By Samuel George Elchert

Chest Hair

Bond, James Bond and Austin Danger Powers. Wow. Try and resist their excruciatingly strong sex appeal. Even as a heterosexual male, I must admit it is difficult. Was it not Austin Powers who succeeded in seducing the unseduceable killer fembots? Have you ever seen James Bond with the same woman twice? It’s the chest hair.
When I first started growing chest hair, I was a bit thrown off guard. I was prepared for its arrival after college or maybe even a little bit during college, but as a sixteen-year-old boy? It was a bit too early for my liking. Very few of my friends had any type of chest hair at the time, and I quickly became the target of their pointing, staring and slightly hurtful joking. The cruel reactions to the new addition to my body were not just from my friends. I had seen girls cringe and heard them shriek, “Eeew. Hairy,” and I was unwilling to have my body be subjected to such negative attention.
These days, chest hair simply isn’t portrayed as a desirable feature for a young man to have. I have been in girls’ bedrooms with Abercrombie and Fitch bags on the walls, and I’ve seen the nearly naked young men without a single chest hair to be found. The media has brainwashed the young women of today into thinking that smooth is sexy and hairy is scary. However, I wish to remind the young ladies of today that the media sending that message about chest hair is the same exact media saying a girl must be bone thin to be considered even remotely attractive. That’s just not right. As a matter of fact, I prefer girls to have a bit of meat on their bones, and as for my chest, the hairier the better.
Today, over a year after the hair’s debut on my chest, I have not only grown accustomed to my hair, but have also grown to like it. I have realized it isn’t a deformity. It is simply proof of manliness, pure testosterone poking through my skin. And don’t try to tell me otherwise.
I am sick and tired of girls saying, “Sam, why don’t you just wax or shave it?” It never occurred to them that it was possible for me to like something as “hideous” or “vile” as my chest hair. They could never comprehend that maybe I am not looking to get it off my body no matter the cost. And how do you think those questions and suggestions make me feel? Just imagine if I were to tell a girl, “Jeeze, why don’t you shed a few pounds?” I would be lucky to escape the aftermath without the aide of a wheelchair or stretcher.
The beauty of the situation is that the popularity of chest hair runs a sinusoidal course. In the sixties and seventies, chest hair was in style. Recently, it has been out of style. But no worries. If my calculations are correct, chest hair should come back in style around the year 2010. By that time I will be twenty-three, in the prime of my life, out of college, living it up, hopefully driving a turbo Porsche, and the best part of all is that while my hairless friends are saturating their hairless chests with Rogaine in desperate hopes of a few sprouts, I will already have been graced with the gift of a full and natural mane.
2010 here I come.