Hairy Chests on men

eptember 22, 2002

Bear Market
By ZARAH CRAWFORD

ver since the bubble-gum rapper and thespian Mark Wahlberg first slipped into a pair of Calvin Klein briefs back in 1992, the fortunes of the hairy chest -- that once-proud symbol of rugged manhood -- have not run smooth. In a fashion climate obsessed with images of youth, narcissism and androgyny, the healthy pectoral pelt was reduced to a cheap Mike Myers sight gag.

The male fitness magazine Men's Health, for example, hasn't featured a hairy-chested model on its cover since 1995. And even in the traditionally testosterone-soaked arena of professional sport, the number of unashamedly hairy athletes correlates to the number happy to pitch tobacco products to children. Last year, according to Armkel L.L.C., manufacturers of the hair-removal solution Nair, 30 percent of men aged 18 to 34 regularly shaved their chests.

It's fitting, then, that 30 years after Burt Reynolds posed au naturel for Cosmopolitan on a bearskin rug rivaled only in luxuriance by the Bandit's own magnificent coat, the wheel of fashion appears to have turned full circle. At the recent fall fashion shows, the pasty, snake-hipped rent boys and dolphin-smooth himbos -- who have sulked, preened and pouted their way down international catwalks for so many seasons -- were, if not entirely replaced, at least upstaged. The new models were less pretty -- older, hairier -- grown-up men, in fact. In the front row, this rebirth of butch was attributed to Sept. 11 and the ensuing images of heroic firefighters, police officers and rescue workers that were beamed around the world.

But the cult of musky he-man fur is not just sprouting on the catwalks. Hugh Jackman, George Clooney and Russell Crowe, some of Hollywood's hottest leading men, all proudly sport hairy chests. Crowe also has the distinction of being name-checked on ''Sex and the City,'' hitting hot buttons as that gang's favorite masturbatory lover. While in the gay community, always the cutting edge for male grooming trends, waxed gym bunnies are having to make way for bears: those big, ultramasculine men, whose beards and bellies make the local gay bar look like a Crosby, Stills and Nash convention.

''In Hollywood, very often if a man's body is hairless, it represents luxury and leisure,'' says Donald F. Reuter, the author of ''Shirtless: The Hollywood Male Physique.'' ''During the Depression, for example, leading men were hyper-groomed, and smooth. Only men who did hard manual labor were swarthy and hairy. Not having to work or worry about money, that was the fantasy.''

Throughout the 1980's and 90's, media heroes were 20-something millionaires on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, and positive images of working-class men were almost nonexistent. But then came the tech crash and Enron. And suddenly, we want our men to look as if they do honest work again, and not spend half their time in front of a mirror. Of course, all this could easily be dismissed as so much fatuous fashion punditry if it weren't for the fact that in the second week of October, the designer Tom Ford will be betting his reputation on it. Ford, a man who reads the zeitgeist like other guys read the sports pages -- also, incidentally, the man who found fame by freeing Gucci of its perma-tanned-hairy-chests-and-medallions baggage -- has chosen the model Samuel de Cubber as the face of M7, Yves Saint Laurent's new signature men's fragrance. Although the advertisement shows de Cubber naked, the model's most striking feature is not his flaccid, uncircumcised penis -- this image, incidentally, like that of the King on ''The Ed Sullivan Show,'' will be cropped at the waist for mainstream publications -- but his spectacularly hairy chest.

Not only is the M7 man's body slightly furrier than what we're used to seeing, but it also lacks the standard-model sculptured pecs, Popeye forearms and cheese-grater abs. He even has the slightest suggestion of a belly. ''It's a very natural body,'' Ford says. ''We really wanted someone who really looked like a guy, not someone who was completely groomed, with every hair on his chest shaved and plucked. * It's a kind of male beauty that I don't think we've seen in a long time, really since the 70's.''

It's only right that references to the decade that openly celebrated the hirsute he-man reverberate throughout Ford's campaign. De Cubber is a former tae kwon do champion who took up modeling only while sidelined with a sports injury. (Similarly, Burt Reynolds was poised to become a professional football player before injury forced him to try his hand at acting.) The convergence of men's cologne and martial arts is pure 70's macho camp, conjuring an image of Vegas Elvis doused in heady Hai Karate after-shave, with a line of Memphis Mafiosi patiently waiting their turn to be thrown to the mat. Ford's decision to run a nude is also in part an homage to the seminal 1971 campaign for YSL Pour Homme. Daringly, it was Yves himself who posed naked for that image, looking winsome yet defiant upon a stack of leather cushions.

Choosing to call the fragrance M7 is no accident. It is evocative of that suave, resourceful womanizer James Bond, Agent 007, who has had a hairy chest for the duration of his 40-year franchise. Even throughout the depilatorized 90's, Pierce Brosnan's Bond was dusted in discreet down. According to Reuter, that's because the original and greatest Bond, Sean Connery, has the most iconic chest of all time -- rugged and natural.

And therein lies the rub. ''People imagine that the reason so many famous leading men of the past shaved their chests was out of censorship, as if the sight of a normal hairy chest would send the audience into a foaming frenzy,'' Reuter says. ''The reality was that lots of those guys, like Robert Mitchum and Burt Lancaster, who are remembered as so macho, only had pathetic spotty little patches.'' And as most men know, chest hair is unruly; it rarely grows in a symmetrical, aesthetically pleasing way -- there's usually too little of it, or too much -- unless, that is, you're Sean Connery. Well, actually, even if you are Sean Connery.

