REAL MEN ARE SCRUFFY

Ever since Gillette paid Ben Roethlisberger five figures to take off his lucky whiskers, I've been thinking a lot about shaving. It is such a part of our culture, that most women (like me) hardly think about it. In my mind, through years of commercials, sitcoms, and TV movies, I have had this thought ingrained in my head: A man gets up, shaves, dresses in a suit and tie, and goes to work. Every day. He may have a five o'clock shadow when he comes home, but his natural state (in our minds) is a bare face, smooth, without bristles.

When I began to look for the smooth face of the clean-shaven man, I made a surprising discovery. Rather than being the norm, the clean-shaven man is in the minority. According to an article on Gillette's website, quoting from Bernice Kanner's popular book "When It Comes to Guys, What's Normal?" 46% of men are clean shaven. That means that over half, a full 54%, wear some type of facial hair. If you look around on a typical day and start to take notice, you'll see that the number's dead on. Some men have a small amount—a scant soul patch on the chin, a moustache, long sideburns that meet the jawline. More men wear a goatee or a beard without a moustache. A few brave souls sport the full beard and moustache—a combination that can look dashing, intellectual, or grandfatherly, depending on the individual.

When I began to look to the TV, where my belief in the clean-shaven man originated, I made another discovery. The more complex the character, the more intense, the more chance he has facial hair. The sitcom man, whom we laugh at and with, who are able to wrap up all their problems in 22 minutes of screen time, are almost always clean-shaven men. It's as if their bare faces are reflections of their characters—simple, one dimensional, smooth, faces and personalities that we expect to find unchanged season to season. I think of Friends when I think of the quintessential sitcom cast. In the years I watched the show, I can remember only one time that a main character sported a moustache. In a sentence, Chandler grew a moustache in emulation of Dr. Richard Burke (played by Tom Selleck) arguably the sexiest recurring character on the show. It was funny because it just didn't fit. Not surprisingly, the moustache lasted, for a single episode before Chandler went back to being the baby-faced funnyman we all know.

Male drama stars reside in the inverse universe of sitcom men—they're serious, intense, often smoldering. And they have faces that reflect their struggles as determined men constantly confronted with critical issues. Their whiskers say—"I didn't have time to shave today, I was too busy saving lives, saving the world." It isn't a coincidence that when the lists come out of the sexiest men on television, it reads as the cast lists from the best dramas, not the sitcoms. In Touch Weekly just named the sexiest star on television, Lost's Josh Holloway (as ex-con man Sawyer), whose hard body, blondish locks and contrasting dark scruff have attracted legions of female fans.

My personal favorite, and a regular on the sexiest list, is House's star Hugh Laurie, who plays Dr. Gregory House. He's unconventional, witty, terse, a true maverick who bows to no man (or woman). His thick stubble brings attention to truly piercing blue eyes, which speak volumes, even when he says little. Is House a conventionally handsome man? No. But the face is so interesting, so expressive, that it ceases to matter. He's complicated, and women respond to him.

Perhaps the biggest reason we are drawn to these dramatic characters is because we can relate to them, on some level, with the men in our lives. In real life men aren't the perennially young, smooth-faced men of sitcoms. They're complex, multi-dimensional. Crow's feet can come out at the corner of their eyes when they smile. Sometimes, their foreheads are creased from years of thought and worry. They age. And the hair on each man's face tells a story, whether it's the five o'clock shadow revealing that it's been a long day at the office, an untrimmed beard hinting at a rugged individual, or a waxed handlebar moustache announcing the presence of a nonconformist. And the feel of his stubble as it brushes against your cheek while he leans in for a kiss? Sexy. And we don't need to find the remote to get that.