Hair, its importance as a gender marker and hair loss in Western and Judeo-Christian Civilization:
In terms of prevalence, hair loss seems to have always occurred in white and Semitic males. It might have occurred less though before industrialization. So many folks on Tressless seem to think that hair loss is due to excessive self-gratification and implicitly, a punishment for sinning sexually. Others seem to portray a happy time before industrialization where hair loss was all but unknown.
Nevertheless, the Greeks speak of the shame of hair loss. We have recountings of rulers and emperors like Julius Caesar and other famous Romans going bald and their being ashamed and teased about it. Napoleon was sensitive about his hairline. The prophet Elisha threw curses upon anyone making comments about his hairline. In this context, Jesus's hair as normally rendered probably is highly unusual. We also have seen essentially forever, depictions of people from the Middle East who seem to have huge beards and very little scalp hair.
St. Paul commented essentially that scalp hair was for females and their crowning physical feature. Even the head coverings often used by male Jews known as yarmulkes, might be related to baldness and not flashing the deity with one's naked crown but this might be taking a point too far since St. Paul writing to the church in Corinth states the opposite in one of the most sexist and confounding chapters of the Bible:
"Be ye followers of me, even as I also
am of Christ.
2Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered
them to you.
3But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman
is the man; and the head of Christ
is God.
4Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. 5But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with
her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
6For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.
7For a man indeed ought not to cover
his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man."I Corinthians 11:4.
Paul doesn't stop here though but continues with more inarticulate spouting of his personal vision for Christianity. Remember there was no official church at the time to counter his claims and they were later retconned with another bootstrap verse from Paul regarding all scripture being inspired by Providence and therefore, since it was inspired by the Divinity, everything Paul articulates in all of his letters automatically becomes scripture free from error. Hermeuntics and the Godel theorem tell us that such claims make no sense but oh well:
I Corinthians 11:7-10:
For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.
Hey, Paul! Got any references for that aside from your own letter?
And then this: Verse 13: Judge for yourselves; is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14: Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him, 15: but if a woman has long hair, it is her pride? For her hair is given to her for a covering.
I have no idea how angels relate to female hair loss
vel non or hats in general but Paul seems pretty confident in his bewildering conjectures. Of course, his main goal often forgotten by history was to evangelize without their being any need for circumcision and this was the main issue among early church leaders, who were both Jewish and Christian, especially James, Peter and Paul. Greeks found circumcision to be just as horrible for men as nowadays people feel about circumcision for females and noted correctly, that it was a form of mutilation.
St. Paul to me, seems to be an arrogant sort who articulates his own beliefs and attempts to paint them as deriving from nature or from God and not from Goddess. "Be ye followers of me?" It's all very self-centered and andro-centric from someone who just loves talking about himself all of the time.
Back to science, never say never, but I doubt a general baldness cure without HRT. The precise means by which balding and beard growth occur seems to be delicate. Perhaps for males, increasing anagen is a better goal and it is a pseudo-way of appearing to have regrowth. Estrogen levels have been rising for males but usually via synthetics with an estrogen-like structure. Like phytochemicals, I don't think that we know the effects since both chemicals in the water and eating phytochemicals might actually crowd out estradiol, making situations worse or for MtF's perhaps, making them feminize more slowly if at all, not more so.
The youth-promoting aspects of adding testosterone (in the short term) or estrogen in the long-term appear to be substantial to the point of violating or reversing normal aspects of ageing. I haven't done before and after skin pulls or anything but essentially everything except bone and teeth feels re-matrixed. Scars may spontaneously heal. Muscle decrease in the neck, might actually improve hair loss and make it easier to turn one's head without pain. Fat is re-distributed; collagen increases might take place. It's the closest thing to Ponce de Leon that I could ever dream of and the benefits even beyond scalp hair are staggering to me. I am thrilled about hair regrowth but HRT can be mind-blowing for some and kind of eh for others. Some of this probably has to do with skeletal size and the inability of estrogen to shrink bone while smaller folks haven't had their chests, shoulders, faces and other areas grow away from the pubertal/female oval face shape and less muscular pattern.
Goddess bless.
