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Kiss this? British newspapers take a look at a hairy new American cultural debate
The United States is viewed by many Britons as a place where people generally fight over guns, gays and God.
But there’s a new cultural battle being waged in America, several British newspapers noted this past weekend.
It is the struggle over Americans’ right to bear hair on their upper lips. The newspapers highlighted the American Mustache Institute’s fight to stop discrimination against those with mustaches.
The articles cited a recent poll showing that more than half of American women would refuse to kiss a man with a mustache.
But the newspapers claim it’s tough to rally around a cause in which the poster boy is John Bolton.
Sam Leith, a columnist for London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, said that a more sympathetic world cause would be the one pushed by the Italian Association for the Protection of Animals. That association is fighting to stop the killing of 60,000 black cats a year by superstitious Italians.
“It is definitely bad luck to be a black cat when an ignorant peasant crosses your path,” he said.
Comments
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By Jo
August 28, 2007 4:56 PM | Link to this
Just so you know,THIS American girl thinks mustaches are nasty. They’re ugly & it’s like kissing a Fuller brush. I don’t mind as much when they’re part of a neatly trimmed goatee configuration but alone? Yuck! I particularly hate when a man with glasses sports a stache; it makes his face look “cluttered”.
By jess_me
August 28, 2007 5:29 PM | Link to this
I’ve had a mustache for over 30 years and I’ve got to say it has saved me from being kissed by a lot of girls I didn’t want to kiss me.
Yes, I’m being facitious but if the only reason someone would not kiss me was because I have a mustache, I’d be awfully glad I have one.
BTW, Jo: How many Fuller brushes have you kissed, and why? Again, facitious not malicious.
By tasha
August 28, 2007 10:18 PM | Link to this
sorry but mustaches are so 70’s. I mean tom selleck is a good looking man who looks like he walked out of a 70’s p o r no
By Aaron Perlut
August 28, 2007 11:13 PM | Link to this
As the executive director of the American Mustache Institute - the ACLU of mustached Americans - it’s a crying shame that a man (or for that matter, a woman) cannot proudly display a hairy upper lip without the criticsms of today’s society as displayed in the first comment, “mustaches are nasty.” Sad indeed. Fight the power, as a mustache is a terrible thing to waste. Visit www.AmericanMustacheInstitute.org for more.