h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

(Especially that little tuft of hair under the bottom lip)

Two words...

Tom Waits

I used to have a beard that didn't grow evenly, so I shaved and left a goatee and long sideburns. People said it gave my face more definition and made me look 'fetching' (actual word used).

Are you sure the word used wasn't retching?

Just joking. Truly

It was just the chin and the under-lip. My moustash is too thin.

Although of course the word means "beard like a goat". I wonder why it does not seem to be a sign of virility as other goat -related thins tend to be.

Perhalps there is something sexual about it. I don't know, it saves time when shaving not having to do those hard bits.

Current style in LA (August 2002) is for the youngest straight men (from heliarche to about 22-23 years old) to only grow the goatee under the jawbone, mostly only on the chin. No lip hair at all. Young gay men are all clean shaven (but may have 1980's style punked up hair on or attached to their head).

Wonders about the validity of the soul-patch.

That is puzzling to my brain.

Isn't the mere fact someone conciously wears it, somewhere, make it valid fashion?

BUt does it take a special kind of face to wear one? I saw a guy with a goatee that connected to his soulpatch with a curl. (he plucked the extra hairs so it looked like this: @> )

That'd be pretty strange looking alright, but...

Perhaps because I am immersed in the culture of California, but I percieve attitude as trumping face-shape, and, indeed see it as an essential portion of all fashion. Does he project "I look so interesting and individual in this asymmetrical facefur that you want to talk to me in a like manner, and maybe take me home" or not?

I'll be honest, here. Goatees on men always make me look twice. Especially the nice ones with the mustache and everything. I had a serious crush on a short bald professor for a year and I think it was only because of his goatee. Not that there's anything wrong with being short or bald, but a survey of the men I'm usually attracted to does not include those descriptors.

Are there much in the way of goatees en el pai's de Espan~a?

Most of the men I've encountered en el país de España were clean shaven. I have one friend who does wear a goatee, but he has spent a lot of time in the U.S., so it's possible he has been influenced by goatees being in fashion Stateside.