The other day I went to Santa Monica and walked down to the pier. It was hot so I took my shirt off. I began to notice people staring. The adorable redhead on the beach towel a few feet from me laughed and whispered to her friend. I distinctly heard “eew!” and “back hair!”

I looked around and noticed all my beach brothers with their bronzed, smooth shoulders.  I was perplexed.

In the Midwest, we figure that’s just how God made us. Plus it keeps us warm in the winter. And it deflects snow from our skin when we’re shirtless in blizzards. But I’m not an excessively hairy person.

Yet all these bright orange, shiny Californians looked at me like something unclean.

Some of them must have had back hair. They just went through great pains to remove it. But why?

I felt betrayed. The guys pretending to play football a few yards from me look like buff 12 year olds. Even the old crazy guy feeding seagulls was hairless! Like some creepy Regis Philbin Barbie doll.

I felt ashamed. After disgusting half the beach, I put my shirt back on and left. That night I got online and looked up ‘hair removal’. I thought, ‘what the hell. When in Rome…” It led me to a terrifying Wikipedia article about the increase in body waxing  among men. There was even a heart breaking picture of some red swollen man-boobs post waxing. The Dude looked on the verge of tears!

Why do we do it guys? It wasn’t always this way. I’m sure our dads never shaved or waxed around back.

A lot has changed in the name of gender equality since the 60s.  Don’t get me wrong, women shouldn’t be objectified or thought of as inferior. That’s corrupt. But women aren’t less objectified now, men have just joined them.

A friend of mine calls this cultural trend ‘dicksploitation’. Look at the male movie stars of today compared

 with those of the 1950s.

   In the 1950s, stocky George Reeves played Superman in a loose fitting felt suit. In 2006, beefcake Brandon Routh played Superman in a skin tight spandex suite and low-rise red shorts, turning my favorite superhero into an obvious sexpot.

The fashionistas in power want us to wear tighter clothes. The Abercrombie and Fitch at the Grove hires Greek looking dudes to pose half naked outside their store. Ryan Reynolds, in airbrushed porn star form, winces shirtless from the cover of Entertainment Weekly. It’s only a matter of time before they replace beer with some “wellness drink” and deny us hot wings!

And it starts with back hair.

So I made peace with mine. We’re cool. It’s staying.

Go ahead and glare California! You just can’t handle the raw masculinity that is my back hair.

I just finished reading a really good book. Before I got a job I was spending all my time at borders and I saw this book with a picture of two nearly identical people, one a woman one a man. "Self Made Man; one womans year as a man," said the title in bold friendly letters (I heart Douglas Adams)

And so I found one of the many big armchairs around the store and began to read. The author is a lady named Norah. She's a lesbian, and has been told all her life that she is mannish and unfeminine. But more than that, she sees the liberties society has historically given men, and wants to experience life from the other side.

Whenever I hear 'lesbian' I automatically assume the man hating variety. I'm not sure why. I know lesbians and gay people, and in every case, they're regular people who don't fit as neatly into their political archetypes as I'd expect them to,

But still, knowing the authors background, I expected an embittered, cynical rant against the baser sex. But I was pleasantly surprised by her insights and her beautiful portraits of men she met and befriended as "Ned". She writes about brotherhood and comraderie, which she says is foreign to women. And, perhaps most astoundingly, she writes with great sympathy for the role society gives men. Traditionally, the only negative emotion men have been allowed to feel is anger. Hurt and sadness are womanly feelings.

I know I've encountered this. I see men all the time who can't articulate their emotional state beyond being "wicked pissed!" or some such nonsense.

She also goes on to talk about the male facade of confidence, which society demands. Since the sexual revolution of the sixties, she writes, men are expected to be sensitive and liberal, respectful and introspective, erstwhile being strong, confident and secure and aloof. She wonders allowed if both extremes are possible simultaneously.

many of the men she encounters as Ned (her male alter ego) are 'faking it'. They feel inadequate, weak,  ill equipped and self conscious, but act macho, self reliant, and strong.

Yesterday at work I was talking to a co worker about this beautiful girl who wroks at the factory with us. I told him she intimidated me, and I always found something to do when I saw her coming, so as to avoid eye contact.

His response could have been part of the aforementioned book. "I'm not the hottest shit in the world, either. I mean, Jesus! Look at me,"

I love this guy, he's sort of a redneck. A little on the portly side. One of those scruffy heavy metal goatees,

"Whenever I don't feel confident, I fake it. People buy that shit, man. Nobody thinks twice."

And he's right! No one does. I wondered, after he said that how many things in life that might be true of. Can a bad singer "fake it" with confidence and become a good singer? Probably, eventually.

Then I thought about John Wesley. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but I remember a friend of mine telling me that Wesley's mentor told him (during a period of existential doubt) to act as if he had faith until his faith came back. Or, in laymans terms, to fake it until it's real.

Returning to the topic of the book, one wonders if thats all gender is, a series of faked poses and attitudes which we adopt over time until they are us.

Anyway, just some random thoughts. It's definitely a book worth reading.

peace

ben

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