![Fukurokuju, aka Gehō](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Fukurokuju.jpg)
It was "Men's Consciousness-Raising and Location of Pycnogonida within the Chelicerata Night" again at the
Old Entomologist. 'To shave or not to shave?' was the question. The debate was fraught with interruptions and the Taro-&-Quinoa Beer flowed like
porridge water, until it ran out and the only drink left was Evangeline van Holsteren's "Men's Rights Advocaat" which she makes according to her own recipe that doesn't use eggs. And much was the raising of consciousness, with the exception of Evangeline's idiot boyfriend, who brought along a bag of dried grapes because he'd misread the invitation.
![Daikoku shaving Fukurokuju](http://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionimages/AN00198/AN00198755_001_m.jpg)
On one hand... by shaving our foreheads we are perpetuating unrealistic standards of male beauty imposed on us by the razor industry. What is objectively wrong with a naturally hirsute forehead, hairline down to the eyebrows as nature intended? And such as. It is a dispositive argument.
But on the other hand... if a bloke feels more intellectual and more enticing and more higher-self-esteemy by having his forehead depilated, it is his own business. We are not living in Imperial China with its sumptuary laws tying the maximum height of a scholar's scalp visibility to his success in the examinations! *
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRUp5j6qgYuDBvJN4NTL6GD1SP_A3mgzhyC_ehxgsfAVL6uJ45jDv3dIxbSKeV2qMVKT3Hk2OAXDCqRylzHNlPjWGJy4L4q2hID5-8zEXBDTkjOgOUFZRr4nuYA5ywfPUMHio58LJOlB2i/s320/forehead2.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAVvGhx5D2nE4rknbrV5yMOoa6aMYDzzoOKzt3aaIMdMq3rXhX_vgVb-ndFzWm9-Ry2Hq85z0KAZr1yAihKFJ-IFgY-6A_1eaYMMUKUWe_3cemuRsBS_Chr9312V3YZUDUWy-BbXd_rPAe/s320/Tanuki_forehead.jpg)
On the prehensile tail, a shaven forehead gives less purchase to moochers and parasites such as might cling to one's scalp in order to steal a free ride across the river. Also it removes any lingering doubt that one is a
tanuki using his protean distensible scrotum as a head enhancer to pretend to a larger brain than one really has, i.e. "forging a head" as Keats would doubtless have observed.
* Pers. comm. Kai Lung story which I can't remember.
6 comments:
"You don't got a forehead. You got a eight-head."
It's a pity Vincent Price never featured in Chinese opera.
You know what I shave?
That vee-ish-shaped clump of hair that grows on one's temple, whatever the hell it's called, that's what I shave. Aesthetically displeasing. Straight line up from the sideburns for me.
You know what I shave?
It is an iron-cast rule of the Internet, never to read a comment that begins with those five words.
I have no familiarity with this sort of thing.
You know what I shave?
It is an iron-cast rule of the Internet, never to read a comment that begins with those five words.
I actually laughed like a fat guy at this. Like, a laugh that sounded like it would come out of a fat guy escaped from me. It was like half chuckle/half wheeze. Sooooo, thanks?
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