‘Facial Hair Patterns and Perceptions’ by Sandeep Sehbi
So I was tasked with writing this article on facial hair. People tell me I’ve been blessed with good facial hair. When I was younger this was something I was made fun of about.
Facial hair has played a large role in my life. When I was young, I was raised Sikh. This meant that I was told never to cut my hair. Which now I look back and think, “holy shit.”
After 9/11, I was looked at as a terrorist because of the hair I had on my face. I was of course at the time encouraged to grow the fuck out of my facial hair. So I was conflicted and caught in a bad place. My parents wanted me to practice the faith, but my city wanted me dead.
In college I shaved it off, and I felt liberated. I finally was able to control my visual identity, and I could go clean shaven, or experiment with facial hair. And I still to this day find it a novelty that hasn’t worn off for me.
Now that I’m my latter 20s, I get lots of people coming up to me with their beard issues. I have become a therapist to the beardless. To people who can’t grow beards, here, here, or here. It gets old.
I work in a lot of queer bars and if I have a beard, they refer to me as a bear. If I run in my hipster circles, I am tempted to put on a lumberjack and go with that flow.
I assume people care about my facial hair as much as they do because that hair is attached to my face, the face they speak to when they speak to me. Thats my attempt at depth in this article.
I find facial hair absurd, and reactions to it also absurd.
Sandeep is a musician, writer, videographer, blogger and social media junkie. He runs a DIY space, he’s in a number of bands, he’s started a number of long-standing events and community organizations.
