Men and makeup

Hello, my dear reader. I hope that all is well with thee. I am writing here to inform you that at this moment, and for this past week (or month, or so) I have been diligently doing copious amounts of research trying to dig up everysingle thing that God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Saint Gabriel, Moses, and Jesus Christ, have ever had to say, in regards to the **very, very important  topic ** of men wearing make-up or, of course, not wearing it.
And I am quite shocked to say that instead of logging onto Google and finding out what these characters have to say about men wearing cosmetics or not, I have mostly just found other characters who claim to be speaking *for* these characters , instead.  Take for example this flashing erudite genius, from the website Debate.org when he tells you why He feels that make-up on men is a disgusting and vile thing :

Men are not women, so absolutely they should never wear make-up! Make up on men DOES MAKE THEM LOOK GAY. This world is heading towards destruction faster than it should, especially in the west. I personally think no morals and neglected childhood is the cause for such illnesses such as gay etc. gays are making the world a filthy place!

My oh my, oh my! How quickly did all of that descend into ... well, what exactly? In the first place, I can't quite figure out why this specific character here is even mentioning gays, when no such question about gays was even posed a single time. I thought we were discussing men wearing make-up, or to put it more bluntly, paint on their face? Ah! But wait a second, Antonio, for therein lies the old rub and the sharp jackknife of the Enlightened Modern Age: Men who wear paint on their face are now simultaneously and instantaneously also known as men who love and/or sleep with other men, even if the man in question with a simple streak of paint on his face has never made any such proclamation or claim ,et cetera et cetera. Indeed, to those of my descendants living 2 to 3 to 400 years in the future, I am here to tell thee: Back here in the old tombstone tunnels of what is, to you, the deep and dark and nonsensical past, men cannot wear paint on their face without being immediately accosted, accused, and essentially charged with homosexuality, effeminacy, queerness, and last but cerainly never least: an immediate highway to Hell, a.k.a. a terrible afterlife. No one knows quite exactly from where this association has arisen, historically speaking, but it does not matter, because someone once upon a time thought up a very specific version of God, or Yahweh, or Allah, or Somebody Divine, and they put out a decree: Make-up is not to be worn by MEN!

Let us dip our fingers again into the jar of Fools on the Debate.org web-site and see what else we dig up from the hallways of Imbeciles: 

I am a woman, and a younger woman at that. I do not feel comfortable when I see men wearing makeup, or men who believe they are women lecturing me (a true woman) about femininity and the trials of being a woman. It's insulting and demeaning to both men and women. The differences of the sexes (and there are only two) should be celebrated. Men should not wear makeup because it isn't a part of being a man, any more than a woman wearing men's clothes is part of being a woman.

Uhuh. Hmm. Again we seem to have someone who is dragging the Topic away from what it was originally: She was asked strictly about make-up, and yet for some reason, within the second sentence, she is referencing men who lecture her about femininity and the trials of being a Woman. What on earth, I beg to know, is this individual talking about? She has deflected the entire question, sayeth I and my God behind me! Madam, madam please, pretty please, with a cherry on the Tip Top, we were not discussing femininity, or men who think to have mastered feminity or the trials of so-called "womanhood" (whatever that may be) but rather the topic of men, specifically men, wearing make-up, otherwise known as cosmetics, otherwise known as paints, or if you'd like, colors, upon the skin of their face. I also, fairest lady, do not understand what the biological differences between the Sexes possibly have to do, with paint being smeared, or not smeared, or applied, to the skin that stretches across my facial skeleton, otherwise known as a Skull. A skull coincidentally that looks almost exactly like yours, if not exactly like yours, once the skin rots off it. But I digress.

Alas this particular young Genius passes us a wondrous declaration when she explains that "...men should not wear make-up because it is not a part of being a man..." But wait one second here, my fairest bonnie lass, wait one secone! Is thou saying that you, who have declared yourself in these sentences to be not just a woman but a 'true woman',  that you knowest better than I do, about what makes up being a man or not being a man? Is thou ... by God...by Yahweh...by Allah the Cupcake Lord... is thou lecturing me , on my masculinity? I thinkest thou is! Thou art lecturing ME! On MY masculinity! And how it ought to be performed, or not performed, seen or not seen, etc. Oh the utter irony I tell you! The utter irony!

