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Thursday, April 10, 2003

By Kim Crow, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

For years, it was out. Chest hair just couldn't catch a break. In the late 1980s and most of the '90s, smooth-chested pretty boys like Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio ruled the silver screen. The scheming men of "Melrose Place" and the, uh, heroes of "Baywatch" didn't have a single chest hair between them if you ignore David Hasselhoff, which we realize is very hard to do.

	Dan Marsula, Post-Gazette illustration Related article: Web tangled with chest hair topics

Advertisers clamored for the likes of Marky Mark and that Soloflex guy, all fur-free beefcake. And Jon Bon Jovi proved that a man could have as much hair as he wanted on his head, just as long as it doesn't show up on his chest.

But it looks as though the days of shaving, waxing and plucking might be over.

Advertising campaigns by Yves St. Laurent (for M7 cologne), Bloomingdale's, Lacoste and Levi's all have the typically buff guy in varying stages of the buff selling their wares -- with the notable additions of significantly hairy chests.

"Joe Millionaire" star Evan Marriott showed off the only treasure chest he possessed -- a thick mat of chest hair that, judging from chat room messages on www.yahoo.com, won over more ladies than his supposed fortune did.

DiCaprio has moved past the smooth sailing of his "Titanic" years and sported a definite fuzz in "Gangs of New York." Of course, that could simply be puberty at work.

Austin Powers aside, why a renewed interest in a man going au naturel?

"Our male standard of beauty right now is very contrived," said designer Tom Ford in an interview with the Hartford Courant earlier this year. Ford is Yves St. Laurent's head designer and one of the masterminds behind the M7 cologne ads.

"I wanted to show a man who represents a very natural, relaxed, easy image of male beauty," he said.

Tom Watson of The Talent Group agrees. Watson, print manager for the local modeling agency, books many shoots for fitness centers and the like.

"In years past, there was a real demand for guys that were completely hair-free, but I don't have that as much," he said. "It's just not as huge anymore. People want a more natural look. The close shaving led to lots of stubble and bumps. And anyway, it's sort of crazy to have a guy without any hair at all."

Women have known that all along, it would seem. Researchers from the zoology department at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom interviewed 700 women ages 19 to 65, showing them diagrams of 30 different male body types, and asked the women to rank the body types in terms of attractiveness.

First out were the pear-shaped endomorphs (slight shoulders, larger hips), quickly followed by super-thin ectomorphs. The mesomorphs (wide shoulders, lean hips and waistlines) were popular on their own, but when chest and belly hair were added, approval ratings shot off the charts.

"Female peahens select the peacock with the biggest, boldest train, as he is going to have the best genes for survival and success. With humans, a strong-looking body, muscles and broad shoulders indicate the same sort of thing," said Matthew Anderson, an evolutionary biologist and one of the authors of a report on the findings.

The pop culture references keep coming. Tim McGraw lets it all hang out on the cover of his new album, "Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors." On a recent episode of "The King of Queens," Kevin James' unbuttoned shirt revealed James' inner beast. Simon Cowell of "American Idol" occasionally reveals a little skin -- and chest hair. And on "Are You Hot," every male contestant is as hair-free as they are humble-free. That alone should convince those American men who shave and wax to do otherwise.

Tony Carroll, 26, is happy to see a gradual change in the favors of chest hair. The Ohio Township resident is, in his own words, "one hairy dude" and once endured the terrors of the waxing bench before an important beach trip.

"I wanted to take a girlfriend to Virginia Beach. I thought I was going to propose, but she said she wouldn't be seen with me on the beach unless I did something about it," Carroll said. "That told me she wasn't the girl for me after all. But I still went to the beach and had my chest and back waxed before. It hurt like a [insert the Osbourne family's favorite expletive here]."

So why subject himself to waxing if he didn't care about his former lady love's opinion?

"Well, I did want to meet some other girls when I was there," he said. "I figured if she cared so much about it, so would other girls."

There are some guys, of course, who have other reasons for shedding their natural pelts. Dave Hawk, a former professional bodybuilder with both Mr. USA and Mr. World titles under his belt, says anything that obscures well-defined pecs and delts is frowned upon by judges.

"Every bodybuilder who competes has to completely shave, men or women," the North Hills resident said. "Legs, arms, chest, everything. You can't accentuate your muscles if hair obscures all your hard work. This is like an artist sculpting his body. The hair just takes away from the aesthetics of the competition."

Hawk, who is also trainer to local WWF wrestling star and 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle, says that shaving is the easiest and best way for men to remove their body hair. Waxing is tough on a man's skin because the hair follicles are thicker, and the additional irritation usually causes breakouts.

Hawk can shave everything that needs to be shaved on his body in about 15 minutes, but then again, he's been doing this for 25 years. In the winter, though, he does let his chest hair grow in.

"My wife has the advantage of it either way," he laughed.

So do magazines. For that same M7 cologne ad, Yves St. Laurent also offered a hair-free version for the more squeamish magazines out there. And while Hawk sees high school boys who shave their arm or chest hair to emulate their favorite athletes or show off newly acquired muscles, there are those who are happy with a man just the way the Almighty intended him to be.

Well, sort of.

"A man just isn't a man unless he has a nice patch of chest hair," said Lindsey Conner, 37, of Whitehall. "I really like that better than a little-boy look, all smooth and immature-looking. But back hair?"