Head Shaving a Taboo ?

[DSCSK]

Is/was shaving your head a taboo in your country?

Well in India, being bald by choice is can be one.

1) Most of the people who go bald naturally usually hold on to their last tufts of hair.

2) Bald by choice people are a rare species.

3) In the hindu culture, people shave their head during the death of ones parents. So some times people can look pitifully at you.

4) People of the older generation tend to frown at you when you say that you shaved your head because you wanted to  .

5) Heads are shaved only in temples as an offering to god. After that you are usually forced to grow it back.

6) They might think that your mad   .

7) Bald guys never appear in Bollywood (Most Indians love Bollywood except for me i guess). If they do they usually star as losers. The best that it can get is as a henchman or a villain at the most. NONE OF THE GOOD GUYS ARE BALD  .

8 ) People think that you are Terminally ill due to cancer or something.

9) A very few people laugh at you (which need not really be bad   )

10) If your a woman, forget it. You will NEVER be allowed to keep it bald.

Yeah but I've noticed that being nice and being yourself usually goes a long way. Dealing with people becomes way easier. I'm going to try and kill them with kindness. Thankfully the younger generation is more understanding. So Im glad that im still young.

If your society and culture does not or did not allow a person to shave his/her head. Feel free to reply to this message.

[Frontier Guy]

There can be a lot of cultural baggage. Which can be amplified by age, with the older being less tolerant.

My experience in metropolitan US areas is that head shaving is generally accepted. Like anything, the more common it becomes the less it is noticed. And there are a lot of shaved heads walking about. (I'm speaking specifically of shaved heads versus guys who are bald on top but retain the curtain of hair on the sides.)

Even so, I occasionally encounter people (who don't know me) who extend their sympathies because of the illness I must have because I lost all of my hair (BTW, I have no such illness). Thus it is not totally accepted, even in the metro areas.

Friends/relatives who live in more rural areas are MUCH less accepting - in my experience.

[bennett11]

I have lived in most areas of the USA, I say that having a shaved head is not common but again it is not uncommon as I see a few guys with that appearance every time I am in a store.  All ages but more middle age or older.  However I do see young guys.  I first shaved my head in !980 when it was quite uncommon.  Accepted after some teasing.

[Sir Harry]

I wouldn't call it taboo....Maybe in some social circles "socially unacceptable" but taboo is a stretch. BTW, while they haven't posted in a while, we have several Indian members here who shave and love it. I think that nowadays, head shaving is becoming more of the norm and less of the exception worldwide. At the end of the day, if it's what you want and your parents approve, the opinions of outsiders shouldn't matter

[Mike E. P.]

Wow, considering all the items you listed, you must be a pretty strong person to have made the decision to be sly in India. Good for you! I admire that.

Where I am from in the northeast US, a shaved head is fairly common now. It doesn't call any undue negative attention. Although when I first starting using a blade to shave, a did get a lot of head rubs and some humorous comments. Once people got used to me, the comments stopped. I still get and enjoy the occasional head rub!

[alexk15810]

I don't think it was ever taboo in the US, but I've noticed that older people are much less accepting of it. Older people usually want me to grow what hair I have out, while younger people tend to say I look good with it shaved. Just a generational thing, I don't think shaved heads were popular or in style for previous generations.

[Mike E. P.]

I don't think it was ever taboo in the US, but I've noticed that older people are much less accepting of it.

I think you are right about older people.  However, I have an uncle who is 80. He's been bald/balding since middle age and always had the fringe.  When I'd visit him in the last few years, he always comment on my clipped/bald head and my goatee.  Always had a smirk on his face when making those comments.

It was a fun surprise for me one day to show up for a visit and to see Uncle Tony with a sly head and goatee!  He'd never tell me I looked good, but here he was rockin my look!

And I know every person with hair thinks every bald guy with a goatee looks like Walter White, but Uncle Tony is a dead ringer!

[slybeard]

I live in Louisiana and I have not observed any groups that see a sly head as taboo.  I think it is true the the older generations my not like it as a style, but there are many current hair styles they do not like.  They do accept it though.