Let us see if we can find yet another beguiling statement such as this, in regards to men and make-up and the utter Wretchedness of it in the eyes of this Modern world of fools.  Or, on second thought, let us see if we can instead find a statement that is - shall we say - a wee bit more sensible, when it comes to this so-called "debate" (which is not really at all a debate but rather one way of life being forced upon everyone).

Here , we see, is a good one ...from Quora.com, a site where people with gooey brains inside their head, instead of a box of rocks, tend to meet. One fellow says the following :

I reckon men don't wear it because they don't like getting tied up with doing things. They want their life hassle free.
How many men keep their clothes well folded, pressed and neatly arranged in cupboards daily? Its the same way.
They don't want to get into it because then they will have to do it regularly, and its time consuming.

This man seems, to me, to have something along the lines of a 'good idea', and for the most part, he is quite correct, and certainly sensible: Instead of jumping to strict, fascist nonsense about someone elses very fashion obsessed God, or giving us ironic lectures about manhood or womanhood or humanhood, this man simply explains to us a little something about a topic called convenience, and TIME - and of course HABIT! And, yes,  the truth currently is that many men are simply not in the habit of putting dabs of paint on their faces, or their eyes, or their lips... they have not learned to do it... and mostly that all stems from centuries of rushing around, and doing *almost all* of the very grueling labor, as well as murderous fighting, cannonballing, bombing, and shooting, in this World.

Of course lest we forget, Iw ould like to add: Even those brave fighting men who go out yonder with M-16 assault rifles and grenades strapped to their backs, have at times been known to adopt a specific style of make-up on their faces, usually of the camouflage sort, to blend in with the trees and the wilderness, whilst they search for enemies of the Empire to slaughter. In fact I have a very vivid memory from my boyhood (perhaps a bit off topic) of eating at an ice cream shop, and seeing a man who walked in, dressed in full US marine regalia, who had his entire face *tattooed* camouflage. Yet, even with men like that waltzing about in the Free World, we still find ourselves largely trapped with the social stigma that make-up, or anything upon the face at all that is not flesh, is only for the gals, and that any man who wears cosmetics is certainly some sort of delusional psychotic who is seeking to be a girl or, if not that, to sleep with other men and get involved with hairdressing.

All of this of course could not be more ridiculous, and all of it too, I can assure you, barring any sort of massive ecological or political disaster that sends us backwards in time to the Dark Ages, shall fade soon enough - maybe even within the next 20-30 years, or quicker. You'll go to the mall in the future and I bet a good quarter if not half of the men...and maybe even all of them at some point in time after that...will be wearing *some* style of makeup. I do not know exactly what style, I do not know if it will adhere to the exact general style the gals do now; but it will be something, it will definitely be something.

They will not just be forced, as they indeed are now, to walk out plain-faced with nothing on, into the lighto f day, if they wish to be accepted amongst the masses as a "real man" who isn't a "psychotic" or a "weirdo", or a "sinner" destined for a wretched, intolerable after-life.

How come? Why shall there suddenly be a changen ow, after all of these years of men not wearing makeup? It is very simple: The age of men being trapped almost entirely with the manual labor and fighting duties is not quite over - but it is getting closer to being over for a very large percentage of men out there -more than ever before, as a result of technology handling much of the labor--  and not just that, but for the first time in history, thanks to inventions like birth control and then too the dissolution of marriage being a social requirement, more and more men and women are meeting one another, and becoming friendly with one another, without romance or children being involved, than any previous historical period. It's basically cheaper, easier, and safer than ever before, for men and women to hang out with one another. 

 Previously almost every single man and woman relationship often ended in a child appearing upon the stage "at some point 9 months later", because there was no birth control -and what this obviously meant was that, oftentimes, if not 9 out of 10 times, there was a major price tag attached to male and female togetherness, and people did, in this sense, have serious reason to fear it, and make up silly shaming stories about why it ought never happen . This is coming to a close now, however, because birth control has lowered the price tag and largely killed off the consequences. All of this is DEEPLY connected to the story of make up and the poor, ragged normal people (whether male or female) wearing it or not wearing it. 

