didn’t care if they made fun of you or if they talked about you behind your hairy fucking back. Junior year, when you and Bea started dating, she made you fully and absolutely accept your hairy self. She said she liked it and didn’t want you to shave because it’d be uncomfortable for the two of you when you’re lying in bed together. Recently, she told you that you ruined hairless guys for her, which made you smile very, very wide on the inside and outside. If you can take your clothes off in front of someone and they fully accept—and actually enjoy—your body, why should you feel any insecurities at all about it? If someone you’re intimate with says they like it, why shouldn’t you?
\/\/\/
You remember one drunken summer night you walked shirtless from your house to the local bodega to buy cigarettes. Your roommate took a picture of you from the back and uploaded it to Instagram. Rarely do you see a full view of your back, and when you first saw it, you wanted to yell at your roommate and force him to delete it. You saw your hair start at your neck and flower out like two hairy wings. It got forty “likes” in one night and, if this was four years ago, you would have been petrified that so many people saw your hairy back with your name attached to the picture. But this wasn’t four years ago. This is now and now you couldn’t care less about how hairy it is, how dark it is, how societally unattractive it is. You accept it and love it. Your last great insecurity has been, for the most part, overcome and it couldn’t be more freeing. You still get tinges of old insecurities. Sometimes you look at your back and chest in the mirror and the old devil self-consciousness whispers in your ear, Shave it; shave it all, but you respond by saying, No, it would take too long.
—-
Photo: Belgran Maneater/Flickr
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long toes? got any photo?
this is a great piece. i think many of us feel your pain. if the photo is you, at least you have nice skin and a great build and you look above average height. always remember it could be even worse
once you pile on two or three of the “qualities” that society has decided it is *perfectly ok* to destroy someone for (short, hairy, bad skin, crappy proportions), it’s pretty hard to not hate yourself.
Imagine to grow up as a guy not going into pupity before the age of 17, and being bullied at school for NOT having pupic hair and any other body hair at all. If I had body hair at that age which youhad it would basicly have saved my life. It brought me into great depression and the lowest selfesteem you could imagine. Now age 32 and still cannot accept my relatively small amount of bodyhair. I never got the feeling of being a man. I cannot do anything about it. I still feel ashamed showing my body anywhere I… Read more »
Imagine being that guy in high school (hairless/late puberty) and then within 10 years you are a hairy f’n sasquatch. I was depressed about being hairless then, and im depressed now that every inch of my body is covered in 2″ hair. At least its blonde!
Dude I’m 18 and muscular with a lot of body hair on my stomach and chest. Even though I have muscles when I take my shirt off its awkward at first and a turn off for the ladies to see i have hair all over my stomach and chest. Girls don’t dig it like they did back in the 70s of 80s lol
just going to be honest – body hair shaming for any gender is vile. but it has been part of the social norm for women for so long. And if I am to bear the physical pain of fulfilling that norm I expect my man to be on the less hairy side of the spectrum. Maybe then my children will have less stupid shit to feel guilty about. On the other hand if you treat all women, including the hairy ones, well and have the balls to not shy away from dating them then none of this crap matters.
ah… the old “i suffered so i feel ok hoping u suffer too” approach. cool
maybe he wants to find a woman on the “less hairy side of the spectrum” for the exact same reason.
maybe shaming, judging *and* double standards need to *all* go (and not just the first two)
I wish I had this same problem, but I can relate in reverse. I’m 36 years old and I would for years stand in the mirror like the author and wish the hair would GROW. Mother Nature and evil genetics have given me furry legs, arms, feet, hands… But didn’t finish the job as my chest has a handful of wiry ones in the center and about 15 total on the upper breastbone. I look very… incomplete. And its embarrassing and unmasculine to look like puberty gave up halfway through doing its job.
In 7th grade I was nicknamed gorilla by my phys ed class mates…in 8th grade my dad and I were called into the vice principal’s office and my dad was told that I had to start shaving…..have not had any problem with body hair…
I was hairy as a kid, passed down from my dad, now my kids are hairy too. I used to hate it, I’m more comfortable with it now but still do a little manscaping really mostly for comfort and a little for aesthetic reasons. I treat it like facial hair, it needs to be managed a bit. Truthfully, I’m not crazy about it, its mostly just annoying. My wife thinks I’m funny, she doesn’t mind it much, says it bothers me more than it does her.
Honestly, I cannot for the life of me understand the attraction of hairless men. It does not seem natural to me. I think men were made hairier than women and it is a lovely difference which I, along with plenty of other women, find really masculine, attractive and sexually appealing. I’m so glad you got over society’s ridiculous rules. Quite frankly, I find most of the men gracing the pages of magazines these days far too “pretty”. I understand it is all personal opinion, but I’m glad there are guys like you who don’t buy into the whole metrosexual thing!!!
@ Heather: I so agree with you! My major problem is there are NO wholesomely (by which I mean, ‘hair-fully’) masculine men. All the pin-ups you reference are ‘glabrously’ androgynous pretty boys. It is desolate out there. I can’t help salivating at the pic that accompanies this article. Ohhh! If only there were more like him!
