In Praise Of Bald Men

Deb: I was aghast at headlines in England surrounding the marriage of Wills and Kate. Headlines like “Hair to the Throne?” mystify me. The concept––if you haven’t seen it yourself––is that William, he of the hottie persuasion, is losing said hotness as his hair disappears. The prevailing thought from more than a few morons is that he had to leap into marriage with Kate before the he lost the few full follicles he had left. There are some who feel that as his hair goes, so does his last shred of attractiveness. Conversely, does that mean that every man with a full head of hair is attractive? Ahhhhhh––NO.

Never mind how this undermines William himself, it also shows Kate in such a shallow light the mind boggles. Add to that the fact that she would have to be a notch above simple to have not sensed that this was coming.

This is a real button for me for obvious reasons. I myself have a husband who is bald. Not losing his hair, not thinning out––bald. He has been bald so long that it kinda surprises me to see him in our wedding picture with hair. I guess because I never see his damn hair. I am looking into his warm eyes and his beautiful face. And when he walks into the room I see my handsome sexy husband.

My Dad is bald and I guess when I was growing up, I saw a handsome man whom I adored. Never saw bald. Saw my sweet attractive Dad.

I guess what galls me is that baldness is always the brunt of jokes. From TV, film, dating dissing, all you need to say is “he’s bald” and conjured up is the quintessential loser, the person you would be loathe to date.

Why is bald the line in the sand? People with bad rugs even rank above the bald. ‘Cause hey, they’re doing something about it. They’ve fixed the bald. And yet most of the rugs are so bad, so hideous, so embarrassing that you have to marvel at this “fix” they have chosen. Look around at the sexy, wonderful bald men. Patrick Stewart, Sean Connery, Samuel Jackson, Bruce Willis, Michael Chiklis, LL.Cool J, Michael Jordan, Vin Diesel, Andre Aggassi and the list goes on. Do they get away with it because they are famous? Is that their “Get out of Hair Free” card?

In our politically-correct world we can’t make fun of anything anymore. Except apparently––BALD. Yep. No worries. Keep those jokes coming. He’s bald, for Godssake. It’s okay to make him feel like a troll living under a bridge. Deserves it. He’s bald.

Our son is 20 and he has gorgeous thick curly hair. He might lose it one day. Probably will. But he is handsome and kind and attractive and witty and funny and talented and smart. And his girlfriend would probably add sexy. None of that will fall out with his hair. But maybe it’s just easier for people to reduce all those adjectives to “ he’s the bald guy”.

Barbara: I can see how this might be something of a sore point (she says shiftily). If people start dissing something that you think is glorious, it does kinda boggle the mind. I hadn’t heard the Wills scandal. I think he is a very good-looking kid, hair in or out. But then I also think your husband is incredibly handsome, and so too the very excellent list of bald beauties you’ve compiled here. It’s poooooossssssible that I might have said “hair” over “bald” (again, shifty), but you have opened my eyes, Deb, to the blanket-statementness of that. And also made me recognize that my own husband probably doesn’t have quite the head of hair he once had and yet I never ever ever think about that. Only, like you, see the gorgeous sexiness.