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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.
It's all being sold in shops in WoW.
rising obesity?
After all, we don't need to hunt wild animals to survive anymore.
...welcome our new metro-sexual overlords?
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
I wonder how representative it is across recent immigrands and Mayflower Americans...
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
At this point, I think it's really more of a "forceful slap" than anything.
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 really has nothing to do with whether a child is a girl or a boy, it has more to do with having the drive to even procreate at all.
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
Is that I guess I'm not alone! Now I can point to this study and tell my girl, "See? It's happening to all the guys my age -- you're not cool unless you have a reduced libido!"
Gotta get me one of these!
Having being diagnosed, and having surgery and chemotherapy for this (like Lance Armstrong et al), there is a worrying trend. There is no known cause of this cancer scientifically proved, but after getting this cancer, and speaking 'hear say' to consultants, doctors. etc. one theory is that estrogen (oestrogen), the female hormone, is being dumped into the environment from products (baby products, nappies etc.). This chemical doesn't break down in nature - so drinking water, cows milk, fish, meat... all contain this bumped chemical up that would not otherwise be there. Too see how bad it is, there are even scientific reports of fish changing sex in estrogen rich rivers - do a google on this. This is not a subject to laugh at.
But what happens if #3 doesn't happen?
the article states that lower levels of testosterone are linked to diabetes, so could higher levels of diabetes in the population be a factor in the lower testosterone?
3 01_040301_genderbender.html
what about the higher levels of artificial hormones in the environment? could all the estrogen we are dumping make us less manly?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/03/0
Health-related news is almost always wrong. It'll get contradicted in another study next year.
Remember when everyone got that bird flu? (I was coughing up feathers for weeks.)
Common plastics used to package convenience foods have estrogenic side-effects. If you buy cabbages and beets and bread in paper bags, and stuff in cans, that's great. But buy and store cabbages and beets in plastic bags, plastic refrigerator cartons and it's like getting a little dose of estrogen. Buy microwave dinners in plastic, sitting in plastic-lined little plates, and it's like getting a little dose of estrogen. Buy bread in plastic, soda in plastic, milk in plastic-lined cartons, meat wrapped in plastic, orange juice in plastic, eggs in plastic cartons, and frozen fruits in plastic bags -- Get your Estrogen here, boys!
== buddha is as buddha does ==
You're probably right. I still have this theory that we may be heading for a single gender species. I'm misappropriately applying this finding to back it up. Probably not a good thing since I'm no biologist.
Obesity is linked to increased risk of diabetes, diabetes is associated with lower testosterone levels. The article has it wrong - low testosterone does not cause diabetes, it's the other way around. Hypogonadism is a well-known effect of diabetes.
There's your link.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
As a web-page of NYUMC suggests, Tai Chi may be of help.
Quote: Enhanced Endocrine and Immune System
One study found that tai chi was associated with increased blood levels of a number of hormones, including thyroid hormone, testosterone, and estradiol. Another study found that tai chi was associated with an increased number of T cells (cells involved in the immune response).
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
True, as an earlier poster pointed out, obesity and lack of exercise drop testosterone levels. What I would like to see is a study focusing on behavioral habits to see if there is any link there. As a member of our military reserve on my second deployment, it really irritates me how touchy-feely the civilian world is. One example: I got sent to "sensitivity training" at an old workplace because during a supposedly anonymous survey (hah), I answered that I did not feel it was important to use the words please and thank you when dealing with my coworkers. You know, if I am going to give you money to work for me, I am going to assume that means that you'll work for me, and that I won't have to ask you nicely every time. But that's beside the point. I really think that our society is taking away the things that make men men -- we're being turned into metrosexuals :( This isn't a healthy thing.
DS
What does testosterone have to do with the gender of the child? The gender is a result of chromosome combination. The woman contributes XX, and the man XY. Depending on whether your "X" or "Y" chromosome gets used, the resulting child will be male or female.
Interestingly, spermatozoids carrying the "Y" swim faster, and can be told apart from the "Y" ones that way.
In 100,000 years we die out and get replaced by cats.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Now, we shall have no bivalvial recourse when we finally all lose our libidos! The oysters will all be dead! Hmm. Also, happiness of clams not related to clam survival.
