Victor W.
Pogonophobia
Pogonophobia - a fear of beards, from the greek 'pogono', (beard), and 'phobia', (fear).
Where did this apparent current dislike of beards come from? Why would there ever be a dislike for beards?
To me it makes no sense and I always thought it was just a fashionable trend. Look at any Victorian photograph of some noble man or eminent scientist and he'd often be sporting a very fine beard indeed, the Edwardian period saw some smart looking beards and the finest moustaches known to man. From the mass of hair and beards of the Hippies, the old mullet and moustache of later years and all my favourite band members, (ZZ Top - now they had some beards!), I've always known, witnessed and marvelled at the facial hair growth of a man.
Indeed as a young man, (boy!), I constantly checked the mirror to see if I had started sporting facial hair heralding my introduction to the world of being a 'man'. Once I had those few whispy hairs poking out from my chin and what I believed to be a moustache, (it showed if you got the light just right - honestly), someone was ready to jump in and start you on the path of shaving the damn stuff off! All that tentative waiting for the hair to appear and then you 'have' to start cutting it off? I didn't, not at first, I wanted to sport my few whispy hairs in public for a while just to prove to the world that I had indeed finally become a 'man'...........sad but true.
I finally did start my path to shaving, wet shaving at that and I absolutely deplored it! I stood in that bathroom the first time looking like something from a horror film, blood all over the place and bits of tissue stuck to my face in some desperate attempt at stemming all that blood loss. Then came the aftershave, probably that dusty bottle of 'Brut' or 'Old Spice', maybe even 'Hai Karate' that an aunt bought you last Christmas, big hand full of the stuff, 'splash it all over' just like the adverts said you had to and AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH! You were left clinging from the rafters in absolute stinging agony as well as terrible shock from the whole incident.
Why did I have to go through this agonising ritual? What purpose did it serve? The only reason I started shaving was after a b*ll*cking from my Apprenticeship manager, (remember Apprenticeships? Old Fart I am!), who suggested that I appear at work the next day clean-shaven. Indeed this request or rather demand has been made by several employers over the years. Apparantly shaving makes you 'smart and tidy'....Huh, more like leaving yourself in agony every morning and spending what little money you earn on all this shaving nonsense!
Nothing 'smart' about that at all let alone looking pretty untidy with nicks and cuts all over your face.
So over the years I've sported several beards in different styles, goatees, moustaches, full on spade-beards, you name it but unfortunately I've also appeared bereft of facial hair much to my misery. (Usually because of another employers demands or that of a relationship partner who despite meeting you with a beard now demands it be shaved off!?!)
My current status for more than a decade now has been that of a short goatee or circle beard. My partner Teresa met me with a beard and made no demands to shave it off, in fact the latter, (after seeing my boyish face when I was clean shaven in old photographs she stated that she didn't like it, much to my pleasure).
Recently however the urge for a full on beard came back to me and I didn't expect the response I got after I started growing it back. I had expected a few raised eyebrows as past experience had shown this to be true but some of the remarks were pretty terrible - looking like a tramp or bum, being untidy, even comments about a 'flavour saver' where I could re-enjoy my last meal several hours later as it would apparently still be attached to my beard(?!) Well I haven't dribbled whilst eating for many a year now, (although rapidly progressing to an aged state where I probably will do it again), so didn't see any of that as a likely thing to happen.
Yet the thing is all I've done is extend the amount of hair grown and where it grows, nothing else.
Perhaps the corporate greedy b*st*rds of the world finally made a social change with all their advertising swaying us to give our money to them whilst creating an enviromental travesty. (We do it with pretty much everything else let alone the simple things like shaving!) Not helped by the 'scientific' evidence given in 'factual', (ah-ha, ahem, cough, cough), reports stating that women prefer men without facial hair. Really? Well if they're not attracted to me that's good as I am in a stable relationship thanks and if I'm meeting them in any other capacity where they find my facial hair in any way 'disturbing' then perhaps they're simply 'pogonophobic'?
.
.
For all you beard loving people out there, (and maybe just the beard curious), here's some links I came across. Might sound weird having a beard 'club' but each to their own in this tolerant freedom loving society we've all evolved to ;-)
Gotta love the internet :-)
Apologies to my usual contacts, (hiya guys and girls!), for my absence once again. Not long after sorting out this PC with the new OS I experienced some errors that turned out to be a faulty RAM and I've waited a few days for some replacements. Back up and running again, (hurray!), so an attempt was made to utilise this all in a proper fashion.
Out with the camera, several lightstands, a couple of my DIY flash units and that free model I can always rely on :-)
My first start to finish procesing with GIMP also and I've got to say I thoroughly enjoyed it and sufficiently pleased with the results. Actually GIMP is damn impressive once you get used to using it!