In her autobiography, ''Hairdresser to the Stars,'' Ginger Blymyer (better known as Sugar Blymyer) recounts how, during the filming of ''The Presidio,'' she helped the hunk o' haggis out with a little deforestation. Connery ''took off his kimono and * I began to clip the hair on his glorious chest, being very careful not to take too much off. We worked together. I'd clip and then comb. He'd look in the mirror and then say, 'Take a little more off.' Finally he was quite satisfied.'' Blymyer recounts that this deed and ''dyeing Redford's eyelashes'' were the two most extraordinary experiences of her career.

It's possible that the images currently being offered up by Tom Ford et al. (the middle-aged diving hunk in the Lipitor commercial comes to mind) are a healthier, more inclusive alternative to the follicle-free muscle boys who have dominated the last decade. But the reality for the average guy on the street will probably be the same; in his quest to achieve a more authentic, natural -- hairier -- look, he will once again find himself battling nature. But whatever the long-term cultural repercussions of guys embracing their inner hairy man, one thing is certain: the pages and pages of men's magazines previously dedicated to methods of hair removal will soon be answering all your questions about growing and grooming it.

Zarah Crawford is a writer and interior decorator in London.

What do you guys think? Are hairy chests sexy again?

Because the waxing really hurts.

Please let me know when hairy backs are sexy, okay?

i don't think there's anything wrong with a hairy chest or back. now, when your ass needs a lawnmower, that's when we have problems.

oh, god... i LOOOOOOOOVE hairy chests! yum yum yum. i didn't when i was, like, in high school, though. i think being older may have something to do with it, or maybe the fact that when i was 19, the best sex i ever had was with a hairy-chested guy.

but, it also depends on the guy. if i see a guy that i think is hot, and i see a bit of chest hair peeking out of his shirt, then that'll drive this bitch crazy! if, however, i see some guy that i think is repulsive, with his shirt wide open and a whole lot of burly chest hair showing, then i'm apt to vomit. i've been told by male friends that they same can be true with cleavage...

i'm sure it's sexy on you

Hmph. I don't have to shave and groom for my hairless chest. And I'm poor. And I don't have cheese-grater abs. Abs made of cheese, maybe...

Personal preference is one thing, but reading articles like this that dissect some sort of "cultural phenomenon," interesting though they may be, just make me kind of twitchy. I'm not sure what it is. It might have meant something before, this hairy chestedness... now it's just a way to sell cologne. Meh.

I am 31 and have barely any hair on my chest.

I don't like body hair. On him, her or me. Personal preference completely.
It kind of creeps me out that there are trends in body hair.
But body hair doesn't hinder most relationships. Even a serious aversion to it like I have.

Next NYC get together I will show you my ass
and let me know if I need a lawnmower !!!

never will i shave my bear-skinned rug of a chest, no matter what woman wants me to do it

screw what magazines say

On behalf of hairy bastards everywhere, I welcome this trend.

I'll admit, I have shaved my chest. It's kind of pointless, though. Two days after I shave, it itches like crazy. Two weeks later, and it's like I had never shaved it. I've got better things to do than shaving my chest all the time, so screw it. I'll just be hairy, and if a woman is that bothered by my hairy chest (and back), then it just wasn't meant to be.

the only man i know that shaves his chest is one of my best friends. he is also VERY gay and finds body hair on anyone very unattractive.

...and every last inch of me's covered with hair!!!

... well not really, infact i just gave myself a porn star yesterday... and that takes way to damn long, so i cant imagine how long it would take to shave my very hairy chest...

I was always pretty self concious of my fur-field. Ever since high school i've always trimmed around the collar area. Which I still think is cool.

I had a girlfriend once who was never into hairy chests. She always thought they were kinda gross until I came along. She'd play with it and scratch it and sometimes just lie on my chest.

I was pretty proud. Fuck the models and the movie stars and the wrestlers. I yams what i yams.

the only problem i have with chest hair is that it can give me a rash on my chest during sex. i have really sensitive skin!

I think that hair is ok. But there are a few places that I like to be trimmed. I (like invaderkim) have sensitive skin, so a smooth face is essential. Otherwise it is painful to make out. And lets not even discuss what it is like to do other things! Eek! So I guess faces must be shaven, not just trimmed. I have been known to reject a lover's attempts to kiss me if they aren't shaven about the face. As for pubes, I am of the opinion that trimming is the best option. I myself have the sensitive skin thing, so I don't shave, I trim. For my guy, I prefer the same. I find that I am much more about the oral sex when the "lawn is mowed".

My first love had a hairy back, chest, etc...I had always previously believed that I HATED hair, but it was nice to run the fingers through. I do find that upon inital looksist preferences I like the hairless the best though.

-sarah (note my name spelled backwards is haras. my little sister used to spend all of her time calling me hairy ass, which was a damn lie. and there are people who can attest to that)

[Edited on Sep 24, 2002 by wreernt]

follow the trail to happiness.

"forgive me, for i am prettier than all of you

liar, give me back my shoes!

oh, how i would love to pluck her brow..."

dave

I'm a hariy fucker (luckily, none on the back), and I'm cool with it. Especially the forearms.

Never had any complaints.

I <3 my chest hair