Ninjas and pirates. How piquant.
Have you seen what some guys are wearing these days? It's like they're trying to compete with girls for the "most traditionally feminine" award or something.
I was diagnosed with low testosterone six months ago, but don't know what caused it. I exercise regularly, and wonder if the long-distance cycling I do is tough on the 'equipment'. I also had radiation treatment for lymphoma in that area five years ago. That seems more likely, although the doctors took pains to make sure everything was shielded properly. I'm 40 years old. The important thing to know is that low testosterone can cause mood disorders, lack of focus, depression, and other symptoms. It's worth seeking treatment if your levels are abnormally low.
But don't worry, your President has enough spare to act as a donor for all who need it.
I guess America is becoming progressively less honky...
Soldiers will soon demand all their weaponry be color co-ordinated with their uniforms and the massively expensive development of an assault handbag. Enemies will initially be engaged with cutting criticism of their weigh/dress sense or design of thier formations and many soldiers will be just too emotionally distraught to engage the enemy unless they can take them dancing afterwards.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
if this country didn't start taking World Cup soccer more seriously.
My steaks are wrapped in plastic, but I eat them raw, so it's ok right?
Haida Manga
listen to this man
Testosterone levels rise if you get a girlfriend or wife, and drop if you lose one.
Women no longer need to live with men. We invented no-fault divorce, child support, heavy equipment, locks and police, and so many other things to eliminate the need for men. Men have become useless, so women kick us smelly slobs out of the house. We are obsolete.
I suppose that could be a particular type of stress.
It's all that crappy emo music that's hitting it big. The guys are becoming even more fragile than us nerds! (And scoring twice the women, still)
space is pretty cool.
It's just further on into the pussification of America.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
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.
Kim du Toit explained this phenomenon some time ago in this essay. I think he hit it right on the head.
....suddenly, the "OMG! PONIES!" April Fools gag on slashdot takes on a whole different meaning...
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
if you stop licking the blood and body fluid off the wrappers you'll alright
But cats already rule the world; we just don't want to admit it. Behind every evil genius is an even more evil cat.
Thank God for this adolescent raging hard-on White House, who have pledged the preserve the sanctity of our precious bodily fluids! Now with Martial Law!
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Elevated estrogen and estrogen mimicking substances have made it into our rivers and streams, causing signs of hermaphroditism in fish. Scientists have discovered a wide range of other drugs in our drinking water, from pain killers to birth control pills to antidepressants. High levels of rocket fuel toxins have been found in mothers' milk. My city still uses lead piping to transfer most of its water, and they alkalinize the water to reduce lead levels to "acceptable" levels, even though scientists have pretty much shown that the only acceptable lead level is no lead at all.
It's not entirely clear what, if any, effects these substances have on developing children. Personally, I'd rather be safe than sorry and remove these contaminants from my water.
Yes, "Y" spermatozoids are faster, but "X" ones live longer. So, if by the time they're inside and no egg is there to be fertilized, chances are that "Y" ones will die, and "X" will win if an egg is released afterwards.
For the record, there's no data that suggests a correlation between testosterone levels and homosexuality. In fact, physicans once tried to "treat" homosexuality with testosterone injections, and the subjects just became more homosexually active.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
yup, google estrogen and "nonyphenol" or "bisphenol A" (there's others too) heating in microwave ovens likely increases the dosages, never thought of that until now. crap.
What I've heard, testosterone is related to sexual drive. I know some mid-age women that have been treated with testosterone to cure their lack of interest in sex, and it works. Like the parent said before me, it has nothing to do with homosexuality. At all.
I've not seen many biologists suggest that we're moving towards a single gender species. I've heard several suggestions that the Y chromosome will eventually fade out of existence, but that another chromosome would likely replace it as the sex determining chromosome. The resulting species would be more feminine, but there would still be differentiation.
Here's the obligatory link to more info on the estrogen-plastic issue.
In light of this revelation, it is important to note that according to research, the amount of estrogen one would ingest from plastic doesn't compare to the rate of testosterone aromatization in a young healthy male (let alone a steroid laden jock). The bottom line is that a body needs both estrogen and testosterone (though amounts do differ between M&F).
I'm not fat, just big boned...
