By the Hair of My Chinny Chin Chin

I guess that I will admit that I am one of those gals with various hairs sprouting from my chin and upper lip.  Don't laugh, you have some too.  You just haven't taken the obsessive compulsive route to addressing those hairs just yet.  Or maybe you have and you know how I feel.  It's just pure crap, I tell you.

Hubba hubba!!

Facial hair is among one of the many things that looks great on men.  Gray hair makes a man look distinguished.  George Clooney, Sam Elliott and Morgan Freeman are among the distinguished graying men.  Muscles make a man look strong.  Enter hottie with a six pack.  Not a problem to look at.  Chin and upper lip whiskers, well, they can make a man look rugged. 


Then, there are things that don't look great on men.  Breasts don't look good on men.  They're never perky and spry; they're usually flabby and spread out.  A big ass doesn't look good on a man.  I'm always taken aback by a man with a pear shaped body.  Long nails don't look good on a man either.  Now, I appreciate a well groomed man with neatly clipped and clean, reasonable length nails.  He cares about himself and his love when he takes good care of his nails.  But when the nails go beyond the tip of the finger, well, that just looks creepy. (I’m projecting here; I have a creepy uncle who keeps his nails long and the two together, creepy and long nails, well, it will always be a red flag for me.)

Now, looking back, have you ever noticed that the things that look great on a man, don't look so great on a woman and vice versa.  Breasts on a woman, good call especially if they are perky.  Many women long for bigger, perkier breasts.  Remember the preteen exercise we all did.... "I must, I must, I must increase my bust!"


And a big ass on a woman, well, many men appreciate this trait.  J Lo  has built a career around her ample backside.   Long nails on a woman, help a gal to complete a seductive look.  

Sexy???

But conversely, gray hair on women, not so much an appreciated characteristic.  That's obvious when you look at the exponentially greater number of boxes of hair color at Walmart compared to men's hair color. 


Muscles on women, well, that is a little debatable.  Certainly a woman with a lean and defined body is attractive; shows her dedication to being healthy (a problem I don't have).  But muscles, big, ripped, bulky muscles are just plain weird on a chick. No matter how you slice it, how much saline is placed in her breast implants, the muscled physique of a pumped up, body building female is just disturbing.  There are things our minds can't get wrapped around, and big muscles on a woman is one of them.

Then there's hair on a woman's face.  Now, it really sucks, because most of us can't help this.  It's often there as a result of an underlying medical condition.  Some women are just genetically predispositioned to have more hair and as they grow older, it moves to their faces.  I often warn my 10 year old, who has a strong Italian background, as she points out the hair on my upper lip, that she too will experience this in time.  (If she'd stop pointing it out, I'd stop being mean about it!)  


But it's a burden that some women have to carry, hair on our lips, our chins or overgrowth between our brows.  And the pain and personal torture that we endure because of this overgrowth is nearly unbearable.  Plucking, waxing, ripping, laser treatment - all in the name of beauty.


I guess in the end, the scales of justice are equal when it comes to men and women; each sex has its drawbacks and trials.  Acceptance of our bodies, unfortunately, is based on a prehistoric, often unattainable social expectation and a highly skewed ideal portrayed in magazines and film.  Maybe someday, our society will be able to look beyond the graying mane of hair and stray whiskers of women as well as the sagging man boobs and re ceding hairline of men to appreciate the most important aspect of our humanness, our souls and what is within....