 In fact, when it comes to the topic of working class women wearing makeup,  this price tag issue ties in deeply to their cosmetics history: The truth is that at the turn of the 1900's, most working class women **would not have regularly worn make-up** in any way like we know it today  ,even in spite of the fact that they did not work construction or dig ditches. The reason they did not wear it was because, back then, it was simply too costly. Hell, even if you go back 20-30 years in time to the 70's, the way makeup was worn in working class areas was much different than now. But the prices have dropped  now, as a result of industrialization, and civilization, and then of course there is agian that additional fact  that BIRTH CONTROL was invented. This cannot possibly be stressed enough. This was a major societal switch. Possibly the biggest invention of the past 12,000 years of human history, really. Television and automobiles get a lot of credit. They are great. But birth control was HUMUNGOUS. In my opinion, it really is up there with Neil Armstrong (or was it Neil Diamond, I ask thyself?) hopping Apollo 13 and going to La Luna.

I understand that it might seem very bewildering to modern eyes and ears; but this modern "social bridge" that is currently being built between men and women did not truly exist, especially for the working classes, in previous centuries. In fact, it didn't even really exist for most of the 20th century. For example a man in the pre-birth control (being affordable and widespread) period might have known a number of women in his day-to-day life, and they of course would have known him, but they probably would not have had intimate contact (like hanging around in each others personal bedrooms) unless they were lovers, or planning to become lovers etc. This detail changes everything in very dramatic ways, and in fact even in todays world, men and women, once they're beyond high school, still seem to often be rather separated from one another's...bedrooms.And where is the makeup usually kept but the bed-room? Again, it might seem silly, but this fact has had a very large consequence and most of that "consequence" is being reflected through the way the clothing, and the jewelry, and the make-up, is or is not shared.

Usually when someone gets me started on this topic (for many modern people actually seem quite interested, even people you would never think were) I tend to open with the phrase I can remmber reading from Keith Richards rock and roll autobiography , Life: "I never understood what the hell everyone was talking about, when it came to me being a fashion icon and all...becaus the only thing I ever did was just go into my old ladys closet, and throw on some of her clothes, before hitting the stage. There was nothin else to it - and usually they were old, old clothes." The statement might seem funny and, again, to modern eyes and ears, very small, at first glance, but the truth is that, as I said, someone like Keith Richards even having the ability to walk into the girls closet, and then to walk out of it and take a photograph that would be distributed to millions,  was absolutely enormous, as far as the previous centuries were concerned. It was a major, major social and cultural shift . Seriously: major.  In the 1800s someone doing what he did would have been forced to hide from absolutely everyone, as a result of just how stressed MARRIAGE was in those previous time periods.

 In the 1800s one was either married or one was not, and trysts and escapades did not generally happen in the light of day, because they were terribly frowneed upon...not so much because of God or moralism, like the modern Christian brigade of Republicans would have you believe, but rather because - let us just keep hammering this one point home, why not -- no secure birth control method existed (and abortion was imperfect and deadly) and so people who went on trysts were far more likely to face serious consequences like out of wedlock childbirth, which would have been an absolute fiasco for very obvious financial and economic reasons.

 I would say at this current point in time we are living towards the closing, or perhaps just the late middle chapters, of what I suspect shall one day be considered the "initial birth control period" or something such as that. Think of birth control and abortion sort of like film  and motor vehicles: We are still in the cultural phase of birth control  where the film perhaps has yet to leave the cinema and travel with us on a VHS cassette to our house, and we are maybe driving a 1945 Ford Mustang that can do 50 mph nicely , rather than a 1965 Mustang ,  that can do 100 mph , et cetera. It is something like that. We are still in the opening chapters of BC, its effects aren't totally complete, and haven't yet washed over our culture entirely. It exists; but people are still sort of confused by it, and creating superstitions about it, and problems about it, enormous political debates, etc.

Once the effects have washed over completely and people have come to understand, truly, what a major invention it was, we will be looking at a very differnt culture, and one of the biggest differences will be this silly makeup topic, I assure you, because once the Father and Mother roles are not being played upon the stage so heavily, you're going to see that the Gender Roles also start to quickly disintegrate.  It's kind of common sense really. So to you boys in the far off future who are wearing make-up and looking into the deep past with wonder: Do not worry,and do not feel too revolutionary either perhaps, for even your great-great-great-great brother (I) all the way back here in the dark tombstone tunnels of the old days, saw you coming.

---END....