Interesting. Actually I figured the decrease of testosterone explained alot regarding why Americans are afraid to pick their balls up from off the floor and fight for their liberty.
Admit it: you just want an excuse to watch lesbian porn
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
Genetically enhanced food at its best...
How about the fact the goverment (schools) drugs young boys? (ADD treatments, ect). I am sure this has NOTHING to do with it at all.
Add in hormones in foods, obesity, no exercise. call me fucking shocked that testosterone is on the slide.
since when do I need an excuse?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Indeed, polycarbonate - which is in pretty much everything - is made from a chemical originally used as a synthetic estrogen, bisphenol A. Bisphenol A will leech from polycarbonate food or drink containers, especially ones cleaned with very hot water, or with bleach. (Some plastics are safer: #1 PETE, #2 HDPE are fairly safe from leaching and are easy to recycle, #4 LDPE and #5 PP are also said to be safe for food storage.)
Many other chemical pollutants are also xenoestrogens. And there's also the widespread use of hormones in animal farming, as well as medical uses which means excess amounts being urinated out and ending up in the water supply.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
...of at least one american where this doesn't appear to be a problem.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
And yet it is people like Tilman, a democrat that went to Afghanastan, who was opposed to the current set of republicans. While nearly all congressional and white house republicans who avoided serving this country are the same ones that send us to war. All in all, you are full of crap.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
On a recent trip to East Africa, the food I ate over there tasted different and better! The bananas and all other fruits had a good aroma to them. Contrast that with the fruit section of most of our supermarkets and you'll hardly smell any presence of fruits nearby!
In the part of East Africa I visited, monkeys smell these fruits from miles away and come to have a feast. There were also lots of men in their sixties who had kids as children. They told me they were still sexually active. In America, such a man would most probably have to utilize the blue pill! This might also explain the fact that despite the scourge of AIDS, the population in Africa is still growing exponentially. Pollution also plays a hand in my opinion. If you differ, get a white wet and hang it outside. You'll be surprised about what color it would become after a few hours. Reason: Pollution, period.
Apparently because males have one y and one x chromosome, and females have two x chromosomes, the male y has no 'pair' in order for it to regenerate and repair off of. Therefore, in some wayyyyy distant future the y chromosome will have degenerated to the point that it can no-longer be able to store the right info you need to grow from an egg. So in a sense, males will eventually die out, as long as we don't figure out a way to stop the y from degenerating. Of course, evolution may take it's course and we will develop some kind of environmental sex determination, like reptiles that determine sex from incubation temperature. Anyways, here is an article that talks a bit about the Y chromosome and degeneration.
Har?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Go poke around google for information on androgen insensitivity syndrome for some information on people who have an XY genotype, but are thought of as women by most people, including themselves.
To quote the wikipedia article:
*clip*
> 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.
You confound testosterone and sperm.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
is that there are still some of us left with unreduced libidos, who are capable of stepping up and picking up the slack. I'm willing to score with your girlfriend or with any other attractive women who share her problem, working round the clock if that's the kind of unflagging effort necessary to keep up the American birthrate.
No need to thank me. The chance to service my country is all the thanks I need.
Nearly all the Democrats voted to go to war too. I love how the Democrats have successfully gotten everyone to forget that in this election. Guess that's what happens when you have collusion with the media to push your stories, like the Foley scandal, and making sure the media doesn't call you on your hypocrisy by pointing out your support for Studds (who actually did sleep with an underage page).
"Sufferin' succotash."
Certainly, people have wussed out significantly between 6.06 and 6.10 releases of Ubuntu - the problems with upgrading that many report must be due to lower testosterone!
Clearly we need to start adding testosterone to plastic. Then we can have male and female versions of soda bottles. The companies can charge extra for the "man's drink bottle" to offset the extra expense, as men won't want to be caught with the "women's drink bottle"[1]. I think I had better patent this...
[1] this logic might not work on male Mac users.
... the brain's response to all the negative pressures of using testosterone. I mean the aggressive male is in decline. When I was in school getting in a fight was a boys will be boys will a minor slap on the wrist. But now hurting people's feelings is a serious offense cause they may sue someone. The further pussification of america.
