Some men seem to lose their hair gracefully or start shaving their heads to hide the pattern of balding. While others will fight tooth and nail to keep up the illusion of healthy hair, even when the comb-over is painfully obvious.
What makes different men react so differently to hair loss? It could be about the impact the hair loss is having on their mental health or it could be about internalized perceptions of baldness. For some people, it might even be cultural. And for many, it could be tied to rumors and misinformation about how different forms of hair loss relate to virility.
Psychology of Hair Loss
According to WebMD, much of it is about body image and shame. “Just about everybody experiences extensive body shame,” says Gershen Kaufman, author of The Psychology of Shame, which addresses the psychology of hair loss. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met a human being who has not experienced some degree of shame about his or her body no matter how much it seems to match the ideal. There’s always something wrong with the body.”
For men who are losing their hair, it can even be a Freudian belief that the hair somehow represents their masculinity.
Why Is Hair So Important to Men?
The same writer at WebMD concludes that for most men, the bottom line is the belief that balding will reduce their potential for new sexual partners. So the difference between men who lose their hair gracefully and those who fight it every step of the way might be as simple as self-esteem or sexual satisfaction with their existing partner.
But it could be much more complicated.
Culturally speaking, Men are not supposed to be worried about how they look. But the truth of the matter is that they are… likely every bit as much as women are. And they want to be perceived as attractive to their preferred sexual partners. And some men have concluded that bald men are not attractive.
But that is not necessarily true. A study at the University of Pennsylvania found that respondents had mostly positive impressions of the men who chose to shave their heads in response to hair loss. The Sacramento Bee reported those men were perceived as taller, more dominant, more confident, and more attractive. It is definitely possible that the people involved in the study equated the decisiveness of shaving a balding head with those attractive qualities.
Additionally, a number of celebrities over the years have been perceived as sex symbols despite their natural hair loss (as opposed to those who choose to shave a full head of hair), whether it was partial or total. Such celebrities include Yul Brynner, Michael Jordan, Vin Diesel, Jason Statham, Telly Savalas, Sean Connery, Bruce Willis, Patrick Stewart, and more.
But it is also not consistent. In a 2021 study, women ages 19 to 21 were asked to rate bald and non-bald men on a variety of factors including their potential as mates and the non-bald men scored much more favorably. Assuming the WebMD writer was correct and it’s all about our potential attractiveness to our preferred mates, the answer might not lie in whether you are losing your hair but in how you handle it.
Does Hair Loss Make You Look Older?
It may also depend on the age of the people you are attempting to attract. The 2021 study focused on very young women and a similar study in London said only 3 in 10 women had actually dated a bald man.
That might be because hair loss tends to make men look older. This study suggests that men with male pattern baldness look up to a decade older than they, which may be why many very young women do not find them attractive. The same study, however, shows that if those men shave their heads instead, they are considered more dominant. The aging factor is also not present when men choose to tackle hair loss by shaving their heads.
Precision Hair Restoration Understands That Hair Is Personal and Has Solutions
Ultimately, the correlation between hair loss and male attractiveness, both perceived by others and themselves, are a mixed bag, and that is fine. We do not expect everyone to feel the same way about their hair loss any more than we expect all hair loss to be the same. When you are ready to talk about your hair loss and consider your options, we are here to help. Contact us today and we can discuss what response is best for you.
