When I was still in the closet, I grew and maintained a big beard as part of my attempts at performative masculinity.
Not saying that this is what’s happening with most men who’re growing 'em out, but sometimes I see a bloke with a well maintained set of facial hair looking absolutely miserable and my egg radar starts shrieking.
Though over the winter it was decidedly not well maintained, longest its ever been, etc. I kind of get weirdly less dysphoric about just letting things go vs. actively cultivating something I don’t necessarily want or like.
As an example of how this trend is being noticed is that Jehovah’s Witnesses relaxed the rules around facial hair for men in the United States at the beginning of this year.
Can’t speak for anyone else, or if there are any trends, but personally it’s because I, at the age of 41, finally have reliable facial hair growth. All men in my family are like this. It’s a welcome trade-off for the fact that no men in my family ever develops a bald spot.
IIRC, it’s the same testosterone-y hormone that determines how good you are at growing a beard that also determines how aggressively you go bald. So there’s lots of folks in this boat with us
It’s more so how sensitive your cells/receptors are to these hormones (testosterone/DHT), assuming you have healthy levels. There’s people on anabolic steroids that still can’t grow a dense beard. It’s just genetics.
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