I think one problem could be the estrogen present in cow's milk because of the hormones they are giving the cows. But as far as being fat being the cause of declining testosterone, meh. Theres a lot of people who aren't aggressive because of their parenting and just don't seem to have that tendencies to begin with. I'm overweight and I've played football. The most aggressive players are typically the ones that are a little overweight.
Oh, I promised myself I wouldn't cry. **sniffs**
vaulted (sic) hero, John Wayne
John Wayne was not a hero. He was an actor who played heroic roles.
He did not serve in the military during WWII; he got a draft deferment.
Great actor, yes. Inspiration to many, yes. Hero, no.
I read a study about this like 4000 yrs ago, and basically it is due to us frying the shit outta everything we eat. I can't remember the exact details, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but basically something with the vegetable oil we fry everything in has an interaction with testosterone and ends up making it go bye bye. So the people who suggested obesity aren't so far off. How do you get fat? Eating shitloads of calories, most of which come from fried food. Want your sperm and your sex drive to stay alive, skip the fast food drive through and steam up some vegetables with a small portion of fish, chicken, and occasionally beef. Excuse me now I need to go grab some McyDee's
with duke nukem where you would often find testosterone ampuls..
Am I the only one who read the title and immediately thought of Dick Cheney?
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
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
Actually- Testosterone declines with marriage. One of the more interesting researchers
t ute/pdf/SKanazawa/EHB2000b.pdft ute/pdf/SKanazawa/JRP2003.pdf
t ute/whosWho/profiles/s.kanazawa@lse.ac.uk.htm
out there has written several papers on why scientific productivity declines
with age. One of the hypotheses which is looking pretty good is that with
marriage there is a decline in testosterone, and in keeping with Geoffrey Miller's
"The Mating Mind" ideas that testosterone leads to various displays such
as technical virtuosity- there is then a corresponding decrease in scientific
production (at the topmost levels). This raises another question- isn't marraige
becoming less common?
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/methodologyInsti
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/methodologyInsti
Some of his other publications-
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/methodologyInsti
Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Kanazawa
"A beginning is a delicate time for making certain that the balances are correct..." So go see "Mahdi" O'Reilly's
I don't think the Democratic party is inherently opposed to war (at least when you take into account how many military conflicts we entered into under Democrats in the White House). The issue is more that groups like MoveOn.org and others are gaining more and more power within the party, largely due to the amount of money they bring in. Let's not forget how easily Pres. Clinton's Iraq regime change mantra was forgotten and/or excused away.
Aha, so THAT'S why everyone is so afraid of their own shadow that they'd rather live in a police state than face the astronomical odds of being blow'd up by a terrorist.
Just read this before visiting Slashdot. I feel a LOT safter knowing that armed police in full riot gear are patting down those violent schoolkids, don't you? Terrorists are lurking everywhere!
-R
higher testosterone levels, going by your admission, also led to people dying. I was witness to a kid being bullied and knocked down in a school fight and he cracked his head on the concrete ground. He spent days in the hospital and came back to school with his head all mummified. Others have died in that situation. The lawsuits that come of that are spectacular - and in case you're grumbling about lawyers right about now, well now, someone has to pay those medical bills, and it might as well be the testosterone-poisoned bully who, in this case, had knocked the other kid down. Of course, you'd say the kid who got knocked down deserved it because he was weak, or that his head injury is his problem, and no one else's. That's fine and well - he'd typically come back with a knife, a bat or even a gun, and even the score. See: Columbine. Inner city schools are plagued with that behavior. That's why the so-called "pussification" is going on.
When you take this he-man testosterone rah rah rah bullshit to the leaders-of-our-nation level, you get the threat of nuclear war. Or Bush. Of course you would say nuclear war is so 1960s. Tell that to the people who lived back then. Also do consider moving out of New York, and soon - that's target numeral uno for some terrorist with a suitcase nuke. Some testosterone poisoned man is absolutely positively going to try to blow that city up over a *certain* religious dispute we're all familiar with.
So what'll it be? Pussification, or skyrocketing crime and/or mass annihilation?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Our American Testosterone is being STOLEN BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS who come to this country and take all our testosterone away from our middle class. As usual, whenever things get worse for the middle class, it is because the illegal aliens are benefitting somehow.
