‘Fair Game!’: Talk,Jokes and Legitimacy in Men’s Journeys of Hereditary Hair Loss

Abstract

This paper discusses men’s interactions with others about hereditary hair loss, a process that can be associated with emotional turbulence, but which is often trivialised. It does so in the context of longstanding emphasis on the challenges men can have talking about wellbeing struggles and, separately, on the prominent role of humour and teasing in some men’s interactions. While, in recent years, shifts towards more open forms of communication among men have been debated, research suggests such changes are patchy and context-dependent. Informed by in-depth interviews with men based in the UK, our discussion highlights a prevalence of humorous comments in men’s baldness interactions and shows how more serious forms of talk were limited and difficult to navigate. Male hereditary hair loss, we suggest, provides a context in which men often find themselves negotiating a complex terrain where humour can become compulsory while emotional talk is seen as illegitimate.

Keywords

hair loss wellbeing talk life course bodies

Introduction

Affecting more than half of males by the time they are fifty (Rhodes et al. 1998), the dramatic and normally unwanted appearance changes brought about by androgenetic alopecia, or hereditary hair loss, can be difficult to adjust to. Also known as ‘pattern baldness’, this common form of male hair loss has a strong genetic component and is linked to the workings of the sex hormone, dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Going bald involves a substantial departure from youthful masculine appearance ideals, something remorselessly highlighted by the commercial hair loss industry advertising and by broader public discourse that can greet male hair loss with humour or ridicule. Against this context, it is not surprising, perhaps, that the process of going bald can be associated with wellbeing struggles (Cash 2001). Yet qualitative research that explores the details of men’s journeys of hereditary hair loss is unusual. This includes their interactions with others about going bald.

Our examination of such interactions here connects to a broader context in which the challenges men can face communicating about emotional difficulties, and the potentially detrimental impact of such lack of talk on their wellbeing, has been a regular focus for academic attention. Masculine expectations to be ‘tough, calm, rational and in control’ (MacArthur and Shields 2015) have been argued to mitigate against serious forms of emotional talk and, especially, expressions of vulnerability. Even amidst suggestions of the ‘softening’ of masculinities in some contexts, serious forms of emotional talk can be uneven and difficult to navigate (Ralph 2024). Conversely, the prominent role of competitive forms of humorous interaction, or ‘banter’, in some men’s interactions, continues to have the potential to affirm more established dimensions of masculinity (Nichols 2018; Plester 2015).

In considering such questions in relation to men’s interactions about hereditary hair loss, we explore the way different forms of baldness talk become legitimate or illegitimate. Drawing on qualitative, biographical interviews and photo elicitation with 34 men aged between 18 and 49, the paper highlights the prevalence of humorous talk as part of men’s journeys, exploring men’s negotiation of baldness jokes amidst both moments of agency and intense pressures to display comfort. We go on to explore the more limited forms of serious conversation about hair loss engaged with by participants, highlighting a scarcity of talk about emotional challenges and exploring men’s reflections on why such talk can be challenging. The paper suggests that men’s negotiation of pressures to participate in humour and struggles to engage in emotional talk provides an example of the context-dependent nature of what, following Hochschild’s (1979) work on emotions, have been referred to as shifting masculine ‘feeling rules’ (McQueen 2017). Centred on appearance and often trivialised, baldness is commonly seen as ‘fair game’ for humour but an awkward subject for forms of talk that convey vulnerability.

Background: Hair Loss, Masculinities and Talk

Hair Loss, Wellbeing and Interactions

In the context of neo-liberal aesthetic ideals of masculinity that increasingly centre on lean, youthful bodies and a compulsory full head of hair, the process of going bald can be emotionally turbulent for men. The extent of the link between hereditary hair loss and mental health difficulties is subject to debate, amidst concern about the research influence of the commercial hair loss industry (Jankowski and Frith 2022). Various studies, though, have indicated connections between going bald and emotional struggles, including anxiety, depression and difficulties with self-esteem and body image (Cash 2001; Luxon, Fletcher, and Leeson, 2009). In addition to its marginalisation in media, amidst pervasive representations of youthful men with full heads of thick hair (Jankowski et al. 2014), baldness is relentlessly associated with ugliness and unhappiness in marketing campaigns for hair loss interventions, and often subject to everyday trivialisation or ridicule (Harvey 2013; Jankowski et al. 2014). While experiences vary, it may not be remiss to understand the experience of going bald as one liable to involve some of the characteristics of stigma (Goffman 1963). The broader centrality of hair to young men’s sense of self, meanwhile, has also been highlighted amidst acute worries about future baldness (Ricciardelli 2011).

There is a paucity of qualitative research on men’s subjective experiences of hereditary hair loss, however, and this includes men’s interactions with others about going bald. While the receipt of derogatory comments from others has been highlighted as a regular occurrence (Cash 2001), the nature of such interactions and men’s responses to them remains under-explored. Likewise, we know little about the role of more serious forms of baldness talk. Jankowski’s observational study of an online community for balding men usefully highlighted a tendency of members to post about baldness as ugly, unmasculine and stigmatised, while others played down the seriousness of baldness and urged men to accept it (Jankowski et al. 2021). There remains a need, however, to understand the range of small-scale, everyday, private interactions balding men may (or may not) participate in, and the role these play as part of their journeys.

