Never before has there been a paradox like the one we see these days. The metrosexual man, who flourished in the mid-1990s by stripping male breasts –among other things– of their head of hair, continues to be a current fashion; You just have to see the torso of the winner of the recent Eurovision Song Contest, Damiano David, who has given back to the fashion that started and promoted another David, Beckham, and who is already presented as a new sexual icon. And while, many women show hairy armpits, groin and legs without complexes. The most hippies already did it in the 60s, as now, as a way of vindicating feminine freedom and the rejection of the object woman, but then men accompanied them, also abandoning themselves to the pleasures of long hair, beards and body hair .
The hackneyed phrase ‘where there is hair there is joy’ comes from the bullfighting world: when the matador touched hair it was because he had cut off an ear, a reason for joy both for him and for those attending that type of show. But the saying was adopted to refer to sexual intercourse; Come on, those hairiest parts were precisely the ones that made it happen the best. Today this claim is doubtful, at least as far as many men are concerned, who They flock to the beauty salons looking for a long-lasting waxing of a good part of their body, if not all, including the pubis (in many cases because that way the penis seems bigger). But… and the chest? For what reason does it peel? And let’s not be naive, that not everyone is Mark Spitz or Mario Cippollini, who on the streets looks a lot of tracksuits but little athlete.
What happened to the sighs raised by the film hairs of Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, Robert Redford, Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds … How do they withstand the pressure today, with the advance of shiny torsos, irreducible like the actors Hugh Jackman or the Spanish Quim Gutiérrez, who is shown with hairy chest on the cover of this month’s ‘Men’s Health’?
The Granada-born Jesús, a made-up name, 43 years old, is one of the rebels. Slim and well-built, he sports a torso similar to the one shown in these pages: “I started shaving when I was 14 years old and at the same time my body hair began to appear. Then it was normal to go without waxing, but then I started to play sports, I played in a basketball team, and that was when the image that Beckham projected spread. Some of them started to wax their legs and we were a bit hesitant. Until all the young people who were joining came already without hair and we began to be a minority ». He has never succumbed to this option, he does not understand why he would have to. He does not feel strange walking along beaches dominated by hairless breasts and legs, nor does he understand that hygiene is named as one of the reasons: “I don’t know what one thing has to do with the other. Nor would I wax my chest because my partner asked me to. ” Anyway, he admits that he shaves his back from time to time: «It is a hair that started to come out much later and I did not see it aesthetic, especially when you go to the hairdresser and they shave your neck, it is strange afterwards to wear the one with the long back ».
70% of Spanish men opt for some degree of waxing on their body, especially legs, chest and back, according to Alfredo Rodríguez, manager of Hombre Actual
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It seems that being part of the minority will be the fate of Jesus, because the waxing trend continues. According to a 2017 survey from the dating site MissTravel.com, 61% of heterosexual women prefer partners with shaved or shaved breasts. Although we find surveys for all tastes: there are those who promise a timid return to breasts with some ‘hair care’.
Alfredo Rodríguez, manager of the Hombre Actual beauty salon in Madrid, says that 70% of Spaniards opt for some type of waxing, especially on the chest, back and legs. «It is on the rise for comfort, aesthetics and cleanliness. And it is the young people who see it more clearly, although not having much money they throw themselves into shaving with a blade rather than waxing or photoepilation. Also at those ages the hair is not usually so abundant. He admits that those prominent manes of the aforementioned actors “may look fantastic on them, but that belongs to an earlier time. Perhaps more mature people choose less to wax, perhaps because they are no longer on the ‘market’. And it must be said that it is women, in many cases, who advise their partners to wax. He reports that the ‘integral’ is becoming fashionable among them, “even the buttocks, the groin and the perianal area.” “You no longer leave a wild and lush Amazon-type mane, you ask a gardener to help you do the pruning.”
