I’m in the monthly rotation for the popular “Wise Guys” column at Em & Lo. This week’s question for their rotating panel of single, and married straight men and married or committed gay man was “What’s the deal with manscaping? We’re talking both genitals and chests.” Here’s how I answered it.
Straight Married Guy (Figleaf): Great question! It’s a great irony to me that, at least in Western Civilization, we don’t think anything of the original “manscaping” — men who shave their faces. For instance, you never hear debates about how shaving makes grown men look “prepubescent” even though technically that’s exactly what it actually does. As for the recent trend in straight men trimming or shaving pubic hair, I think you could make a case that it’s driven, at least a little bit, by the same things that drive women to do so: porn and advertising. The two come together in a recent razor manufacturer’s ad campaign with shaved kiwi fruit and hints about the “optical inch” of penis length that comes from trimming away an inch of pubic hair.
There’s also the point that it just feels nicer being kissed on bare skin than on hair… and, for many partners, it feels nicer kissing bare skin than hair. As for men grooming hair on the rest of the body, I think there are two big reasons. First, because it makes us look younger. Not so much “prepubescent” but, since body hair increases with age, not middle-aged or older. Second, because when it’s long it can be itchy both to ourselves and to our partners. Of course the other side of all that is first that a lot of women and/or men think body hair on men is very sexy, and second that stubble can be even pricklier than if we left well enough alone.
No sense analyzing my own writing (heck, I can’t even proofread my own writing!) so I’ll point out that the quality of comments is pretty different on the post at Em & Lo’s vs. their reprinted version at Yahoo Shine.
A number of Yahoo commenters are pretty down on manscaping because they see it as one kind of unmanly or another. Which makes the “Gay Engaged Guy,” Joel Derfner‘s answer priceless
I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter, because manscaping is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Gay men are manscaping less and less each year, which means that in a few years straight men are going to be manscaping less and less each year, and then our national nightmare will be over.
Yup, just let straight America get the notion that not shaving is Teh Gay!
Gillette and Schick stock will skyrocket and we can all go home. Oh wait! Scratch that last bit about stocks. Nearly all American men already own shaving products.
But getting back to the shaving makes you look less manly bit. Shaving makes men look less manly? Which is a riot because of course beginning to shave one’s face is often one of the first outward acknowledgments of manhood for boys.
Which makes the cultural perception gradient even weirder: shaving is supposed to make men look more womanly, meanwhile shaving is supposed to make women look more child-like. If there was any logic to gender conventions, since shaving is one of the first signals of manhood shaving ought to be seen as making women look more manly! I get so confused!
—-
Gender-neutral rhetorical question: do shaved armpits make everyone look pre-pubescent?
I’m always stunned by people
Submitted by MX (not verified) on Wed, 2009-11-04 10:40.I’m always stunned by people who say that shaved genitals look prepubescent. Adult genitalia shaved looks like…adult genitalia or more specifically Adults with shaved genitalia! There’s more to adult’s “privates” than hair!
On a personal note I really love the manscaping of the pubic area, I mean who wants to be coughing up hair balls all night long? I hope it remains popular!
Yup. My big epiphany, and
Submitted by figleaf on Wed, 2009-11-04 12:10.Yup. My big epiphany, and why I keep going back to hair on men’s faces, is that it’s about comfort and familiarity, not an absolute reality. We’re extremely familiar with faces, and at least in Western cultures we’re comfortable seeing them too, so there’s no confusion about whether someone with a hairless chin is a man or a child.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t other perfectly valid excuses for the choice of not grooming one’s body hair. There are plenty of those. I’m just not very patient with the idea that “I’m not familiar or comfortable with it” is identical with “only closet pedophiles like it.”
Thanks, MX,
—fl
I am actually turned off by
Submitted by Sarah (not verified) on Wed, 2009-11-04 12:02.I am actually turned off by men without chest hair and with truly clean-shaven faces because they look too young. (Most men, even beardless men, have enough face stubble that it’s obvious they actually shave; I’m talking about truly smooth-cheeked men. Smooth in the way women are supposed to keep their legs and armpits.)