Men and Emotional Talk

The difficulties men can have with talking about emotional struggles and wellbeing issues have been well-documented. Though conceptualised as changeable and subject to cultural context, hegemonic forms of masculinity (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005) have consistently established sets of feeling rules (Hochschild 1979) that encourage men to associate displays of emotional fragility with weakness and femininity, leading to avoidance of emotionally open forms of interaction (Bird 1996; MacArthur and Shields 2015). Mahalik and colleagues (2003) highlight how ‘masculinity scripts’ centred on emotional control can impede help-seeking and emotional disclosure among those experiencing wellbeing difficulties. Others have shown how such challenges to open up to other may prolong or worsen mental health difficulties (Chuik et al. 2009; O’Brien, Hunt, and Hart, 2005).

Yet some have identified shifts in men’s propensity to be emotionally open with others in recent years. For Anderson (2009), a decline in worries about being perceived as non-heterosexual among some middle-class groups of young men had contributed to more ‘inclusive masculinities’ characterised by a greater range of emotional expression, including interactive behaviours previously avoided as ‘feminine’ (also Anderson and McCormack 2018). Elliott (2016), meanwhile, explores the possibility for some men to develop ‘caring masculinities’ centred on ‘positive emotion, interdependence and relationality’. Some argue that selective embrace of more ‘feminine’ or inclusive approaches to masculinity centres on certain privileged groups of men and tends to amount to a surface-level set of appropriations that ultimately mask and reinforce gender hierarchies (Bridges and Pascoe 2014). Others suggest more open, emotional dimensions of male expression may amount to meaningful change, yet are context-dependent and uneven, coexisting with more traditional traits, pressures and power relations (Ralph and Roberts 2020; Roberts, Elliot and Ralph 2021). The navigation of competing expectations forms an important dimension here. McQueen (2017) shows, for example, how men’s emotional talk with intimate partners reflects ongoing tension between traditional and progressive masculine scripts. Amidst possibilities to engage in open, intimate conversation, men also found themselves navigating uncertain feelings of vulnerability when doing so. Similarly, Ralph (2024) highlights how emotionally supportive interactions as part of male friendships can sit in tension with continued emphasis on stoicism and self-reliance.

For Ralph, discourse relating to ‘manly emotion’ can restrict emotional forms of interaction to situations regarded as sufficiently serious (2024). Recognition that shifting expectations of male emotionality may be context-dependent, is of particular importance to our discussion in this paper. As de Boise and Hearn (2017) suggest, male emotional expression may be enabled in particular contexts (‘football matches, gigs, births or funerals’) while remaining difficult elsewhere (MacArthur and Shields 2015). Research on new fathers, meanwhile, shows how men who normally regarded themselves as comfortable talking about emotional struggles found themselves unable to do so in the context of post-natal mental health struggles (Hodkinson and Das 2021). The particular understandings they felt as new fathers had led to ‘repertoires of illegitimacy’, where disclosing difficult feelings in relation to this particular life role and subject-matter became unjustified. We return to the importance of contexts scripted as legitimate or illegitimate foci for different forms of interaction later.

Jokes and Banter

While the legitimacy of serious forms of emotional talk for men may remain complex and context-dependent, humorous comments and exchanges have consistently been identified as a key component of many men’s talk that can reinforce traditional masculine traits (Plester 2015). Centred on the exchange of brash boasts or put-downs, banter can channel masculine competitiveness (Kiesling 2005), acting as the antithesis to vulnerable forms of talk. Banter also has a tendency to target difference, including characteristics regarded as unmasculine, with the effect that aberrations may be policed and stigma reinforced (Hein and O’Donohoe 2014). Banter and teasing can generate pressures to ‘laugh along’ or respond in kind, while sometimes shielding exclusionary speech from scrutiny (Nichols 2018; Plester 2015). Some have highlighted complexities to the relationship between banter and masculinities, however. For Kiesling (2005), an emphasis on brash competitiveness lies in tension with the way humour can forge togetherness and mutual care. Others suggest banter may, in some contexts, act as a means to challenge norms and boundaries (Hein and O’Donohoe 2014; Nichols 2018). The experience of those subject to teasing may also vary according to context. Sometimes jokes may enable belonging, or even offer an active way to manage the impact of difficult experiences, while elsewhere it may serve to reduce agency or prompt feelings of stigmatisation or exclusion (Eriksen 2019; Plester and Sayers 2007).