Former Athletic footballer Aitor Ocio is today CEO and founder of the Henao by Tacha Clinic, in Bilbao, and of Thefit Sports. He confirms that male waxing – and in general, men who take care of themselves – is on the rise: “He is a client of facial and body treatments. This used to be a taboo subject, you were embarrassed, and now it has begun to normalize. Beauty makes sense for the well-being it entails. In the pandemic, it has been seen how important it is for a person to be healthy and look good, it helps self-esteem, to feel well emotionally. In my clinic, the mission is to make beauty from the health, to see ourselves beautiful inside and out, controlling our diet, sports, and complementing it with various treatments that help improve our appearance. Always in line with our age, because I don’t think you have to be 40 or 50 years old and look 30 ”.
– Do you remember how waxing came to be when you were a professional footballer?
– We began to see hairless legs and for the treatments you did, the massages, it was much better not to have it, more comfortable. So I realized that it was the right thing to do, for perspiration, hygiene, for everything. And all those stereotypes that have accompanied us that the man the uglier the more beautiful have been left behind. It even had a certain macho connotation, as they wanted their women to be groomed while they abandoned themselves. And now they are the ones who sometimes demand that they take care of themselves.
He assures that when he is on the beach he does not notice if he sees more men with hair removal than with hair, “but it is much more common than before. In a squad of footballers, the proportion of hair removal can reach 90%. And since footballers have so much visibility … ». He insists, however, that removing or leaving hair “should not be a matter of fashion, but a personal choice.”
The male torso in art
The writer Luis Antonio de Villena published in 2008 an essay entitled ‘Heroes, athletes, lovers: Essential history of the male nude’ (ed. Atalaya). Remember that practically all examples of naked men in art are without body hair. «Just a little bit in the pubis, by correction, as in Michelangelo’s David. The Greek beauty canon where all the models were young, handsome and hairless has been extended to this day, it is very powerful, even in religious art. They are bodies like those that are in fashion today. There is another type of man with a beard that was used to represent the man in his thirties. Did those canons of beauty correspond to reality? Yes, but only in young people. In addition, he admits, they may have been reflected like this to better show the perfection of his forms, the muscles.
Villena highlights that in the 20s of the last century, with the arrival of symbolism, another type of man began to be worn, “a more androgynous, somewhat feminine, and begins to grow. They were the models that appeared in the magazines ‘Blanco y Negro’ and ‘La Esfera’, with drawings and photos of young men of the wealthy classes, dressed in fitted clothes, looking kind, hairstyles with gel and shaves. It was a very strong fashion that stayed in the upper layers of society.
Villena considers that at this moment “an image of a youthful man predominates, up to the age of 30 and a little beyond, which is very well. But when you are approaching 50 years you cannot give the same kind of image. You can be attractive and cared for but without waxing 100%, removing only the excess, leaving a ‘medallion’ on your chest ». He believes that there are also men who grow hair “in reaction to so much hairlessness” and that many times the aesthetic model does not coincide with the sexual one: “To look at you may like delicate and shaved young boys, but then you want to sleep with a truck driver full of hair because that’s what makes you morbid. And, pay attention to the hairiest ones, it may be that in a short time they will not feel so alone; Villena foresees that from now on it will be more and more common to see men with some hair: “It starts to get tired and so much waxed.”
“With a little hair, but without carpeting”
Here is a debate in the WhatsApp group of the Live section. The four women who answered (over 40) are in favor of chest hair. And the only man too: “Me, with a little bit, but without carpeting,” he says. One of the respondents puts two photos, Quim Gutiérrez, with, and Álex González, without: «I think both are fine», but it is decided: «Naturalness, Quim». Another second: «I with hair, although a medium grade, not a legionnaire’s doormat. I don’t like being concerned about his appearance to the point of removing a lot of hair. If they go like this, surely someone will see you and freak out. ” Unanimity: «With hair, but not four hairs. Better pulling to hearty almost everywhere. I don’t like a shaved torso, but what pulls me back the most are shaved legs, that’s the worst.
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