insert witty title here

Apparently there's something I need to get off my chest:

hair

I'd like to know when exactly it become fashionable for men to be as hairless as naked mole rats ?

When I was a lad, male virility was expressed by chest hair, broad shoulders and a strong chin . Look at the popular "sex-symbol" actors of the time: Charlton Heston, Sean Connery, Kirk Douglas and Rock Hudson (okay so he was gay, but he was still virile).

However sometime during the past ten or fifteen years it became preferable for men to be hairless except for the top of their head and a wee bit of fuzz around their pubes.

I'm not suggesting that looking like a monkeyman is required, but this hairlessness thing strikes me as just one more step towards the socially-acceptable glorification of the prepubescent, androgynous body.

Even today's 'tough-guy' movie stars have the look: Click here for movie-star girly-man

Go to a gym, beach or public swimming pool sometime and you can see any number of men that have taken to shaving their chests and legs - I even see it at the gym I go to here. Watch one of the awful dating shows on the idiot box and again you'll see that male hairlessness seems to be preferred.

As for me, I think shaving my face is enough of a chore so I'll be damned if I'm going to start shaving any other body parts regularly as well.