With respect to our focus on men’s interactions about hereditary hair loss, insight can be drawn from research in related areas. Work on cancer-related hair loss, for example, indicates a tendency for men, more so than women, to use humour to play down the seriousness of hair loss (Trusson and Quincey 2021). Research on men understood as overweight, meanwhile, offers detailed exploration of complex and sometimes contradictory negotiation of comments and jokes. Monaghan and Hardey (2009) identify how some men brashly referred to themselves as ‘fat bastards’ – an agentic response to societal fat-shaming and a reclaiming of assertive working-class masculinities. Self-labelling, though, also could entail self-depreciation, defensive attempts to pre-empt hurtful comments, or efforts to manage discomfort (ibid.). Similarly, Lozano-Sufrategui and colleagues (2016) highlight tensions between agency, pressures and struggle in responses to comments about men's body-size. While some felt empowered by rhetorical acts in which they embraced the notion of being overweight, many experienced intense pressures to laugh along, make self-effacing jokes or join in by offering counter-insults. In both studies comments about men's size often were hurtful, accentuating anxieties and leading, amongst other things, to avoidance of situations in which they might come up.

There are, of course, differences between the experiences of men classed as overweight, and those losing their hair. Notably, the former are more likely to be held responsible for ‘letting themselves go’ and, hence, may experience stigma both on the basis of what Goffman (1963) refers to as perceived ‘abominations of the body’ and with respect to perceived ‘blemishes of individual character’ (Malterud and Ulriksen 2011). In contrast, men experiencing pattern baldness may be stigmatised for their appearance but are, on the whole, less likely to be blamed, or to blame themselves, for an aberration more often understood as ascribed and unfortunate. Depending on context and networks, they may still find themselves subject to potential character judgement concerning their response to hair loss but, as we explore elsewhere, this dimension often seems to centre more on failure to accept baldness than on neglecting to prevent it (Hodkinson and Hall 2025). In a broader sense, though, balding men can find themselves negotiating between pressures to retain an appearance commensurate with youthful masculine ideals, on the one hand, and powerful masculine expectations to avoid appearing vain, or vulnerable, on the other (Gill, Henwood, and McLean, 2005; Hodkinson and Hall 2025). In this sense, the legitimacy afforded to comments and teasing relating to baldness and the complexities of how men negotiate this bears comparison with responses to high body weight, we suggest (Cash 2001; Jankowski et al. 2014).

Methodology

The Journeys of Hair Loss project centred on in depth qualitative interviews with 34 UK-based men aged 18–49, who responded to an appeal for men who had ‘experienced hair-loss as a result of pattern baldness’. A voucher was used to encourage a diversity of men to volunteer and recruitment adverts were posted on social media profiles, on a range of local and neighbourhood social media communities and online fathers’ and LGBTQ+ forums. The sample included men of a variety of ages and stages of baldness, though most had begun to notice hair loss during their twenties, an age-period in which prevalence of hereditary hair loss is less than a fifth (Rhodes et al. 1998) Moreover, although recruitment materials emphasised our desire to speak to a diversity of participants with a variety of experiences, it remains possible that, as a result of the self-selecting nature of the sample, men for whom the process of going bald felt particularly significant in one way or another, may have been more likely to volunteer. Most participants were white, identified as straight and were in professional occupations (though a handful described more working-class backgrounds) and all were cis men. Almost a fifth were of South Asian or Arabic origin (n = 6) and a similar proportion identified as gay, bisexual or asexual (n = 6). The absence of men of Black/African or South-East Asian origin and the largely middle-class orientation of the sample represent limitations of the project.

Interviews were carried out via Microsoft Teams at a time that suited participants. We requested that participants have their cameras on in order to enhance rapport during the conversations and enable them to show us their head/hair if they wanted. We used photo elicitation to deepen the conversations (Harper 2002; Padgett et al. 2013) and enable a biographical exploration of the ways men’s experiences developed over time. Men were asked to identify and talk us through photos showing the development of their hair loss. Following the discussion of their journeys in relation to these images, we switched to a semi-structured topic guide, with themes covering emotional responses, appearance adaptions, interactions, hair loss treatments, wellbeing and connections to other aspects of life.

Fieldnotes were produced following each interview, providing a valuable way to develop early insights. After the interviews were transcribed, systematic NVivo coding was carried out. Existing ideas and questions were explored alongside the development of emergent themes. We sought to balance thematic analysis with ongoing attention to contextualised individual narratives. The research was approved by the University of Surrey Ethics Committee. All volunteers were provided with an information sheet, asked to complete a consent form and offered opportunities to ask questions. Participants were encouraged to skip questions with which they were uncomfortable and informed they could terminate the interview or withdraw from the project if they wished. Real names and identifying information have been removed.

Analysis

While none of the men in the study had welcomed going bald, emotional responses varied; while a few suggested that they had adjusted relatively quickly, others described extensive periods of struggle. At certain points during the process, many had found themselves navigating a sense of loss with respect to their past appearance, as well as social anxieties and dilemmas about whether to treat, hide or reveal their hair loss. Though they varied in severity, such struggles often were at their greatest during a liminal period, after hair loss had become visible to others, but where sufficient hair remained to keep open possibilities to retain aspects of their previous image. By the time they spoke to us, many felt they had come to experience a greater sense of acceptance of baldness (Hodkinson and Hall 2025). Yet few saw many positive dimensions to losing their hair and several speculated that they would still accept a ‘magic solution’, were one to be offered.