[DSCSK]

I do agree that i might be a bit extreme when i use the word "taboo" Sir Harry but as you say, Socially unacceptable is a more accurate word. But it is still not allowed in the Hindu culture (I don't know about the other religions). In India we have really closely knit families. Family is almost everything. Many people are forced in doing things that they do not want to do. People equate this to something like drug abuse (which is ridiculous i know). But a shaven head becomes a part of who you are. It cannot go unnoticed unless you wear a wig 24/7. You can get away with doing drugs in secrecy but this is just impossible. Its not just bald people in particular, but my city does not have a significantly large punk community. Its almost as if they are non existent. They only move in the shadows.

Things that are very common in society are not scrutinized. I lived in the UK for a few years before coming back to India. Over there i used to spot several people who had shaved heads ( lets say 1 in a 100 people that i came across). Even my classmates in school had the freedom to experiment with hairstyles. Over here it is very uncommon even ad-mist a humongous population (Ill be lucky to spot few bald guys in a whole day usually in the process of growing his hair back). I live in a metropolitan city but still. Only a few have hair loss shave regularly. I'm definitely sure that I will be the only person in my locality who is 17 and bald by choice.

Thank you for thinking that I'm ultra confident Mike E.P  but i honestly doubt it. I thought of going BBC last year and I shaved my head once. I really went through hell. My confidence level was as low as it could have gotten in my entire life. My family thought that i did it to cause some kind of self harm. But I sort of noticed that this bald thing was becoming a serious obsession that i could not control. It took some time to convince my family about my decision, but they actually did not hate me for taking the plunge (since i was doing because i wanted to) . So, their unconditional love is one of the biggest form of support that I get.

And I'm only in day 3 of my 30 day routine. People have yet to notice the fact that I'm not going to grow my hair back (for a while at least). So the worst is yet to come.

[DSCSK]

Hello again,

Yesterday, I shaved my head (for the 4th time i guess) and I had to go on this bus journey to a doctor. The doctor's clinic is on the other side of the city so I had to spend a grueling hour just sitting in the bus. Indian busses are packed and many people are forced to stand and travel. People keep getting off and on and I decided not to cover my head for the whole journey (I liked the wind coming from the open window flowing over my head  )

I spotted many people looking at my head. Most of them couldn't care less. Some of them just happen to naturally glance at me and quite a few stared at it for a long time. I looked straight into their faces and smiled at them. Some of them had a look of envy. Some of them were curious. And a VERY few of them showed disgust.

It might be due to the fact that I live in a metropolitan city i suppose 

and Happy New Year everybody 

[Frontier Guy]

Good for you. As you have done, take ownership of the look and wear it proudly. At least to us "Westerners" you look absolutely natural.

Enjoy the confidence that you are being your true self. You deserve it.

Happy 2014 -- "the year of the Bald"

[DSCSK]

Thank you frontier guy

The confidence and and tough skin that i have probably comes from the fact that my parents don't care.

Living in a city that has adopted western culture is also probably the reason for me being so comfortable. But with that said, i don't see many bald people around.

The problems that i stated in the beginning of this thread mostly applies to orthodox indian families. I met another guy in SBG who was indian like me and wanted to be bald. He lives in a rural area and his family forced him to grow his hair back when he shaved it bald. He wants to be bald like me, but unlike me, he does not have anyone close to him for moral support. I guess he has already faced some of the bad stuff that i mentioned in this thread. Since going bald also interferes with tradition and religion, the poor guy is going through hell.

Do you guys know any ways in which i can help him ?? Please reply. I have listed the reason why head shaving is bad in India already.

[greatnessinc]

Here in the US it's become common place, for a good long while there was a stigma about it but it's become widely accepted.

[Frontier Guy]

Like many changes in any society/culture ... it takes some courageous folks to educate the rest.

[Thebaldnation]

I have lived in most areas of the USA, I say that having a shaved head is not common but again it is not uncommon as I see a few guys with that appearance every time I am in a store.  All ages but more middle age or older.  However I do see young guys.  I first shaved my head in !980 when it was quite uncommon.  Accepted after some teasing.

i shaved my head in 1996 he city I live in didn't have a lot of Bald men and even worse at that time the KKK did a lot of rallying in the city next to us, I use to get a lot of negative looks and comments, but that wasn't me and I didn't change because of the negativity, gotta be your own man no matter what!