›› Facial Hair
Everyone has facial
hair, men and women of all ethnic backgrounds. Actually, most
people have some amount of hair over most of their body. The
only differences between people’s facial hair involve
thickness and quantity.
In most cultures it is perfectly acceptable to have thick and large
amounts of facial hair if you are male. In fact many cultures
highly encourage facial hair for men, and thick beards are seen as a
symbol of male virility, wisdom, and or power. Conversely,
most cultures do not likewise value facial hair on women, and usually
stigmatize it quite harshly. A woman with an abnormally large
amount of facial hair is often made to feel embarrassed and is looked
at as somehow less feminine than other women.
As a man living in America, I don’t have any problems with my
facial hair. It is something of an annoyance to shave all the
time, but even if I miss a day here and there I don’t feel
too self-conscious about it. I’ve found that a lot
of American women say they like the look of a man with a little facial
hair stubble, but it seems to me more often than not women in America
are not attracted to beards or mustaches. Though they may
have liked the look of it, even just a little stubble irritated most
girls I’ve dated once we became intimate enough to kiss
frequently. What may look masculine and sexy can apparently
feel like sandpaper to a girl and leave behind a visible rash on her
face.
Facial hair is a whole different story on a woman, however.
One of my first girlfriends was cursed with very dark facial hair, and
although she did not have much more than any other woman, hers was more
visible than normal. She tried a number of different ways to
remove her facial hair, but eventually wound up getting it removed by
way of electrolysis. Electrolysis is definitely the most
permanent and effective way of removing unwanted facial hair, but is
the most expensive. Some other popular methods include
waxing, trimming, and hair removal chemicals.
It is popularly believed that if you shave your facial hair, it grows
back thicker. This is actually an urban myth,
however. The thickness of your facial hair is determined by
genetics. The reason why a man’s facial hair grows
back thicker when he first starts shaving is because during
adolescence, the time in which most men begin to shave, there is a
genetically induced boost to testosterone levels, which has the added
effect of thickening facial hair. So shaving and facial hair
thickening for men occur simultaneously not by cause and effect, but by
coincidence.
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