Teasing and Humour as ‘Fair Game’

The most prevalent forms of interaction with others about baldness across the men’s accounts concerned the receipt of comments and jokes from others. Mentioned by over three quarters of the sample, baldness teasing, involving friends, family members, colleagues and even their children often seemed to have been an ongoing accompaniment to their journeys. In most cases such comments were not regarded as motivated by mal-intent – it was merely that baldness was seen as a characteristic that was ‘fair-game’ for teasing. For Eric, trivialisation of men’s hair loss across media and society helped explain the acceptability of everyday baldness jokes such as those he’d experienced:

‘someone would say something about their hair and someone would comment, ‘oh I guess that’s not a problem for you Eric!’… I think society has normalised it quite a lot, the idea that it’s fair game you know… this work colleague of mine said, ‘oh he’s just come up with a rhyme for you’, and the rhyme is talking about myself and my brother: ‘foul is foul and fair is fair, one’s got brains and one’s got hair!’’ (Eric, 41).

Some indicated they felt largely comfortable with teasing. Humorous comments could occasionally even provide relief from insecurities, feeling preferable to something so visible going entirely unmentioned (Eriksen 2019). Levels of comfort with humour could depend on context and tone, however. Gentle teasing from trusted friends or family tended to feel more acceptable than comments from others.

Even for those keenest to highlight their comfort with teasing, however, it was clear such comments could sometimes be emotionally challenging. Adam was emphatic that he didn’t regard baldness teasing as problematic: ‘if people want to call me baldie, it’s absolutely fine, it’s true!’. He highlighted how such comments formed part of ongoing mutual teasing within a ‘laddish’ male friendship group that had become a ‘safe zone’ for banter and insults, and that this connected to feelings of camaraderie and belonging (Kiesling 2005). It became clear, however, that the extent of the focus on his baldness could nevertheless feel uncomfortable:

‘It’s tough, it’s tough, I mean these are friends. But again, I come from a generation where if you weren’t getting ripped about that, you were getting ripped about something else… That was the sort of the friendship groups we were in… I took a lot of stick, I really did, you know. People pointing it out on a night out, you know … it’s heavy ribbing but it’s done with an element of… it’s done in a safe zone because they’re your friends, you know?’ (Adam, 49)

Mark’s account was similarly ambiguous, in emphasising comfort with regular teasing by close friends and family but going on to acknowledge how such exchanges served as unwanted reminders of the visibility of his hair loss: ‘it just didn’t bother me in the slightest…. But deep underneath it all… you start to think because other people are talking about it then there obviously is a big loss in my hairline’ (Mark, 45). While neither Mark nor Adam felt attacked or marginalised, their accounts show how humorous interactions have the potential to simultaneously enable a sense of comfort or camaraderie, and feelings of emotional insecurity (see Kiesling 2005).

For several others, teasing had been unambiguously painful, and a regular reminder of how aberrant their hair loss was to others. George, who described his own balding appearance as ‘God awful’, explained that jokes from family and friends could feel like challenges to his self-worth, reminding him how ‘old’ his hair loss made him feel:

‘if somebody says something, then it brings it to the forefront of your mind… it's not nice for somebody to mention it or bring it up, even if it's in jest… it's almost like they're trying to make you lesser than they are… They make you feel old, they make you feel really old’ (George, 44).

Similarly, Ishaan highlighted how a running joke among family members about how he would soon resemble his bald brother and father, had exacerbated his worries about the future:

‘I don’t think they meant it in a bad way, but every time they brought it up, it made me more aware of something that I was trying to put to the back of my mind… the more they brought it up to say, ‘oh you’re turning into your brother, you’re looking like your dad’, then I’d think to myself, oh yeah, maybe it is becoming more and more, I’m becoming balder… (Ishaan, 42).

As well as leading to difficult emotions, comments and teasing could sometimes prompt men to take additional steps to manage their appearance. For Patrick, a humorous comparison to a well-known football manager at work had become a permanent negative reference point and a prompt to manage his appearance more closely. Aayan explained how the fear of receiving comments had prompted an insistence on shaving his head before leaving his house, amidst intense social anxieties: ‘I felt uncomfortable and felt very on edge… I would have to shave off my hair just before going because… some comments may be made…’ (Aayan, 26). As well as stigmatising baldness as undesirable then, teasing could police aesthetic masculinities by reinforcing appearance norms (Hein and O’Donohoe 2014).

Notwithstanding sample limitations, the prevalence of baldness teasing and humour from others did not seem obviously different between men of different demographic backgrounds, sexual orientations and racial identities in the sample. Perhaps not surprisingly, straight men involved in overtly masculine male friendship groups were more likely to describe experiences of more overtly brash, ‘laddish’ forms of banter. Yet, aside from this, experiences did not seem clearly patterned according to social position, and the range of emotions and responses seemed broadly comparable across groups.

