Point-counterpoint: To beard or not to beard?
TRAVIS BOISVENUE AND MAUREEN ROBINSON THE FULCRUM (UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA)
OTTAWA (CUP) — Facial hair: symbol of sexual potency, or as attractive as pubic hair? The debate rages on.
Point: After all these beards
Beards are responsible for some of the greatest minds of all time. George Harrison and Karl Marx both produced their best work after they let their facial hair grow wild. As the proud owner of a scraggly, spotty beard, I’d like to think it is responsible for most of my academic achievements. Like a modern-day Samson, I feel at my intellectual weakest after shaving.
Alternatively, my beard is a valuable asset if I decide to turn to a life of crime. After gathering my ragtag team of rugged bank robbers and pulling off the heist of the century, my beard can be used to avoid police detection. If my own mother couldn’t recognize me when I shaved myself a handlebar mustache and chops, then the authorities certainly won’t be able to when I’m on the run.
The practical purposes are staggering. Beards keep you warm during the winter, trap gross sweat to keep you cool during the summer, increase the likelihood of being confused with a lion, and are commonly considered a symbol of sexual potency. And if there is one thing I need to accentuate, it is my tremendous sexual potency.
The most valuable function of a beard is its innate food-catching ability. Before classes, I like to enjoy a healthy bowl of frosted Mini Wheats. Mini Wheats’ milk displacement is abnormally high compared to most cereal. My trusty beard is always on duty, keeping the falling milk on my chin hair and off of my clean T-shirt. The dried milk can be easily disposed of afterward, without leaving any milk blots on my clothes.
Non-beardies just don’t understand the convenience and pleasure that wearing fur can bring.
- Travis Boisvenue
Counterpoint: Beards are about as hot as pubic hair
Sigmund Freud, Ulysses S. Grant, Jesus, Confucius, Jerry Garcia, John Lennon, Theodore Kaczynski, Tolkien’s dwarves, emotionally unstable hipsters, Richard Reid, mountain men, struggling poets, Santa Claus, Leonardo da Vinci, your dad circa 1985, carnies, first-year English majors, and Snoop Dogg’s posse called for you — they want their wildly offthe- mark sense of facial fashion back.
Beards — which were en vogue in 16th-century England, the mid- 1960s, and for about 10 minutes back in March of this year — have had a good run, but it’s time to put them back on the shelf alongside Ugg boots, trucker hats, blond highlights, poker, and candy necklaces.
For your information, beards don’t scream, “I’m sexually potent, do me right here and I’ll bang you six ways from Sunday,” but rather, “I have neck rolls,” or alternatively, “I am a sinister character with something to hide.” Why else would men need to mask their facial expressions?
For reasons that elude rational explanation, some men think beards are sexy. I’m partial to fervent disagreement here because there’s nothing sexier than rubbing cheeks with a scratchy, stubbly, patchy beard that is decorated with food and milk, right? Mmmmm. Wait — yuck! Face the facts: facial hair is about as hot as pubic hair. Possibly less. And nobody likes pubic hair.
In fact, beard enthusiasts have long bastardized the rules of accessorizing — keep it simple, keep it subtle. Lumberjacks can be forgiven for this oversight, but not self-respecting scenesters.
So keep it subtle, not stubble. Lose the facial growth.
- Maureen Robinson
