it was shared on a friend's FaceBook page with the caption "Praise the Lord!", indicating she took a liking to it. personally, i have to agree. strongly. i showed the photo to my hubby, since we like to compare notes on what we think is attractive and he thinks the photo is great! however the comments from many of the women is just the opposite. lots of 'eewww!' and 'werewolf!' and equally negative remarks populate my friend's thread and the thread of the person who originally posted the photo.
at first i thought 'to each his or her own' and i still believe that. until people started to take it farther, taking tallies of how many women didn't like him and saying only gay men like the photo. the bandwagoning got a bit annoying for me but it took me a little while to figure out why.
black women are highly defensive of all things that make us black women. we indignantly justify our behavior, our tastes, our style, our bodies as characteristics of strong black women. and black women who consider themselves 'natural' which usually means their hair, are even more so. if someone condescends to speak negatively about a 'natural black woman' trait all of black womanhood stands in loud open defiance.
but these women were cutting this man down, not for his gym made muscles or something that he physically altered, they were cutting him down for the one thing that he left 'natural'; his body hair. i can't even recall ever seeing a male model that wasn't waxed and buffed to a high sheen so that light bounced off his hairless body. this dude is HOT and PROUD to be hairy as all get out. and what do we do, trash him for it. not just say 'he's not my type' and leave it at that, no, we name call and bandwagon and basically do all the petty shit that we hate on others for doing to us.
let this dude post a photo of a beautiful black woman with an afro and have a single comment in his thread saying 'eeewww!' or 'too nappy!' and black women would probably flag his profile and try to have him banned from FaceBook for being a racist. but we can say all sorts of hateful things and try to justify our hate by counting how many other folks are being hateful too, and it's all good.
i can totally see why more gay men like this photo than straight women, because straight women (in this country) aren't even comfortable with our own body hair. we've been trained to trim the hedges and mow the lawns, waxing, shaving and tweezing ourselves into oblivion. that's our own hangup, why make it his. men are comfortable with body hair because men have body hair. simple.
and of course, if he were waxed and shiny the same women who have nothing good to say now would still have nothing good to say because of course a man who spends that much time on personal grooming (and look at this dude, grooming all that would take some time) must be gay! so he's screwed in the small eyes of these women either way. good thing he probably doesn't give a rat's ass, look at him, i'm sure he gets whatever play he wants.
and i will say that maybe my personal preference is a bit biased since my hubby is a proud, hairy man and i love his hair! LOVE IT! i love laying my head on his furry chest and running my fingers thru that thick mass of hair when we're talking. and my man is also ultra hot, yes he is! (that's him, splishing and splashing in all his hairy glory!)
personal preference is human nature, we can't choose what we are or are not attracted to. but name calling and bandwagoning for any reason speaks less to personal preference and more to personal faults. 'that's not for me.' means the same thing as 'eeewww!', one is just decidedly more mature, dontcha think?
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