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Testosterone Tumbling in American Males
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo is running a story about a study that concludes that testosterone levels are falling across all age groups among American men. It says 'The testosterone-fueled American male may be losing his punch'" I leave it to you all to draw your conclusions about this, but I still wonder what my hours of laptop-fu does to me.
What whith the ubiquity of pr0n, avaliable readily for free and without embarrassment on the Intarweb Tubes, the testosterone no longer has a chance to build up in the male body.
Can I have a PhD please?
Stick Men
testosterone drops in a body that doesn't excercise (true for male and for the much smaller amount the female has), it drops in an obese body and moreover body fat produces a female-hormone like steroid
On a less lame note, does this mean young geeks are dealing with less of the aggressive bully types? And on a slightly more serious note still, I wonder if any study has been done on the role of male sex hormones in the sociobology of humans. It is a generally acknowledge (though AFAIK not yet understood) fact that women who live in the same dwelling eventually develop synchronized menstrual periods. But with regard to males, I can only think of examples in the animal kingdom where territorial males would deposit their own scent to "mark their territory"...... I'm sure someone else can come up with a better joke on that note than I could.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
If you fight you are put in jail, if you ask someone out at work you are fired and sued, if you are perceived to be an insensitive clod who wants to sit in a bar rather than wash dishes, you are unlikely to get married or have an offspring - thanks also to birth control/abortion. The evolution is selecting against "manly men". Maybe it's time for the society to wake up and move away from extremes.
Or... could it be related to the increasing use of growth hormones in our food supply (for example female growth hormones
used to increase milk production in cattle)?
Name: Mr. Anon E Mouse; SSN: 555-55-5555
Not a study, but some interesting stories about testosterone and the lack of it as told by those who lived through some heavy changes. A This American Life radio broadcast you can listen to here.
Scientists have discovered a wide range of other drugs in our drinking water, from pain killers to... antidepressants.
:).
I know I always feel better after a tall glass of water. I guess that explains it
Michael Jackson may be a reference point. His voice never changed, he never developed secondary attributes, and his baby had to be fertilized artificially, so there was some medical intervention at work there. Plastic surgery was probably not the first elective surgery he went through. I suspect that this is the root of most of his psychological problems. That's why I tend to give the guy a pass for a lot of his weirdness--the decision would have been forced on him by his father.
My theory on homosexuality is that it is a natural population control mechanism when an environment begins to exceed it's carrying capacity. I would suggest that is real study were done, you'd find less homosexuality in environments where there are plenty of resources and a small population. Contrary to that, I think you'd find abundant homosexuality in ares where resources are scarce and overpopulation is a problem. (Note: I'm not talking about "out" homosexuality, because cultural pressures are often contrary to natural and normal behavior) Of course I believe in a firm biological basis for sexual preference. I also believe that there are two kinds of sexual preference, which most people tend to not want to think about. I think that the "bi" population of married women who occasionally have "lesbian" encounters is a perfect illustration. I put the "lesbian" in quotesd because these women are not lesbians as they don't have any romantic interest in women at all. They might like their female sex partners a lot. They might even go as far as saying that they love them. But they won't leave their husbands for these women. Therefore this behavior is a completely different thing when compared with real lesbians who truly have no romantic+sexual interest in men. But, to add more complexity to the mix, take the segment of the true lesbian population who DO have a sexual, but non-romantic interest in men. Typically this sort of relationship is sadistic in nature and part of the BD/SM culture. These lesbians might want to be involved with a submissive man's wife in both a sexual and romantic nature. They might also want to submit the male member of this threesome to homosexual acts. In this instance the lesbian has no true interest in the male at all other than to humiliate him. Another segment of the population are the "straight" men who get involved in secret sexual relationships with other men. One or both men might strongly assert that they are "straight" and excuse the homosexual interaction as just "horsing around". If you look at it from the perspective of pure sexuality, these men are interacting in homosexual activity which implies that they are homosexual regardless of what they may say. If you look at it from the romantic+sexual perspective, these men have no desire or longing to have a romantic relationship at all. From that perspective, they are "straight". All of this illustrates that human beings all fall somewhere on a continuum of sexual identity. All societies put too much focus on the sexual behavior as being intertwined with romance. The way I see it:
1. You have sex for pleasure which can be had in any combination of genders, any number of participants, any marital status and has no romantic value whatsoever.
2. You have sex as a symbol of romantic love, which can also apply to any combination of genders, participants and marital status, however it most traditionally is between two people of the same or opposite sexes.
3. You have sex as a "quick fix" anitdote for boredom, which can occasionally be same sex gratification with a huge guilt complex to follow if you confuse sex with romantic intention
4. You have "handshake sex" which is simply quick sex with no strings attached. A fairly difficult kind of sex to truly engage in as most people apply the strings no matter what they say on the surface
5. You have minimal sex romance where the involved partners love each other on a higher romantic plane and may or may not indulge in sex, but may very well be same or opposite sex partners (This is typically the type of relationship that is headed for marriage)
6. You have maximal sex romance where the involved partners are extremely romantic and sexual in nature, may be of the same or opposite sex and they engage in a variety of sexual and romanti endeavors together (polyamory, swingers, open marriage, etc...)
Most people don't like this sort of complexity and shy away from it, but I firmly believe it's inescapable and has a true bilogical function in terms of a self-regulating environment. We are merely cogs in the machinations of the sexual realm. With that view, I say that anything goes, and you should just go with the flow...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Since evolution is a continuous, not discrete, process, the degeneration of Y will not lead to the disappearance of sex chromosomes. It might sound a little surprising, but is actually well-founded.
Imagine that Y degenerates to the point at which the only meaningful (non-intron) sequence on it is the SRY - Sex-determining Region of Y. SRY is the primary determinant of human gender, the testicles are actually all caused by SRY. At this point, any further degeneration will create females incapable of procreating, so the "SRY-less" trait will not propagate.
Therefore, SRY will be preserved by pure natural selection. At some point, the degenerate heterochromosome will be included into some autosome, which will therefore become the new sex chromosome. That is actually happening sometimes with other species.