• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Possible Causes Behind The Popularity of Beard-Wearing in the 21st Century

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
1. insecurity about one's manliness: today's younger male is sheltered and softened

2. wide-spread poverty: inability or unwillingness to purchase quality shaving equipment

3. rebellion against parents and authority: police and military are mostly clean-shaven as well as most male elected officials and most men over 60

4. insensitivity to, ignorance and apathy regarding personal hygiene, sanitation, the environment and cleanliness: the widespread litter in public streets and lack of janitorial service in many places of business (particularly those businesses which are food-related) are clear indicators that this new age is not appreciative of cleanliness and tidiness

5. widespread lack of a father figure in the home to show teenage boys how to shave

6. permissiveness and tolerance of disheveled appearance: civilian employers don't have strict dress codes as they used to, and/or, health code laws are now too lax regarding the personal hygiene of people working in food-handling and healthcare occupations
 

Galateasdream

Active Member
Maybe 1 and 3. I don't really see the others as being likely.

Possibly also the influence of media (increasing numbers of positive beard wearing role models both fictional and real - lots of fantasy, historical dramas, and the such like).

Who can know why the winds of fashion blow the way they do?

I'll throw in some Beards music, since it might be they who were responsible:

 

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
To expand on this a bit,
My mother was diagnosed with a form of cancer that is fueled by hormones, mostly estrogen.
One recommendation from her doctors was to avoid soy in the future. As it is digested it releases a chemical that mimics the effects of estrogen on the body.
Another was to avoid food heated in plastic containers. Most plastics, when heated, release a similar chemical.

The effects are subtle, but permanent. The whole thing(I was her primary care giver at the time) gave me pause. I started considering the chemical soup we live in, chemicals that didn't even exist for the vast majority of the time humans were evolving. Especially the effects on extremely young people while their minds and bodies are developing.
Tom
 

Mindmaster

Well-Known Member
Premium Member

You forgot the obvious....

Laziness... Far easier to maintain a beard once every few weeks than to bother with constant daily shaves...

Also, constant shaving is really rough on your skin and if you got fair skin like I do it really cannot put up with that anyway. I gotta shave about once every 3 days max or it's going to look like a crime scene.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
1. insecurity about one's manliness: today's younger male is sheltered and softened

2. wide-spread poverty: inability or unwillingness to purchase quality shaving equipment

3. rebellion against parents and authority: police and military are mostly clean-shaven as well as most male elected officials and most men over 60

4. insensitivity to, ignorance and apathy regarding personal hygiene, sanitation, the environment and cleanliness: the widespread litter in public streets and lack of janitorial service in many places of business (particularly those businesses which are food-related) are clear indicators that this new age is not appreciative of cleanliness and tidiness

5. widespread lack of a father figure in the home to show teenage boys how to shave

6. permissiveness and tolerance of disheveled appearance: civilian employers don't have strict dress codes as they used to, and/or, health code laws are now too lax regarding the personal hygiene of people working in food-handling and healthcare occupations

7. Because you want to

8. Because your wife, gf, other half thinks they are sexy.

9. As a naval seaman it is an optional code of practice and you want to help keep your face warm in Atlantic blizzards.


Oh, re 4, very unfair and bigoted, there is no evidence a beard is unhygienic, no evidence that wearing a beard contributes to litter. And the janitorial services at your local fast food joint are the responsibility of management, not the poor bearded sap who has to clean up your urine when you miss the urinal

And 2, have you bought a good razor yet?
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
1. insecurity about one's manliness: today's younger male is sheltered and softened

2. wide-spread poverty: inability or unwillingness to purchase quality shaving equipment

3. rebellion against parents and authority: police and military are mostly clean-shaven as well as most male elected officials and most men over 60

4. insensitivity to, ignorance and apathy regarding personal hygiene, sanitation, the environment and cleanliness: the widespread litter in public streets and lack of janitorial service in many places of business (particularly those businesses which are food-related) are clear indicators that this new age is not appreciative of cleanliness and tidiness

5. widespread lack of a father figure in the home to show teenage boys how to shave

6. permissiveness and tolerance of disheveled appearance: civilian employers don't have strict dress codes as they used to, and/or, health code laws are now too lax regarding the personal hygiene of people working in food-handling and healthcare occupations
Are you serious? Please tell me you are joking !

As Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun. Beard wearing is an expression of a style fad. It was more popular in the early 19th century.

As a young man, my generation recycled the style of the later 19th century, bushy stache, long sideburns.

In the 30's and 40's men wore pencil mustaches, that hasn't come back yet, but I bet it does.

A style statement can become part of your persona, I still have a mustache that I grew in the 70's.

It isn't deep psychology, it is just a preference.
 

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
It isn't deep psychology, it is just a preference.
Exactly.
It's the preference to project masculinity.

It's not particularly important. It's just a style preference. It comes and goes (fortunately at a slower pace than women's styles). But I don't understand why a straight dude would care so much about other dudes facial grooming.
Tom
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
Exactly.
It's the preference to project masculinity.

It's not particularly important. It's just a style preference. It comes and goes (fortunately at a slower pace than women's styles). But I don't understand why a straight dude would care so much about other dudes facial grooming.
Tom
Me, or the OP?
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
I didn't wear a beard until I got married. My wife likes me in a beard, so I wear a beard.

I also have a skin condition that makes it *more* hygienic to wear a beard than to not. In general, if you wash regularly, a beard is as clean as shaven.

It isn't laziness. If anything, I find it more work to keep a beard nicely trimmed than it would be to just shave the whole thing off.

Why one person who dislikes beards wants to control how everyone else styles themselves is beyond me. If you don't like beards, don't wear one.
 
Last edited:

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
My question is "Why do so many guys prefer to resemble children and women?"
Tom
I shave clean not for the sake of wanting to "look like a woman or a child", I shave because I want to look like a human and have my face feel clean and comfortable. The foreskin of males is removed for the same reason: hygiene and comfort. Did the vast majority of men who shaved in the 20th century look like sissies to you? Do soldiers look like sissies? Wear a neat-trimmed mustache then if you think it will man you up. Even so, food gets all in it.
 
Top