[Thanks, Sarah. —fl]
LOL....i’m glad you were
Submitted by Mike (not verified) on Wed, 2009-11-04 12:06.LOL....i’m glad you were confused too!! This one thoroughly lost me – i’m trying to keep up though. For the record – i’m not a very hairy person to begin with so what little I do have if out of control looks stupid in my opinion. So – a “trim” now and then I don’t necessarily think is a bad thing. You already mentioned that mens hair growth increases with age – like the stuff that starts to grow in your ears when you hit 40…I don’t like it so I get rid of it. I’m sure my wife would rather not have them there either when she nibbles on my ear :D ........just my few thoughts.
[“I’m sure my wife would rather not have them there either when she nibbles on my ear :D” Perfect example, Mike! Thanks. —fl]
Gender-neutral rhetorical
Submitted by Sara (not verified) on Wed, 2009-11-04 13:41.Gender-neutral rhetorical question: do shaved armpits make everyone look pre-pubescent?
Yes! No one should ever shave theirs or expect others to!
I don’t actually have any personal opinion one way or the other about other people’s armpits, it’s just that it’d be very convenient for me if the expectation wasn’t there.
[And I’m not the one to ask anyway — I’ve always thought armpit hair is sexy. But then who kisses armpits? Thanks, Sara. —fl]
Shaving my armpits gives me a
Submitted by Plymouth (not verified) on Wed, 2009-11-04 23:13.Shaving my armpits gives me a nasty rash. Definitely not sexy!
[Hi Plymouth. Having shaved everywhere once (though often only once) I have to agree. The skin’s incredibly tender and who imagined that shaving convex surfaces with straight blades was a good idea? And yet hardly anyone balks at that, or questions that someone else would think you should do it. —fl]
That’s the basic reason I
Submitted by Dw3t-Hthr (not verified) on Thu, 2009-11-05 11:29.That’s the basic reason I don’t shave my armpits; I find the hair aggravating and itchy, but not as much as the removal.
[For the record in the summer I do use a plain old beard trimmer to shorten my armpit hair. You get at least 90% of the benefit with barely 10% of the aggravation. Thanks, D. —fl]
A recent conversation with a
Submitted by Duncan (not verified) on Wed, 2009-11-04 15:43.A recent conversation with a 40-year-old friend who recently shaved off his beard for the first time in years.
Me: Wow, you look 10 years younger!
Him: And if I shaved below the belt, I’d look 30 years younger!
[Heh. It’s even funnier when you remember that a lot of men’s beards and body hair turns gray before their heads do. Thanks, Duncan. —fl]
Not much I can say that I
Submitted by Nightfall (not verified) on Wed, 2009-11-04 16:33.Not much I can say that I haven’t said here several times already: body hair itches when I wear clothing, no matter how long or short. Shaving is an inconvenience, but since public nudity is illegal, not shaving is even more of an inconvenience. I also prefer any partners I may have to be hair-free for touch-related reasons rather than visual ones, so even if it made people look younger (and in my opinion, it doesn’t) it’s not about the “prepubescent look” here. And I don’t particularly care about or pay attention to popular trends.
[”...for touch-related reasons.” A perfectly good preference, and a great example of why I think armpits are such an interesting case. Because ticklishness is such an issue we rarely touch our partners there. Thanks, Nightfall. —fl]
I put off commenting on this
Submitted by chingona (not verified) on Fri, 2009-11-06 10:00.I put off commenting on this for a few days because I was having a hard time articulating what bugged me about it so much. At this point, I’m not sure you’ll even see this comment, but I’m still stewing a bit so I figure I better get it off my chest.
Far more prevalent than the idea that men who prefer that women be shaved are closet pedophiles is the idea that women who don’t shave are disgusting and inconsiderate assholes. The conversation at Em & Lo goes immediately to how it’s better for women to be, at the very least trimmed, and all the women commenting must reassure Johnny that they’re not of the gross variety who leave things “ungroomed.” (Does a woman who wears her hair long and doesn’t use product to style it have “ungroomed” hair? Even you refer to “excuses” for not shaving, as if the default ought to be shaving and you need some justification for leaving it alone.)
Now, I’m married, have been for some time, and my husband prefers my natural style. So, you might say, what’s my beef with this post? I’m with someone whose preferences match my preferences. Other people have other preferences. What’s the problem? Frankly, I resent the idea that if I’m single again, I should expect to engage in something I find painful and pointless or expect to be found disgusting and rejected by potential lovers. As a friend put it recently, “I wax because stupid boys watch too much porn, but I still want to get laid.”
