The Evolution of Chest Hair

Society's view of male chest hair has evolved in my life time. I grew up in a hairy family. My dad and oldest brother had hairy chests. They were my first male role models. I was coming of age during the "Age of Aquarius" the musical, "Hair" was very popular "Here hair, there hair everywhere (Daddy, Daddy) Hair". Further cementing my desire for a hairy chest, was a remark from a girl I liked. She commented about James Caan's unmanicured chest, saying she would like to run her fingers through that chest hair--a very lustful comment. I thought to myself, in time I, too, will have a hairy chest that . . . well I'll let it go at that. Robert Redford has a hairy chest, and all the girls my age liked him. So you see how the twig was bent. Nature was true to its word--like father, like son--I was blessed with a hairy chest.

As time passed male stars started to have more manicured looking or just plain hairless chests. A new generation has arisen that looks askance at an unmanicured chest--manscaping, its called. That's a bit much for me. I struggle with my daily face-shaving ritual. In fact I went years with out shaving my face. So long, in fact, that my youngest two children did not have a memory of me without a beard. When I did decide to shave, I called them into the bathroom to watch so they would know it was me and not some stranger who had broken into the home intent on some form of mayhem. They cried when I shaved.

There was one downside to the hairy chest: my Dad's hairy chest started to turn grey, a sign of age. My dad was always old, no matter what his age, to me he was old. Well a few years ago, I noticed I too was seeing unmistakable evidence of age, just like my father. The love affair with a hairy chest was over.

So I have a granddaughter who is 15 months old who when she is shown a necklace by her mother her mother will say "pretty". This week we were on vacation and this granddaughter happened to be in the hot tub with me. Now don't go off on it being too hot for a little one. The hot tub was bath temperature and the pool was slightly above freezing, so she and her mother were in this large hot tub and the little girl was walking around the seat against the edge of the pool. To her, stepping off this ledge was an immediate plunge into the abyss. As she was walking by me, on this ledge, she stopped and looked at my chest and kind of patted my chest hair--the white/grey part, and she said "pretty" Suddenly chest hair is back in vogue. In fact grey chest hair is the best. I don't think it will ever go out of fashion again.