All my best to you :-)
Pogonophobia
Pogonophobia - a fear of beards, from the greek 'pogono', (beard), and 'phobia', (fear).
Where did this apparent current dislike of beards come from? Why would there ever be a dislike for beards?
To me it makes no sense and I always thought it was just a fashionable trend. Look at any Victorian photograph of some noble man or eminent scientist and he'd often be sporting a very fine beard indeed, the Edwardian period saw some smart looking beards and the finest moustaches known to man. From the mass of hair and beards of the Hippies, the old mullet and moustache of later years and all my favourite band members, (ZZ Top - now they had some beards!), I've always known, witnessed and marvelled at the facial hair growth of a man.
Indeed as a young man, (boy!), I constantly checked the mirror to see if I had started sporting facial hair heralding my introduction to the world of being a 'man'. Once I had those few whispy hairs poking out from my chin and what I believed to be a moustache, (it showed if you got the light just right - honestly), someone was ready to jump in and start you on the path of shaving the damn stuff off! All that tentative waiting for the hair to appear and then you 'have' to start cutting it off? I didn't, not at first, I wanted to sport my few whispy hairs in public for a while just to prove to the world that I had indeed finally become a 'man'...........sad but true.
I finally did start my path to shaving, wet shaving at that and I absolutely deplored it! I stood in that bathroom the first time looking like something from a horror film, blood all over the place and bits of tissue stuck to my face in some desperate attempt at stemming all that blood loss. Then came the aftershave, probably that dusty bottle of 'Brut' or 'Old Spice', maybe even 'Hai Karate' that an aunt bought you last Christmas, big hand full of the stuff, 'splash it all over' just like the adverts said you had to and AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH! You were left clinging from the rafters in absolute stinging agony as well as terrible shock from the whole incident.
Why did I have to go through this agonising ritual? What purpose did it serve? The only reason I started shaving was after a b*ll*cking from my Apprenticeship manager, (remember Apprenticeships? Old Fart I am!), who suggested that I appear at work the next day clean-shaven. Indeed this request or rather demand has been made by several employers over the years. Apparantly shaving makes you 'smart and tidy'....Huh, more like leaving yourself in agony every morning and spending what little money you earn on all this shaving nonsense!
Nothing 'smart' about that at all let alone looking pretty untidy with nicks and cuts all over your face.
So over the years I've sported several beards in different styles, goatees, moustaches, full on spade-beards, you name it but unfortunately I've also appeared bereft of facial hair much to my misery. (Usually because of another employers demands or that of a relationship partner who despite meeting you with a beard now demands it be shaved off!?!)
My current status for more than a decade now has been that of a short goatee or circle beard. My partner Teresa met me with a beard and made no demands to shave it off, in fact the latter, (after seeing my boyish face when I was clean shaven in old photographs she stated that she didn't like it, much to my pleasure).
Recently however the urge for a full on beard came back to me and I didn't expect the response I got after I started growing it back. I had expected a few raised eyebrows as past experience had shown this to be true but some of the remarks were pretty terrible - looking like a tramp or bum, being untidy, even comments about a 'flavour saver' where I could re-enjoy my last meal several hours later as it would apparently still be attached to my beard(?!) Well I haven't dribbled whilst eating for many a year now, (although rapidly progressing to an aged state where I probably will do it again), so didn't see any of that as a likely thing to happen.
Yet the thing is all I've done is extend the amount of hair grown and where it grows, nothing else.
Perhaps the corporate greedy b*st*rds of the world finally made a social change with all their advertising swaying us to give our money to them whilst creating an enviromental travesty. (We do it with pretty much everything else let alone the simple things like shaving!) Not helped by the 'scientific' evidence given in 'factual', (ah-ha, ahem, cough, cough), reports stating that women prefer men without facial hair. Really? Well if they're not attracted to me that's good as I am in a stable relationship thanks and if I'm meeting them in any other capacity where they find my facial hair in any way 'disturbing' then perhaps they're simply 'pogonophobic'?
.
.
For all you beard loving people out there, (and maybe just the beard curious), here's some links I came across. Might sound weird having a beard 'club' but each to their own in this tolerant freedom loving society we've all evolved to ;-)
Gotta love the internet :-)
Apologies to my usual contacts, (hiya guys and girls!), for my absence once again. Not long after sorting out this PC with the new OS I experienced some errors that turned out to be a faulty RAM and I've waited a few days for some replacements. Back up and running again, (hurray!), so an attempt was made to utilise this all in a proper fashion.
Out with the camera, several lightstands, a couple of my DIY flash units and that free model I can always rely on :-)
My first start to finish procesing with GIMP also and I've got to say I thoroughly enjoyed it and sufficiently pleased with the results. Actually GIMP is damn impressive once you get used to using it!
All my best to you :-)