I can totally relate to this chap. I have been hairy from such a young age and still am it’s everywhere!! But now I’m into it! Still have moments of low self esteem but remember that I’m a good man with or without my hair! If a woman ever said she didn’t want to be with me because of my hair fair enough that’s her choice and her loss !
It has been one of the most detrimental things to myself mental health and self-esteem. I hate my fathers side that they were allowed to reproduce and I am always reminded of the genetic garbage passed on to me because of their faulty genes. My mom’s, side, while short, at least have the normal vellus hair thing going on. While some people like hairiness (and I have nothing against it on women), I hate it on my body, in certain parts, and If I had the expendable income, most of it would be lasered off by now, which sucks because… Read more »
Excellent! I used to be in the same boat as the author. It took me a long time to gain enough courage to open up to women because of my shame for my body. Now that I have, I fiind that its really not that hard, and there are plenty of understanding, loveable women out there. If you are genuine, women can be more empathetic of the two sexes to be sure! As for what Karina says, she clearly doesn’t have an understanding of much of anything to be frank. I have put a good amount of effort into grooming.… Read more »
Best article I’ve found on this topic and a boost to my confidence. Nice job Jacob.
I can related to this article for sure. I’m pretty hairy, not as hairy as the picture, but still pretty hairy. I’ve struggled with body issues for a long time.
I’m happy to see that there at women that still like hairy guys.
For me, I can’t shave my chest right down, the hair are to course and I end up with lots of ingrown hairs. It sucks.
Wes, there’s a product on the market called Tendskin. It’s a miracle product when it comes to ingrown hairs after chest shaving (and anywhere else you’re likely to get in grown hairs.) Check it out.
Lots of hair is a signifier of high testosterone. That’s a good thing! And, yes, I’m totally in the pro-body hair camp for men. Love it!
OMG. Masculine men do it for me.
This means hairy, very VERY hairy, or sparse hair.
(And I’m sorry you have a flatmate like that, although the experience
had a silver lining).
Unappealing to the max. Neanderthal. Would never touch a man like this, I just feel like a desert looking at that shit. His body type is also meh. And that some women will act like euphoric dumb girls “LOOOOVING OMGOMG” anything like this is bizarre. I can’t see women from my Country acting so childish. And after all that, didn’t they learn yet that men from their culture never did and will never do the same for them or women in general? How naive and weak can these women be? You see, the problem with american men’s well known pompousness… Read more »
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.
And to the author – I like hairy men. I like them burly. I find the picture posted to be very, very attractive. Some women don’t. Everyone has their preferences, and the trick is to find someone who likes you for you, and prefers your body type, whatever it may be. I’m glad you came to accept your body. It can be a very hard thing to do, but is so freeing when it happens.
Karina Alma
“Hairy men can not ask for hairless women…..”
I think men in so many parts of the world expect women to be hairless,.and that makes life hard for all of us that is hairy:)
An it is getting worse!
Karina, you’re utterly disgusting. You do know, do you not, that this piece was written by an actual living, breathing, sentient man who had the courage to open himself up in this essay? Someone who opened himself up?
Thank God for the women (and men) who had the decency to address this piece with respect, and, I guess thank God for the ones who have your views, but had the good manners and fundamental good graces to refrain from posting them. But you really are an embarrassment—shame on you.
I second you. This woman has been so mean in her post its revolting.
Also, Jacob, to second the other commenters on this story—you look fantastic. I’m sorry you were shamed for this. There’s nothing remotely shameful about any part of how you look.
Lady, you judge others on their preferences. You speak disrespectfully about a human being. With an obvious intention of causing embarrassment and/or pain. You chid others for their expression of excitement as “childish” and yet you yourself have behaved childishly by vomiting your negativity all over an article which is about one’s emotional struggle and self acceptance. Maybe you want to imply that women in your country are sophisticated and evolved because they prefer non hairy men. But please enlighten me as to how you are sophisticated when you have so vehemently, viciously, almost in a feral manner have attempted… Read more »
You’ve been hanging with the wrong crowd my man! Hair is SEXY! H O T. That is all.
I LOVE THIS!!!!!!
I love hairy guys! I don’t know if I could find a guy with a hairless or sparsely hairy chest sexy. I’m sure they ARE sexy, but my preference is a guy like the one in the photo (though honestly, how is that guy’s body not considered perfect? That guy is a physical ideal, if you ask me!
I love Bea! I agree with her! Yay for you two finding one another.
This whole post made me want to cheer.
Not sure where you got the idea that hairy was some quality you needed to overcome. Sexy as hell. You don’t have to be proud in spite of it, you can be proud because of it.
I’m with you Rob, I don’t know when being hairy became a bad thing. Other then my face, I would never even think of shaving any other part of my body. Major drawback is that when the docs want to put leads on me, either shave the spot or expect great pain when they remove them.