A few months ago, an OB nurse acquaintance made some very disparaging comments about a patient who didn’t shave her pubic hair. She claimed she could barely see what was going on as the baby was born, which if you know how much the passage of the baby’s head distends the entire vulva (which I suspect you do), is a patently ridiculous and untrue statement whose only purpose is to mock her patient’s pubic hair. Yes, even when our vulvas are covered in blood and amniotic fluid and meconium, we should have presentable pubic hair or we’re inconsiderate assholes.
Perhaps I vastly underestimate the pressure on men to shave their faces. Certainly, shaving is more common than not shaving, but are men with beards seen as disgusting? Do women say that men with beards make them want to throw up? That’s never been my impression, but perhaps I don’t understand all the implications.
So given the amount of social pressure women are under to shave, regardless of their own preferences, and given that these poor, poor men who are occasionally called closet pedophiles for their widely shared, culturally conditioned, culturally endorsed sexual preferences will almost always get their preferences met, again, regardless of their partner’s actual preferences, I find the priorities expressed in this post pretty damn irritating.
Sorry this is so long and ranty. I usually appreciate your thinking quite a bit, but you have this tendency (again, in the post below about breast augmentation) to just wave away the amount of cultural pressure women are under as just a simple difference in preferences. You seem very smart about these things, and so I’m left feeling like you’re willfully turning away from the elephant in the room.
Hi Chingona. First of all
Submitted by figleaf on Fri, 2009-11-06 18:05.Hi Chingona. First of all thanks for bringing up the “selfishness” angle for women who shave. I’ll get to that in a minute but I wanted to acknowledge that right off.
I can’t find it at the moment (I’m still getting used to my new system and the dates, especially, are all ahoo) but I have talked about the extreme gendered social pressure on women to “appear.” What I can’t find is a post where I explain that I bring up men and shaving not because I think the pressure is comparably gendered but because it’s not. There is prejudice, yes, and at different times in America at least beards have been considered disgusting. In the 50s men with beards weren’t allowed in public swimming pools, for instance, with hygiene being the excuse. And don’t get me started on the (I think age-ist) prejudice against men and back hair.
But what I think is important about that is that unlike reactions to women the reactions to men are generally only about looking disgusting, or prickliness, or “hygiene,” but not about gendered appearance conformity. And while it occurs to me that I haven’t been making the connection explicit, my intention in pointing it out is to try and dilute the elements of gender so the question can be addressed as a matter of personal taste rather than gender ideology. (In the future I’ll first stop assuming the link is as obvious to everyone else and second start trying other strategies.) So thanks for the push.
Oh, one more thing, about your OB nurse acquaintance. I don’t know what it is about those people but they’ve been largely intolerant of pubic hair during childbirth since at least the 1920s when it became routine to shave women in labor almost as soon as they arrived. And yes, I’ve seen babies born in person and you’re right that she’s a moron if she thinks you can’t see a crowning baby no matter how “full” the woman’s pubic hair might be. There was a huge and running battle with OB departments over this in the 1970s and 1980s with hippies and natural-childbirth advocates leading the charge, with support from some mainstream feminists. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone in that field would still care one way or another, and I’m really, really disappointed than anyone is. Not surprised, since it’s sort of a tradition in those departments, but seriously disappointed.
Finally, though, I wanted to get back to your point that it’s considered, well, inconsiderate when women don’t shave. First of all I think anyone who says that should go fuck themselves. It’s appalling. Second of all, I’m going to spend a little time exploring this offline. I’m not opposed in principle to a partner having a simple preference: for instance I was disappointed when a long-term partner refused to sleep with me naked because she said my body hair (chest, back, legs, pubic) was prickly and irritated her skin. But it wouldn’t have been reasonable either for me to insist she just tough it out. So in principle I think it’s ok to say “It’s uncomfortable performing fellatio or cunnilingus on someone with really long hair.” If they say, instead, “it’s really inconsiderate of her to make me see her pubic or body hair” then… yeah, that’s a big problem. If they go further and say “...because it doesn’t look “womanly” to have body hair” then yeah, they can go fuck themselves.
