Ebony v49, n5 (March,1994):68. COPYRIGHT Johnson Publishing Company Inc. 1994 In the ~40s and ~50s, it was pomade-brushed
waves that sent women into a blushing frenzy. later, in the 60s and ~70s, it was the Afro that caused female hearts to flutter. More recently, men donning curls, dreadlocks or
geometric cuts have won the affection of many young women. But the timeless "do" that has garnered the most faithful group of female fans is the classic bald, clean-as-a-white
look.
To many women, nothing is more appealing than a Black man who is confident enough to break with convention and bare a smoothly shaven head. In their book, bald is
beautiful, bold and, more importantly, bodaciously sexy.
The trend may have gotten its start years ago when soulful balladeer Isaac Hayes was popular on the music scene,
Harlem Globetrotter Curly Neal wowed audiences on the basketball court and Marvelous Marvin Hagler bullied victims in the boxing ring. Today an increasing number of African-American men are
shaving their heads, making the bald look more popular than ever. And now, a variety of Black men, from television personalities and film execs to sports stars and recording artists, have
adopted the no-hair trend.
For some entertainers, flaunting the "un-do" is a personal rebellion against America's view that hair should be perfectly
coiffed. For others, it's a matter of fashion. But for many men, choosing the bald look is simply their way of beating Mother Nature to the draw. By choice or chance, baldness
is, they say, the most convenient style around.
But what do so many women find appealing about the hairless craze? Everything Jewelry and fashion designer Kim Harris of
Atlanta says, "Bald men are powerful and sexy."
Harris and other women say that baldness, by choice or chance, can be a very seductive force that beckons immediate
attention. "You know someone is nice looking when they don't have hair and they still look nice,"adds 34-year-old Cheryl Chandler a Xerox account marketing executive in St. Louis.
"I've always been attracted to guys with receding hairlines. If I walked into a room, I'd notice them first."
Chandler is not alone. "I think of a
bald man as someone who has class, someone who has it all together," says Tina Wimbush, 31, who works for the U.S. Census Bureau in Maryland.
Other women say it's the
positive energy that bald men exude that is most attractive. "Bald men demonstrate confidence and self-assuredness. And that, coupled with a nicely shaped head, is quite
appealing," says Cassandra Bronson, a 40-year-old teacher consultant in Flint, Mich., who is happily married to a bald man.
Yet, other women can't quite pinpoint their
intrigue with shiny crowns. "It's something about a bald man that just grabs my attention," says medical center owner Kathy Williamson, 41, of Los Angeles. "I think you get
to the real essence of a man when he's bald. There's not a lot of room for pretense."
This no-nonsense, masculine perception of maneless men is pervasive,
relationship experts say. "For some women, bald men symbolize masculine virility," says Dr. Patricia A. Outlaw, a clinical psychologist in Baltimore. "It's daring and
different to be bald."
Moreover, the difference can be quite enticing for women who feel that men hide behind a veneer of masculine pride. "Women like to kiss
and to touch the bald head. They see it as a vulnerability in a man," says psychiatrist Gail E. Wyatt, a sex and relationship researcher at UCLA. "The head is a vulnerable
part of the body, so when you expose it, you say, ~I'm up for this.' Baldness is truly an attention-grabber."
Bald men haven't amassed a large female following
because they lack hair. No, it goes deeper than that. The clean-shaven men featured here, many women say, are sexy and appealing because they are a perfectly polished package of
machismo and maturity, intrigue and integrity, and, most of all, sophistication and sensuality.
