In a single blow (no pun intended) CokeTalk of Dear Coke Talk addresses several… misperceptions about male beauty standards.
Q: I’m a 30 y/o guy who despite beating the family average is finally losing his hair. Problem is, I have one of those ungainly scalps that is not suited to straight-up shaving it.
I swore I’d never be beholden to my hair and have no interest in forking over cash and dignity to pharm companies or miracle cures.
I just can’t find a style that allows me to bald gracefully. Suggestions?
A: No interest in forking over cash and dignity? Fuck your dignity.
Do you have any idea how much money we [women] spend and pain we endure chasing unattainable standards of beauty?
We’re over here nipping, tucking, lasering, injecting, dying, tanning, waxing and whitening every square inch of our bodies. The least you lazy bastards could do is show a little effort when you start losing your hair.
Actually I guess she can’t have said it there because, as we all know, women are never “visual” creatures so how could they care? And for that matter he never could have asked her either because, as we also know, when it comes to their own appearances men are “natural” creatures who never once worry about how they look.
Or, more technically, if we didn’t believe that kind of crap we’d surely notice how much time and effort men put into almost everything about their appearances, from sucking in their guts at the beach to hair plugs to Bruce Springsteen’s lyric “I combed my hair till it was just right / and commanded the night brigade,” to heel lifts, to gym memberships, to $200,000 for a sports car we can look good in. And lately, manscaping pubises, laser hair removal of torsos front and back, lasering and/or waxing monobrows
Oh yeah, and (according to an internal AmazonAssociates tool) exactly four hundred and three products for nose hair removal!
Extra credit? The bogus Two Rules of Desire, since it really is intolerable and inconceivable either for a woman to have desire or a man to be desired, all that invisible time, money, and effort men put into their appearance? Well, if women don’t care, and men aren’t interested, then it’s all got to be done out of pure, unadulterated narcissism.
Right?
Well, of course wrong! But that’s not as interesting as the further effort we put into maintaining the belief that it mustn’t be wrong.
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Men just have the “sexy
Submitted by Plymouth (not verified) on Mon, 2010-06-07 22:25.Men just have the “sexy toussled look” down pat. You know the “put a lot of effort into looking like you didn’t put a lot of effort into how you look”. I’m usually not a fan of throwing out the gender stereotypes, but, damn, I see this soooooooo much!
Here’s a guy who’s willing to
Submitted by PattyCake (not verified) on Tue, 2010-06-08 05:41.Here’s a guy who’s willing to make an effort and wanting advice, and unfortunately asks a woman with her own agenda, so he gets the “fuck you, we have it worse” reply.
My response to him is, “fuck her agenda and its baggage. Stay in shape, be healthy, and find a girl like me who finds your pate sexy.”
Truthfully, I do have a
Submitted by Red (not verified) on Tue, 2010-06-08 05:43. Truthfully, I do have a little bit more sympathy for this guy. To start balding young and have an ugly scalp? I call that a significant misfortune. If a woman doesn’t put a lot of money and endure a lot of pain for her appearance-even doesn’t wear make-up? That might get her labeled as a granola or a hippie. It might get her labeled as a bit behind the power curve. (And believe me I have a lot of experience in this area for reasons of both non-conformity and being unable to afford to “fork over” loads of money for appearance!!) But I wouldn’t consider that on par with being young and bald, and not have the sort of head to pull of the shaved look. I think it would be better for either a man or a woman to have an unattractive face or even for a woman to be somewhat overweight in our society than to have to face that. Male pattern balding is a genuine misfortune-unlike graying which can at least be dyed and might soon be simple to treat with the discovery that low catalase allows peroxide naturally generated by hair growth to bleach everything out. There’s not much guarantee that balding cures will actually work.