And now I’ve done a long, hopefully not-too ranty reply. But you’ve given me a lot to think about. And, probably, to write about. I really appreciate it. (Especially since you could have just stopped reading my blog and moved on.)
—fl
Figleaf, I’ve read more
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Fri, 2009-11-06 22:36.Figleaf, I’ve read more body-hair posts of yours than I can count, and yes, you always come back to the “prepubescent” argument as if it were some irreducible trump card which – once dispensed with – clears the way for some liberatarian fantasyland in which women can groom themselves however they please. I’ve mentioned this to you before in comments, as I’m nearly certain Heather Corinna has as well: It’s a diversion from the real issue, which is the disparate pressure on men and women to meet impossible standards. Becuase as Chingona points out, it’s rare to see men vilified for not shaving up to someone else’s arbitrary standard. To see women raked over the coals for the same offense, you need only flip open Cosmo.
You’ve repeatedly responded with the kind of reply you just gave Chingona, yet the next time you post on body hair, it’s back to the “prepubescence” red herring again. The pressure on women these days runs almost entirely in one direction: to remove every last unwanted hair without a trace. That is the new default. Arguing for freedom of choice requires first dislodging that default.
Y’know, stubble is acceptable in men as a sign of manliness. In woman, it’s just itchy and scratchy. Stubble connotes failure of femininity. I’ve never found out how to shave pubic hair without any stubble. And if you think it’s tricky shaving a convex armpit? Try even scissors-trimming rounded, wiggly, slightly engorged vulva without drawing blood.
Short note on obstetric practices: In the mid-1900s, women expected to be shaved by a nurse in the hospital (if indeed they knew what to expect at all). Now, apparently, the hospital expects the laboring woman to have shaved herself. (Witness the birth scene in “Knocked Up.”) Originally, the purpose of shaving was an attempt to control lice in crowded maternity wards. I’m stumped at what the new justification might be. The only thing trickier than shaving one’s labia is shaving while reaching around a watermelon-shaped belly.
Finally, your long-term partner who didn’t like your body hair? However nice a person she may otherwise have been, she should have either piped down or else found a way to love you and your flesh in all of your glory. Lovers have a responsibility not to inflict shame on their partners when they expose their most intimate selves. Anything less is cruel. So I’m really sorry she made you feel bad about your hair. Real men do have hair; only Ken dolls don’t.
“...which – once dispensed
Submitted by figleaf on Fri, 2009-11-06 23:57.“...which – once dispensed with – clears the way for some liberatarian fantasyland in which women can groom themselves however they please.”
More specifically as I said in a post I think I forgot to link to
In other words it’s not about creating a libertarian paradise — whatever that would look like anyway. It’s about creating forward, non-cliché dialogue about what’s really going on.
But! If it’s not working, and it’s slowly dawning on me that it’s not, I probably ought to pick some other way to try and start the dialogue.
Exactly! That post was
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Sat, 2009-11-07 08:23.Exactly! That post was wonderful. What if you didn’t just link to it, as you’d planned, but really used it as a starting point? I think that would be so much more fruitful than coming back to the distracting “prepubescence” argument over and over.
Your list, by the way, explains why the Em & Lo thread (which I just now read) got so thoroughly derailed from the ostensible topic of manscaping onto women’s hair-removal habits.
What I meant by “libertarian” is this: I think it’s a fantasy to imagine that if we can dispense with the prepubescent thing, we can then discuss the issue in terms of simple personal preferences without looking at how patriarchal power tightly constrains our preferences. And when you use phrases like “excuse for not shaving” and “a perfectly good preference” (in reference to expecting partners to be shaved), you do seem to uncritically endorse the status quo, however unconsciously or unwittingly.
I agree with Chingona, too, that your breast implant post danced around questions of power. It’s worth examining what else implants mean besides conformity to the beauty ideal, but those alternative meanings don’t cancel out the dominant assumption that women get implants in order to be sexier to men.
So yes, the next time you post on beauty norms, maybe you could pick a starting point that turns toward the elephant in the room: how power shapes our bodies in a sexist world. That list of yours would be a great place to begin.
