How to Properly Enjoy Chest Hair

A year or so ago, I wrote a piece for the LA Times about the little pleasures of showing chest hair. I had just started embracing the fact that I have a gray bird’s nest on the top of my body so thick, Indiana Jones would need a machete to find his way out. It was liberating to not have to be embarrassed about something I have no control over. Don’t shave it. Don’t wax it. Just own it.

The funny thing is, I started applying this logic to everything in my life. I stopped worrying so much about my paunch, my fat ass, or my bald spot. I bought clothes that fit, even if looking at the size tag made me want to hurl myself from the top of the Wilshire Grand Center. In short, I stopped searching for advice on how to live a better life and learned to enjoy the one I have. I try to dress in an eccentric manner as often as possible. I try to show off my chest hair as long as weather permits. I’d rather be noticed than ignored. Clothes help make that happen.

So, when I bought the book How to be a Man by the legendary style and culture writer Glenn O’Brien, I prepared to be outraged. I love Glenn’s writing. His voice is sorely missed in the discourse about men getting dressed. He valued elegance above conspicuous consumption, a trait that is in short supply today. And yet, I found myself prepared to scoff at an entire book (written in 2011) that purported to be “A Guide to Style and Behavior for the Modern Gentleman.” Forget the obvious — that a book from 12 years ago is bound to be at least mildly dated. This guy is going to tell me how to be classy? I’m a liberated man! I don’t need help!

Of course, that’s absurd. We’re taught to see everything in extremes. This or that. Yes or no. “Live free or die hard,” as it were. It pains me to report that, actually, you can hear what others have to say. Sometimes, they might even be…right? Our culture has devolved into a pitched, never ending battle between the doctrinaire and the libertine; the schoolmarm and the tumescent pervert. Style writers (myself included) and menswear TikTok creators trip all over themselves in a rush to tell you (the bruised and traumatized consumer) that there “are no rules” for how to dress. Wear blue and black together. Don’t match your belt to your shoes. Wear shorts with monk straps. Just be you.

Yes, I can say from personal experience that you can and should feel free to make bold choices with your style. I cannot stand what passes for clothes on most people. I went to a Pride party at the bar Precinct in Downtown LA last week, and I visibly shuddered every time I saw a perfectly lovely queer cis man wearing…a hoodie. It’s called “Pride” for a reason, dear. Take some in how you dress. If those men wore even the most boring off-the-rack suit in the entire world, they’d be better off.

But that was the function of voices like Glenn O’Brien or Andre Leon Talley. They had to lay down some ground rules for the discerning among us. Our culture has become so obsessed with the idea of permissiveness that we’ve lost any sense of flair. And I’m not talking about celebrities, with unlimited budgets for clothing and stylists on retainer. Simply put, those people only count during the Census. They do not count when it comes to the everyday lives of normal people. Normal people also need to look good! They don’t need to learn where the most hyped, sustainable cotton overshirt is sold, because they’ll just look like 15 of their friends who also listen to the same podcast. Menswear media either tells you what to buy or explains the difference between canvas construction and fused construction suit jackets. But no one is telling you what it all means. Someone has to draw the lines in the coloring book so you can scribble around them. But today, there are no lines at all, and we are suffering for it.

I took the book title “How to Be a Man” as something of a challenge. O’Brien could write an entire chapter of his book called “Man Is a Fur-Bearing Mammal” and quote all manner of historical allusions, from Brezhnev to Tarzan and everything in between. He could pontificate on the hairy chests of movie stars like Lee Marvin and Burt Reynolds. He had a knack for putting manhood into context, both the staid, straight version and the fabulously queer. I saw that title as a challenge, because it made me wonder: how exactly should you be a man in 2023? Are there any answers out there?

My experience as a cis man is vastly different than the experience of a trans masc person. Do the same rules apply? Probably not, but is anyone having this conversation in good faith, with the explicit understanding that trans men are men and trans women are women?

I want this Substack to be that. I call it “How (Not) to Be a Man” because someone ha to explain it to you. Every other Sunday, I’m going to interrogate our preconceived notions of masculine style, post a few fit pics, offer advice on how to get dressed, and never, ever be wrong. Ever.

My first piece of advice: the only thing that can guarantee a happy life is confidence. For God’s sake, try to have some. Start with putting effort into how you dress. The rest will sort itself out. Thanks for subscribing.