This full spectrum of mustaches can be tracked in popular culture throughout the latter half of the 1900s.
They seem naughty because naughty men had mustaches. This partially explains the sexual elements of mustache messaging. “Or they were strong-willed individualists who didn’t need or care to follow the new rules of cooperative manliness.” “Men who stuck with mustaches were either older men sticking to the old standard, a military look,” Oldstone-Moore says. strong-willed individualists who didn’t need or care to follow the new rules of cooperative manliness. This meant that they were largely sported by high-ranking officers and delinquents. Mustaches were still permitted in the military, but only among certain ranks. When gas masks used in World War I (and later World War II) would not seal properly with beards, facial hair stopped a marker of men returning from war as well. By 1904 inventor King Camp Gillette was issued the patent for the first ever disposable razor, and cleanliness became increasingly important. New York City banned milkmen from wearing whiskers in 1902, and hospitals in Britain forced patients and workers to shave as well. The British army even went as far as to require mustaches as part of their uniforms from 1860 to 1916.īy the end of the 19th century, germs and bacteria were better understood and beards became seen as an unhygienic risk factor for spreading diseases like tuberculosis. With beards officially out, mustaches became the dominant way for men to grow dominance from their faces. The tax, which initially charged 60 to 100 rubles in exchange for a token permitting the beard, did not include mustaches, which helped to popularize them.
Meanwhile, in Russia, Tsar Peter the Great attempted to eradicate beards by implementing “beard tax” in 1698 after realizing on a trip through Western Europe that they were more antiquated than masculine. One can safely assume his portraitist was kissing ass. King Charles II, who ruled with a mustache in 1660 until 1685, is featured in portraits with one in his early teens. When Britain moved away from Puritan rule, the mustache remained a symbol of status and a far more manly affectation. After both mustaches were depicted in the art of the time, the masses parodied them in attempt to achieve the same distinguished look. In a heavily bearded time, King James I and his son King Charles I set themselves apart as regal with their respective handlebars. But the mustache as it’s known today came into its own in England during the Elizabethan era. These men are inheritors of a rich and shockingly long tradition.Īrchaeologists believe even cave-dwelling nomads shaped their facial hair into mustaches using shells and tweezers. To that point, American men with mustaches make on average 8.2 percent more money than men with beards, and 4.3 percent more than clean-shaven men, a survey of 6,000 men reveals. “Mustaches can be symbolic of assertive masculinity.” Even cave-dwelling nomads shaped their facial hair into mustaches using shells and tweezers. “Nothing can be simply a symbol of manliness because manliness is many things, both good and bad,” explains Christopher Oldstone-Moore, a professor of history at Wright State University and author of Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair. In other words, mustaches are shaped in part by sexual dynamics, but not best understood as a means of attracting a mate. Research shows that mustaches are most common in societies where there are a surplus of men in the mating market (think: polygamous cultures). Scientists suspect that the goal in growing them is not to attract mates - studies seem to indicate female ambivalence - but to compete with other men for dominance. That might sound odd in an era of proliferating beards, but there’s plenty of historical precedents.Īlthough testosterone levels do not directly dictate facial hair, there’s evidence that people still believe that men with it are manlier than their clean-shaven counterparts. The pedophile and pornstar jokes emerge from a place of discomfort with overt celebrations of manhood. This is why today mustaches are often considered to be creepy. What they mean depends largely on cultural or individual feelings about manhood and masculinity. As such, all mustaches can be understood as gestures of what researchers call “performative masculinity.” They mean something. It is extremely rare that a man’s facial hair naturally grow into under-nose topiary if left alone to do its thing. Different men grow mustaches for different reasons, but all these men share one thing in common: They made a choice. Lip fuzz can be a marker of class, non-conformity, delinquency, aspiration, or hypersexuality.
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