You might think that 700 mile fence is going to help, so that you can confiscate the testosterone from the illegals at the border and return it to where it belongs: American middle class testicles. Well the joke's on you. They don't carry it out of the country with them. They stay here to live and work, and they put the testosterone in envelopes and mail it home to their impoverished effeminate families in the Third World.
>young healthy male
Are there any of those left in the usa?
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
It's because people keep bitching about how unhealthy red meat is.
What happened to the days when a guy could fix his car in his garage, build something in the basement, then eat a nice big juicy steak with a potato for dinner, then go watch the news about a war?
This war on terror isn't a real war, there's no good healthy warmongering in it...it's all about "protect the children" rather than my bombs are bigger and faster than yours.
We need to stop stomping out countries on the verge of becoming competitive world powers. We need another cold war, where men can be paranoid until they're real men.
We also need a new generation of muscle cars, and more lumber yards cropping up, these "home centers" make me want to puke.
In the infamous words of George Carlin, later repeated by Denis Leary and others (which I will poorly misquote)... A man needs to sit home eating red meat and watching the war on TV!
Real men drink Pabst blue Ribbon beer, and punch holes in the wall to prod their ego.... and thats what a real man is... Flesh, Blood, Muscle and ego!
Now I'm off to play with my dollies.
Make America grate again!
I wish I had less testosterone.
Male pattern baldness started at around the age of 21. 11 years later and I have to keep my remaining hair length at 2-3mm so it doesn't look stupid. I'm not Patrick Stewart yet but give it a few more years and I'll be baldly going where no man...
Does it really bother me? Not in the slightest but if I'd the choice I'd have put off the recession for ten years.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Yeah, sure... two years (nearly) since diagnosis. I didn't think my post was _not_ about laughing? I joke, get by and sometimes my humour flies over the heads of people I am talking to... I just meant that the subject as a whole should not be laughed at, as it is a real issue that will affect a lot of posters on here in the near future - not the jests on here (everything in life has to be laughed at). I mean, it _is_ slashdot, after all ;-)
So, everyone enjoy your Nalgene bottles. Polycarbonate...nalgene and all the knockoffs. It is funny that Brita water is supposed to filter your tap water, but the container it is stored in is polycarbonate.
Also, beware of plastic baby bottles. Some of them are also polybarbonate. And what do you usually put in a baby bottle? Warm milk. Give the baby's an extra dose of hormone before they're a year old.
Cats? I always thought Lizards rule the world.
Indeed it is anecdotal. For example, I'm part of a 6 person I.T. unit. Of the 6, 5 have children.
5 boys, 2 girls.
We do get a lot more estrogen into us than ever before. And lets not forget soy products while we're at it.
Gah, this is getting confusing.
Testosterone DOES play a big part in sex selection. The Y chromosome only has one gene on it - the gene that tells the fetus to produce a lot of testosterone. Testosterone is the signal that tells the fetus to develop male traits. Every fetus is capable of becoming male, depending on this signal. The testosterone used in this stage of development comes from the fetus itself. The mother's testosterone level does not influence the sex of her child, because her blood does not enter the womb. I think it goes without saying that the father's testosterone levels make no difference at all, since his bloodstream is in a different body.
Some fetuses have a testosterone insensitivity that keeps the fetus from fully developing into a male child. This does not appear to be a complete immunity to testosterone, since the resulting child does not have completely female traits either. Again, this testosterone is being created by the fetus itself, not by either parent.
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.
The other possibility is the males' levels of testosterone are dropping because they are biologically less able to produce it than they were in the 1980s. The Testosterone level in a male goes in parallel to his level of zinc intake. If you are a male who is zinc deficient, you are going to lack testosterone too. A decline of zinc in the American food supply or a changing American diet which contains less zinc rich foods like beef is going to lower the males' average testosterone level. Low zinc levels causes anorexia in females, which also seems to have worsened since the 1980s.
It's a feminist conspiracy - they're adding something to the water supplies to make us weak and pliable. We must rise up, and overthrow our oestrogen-enriched masters (who are actually mistresses).
Get your own free personal location tracker
That's why I only drink grain alcohol and rain water.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
As a biologist, may I just say there is no evidence backing up this 'theory' of yours reguarding overpopulation and homosexuality.