Navigating Participation: Agency and Pressure

Many of the men reflected on their own participation in baldness humour. As in research on men’s negotiation of body-weight jokes, this included laughing, responding in-kind with their own teasing, or pre-empting the comments of others by making their own self-effacing jokes (Lozano-Sufrategui et al. 2016; Monaghan & Hardey, 2009). Laughing or teasing-back could sometimes offer means to reduce or nullify embarrassment and may even have enabled some to retrieve masculine status in the face of challenge, through conveying comfort with derogatory comments or an ability to participate effectively in competitive teasing (Kiesling 2005). Yet, in spite of these possibilities, participation in response to comments often could feel compulsory. Eric had always found baldness teasing hurtful but, for years, had tried to laugh along to avoid drawing attention to his insecurities:

‘I think back then at that point… maybe I’d have even just feigned a sort of chuckle along… it hurt me enough that I didn’t want to have the conversation… I didn’t want it to become the centre of attention… So the easiest thing to do is just to kind of… laugh along… (Eric, 41).

Almost half of the men said they had developed a habit of making baldness jokes about themselves. Compared with responding to jokes made to them by others, this more strongly could serve an agentic act that helped them feel more in control of how and when hair loss came into focus. It could also make men feel more relaxed by acknowledging what could feel like the ‘elephant in the room’ and enabled them to display self-awareness and acceptance of a physical change widely viewed as unfortunate (Hodkinson and Hall 2025). Yet, the need to bring up the subject also seemed to reflect underlying insecurities, acting as a pre-emptive (and partial) defence against the hurt others’ comments might cause. There was often ambiguity in men’s reflections on self-effacing baldness jokes, making it difficult to distinguish between examples demonstrating pro-active agency and those more reflective of pressure and anxiety. In many cases, elements of both seemed to be present. Richard, for example, mulled whether his raising of the subject at work acted as a ‘defence’ or a need to put people at ease, while Patrick saw his tendency to ‘unnecessarily’ highlight his baldness as a need to demonstrate comfort and security:

‘But I definitely do make comments … which subconsciously must be, I must be saying something… you know make a little quip of the joke that you are bald. Unnecessarily, like, in an uncalled-for way… And you think, well why do I do that? It must be because I’ve got this need to show that I’m not really bothered… (Patrick, 42).

The tendency to make such self-disparaging comments, then, could simultaneously provide an agentic way to take control of baldness communication amidst cultures of humour, while also highlighting pressures to avoid impressions of insecurity or struggle. As with the self-labelling of men classed as obese (Monaghan & Hardey, 2009), subjecting one’s aberrant body to humour may feel deeply ambivalent. Moreover, some of the men recognised that, even if it seemed to provide relief at the time, their tendency to laugh along, join in with or initiate baldness humour ultimately reinforced the broader legitimacy of their hair loss as a subject for humour.

Serious Baldness Talk (and Silence)

References to more serious forms of interaction with others about losing their hair were present in around half of participants accounts, but more sporadic and inconsistent, with conversations focused on emotional challenges only mentioned by a handful. Serious forms of interaction highlighted by participants seemed often to concern practical dimensions of going bald. Speaking to their hairdresser or barber about how to style thinning or receding hair, or even about possible treatments, sometimes had formed part of men’s early acknowledgement of hair loss, for example. Conversation with a professional stranger could feel easier than with those close to them, as David explained:

‘…I would just talk to my hairdresser, that was probably the only person I would confide in... So I said, ‘look, is there anything you can do to help here, you know’… I knew them, but they were kind of the stranger. It was like the relationship was 15 minutes and then you're done… But like, I never spoke to my brothers and like I tried to like to act like it wasn't happening.’ (David, 36)

Others did describe occasional conversations with siblings, parents or partners. These interactions also often centred on the practicalities of how to manage their changing appearance rather the disclosure of emotional challenges, but could still feel valuable in actively acknowledging and sharing an issue that could feel embarrassing. Men who had talked to their partners about such practicalities often indicated that worries about physical attractiveness had been at least partially assuaged by them. Mark explained that his partner’s positive response to the idea of him having his hair cut shorter had enhanced his confidence:

‘I probably would have asked my wife’s advice about what you prefer me with and I think she was always be quite easy… those conversations come up and then once your own wife says that, you know, she likes me with short hair it's a bit of an easy one to move forward with, isn't it?' (Mark, 45)

In other cases, partners, family members or friends offered more unsolicited suggestions on how to manage, style or treat their hair. Sometimes, being repeatedly urged to try treatments, or to shave their remaining hair had curtailed agency, created unwanted pressure, and contributed to anxieties. Elsewhere, however, such suggestions had opened up possibilities that generated hope or enabled steps to be taken that helped men to feel more in control of their journeys. A striking example was provided by Nik, whose intense struggles with hair loss had become obvious to friends as a result of his visible struggles to hide his baldness in everyday situations. This eventually resulted in a ‘drunk’ interaction with a friend, who persuaded Nik to allow him to clipper his hair – an interaction that had formed a key turning point in his journey:

‘…we’ve gone to the pub one night, particularly windy on the way home, and I’m brushing it forward all the time, even though I’m drunk, got back to his and he said, ‘right, we all know it's not looking good, I think you should … I think you’d look pretty cool with a shaved head.’ So I just sat on his toilet… and we just clippered it all off… it did feel neater and it felt better… overall, I did feel better the fact that I wasn’t having to… you’re not hiding anything… and I’ve had positive comments from friends…’ (Nik, 34).

