Things I Hate: Most Forms of Male Facial Hair

I hate most forms of male facial hair. I've broached this topic before, but I haven't given it the sort of hard-hitting, hyperbolic, irrational, unfair exploration that has made me famous among a handful of people who already knew me.

I think the main thing I hate about most forms of male facial hair (henceforth known as "facial hairstyles") is that it always seems that the wearer is trying too hard. Or maybe it's that facial hairstyles go in and out of fashion so much, and people should know from looking at old pictures that today's hip look is always tomorrow's laughingstock. I'm not sure why it is exactly, but I am sure that a weird facial hairstyle usually means that the person is a douche.

There are acceptable facial hairstyles. Full beards are fine, because they are well-established over the centuries and don't connote anything in particular. I guess they sometimes mean "I am a professor," but not always, and hey, being a professor isn't necessarily a bad thing. And if you have the balls to grow one really long, like some Russian noble from the early 1600s, well, then you're the man. Now that's retro.

Big bushy Magnum P.I.-esque mustaches are acceptable, because they're funny. They're so hopelessly out of style that, if you have one, you've committed yourself to wearing a joke, all day, every day, and you have to admire that kind of gumption. Other facial hairstyles make men look like jokes, but the men aren't in on the joke, see, and they think they look hip, so that's just annoying. I doubt many guys with big, bushy mustaches really think they look hip, and if they do, well, that's all the funnier.

Pretty much all other facial hairstyles are horrible. In fact, I think they should all be renamed ("rebranded," if you will. Will you? No? OK, well, I don't blame you.) with disgusting, hateful names. I think if they're paired with nasty images through terrible names, the true nastiness of the styles will break through their pretensions of hipness like rays of fetid sunlight. Then, ideally, people sporting these forms of facial hair will be ridiculed using these new names, and then those people will commit suicide, and we'll rid ourselves of an entire generation of douchebags. That's the plan, anyway. So here's the first one:

1. The soul patch is now "Upside-Down Hitler Mustache."

See that douche in the picture on the right? By wearing the upside-down Hitler mustache, he is sending a secret signal that he hates Jews and wants them exterminated from the earth. That's what it means as of this moment, anyway. So the next time you see a guy on the street with a so-called soul patch, go up to him and shout, "Why do you want to kill all Jews?!?!" I do it constantly, and I've only been arrested a few dozen times. It's the least I can do to help rid the world of the upside-down Hitler mustache (and, as an added bonus, free the world of bigotry).

As an aside, a stand-up comedian (can't remember who) once noted how amazing it is that Hitler was able to make a certain mustache unusable forever. I mean, that's some remarkable evilness -- he was so evil that whatever he chose to put on his face would be destroyed for everyone. Idi Amin, Pol Pot -- sure they exterminated milions, but did they kill a hairstyle? I think not! Bunch of wannabes. Saddam Hussein even had some silly facial hair (the aforementioned Magnum P.I.-esque mustache), and no one even considered banning it forever. Hm, maybe he wasn't so evil after all. Crap, we shouldn't have invaded Iraq! Geez, now we figure it out!

Wait a minute, here -- maybe naming a facial hairstyle something unflattering isn't going far enough. Maybe you have to commit genocide to really get one banned forever. Well, I guess a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Any recommendations for an ethnic group I should cleanse? Anyone care about Norwegians? Bunch of smug, blond-haired, blue-eyed devils. And hey, because of the blond, blue-eyed thing, they're the kind of folks that Hitler would have loved, so you get the anti-Hitler demographic on your side right there. I think this could work.

But you know something, to really commit genocide, and do it right, it takes organization. And time. And I have so many things on my plate already right now. My wife and I are thinking about having kids, getting a house, watching more TV -- I don't see how I can squeeze a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the mix. Ah, forget it. Back to the name-calling.

2. That hair-only-on-the-edge-of-the-chin thing is now "The Mangy Lincoln".

The picture I got on the right isn't the most egregious example -- worse is when it's some slickster with a perfectly groomed line of hair trailing around the edge of his jaw, like a long line of ants in a daisy chain (another name idea: "Long Line of Daisy-Chaining Ants").

I guess this isn't the most offensive name possible, but I think have to get the mange in somewhere with one of these names. The mange is such a wonderfully sad and disgusting disease that fits so well with a lot of these facial hairstyles. I guess pretty much any facial hairstyle could be called "The Mangy Lincoln." Except a full beard. And a mustache wouldn't work for that either, since Lincoln didn't have one. Maybe a mustache is a "Reverse Lincoln"? Nah, not insulting enough.