I agree, and that's why you sometimes hear conflicting positions within the party. Unfortunately, if you criticize these big money guys who are taking over, they will chase you out of the party. Look at Lieberman.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Having a high testosterone level is a hormonal nuisance, sort of like when women get cramps during their period, or hot flashes during menopause. I'm 40 now, but I still remember what it was like being 15-25. Thank God that's over with! It's no fun when the presence of a nubile female gives you an erection that hurts, and lasts as long as she's nearby. I have my own personal list of embarrassing things I did under the influence of testosterone, and I'm sure every other male past puberty has a similar list.
As an individual, this whole thing is also a nonissue, because natural differences in hormone levels bewteen one man and the next are probably huge -- much bigger than the effect being claimed.
What's really scary about this is not the effect it's having on adult males (and the rest of society), which may be positive. What's scary is:
Find free books.
> "...If you ask someone out at work you are fired and sued..."
i ng.htm
... cold hard statistics don't support your cynical worldview, where aggression is the only way to success, Libertarianism is the One True Way, and evolution works over a Lamarckian timescale!
Okay, leaving aside the (big, possibly invalid) assumption that this and the rest of the behaviors you've mentioned are even partly related to testosterone, and leaving aside the fact that evolution doesn't work over the incredibly small timescale of 3 generations anyway, let's focus on your office romance claim. I'm picking on this one because the bizarre, untrue Slashdot view that office romance between coworkers inevitably ends with the male being fired really grates on me sometimes, such as now...
"44% of office romances lead to marriage"
http://www.amanet.org/press/amanews/workplace_dat
There ya go. Marriage, in case you didn't know, quite often leads to children. As in, you know, evolutionary success.
Ouch
What are you going to do now, Slashbot? Explode??
---
P.S. sorry for the flames but your post just really got under my skin off for some reason. I don't know if it was the ignorance, cynicism, or something else, but we're both pseudonymous Slashdot posters so I figure it's cool to just respond like I did...
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
but too much anabolic steroid supplements makes the testicles shrivel or atrophy, however. big beefy muscles today, raisin nuts tomorrow...
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pus sification
see here
\begin{obligatory_overlord_quote}
I, for one, welcome our new furry and cuddly overlords
\end{obligatory_overlord_quote}
Um, did anyone notice TFA focuses on men aged 65 and older? I think we should do a corollary study on wrinkles and white hair among infants.
Quote:
"...when the elder subjects were about 70 years old, and the youngest about 45."
I'm fighting The War on Drugs!
In other words, the less testosterone I secrete, the simpler my life gets. I'm OK with that.
(Every engineer should have a mistress and a wife. First you tell your wife you're spending the night with your mistress. Then you tell your mistress you have to spend the night with your wife. Only after you have done both of these things will you have enough time to yourself to get back to the lab and do some useful work!)
Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene, Chapter 7, "Family Planning."
There is no such thing as group selection.
Who wouldn't want to lick a fresh, cold, hard, Tasticle on a stick on a hot day to refill their manhood? Anyone? ;)
My theory is that there is an increased amount of public discourse possible now, due to social and technological changes, and that rates of these traits have been more or less the same throughout history (though the expression of the behaviours may have been suppressed somewhat in especially repressed areas/timeframes). The fact that people are more aware of something now and also discuss it more now does not automatically mean that it's more prevalent than it was in the past.
The same also applies for people who say "There's just so much more war and trouble in the world now than there used to be!", who somehow gloss over everything before they came of age (whenever that time period may have been). They weren't aware of the tremendous amount of strife going on in the world prior to gaining an understanding of it, and the media certainly wasn't up to snuff for the earlier part of their lives for the older segment of the population that feels this way.
Of course, I've drifted off topic now a bit. I'll bring it back on track in closing by indicating that I feel it much more likely that increased obesity rates are causing a decrease in the amount of free testosterone in the body (as indicated by other posts in this thread) than to think of some elaborate ill-defined system wherein the population as a whole is reacting to the environmental stress of overpopulation. Not that the latter doesn't occur - increased aggression in response to overpopulation is well documented in rats, for example - but more that I don't think we're anywhere near the levels of environmental stress required to trigger such a change, if such a change were even a possible outcome of that. The population simply isn't dense enough, nor resources scarce enough for that population to effect such a change. If it ever gets to the point that the majority of Americans are fighting it out in the streets for food, I'd be more willing to accept your theory as relevant.
