Wax on ... wax off ... werewolf

Yes, I know it's hardly cutting edge, but I've been taking my boxed DVD set of True Blood Season 3 round to a friend's so we can catch up together and wallow in the eyecandy and the madness. (She's a Bill fan, don't ask me why.)

Episode 3 and in walks a new character: Alcide the werewolf. Wow. I think my eyeballs nearly fell out. He has, no denying, one of those everybody-in-the-room-stops-what-they're-doing-and-stares bodies. It feel churlish to raise even the faintest complaint.

But ... where's his body-hair? I mean, he's not a kid. He should have chest hair. And this is totally setting aside any issues about him being a werewolf and therefore (arguably) displaying appropriate animalistic features. Real men get hairier with age. I didn't know that at twenty, but I know it now. If you're an eighteen-year-old guy, having a chest like a freshly-moulded Ken doll looks fine.

But, unless you're Scandinavian -

- if you're bald across the pecs by thirty-plus it looks bloody odd. Or at the very least, clearly and obviously artificial. Our werewolf must make regular visits to his sister's beauty salon.

Ah ... I sense my lurking cultural conditioning. Men shouldn't preen is my underlying prejudice. It may be one that's getting more and more old fashioned. In February this year I was sitting in a jacuzzi with two Dutch guys rather younger than me, one a representative of Her Majesty's Navy and the other an armed motorcycle cop (I'm not boasting here ... Oh hell yes, I am. Heh heh.). Now, they were both heavily in favour of manscaping. Men should lose their body-hair, they agreed. 

I wondered if my preference for guys who looked more natural was because I was British, not Continental.

"Yes, maybe," came the answer. "But also, your age."

*sigh*