The emotional depth of this interaction is somewhat difficult to gauge. The practical solution seems to have been the primary focus, rather than emotions themselves, but the talk had been triggered by visible unhappiness and had become a memorable moment of friendship and support that helped transform Nik’s journey. Although initiated by his friend, it felt like an agentic moment, one in which an interaction had enabled greater control to be taken.

Barriers to Emotion Talk

For a small minority of straight and gay men in the sample, deeper conversations centred on their emotions had taken place at some point. In most of these cases, a combination of ‘softer’ approaches to masculinity in a general sense, and specific sets of circumstances, had made it easier for hair loss struggles to become the subject of talk. For Calum (straight), whose closest friends were female, the context of struggling to style his thinning hair in the presence of these friends had begun to provide an opportunity to talk:

‘the people that see me… styling my hair painstakingly to try and make it look better, they know, based on the conversations we’ve had, how much my hair affects my mood… And I do talk to them about it… So yeah, I have more honest conversations… yeah, I don’t have my wall up quite so much.’ (Calum, 42)

For James (straight, 28), being in a friendship group that was ‘open about things like that’ had not prevented him being teased sometimes by friends, until his having a hair transplant made visible the extent of his struggles and enabled the opening up of conversation about them. It was connections to other balding men that had enabled Ishaan (gay, 42) to discuss his struggles. Having gone through years of not speaking to anyone, he eventually had ongoing conversations with an ex-partner of his, as part of ‘losing hair together’ and, separately, a balding work colleague with whom he had ended up having a ‘full and frank conversation’.

These deeper conversations are of importance in illustrating the possibility for men, amidst ‘softer’ masculinities and in particular circumstances, to actively engage in supportive forms of talk with others about the emotional difficulties of going bald. It is equally clear that such interactions had been of significant value as part of their journeys. Yet across the sample as a whole, such conversations were unusual: nearly two-thirds specifically noted the scarcity of such talk as part of their experience, and several said that our interview with them was the first time they had talked about such things in any depth. Aayan explained that he felt intensely uncomfortable talking about how unhappy his hair loss made him, and unsure how he could raise so difficult a subject with anyone:

‘I’ve never spoken to anyone about it and I’ve never seeked any help about this. It's personal to myself so… I’ve never wanted anyone else to know, and I’ve never wanted to share that with anyone… I don’t know how you would start a conversation.’ (Aayan, 26)

Although it was notable that gay participants were among those who had engaged in such conversations, difficulties talking to others about hair loss struggles seemed to be an experience that cut across sexual orientations, and also racial identities. Moreover, even those who had eventually experienced deeper conversations sometimes lamented how such interactions had not felt possible earlier in their journeys, when their struggles were at their worst.

The feeling that talking to others might have made it easier to manage their hair loss emotionally when things were most challenging came up in several conversations. Eric was also in the small group who had become used to talking to people about his feelings about baldness later in his journey and, in his case, this included challenging people who joked about his baldness. Eric highlighted the agentic importance of such conversations as a means for him to establish control of his journey, yet also lamented how he had only felt able to do so after he had begun to feel more comfortable with being bald anyway:

‘And that’s the cruel irony of it isn’t it really? That talking about it helps … helps to make you feel more comfortable with it, come more to terms with it. But for me, I wasn’t ready to talk about it until I was comfortable with it. So it’s kind of a catch 22 really.’ (Eric, 41)

Interestingly, while conversations with other balding men had helped Ishaan to open up about his struggles (above), several other men highlighted that even mutual experience of hair loss did not necessarily make open conversation easier. Such conversations, suggested Barham, just felt too awkward and went against expectations: ‘going to him and asking him how do you feel about losing your hair, I’m not sure you can do that, it’s something that’s not done’ (Barham, 27).

When probed on why talking about emotional struggles related to losing hair was so difficult or unusual, participants highlighted a variety of factors. Men who felt they had adjusted to baldness relatively quickly sometimes dismissed the idea, suggesting there was little to talk about, while some of those who had suffered the most highlighted how the extent of their anxiety had, in itself, made addressing it particularly difficult. Several, though, projected a fatalistic form of stoicism, presenting hair loss as a common and natural change they just had to live with and get used to. George indicated that, in spite of his struggles, he didn’t want to talk to anyone because there was nothing anyone could do, so he just had to carry on:

Because male hair loss is such a common thing it's kind of one of those that. No, I didn't talk to anybody about it because there's nothing you can do about it. And it was just kind of like, just carry on with life… There's nothing that anybody can do to stop it or slow it so. I feel, you know, maybe it would have been a bit pointless talking about it (George, 44).

