Beards Are Not Attractive. To Anyone. According To Science.

Hey, you, with the scraggly pubes on your face that you think makes you look mature, wise, and rugged. That thatch of barbershop dumpster contents you’ve got on your face that you call a “beard” isn’t as sexually appealing as you once thought. In fact, it’s sexually appalling, according to science. And did you notice that thing I did there? I used one word that meant something good, and followed it up by using a second word that sounds similar to the first, but means the opposite. You just got school on the art of witty wordplay, you disheveled husk of a man.

A group of researchers, who, I assume, immediately shaved off their scholarly science beards the moment they finished this study, set out to determine once and for all whether women find beards sexy.

The team gathered 19 men from New Zealand and Samoa and told them to not shave or trim their facial hair for six weeks. These men were probably told to shave the beards by their wives and girlfriends, but after declaring that they were “doing it for science!” they got laid a whole bunch, like they were oil riggers saving us from an asteroid. The bearded men then had two sets of two pictures taken of themselves: one set with and without a beard, looking angry; another with and without a beard, emotionless.

Women from New Zealand and Samoa were shown all four pictures and the results are pretty clear: beards make men look like “a pile of ass in a fur bucket” while the clean-shaven look made men look “rather f*ckable” – these are all official terms that I’m using.

Samoans were used due to their relative unfamiliarity with Western culture and symbols. We in the west associate beards with powerful warriors that wield axes and smash skulls, and we associate a clean-shaven face with the clean shaven knight or a Wild West town sheriff protecting his town from bandits – beards are powerful and wild whereas a clean-shaven face is noble and trustworthy.

It appears beards are like the yellow caution tape cops drape around crime scenes: it’s there because there’s probably something nightmarish hidden behind it.

But the researchers didn’t stop there. They showed the same pictures to men and found different results. Men think beards on other men are intimidating and demand respect. Beards are the male version of a male gorilla banging his chest with a powerful fist. Or, to put it in a way that’s more appropriate to the study’s findings, beards are a skunk’s foul ass spray but on our faces.  To put it yet another way, I’m sorry! Please don’t hit me! I bow in respect to your three lonely chin whiskers!