Same logic as shaving before
Submitted by whitehound (not verified) on Wed, 2010-08-04 03:18.Same logic as shaving before any surgical procedure, I imagine – they might have to cut the woman slightly to get the baby out, or she might tear and have to be sewn up, and you don’t want hair to get into the wound and cause an infection, nor to be faffing about trying to shave skin which is already cut and bleeding. You will also find that if you take your cat to the vet for an operation, the vet will shave the area around the incision.
An interesting question here is, why are Americans so obsessed with trimming bits off nature? Shaving pubes, circumcising boys, straightening and whitening perfectly normal teeth, cutting toes off cats and tails and ears off dogs… none of these things are anything like as common here in the UK and in fact de-clawing cats and docking dogs is illegal here. Is it something to do with wanting everything pre-packaged, or what?
Facial hair imo is a different issue – most men simply don’t suit beards, and moustaches without beards are even worse, plus they tend to get bits of soup etc in them which is unappealing. My late boyfriend did actually suit a beard, and he also looked fine clean-shaven, but when he wore a moustache on its own he looked like a camel.
Figleaf, First, thanks for
Submitted by chingona (not verified) on Sat, 2009-11-07 08:46.Figleaf,
First, thanks for the reply. Reading your comments, and Sungold’s comments and your reply to her, I think maybe you are misinterpreting the larger significance of the “prepubescence” argument. I think it gets thrown out there so much not because most people think it’s the real issue but because it’s the only remotely acceptable way to push back against men who insist that women must shave. That nice list of things we ought to deconstruct? Even comprehending that list requires a certain Feminism 101 approach to these things that, frankly, most people don’t have. You cannot go into into Yahoo Shine or into a conversation at a party and start talking about exploiting women’s indoctrinated anxiety or visual oppression. People would look at you like you were from Mars. Or Venus. Or whatever.
Say to people that it’s unreasonable to demand that women do something that’s uncomfortable to meet arbitrary beauty standards? That’s pretty much 90 percent of what goes into performance of femininity. Say that it’s reasonable to reject those demands? Pretty soon it’ll be hairy legs and Birkenstocks for everyone and the world will end.
We basically are not allowed to have the conversation that we ought to be having. Most people wouldn’t even know what we meant by “performance of femininity.” But we can say “What are you? Some kind of pervert who likes little girls?” It’s the only way to shoot back, the only thing that might actually have an impact, that might hurt a little bit the way it hurts us to be told that our bodies are gross.
So I don’t think the problem is that we’re hung up or obsessed with the prepubescence argument. I think there is 1) no social space and 2) for most people, no vocabulary to talk about those other issues.
When you write that:
my intention in pointing it out is to try and dilute the elements of gender so the question can be addressed as a matter of personal taste rather than gender ideology
I just don’t think that’s how this works. I don’t think you can dilute the elements of gender by somehow setting aside the prepubescence thing. First, because the prepubescence argument is not actually the primary gendered aspect of it, and second because gender ideologies cannot just be set aside. We’re all immersed in them, like fish in water, and I think it is, quite literally, impossible to tease out some pure form of personal preference or taste that is not influenced by it.
Crossposted with Sungold. She
Submitted by chingona (not verified) on Sat, 2009-11-07 09:13.Crossposted with Sungold. She covered a lot of the same points in a more succinct way. Also did want to note that the list is excellent.
Wanted to touch briefly on some other points brought up in both of your comments.
After I posted my first comment, I did think about back hair on men. I agree it is seen as disgusting, and people will make those “just threw up in my mouth” comments about men with back hair. It does seem to me though that it doesn’t imply some failure to perform gender. My father is getting back hair, and the little that I’ve spoken with him about it, he seems to treat it as one more indignity of age. He doesn’t like it. He wishes he didn’t have it. But what are you going to do? The hair on his head is thinning, the hair on his back is thickening, and that’s just life.
In terms of my OB nurse acquaintance, she’s young enough that she was not practicing in the days of mandatory shaving (and yes, I’m aware that was norm for many decades). I’m fairly sure she was just used to having patients who shaved. (Or more likely, got a wax. I really don’t know how you would shave your own pubic area in late pregnancy.)