Consistent with this, masculine ideas of stoicism had seemingly played at least some part in many of the men’s tendency to keep their struggles or worries about going bald to themselves. It was discernible across a range of different men, even if particularly visible for those who described their involvement in male friendship groups centred on teasing and banter, as in the case of Gareth:

‘I suppose there's a little bit of embarrassment as well. Almost with the sense that you can't accept it… And so I didn't particularly want people knowing about it… It's one of those, I suppose, what do they call it, like a first world concern, isn't it? When you think of the sort of hardship that people around the world suffer, losing your hair’s not really anything to evoke that much sympathy… And so the thought of telling others, I just didn't feel like I could do it… friends are people you kind of have to laugh with rather than talk to on a deep level. And we were quite a, I suppose, laddish group as well… I just didn't feel I could.’ (Gareth, 34)

While the role of particular forms of traditional masculinity here is clear, it is equally significant that Gareth, by referring to baldness as a ‘first world concern’ and indicating his embarrassment at struggling to ‘accept it’, highlights how the perceived triviality of hair loss itself, made this feel like particularly problematic subject matter for emotional talk. Implicit in his account is the notion that certain events, experiences or contexts may justify serious and supportive forms of talk between men, while others do not. Along with a few other men, his account explicitly highlights how baldness seemed an especially illegitimate subject for emotional disclosure or supportive interactions.

Perceptively, we think, Marcus explicitly linked the difficulty of talking seriously with others about baldness struggles, with the status of hair loss as a trivial subject. It is increasingly ‘accepted’, he reflected, for men to open up about difficult life events: ‘depressive thoughts, anxiety, self-harm, these are all things that are accepted’. He could not, however, envisage the inclusion of baldness as part of such conversations, because of its associations with humour: ‘it’s not a thing that I think is something we are open about’, he said, ‘if you suddenly started to try and put that in the mix, I think that maybe, it would be a bit jokey. I think people consider it something that you can joke about’ (Marcus, 41).

Such reflections illuminate how, even amidst possible shifts in the overall possibilities for some men to open up to those close to them about difficult emotions, only certain forms of experience may be deemed suitable for the display of vulnerability these would involve (MacArthur and Shields 2015; Ralph 2024). Commonly subject to trivialisation in popular culture and everyday conversation, baldness was regarded by many of the men in the study, and many of those they knew, as ‘fair game’ for humour but illegitimate subject- matter for serious talk about emotional struggle or vulnerability.

Discussion

Against the context of ongoing discussion about possible shifts in men’s comfort talking about emotions (e.g. de Boise and Hearn 2017; McQueen 2017; Ralph 2024), this article has shown how men’s experiences of going bald often were punctuated by the ongoing negotiation of humour whilst more serious forms of emotional talk were unusual. Most accepted the presence and legitimacy of baldness humour, and some actively used it as a way to gain greater control over how and when their baldness became the subject for talk. Yet, overall, experiences of such humour often seemed either ambiguous or negative, connecting with insecurities, hurt feelings and pressures to participate that could relate to a need to avoid displaying vanity or insecurity. In contrast, serious conversations about baldness were more sporadic across men’s accounts, and tended to focus on practicalities rather than emotional struggles. Such conversations could have value as agentic moments in men’s ongoing negotiation of hair loss journeys, but their emotional depth tended to be limited in all but a few cases, and many highlighted how difficult or awkward it would feel to talk about the emotional challenges of hair loss.

Drawing the analysis together, we suggest the long-standing trivialisation of men’s hair loss has served to render male baldness a legitimate topic for humour, and a challenging one for serious emotional talk. The endurance of traditional masculine traits such as stoicism and independence often seemed to have played some role in the kinds of talk men felt able to engage with, but it may also be the cultural status of male baldness itself that explains the extent and reach of its association with humour, and the awkwardness of emotional talk. Importantly, in spite of (sometimes ambiguous) moments of agency through initiating jokes or, sometimes, more serious forms of talk, the limitations on interaction created by baldness’ association with humour often seemed to have made men’s journeys of hair loss more challenging overall. Reflecting back, several men highlighted the jokes of others or the difficulties they had experienced talking seriously about struggles, as points of regret.