3. The long-line-of-hair-down-the-middle-of-the- bottom-lip-and-chin thing is now "The Stripper's Pussy."

Sorry, I know this name's especially offensive, but just look at this guy. We have to fight fire with fire here, folks. This is baseball player Scott Speizio, who is the douchiest douche in doucheland, and he needs to know that his face looks like a stripper's pussy.

Not that I've actually seen any strippers in real life, with nether regions exposed or otherwise. I've honestly never been to a strip club, and I doubt I ever will. This is partially because I don't have many douche-y male friends, but also because strip clubs sound like the world's most depressing places to me. I doubt many of the strippers could really enjoying doing the whole stripping thing, so that's depressing right there. And the guys, to enjoy the show, would, I assume, have to think in some primitive part of their lizard-brains "Hey, this chick wants me," which is also very depressing, because it's so unbelievably untrue. Strip clubs seem like places for sexually abused women to perform for sexual abusers. So you can understand why I'm loath to go. Plus, the music probably sucks.

4. The bushy goatee is now "Your Momma's Pussy."

Again, I apologize, but my crudeness is a necessary means to a noble end. Actually, goatees are so mainstream that I hesitate to even really object that much, much less give it the most offensive name so far. But the shoe fits -- dude on the right, your face looks like your momma's pussy. Sorry, bushy goatee-wearers (not to mention their moms, who are really blameless in all this, but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs).

Another thing that makes you look like a douche, I just realized, is posing for a picture with a "serious" look on your face. This guy seems to want you to think, "wow, he's deep and sexy and sexydeep, which is a new word I just invented because nothing else can capture how sexy and deep he is." And of course, to me, that always translates to "I am a douche."

5. The spare, wimpy goatee is now the "Your Stripper Momma's Pussy."

I make no apologies for this one. This is perhaps the worst facial hairtsyle of the bunch, and it deserves what it gets. "Your Stripper Momma's Pussy" is actually probably too tame. Maybe "Your Crabs-Infested Stripper Momma's Pussy"? I could go on but I won't. But again, I do have some reservations since the stripper mommas are blameless here -- they're only trying to put themselves through Harvard, right?

On a related topic, you know what else I hate? Restaurants with belly dancing. Call me sexually repressed if you like, but when I'm eating dinner with my family, I really don't want to see some middle-aged chick's pelvis rolling around in my face. The worst is when they come by the table and ask how you liked the show. You have to nod encouragingly and say "Oh, great. Nothing like undulating pale flesh when I'm eating tabouli."

I got into an argument once with a vehement woman (she was always vehement about something) about this, and I never really recovered from it. We were at a restaurant with belly dancing, and I was asking why this is acceptable. Isn't this an exploitation of women, for the sexual titillation of men? The vehement woman exploded, saying that was very sexist of me to say that, so I cowered whimpering in the corner and that was basically the end of the argument. But I wish I could have defended my position better.

Because really, what's the difference between belly dancing and stripping? A few clothes? I know, I know, belly dancing is a skill that you have to develop and takes muscle tone and yadda yadda -- but so does pole dancing. You're telling me you can jump on a pole, splay your legs around it, hold yourself upside down with your legs, slide down slowly, release your legs, and then do a hilarious puppet show with your labia (again, I haven't been to a strip club, so I'm not exactly sure what goes on there) without doing some serious calisthetics?

I think belly dancing is only acceptable because it's "ethnic." Ancient Middle Eastern harem-havin' guys had belly dancing, so instead of being nasty sexual exploitation, it's a cultural expression.

But, you say, what if women want to express their sexuality through belly dancing? Well, OK, yeah, I guess they have every right to -- but is there a way they could do it when I'm not eating? And not in a place where men are supposed to hoot and holler and put dollars in their clothes like a bunch of baying jackals with lots of disposable income? 'Cuz I may be just a simple country boy, but where I come from, that's called "hegemonic patriarchy commodifying female sexuality to gain feelings of power and sexual gratification."

I'm not sure how a discussion of facial hair turned into a rant about belly dancing, but there you go. That's what bad facial hair does to me. You see the pain and confusion it causes? So men, please, stop with the trendy facial hair. In fact, just stop being trendy at all. Everyone just wear and do the same things all the time. It's just easier that way.