I want to second what Sungold said about the expectation being not just that you might trim or shave to facilitate oral sex or because one or both of you gets a kick out of having everything visible and bare, but that a woman must maintain at all times the illusion that she actually has no hair there. There must be no hair. There must be no indication there ever was hair. I think this is one reason it provokes such a strong emotional response in me. I know that if I were to shave, I’d have tons of razor burn, and then when the razor burn finally subsided, I’d have pokey, scratchy stubble, which to me seems like the least appealing thing, far worse than regular old pubic hair. That smooth, kissable mound that seems to be the goal? I would never have that. So I feel like I’m being told that I absolutely must do this thing that I know I would fail at and that feels … pretty shitty.
“It does seem to me though
Submitted by figleaf on Sat, 2009-11-07 13:41.“It does seem to me though that [back hair] doesn’t imply some failure to perform gender.” Exactly! If anything it’s a failure to perform youth. If I bring this up again I’m gonna have to be really, really clear about that. There’s “gross” and there’s “non-feminine.” Gross I can lament. “Non-feminine” or, conversely, “un-manly,” which gets on my nerves like chewing aluminum foil.
Also I know what you mean about the difference between shaving for, say, sensory or hygienic or ordinary appearance sake — in which case stubble or “shadow” wouldn’t be an issue because that’s normal and natural — and “women oughtn’t have hair there at all” — which is just outright denial of reality.
Thanks, Chingona,
—fl
Chingona, now I think you
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Sat, 2009-11-07 13:50.Chingona, now I think you have come up with the clearest formulation:
... a woman must maintain at all times the illusion that she actually has no hair there. There must be no hair. There must be no indication there ever was hair.
And that’s why the standard doesn’t just entail time, money, effort, and discomfort. It necessitates feeling of inadequacy, because it’s unattainable.
I think you’re also right, Chingona, about the lack of social spaces for discussions like this. It’s not that they’re nonexistent (hey, we’re talking about it) but it’s much harder in person than online, and even online it tends to revert to apolitical individualism. I’ve sometimes discussed the politics of pubic grooming with undergrads who are past the intro course in women’s studies, and that has worked pretty well. I wouldn’t bring it up in the intro, though. Even where there’s a political vocabulary available, people need to be comfortable enough with gender politics to get beyond their potential embarrassment about discussing genitalia.
As for back hair – or any hair potentially deemed excessive – I dunno, I guess I really can’t understand how that could be a deal breaker if you were already hot for someone. I’m still mildly in shock at figleaf’s former lover saying she wouldn’t sleep with him naked because his hair bothered her. Sure, people often can’t help their predilections, but my goodness, that one comes really close to outright rejection. And if body hair is such a deal breaker for someone, then maybe they really ought to look for someone who’s less hairy, naturally or otherwise.
Recaptcha is onto me: simpler IQ
I have a total hair fetish.
Submitted by The Beautiful Kind (not verified) on Sat, 2010-03-06 03:48.I have a total hair fetish. For me, I shave my legs from the knee down, trim my pubic area, and pluck 5 nipple hairs. Other than that, I keep the hair that I have. My sex partners love stroking my silky hairy armpits – it’s like having two more crotches! Sometimes I like having my armpits caressed more than my breasts!
As for men, the hairier the better in my book. Hairy chest is my #1 fetish. I think hairy backs are perfectly fine and sexy. One time I slept with a guy who shaved his back (I think his wife shaved it for him) and I was turned off by his stubble! It felt icky. I asked him to please not shave next time. Ahh, much better!
Even if a man shaves his face, you can still detect the slight blue undertone of masculine beard on his strong jaw. Very sexy.
And a shaved male crotch looks like a baby vulture without a nest to me.
Youth and androgyny have been
Submitted by Perverse Cowgirl (not verified) on Wed, 2010-03-10 21:27.Youth and androgyny have been huge turn-ons for me since my early 20s. My boyfriend shaves everything south of his nose, and that suits me just fine. It’s not that I like it because it makes him look “prepubescent” – I’m a cougar, not a pedophile. I think it’s that it makes him more womanly, or simply that I’m really tactile and enjoy the texture of smooth skin more than that of hair.
I like to keep a tidy “welcome mat” on myself, though, because shaved ladyparts just look so…bulbous and fleshy. Vulnerable. And, yeah, maybe kind of childlike. I like to keep that little social signifier that I’m a grownup.
In other news, I shaved most of my head a few months back and have discovered that I love the feeling of fingers on my scalp. I can actually feel the touching! It’s not all muffled by hair! Holy shit, other chicks have no idea what they’re missing.