With respect to broader debates about men’s openness to talking about emotions and shifting ‘feeling rules’ (Hochschild 1979; McQueen 2017), our research offers case study support for the notion that such changes should be understood as uneven and context-dependent, amidst men’s negotiation of complex, competing and sometimes overlapping masculine expectations (MacArthur and Shields 2015; McQueen 2017; Ralph 2024). To differing degrees but for a range of different men, baldness talk seemed to act as a context in which the influence of long-established traits such as stoicism and resilience were liable to come to the fore. The pressure men could feel to accept, participate in or initiate jokes seemed often to reflect expectations to avoid displaying insecurity, amidst cultures of teasing that highlighted baldness as an undesirable point of difference (Plester 2015; Nichols 2018). As in research on men classed as obese, engagements with baldness humour could sometimes be read as partially agentic initiatives that helped manage baldness interactions and emotions. Yet they often also worked as a form of enforced damage-limitation, defensive pre-emption or even attempts to recover fragments of masculine status (Monaghan & Hardey 2009; Lozano-Sufrategui et al. 2016). What was striking here was the ambiguity in men’s accounts, and the challenging role played by pressure and stigma even for those professing greatest comfort with participating in or initiating humour. In both their responses to humour and difficulties engaging in more serious talk the men’s accounts seemed to reflect, in the specific context of baldness, lingering expectations on men to avoid displays of insecurity or self-consciousness (Gill, Henwood, and McLean 2005) and, as we have argued elsewhere (Hodkinson and Hall 2025), to convey a sense of ‘acceptance’.

Rather than a general illustration of traditional masculine pressures dominating men’s experience across the board, our findings might better be interpreted as highlighting the patchiness of changes in masculinities with respect to context and subject matter and the complex terrains men may find themselves negotiating in particular situations. Baldness, we suggest, presents a specific and particularly complex context for men with respect to navigating different kinds of talk, and one in which displays of vulnerability or self-consciousness may feel especially risky. The process of going bald can disrupt men’s self-image and understanding (Hodkinson and Hall 2025), and sever their relationship with youthful masculine appearance ideals (Jankowski et al. 2014). Yet hereditary hair loss centres on appearance rather than physical or material suffering and a form of appearance that, for men, continues to be widely associated with humour. The display of emotional insecurity in the context of so trivialised an appearance-change, whether through failing to participate in jokes, or talking too deeply to others about emotional challenges, may carry a particularly high risk, then, of looking, or feeling vain as well as vulnerable.

In this context, serious emotional conversation may feel particularly challenging, even for men who may be more open to displays of vulnerability in other circumstances. In contrast, baldness humour is reinforced as appropriate – sometimes offering an agentic outlet while often also involving difficult pressures and insecurities. In making sense of the contextual acceptability of these different forms of talk for balding men, we can make use of notions of legitimate talk from scholars in linguistics, understood as ‘the acceptability of [conversational] practices within a particular context’, with reference to both process and content of interaction (Copland 2012; Heller 1996). Our use of legitimacy here centres on boundaries of acceptable informal interaction in relation to the particular subject matter of baldness, where practices of humour, in appropriate contexts, commonly constructed as legitimate, and emotional forms of serious talk are not. More fundamentally, however, our research shows how men sometimes scripted emotional struggles themselves as illegitimate, bearing comparison with ‘repertoires of illegitimacy’ displayed by new fathers in the context of mental health struggles that also felt contextually unacceptable (Hodkinson and Das 2021).

Importantly, even amidst prevailing findings, men’s levels of engagement with different talk varied across the sample and shifted across individual journeys. Clearcut or consistent differences relating to structural characteristics or sexual orientation were difficult to discern in a sample that included only small numbers of minorities, and deeper exploration of these would be of value in future work. Gay men in the sample, for example, were among the small group who had experienced deeper conversations, but also among those who had struggled to talk for significant periods – and those who had found themselves struggling to negotiate others’ humour. Experiences were inconsistent and overlapping, then, with particular relationships or circumstances offering different constraints and opportunities at different points during journeys for men of different sexual orientations. Clear and consistent differences of race and class also were difficult to identify; though some men identified more overtly ‘laddish’ friendship groups centred on banter, for example, a clear class connection was not apparent. In broader terms, the professional and white overall orientation of the sample may be useful to bear in mind in considering our findings here, given that changes in masculine approaches to talk sometimes have been attributed primarily to such men (Christofidou 2021). Such questions would be usefully explored in future research – on baldness itself and men’s approaches to talk in other contexts too.

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Paul Hodkinson

Matthew Hall

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study is supported by British Academy (SG2122\210606).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Paul Hodkinson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Surrey. His research and publications encompass a range of areas, including youth cultures, mediated identities, fatherhood and contemporary masculinities. Recent research monographs include Sharing Care: Equal and Primary Carer Fathers and Early Years Parenting (Policy Press, with Rachel Brooks) and New Fathers, Mental Health and Digital Communication (Palgrave, with Ranjana Das). He has served as co-editor of Sociological Research Online and Sociology. He was PI for the Journeys of Hair Loss project, funded by a BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant.

Dr Matthew Hall is a Teaching Fellow at Bath Spa University and Visiting Researcher at the University of Surrey. Having completed his PhD in 2022 at the University of Surrey, researching hate crime and far-right extremism, he has since been conducting research within the areas of LGBTQ life course inequalities, queer generational identities, heterosexuality, and masculinities. He currently leads a BA/Leverhulme study exploring how heterosexual men navigate heteromasculinity whilst swing dancing with other men. Matthew worked as a Research Assistant on the Journeys of Hair Loss project, carrying out a portion of the interviews and coding for the research.

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