Why we need to stop making jokes about hair loss and allow men to go bald gracefully

This might all sound a bit “won’t somebody please think of the Royals and billionaires!”. But it’s evidence that baldness is considered fair game – and that it’s something even the world’s richest man feels insecure enough to spend one trillionth of a percent of his vast fortune on “fixing”.

Statistically, male pattern baldness is most common in caucasian men, and at least common in Japanese, Chinese and Native American men. I wonder why there isn’t the same stigma surrounding baldness in Black men in particular, who experience it at the second-highest rate. It seems to be much more common for Black men to shave their heads throughout their lives, a style which presents very little contrast as they get older. But why?

Writer Otamere Guobadia tells GQ that this comes down to the competing ways that Black masculinity is appraised. “Black men are allowed a much narrower band of aesthetic expression than white guys,” he says. “You might notice that a lot of the Black men we see in the media don’t typically have hair that is long. That’s because there are pressures within the community to subscribe to a certain aesthetic of Black masculinity, which often has a tension with longer hair that is perceived as a feminine aesthetic. So typically, you end up with Black men with very short ‘masculine’ hairstyles.”

Guobadia also thinks Black men might also shave their heads to fit in with norms of “professionalism” or “orderliness” in western societies, which are underpinned by white supremacy. “Only recently has legislation been brought in to protect Black peoples’ right to wear our hair in its natural state,” he says. “If you’re being told your hair is unprofessional at work, or people can’t stop touching it or commenting on it, shaving it off is simply another of many compromises – small and large – that Black people (and in this case men in particular) make to navigate a world of white supremacy a bit more easily.”

There are complexities when hair loss collides with different identities, who are each expected to subscribe to different visual norms. Anxiety surrounding baldness can be particularly intense among gay men who, behind women, are the demographic in society who fear aging the most, according to Psychology Today. On Twitter, there have been many viral tweets which characterize baldness as a “white gay” stereotype.

Adam, a white gay man, is very attracted to bald guys himself, but fears it will make him less attractive. “If you’re more ‘masc’ presenting and muscley, I think a shaved head can actually add to your sex appeal. You’d be celebrated for it as a ‘daddy’ or whatever, whether you’re straight or gay,” he says. “But if you’re more slim and feminine like me, shaving your hair off feels like admitting your peak sexual appeal is over, because that’s much more tied to youth.”

Fears of baldness aren’t confined to white gay men. Haseeb, 34, who is British Asian, tells me he takes a hair loss treatment every month, despite having a full head of hair. “If you’re brown, you’re already failing to fit in with western beauty standards, then if you’re queer that’s another hurdle. So going bald would be failing something else,” he says. “It’s ironic because Asian men are always told we have too much hair pretty much everywhere else on our bodies, but losing hair on my head is something I’m always worrying about.”