Gay mustache
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Depending on when George Lucas’s camera catches him, he’s at once a fiend, fop (that cape!), and a foreigner. Many gay men, particularly within the Castro Clone community, began shaving their facial and body hair in an effort to appear healthier, as youth and vitality became associated with survival. This shift allows the mustache to serve as a playful nod to its past while being just a part of one's appearance in the present.
Whether it’s a bold statement of masculinity, a hint of flirtiness, or a little bit of queer energy from bygone eras, the mustache is now a celebration of individuality and self-expression.
Evidence of early shaving practices dates to the Neolithic period (10,000 BC to 2200 BC), with stone razors used for grooming. The leaders and founders of prominent right-wing militias, such as the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers, sport facial hair, whether it be a full beard or a goatee. It became both a symbol of an older-school, tough-guy virility (see Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson) as well as refined way to express new sensitivities and creative personas (Sonny Bono and Stan Lee).
By the 1970s, the mustache became a mainstay in gay culture, worn by so many gay men that they began to be known as “Castro Clones.” As a fashion choice, mustaches were different from the goatees and rough and wild beards worn by those straight men on the right. There are countless men who simply can’t and others who would be viewed by society as dangerous and threatening if they were to grow a great bushy mess.
It was also linked to subcultures like swingers and adult film stars, symbolizing sexual freedom and defiance. During the 17th century, the decline of beards, influenced by Tsar Peter the Great’s beard tax, helped usher in the mustache as a fashionable choice, especially among soldiers who used facial hair to distinguish themselves.
According to The Gentleman’s Journal, the 18th century saw more elaborate mustache styles, often sculpted to accompany sideburns, while the 19th century saw them become part of broader facial hair trends.
The Mustache Is Thriving. Pepper era.
In the latter third of the 20th century, that coding got ever more nuanced as we looked west, to the Castro in San Francisco. Nearly all of my friends and people in my social circle for the past four years have been women and/or Queer.
The American Research Center in Egypt notes that one of the earliest depictions of a mustache appears in ancient Egypt around 2500 BC, with Prince Rahotep's statue showing a prominent mustache. Maybe it’s because of my upbringing. And then a very famous mustachioed German made the whole enterprise rather unattractive for a good while.
The chad and virgin meme, ancient by internet terms, has evolved over the years to represent the chad as heavily bearded and the symbol of masculinity to disaffected young men. Men with facial hair are perceived as being angrier, stronger and more masculine than men without facial hair. However, by the late 1800s, mustaches fell out of favor due to health concerns, particularly the belief that beards harbored germs.