That green slime had it coming.
Toit mentions wanting to take a
I am the wife of one such "pussified" (as Toit puts it) man. My husband has diabetes and many of the usual complications that come with it, one of which is low testosterone (less than half the "normal" amount). You know what? I'm GLAD his attitude is the way it is. If anything, the reduced testosterone level has served to soften the hard shell he says he used to have. He's well aware of my feelings as well as his own, and he's not afraid to show them. He loves me deeper than words can describe, and I love him equally. He loves nature, cares about his and my health, and...well, you get the idea. I don't expect I'd find any of this in the macho type Toit is trying to rally.
The way I figure it, the average Slashdot user is getting close to that time in their lives when they feel the desire to find a mate and maybe start a family. For the group of you folks who fall in line with Toit's attitude, face this fact: After hundreds of years of you men telling us women to shut up and get in line, your type is being phased out, whether you like it or not. The world does not need your crap anymore, nor does it need the sterotypical southern belle attitude some women used to have, either. Rather, all need to move away from the extremes toward some common, middle ground where men AND women can be happy.
the increased use of high fructose corn syrup in consumer products around the early to mid 70's.
What might be this parasite in the present circumstance?
If you answer this you likely will find the causes of other "inexplicable" phenomena negatively impacting males fertility -- possibly even autism spectrum disorders.
Seastead this.
If it is, it will be buried on page 2411c of some extraordinarily obtuse journal (as if the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism isn't obutse). But more importantly, I can't find TFA (the real one, not the yahoo'd blabber). If it's in this month's issue of the JCEM, I sure can't see it).
I really hate that since you cannot ask simple questions like "is the methodology of testosterone testing consistent enough over several decades to allow you to compare said results?". I sure the hell hope so, it's a basic enough concept, but I have seen some of the more speculative articles kinda miss some real basic points.
Sigh. So if anyone has enough free time to find the actual link, enquiring minds would like to know.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
. . .is a little too sensitive for me.
"If your parents never had children, chances are you wonât either." -Dick Cavett
I suspect that there may be a correlation between mobile phones and the observed decline of testosterone. Testosterone is produced in the testes (Wikipedia is your friend). Of course, I have no evidence to support my hypothesis. Where do most men wear/place a mobile phone on their bodies? Mine is in the FRONT POCKET of my jeans/shorts. I've seen other people carry them on their belts. My point is, most of us place these low amplitude microwave emitters right by our 'nads. I seem to recall many years ago that state highway patrolmen had issues with infertility from sitting by the road and waiting for law-breaking speeders, waiting with the radar gun between the legs and 'nads. Those radar guns are microwave emitters and detectors.
Let's all take a bow and accept our Darwin awards!
- that's it. Muscles for what, punching keys?
Servant of karma
suso wrote: 1. Testosterone drops in males. ...profit!
2. More females born as a result.
3. Evolution in females to ensure survival. 4. Single gender species results.
5. ???? 6.
Don't go stirring this up around here. You're just gonna confuse these kids. Nobody's going to move into somebody elses parent's basement. Next you're going to recommend that they take showers and brush their teeth.
Don't go there. You'll be modded all to hell.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I read a report a while ago (yes I am lazy, if you care Google for it) where there was a theory that sperm count will drop with prolonged laptop usage. The reason? The heat from the laptop warms the testicles and slows sperm production.
I realize that semen |= testosterone but I think it was worth noting.
Libertas in infinitum
Baby products and "nappies" don't contain estrogen to be dumped into the evironment. The reason beef contains so much estrogen is because we inject young steers with estrogen to make them grow more. It tricks their bodies into growing at a much faster rate like it did as a fetus and young infant.
No, they're all in Iraq /ducks
Aren't those Nalgene bottles made from polycarbonate?
We used to use them backpacking, now they're sold on every college campus in the country.
The terms were defined as such to resolve ambiguity back in the 19th century to better describe intersexed, homosexual, and transsexual people.
Way to "revise" history. The usage of the word gender to describe someone's personality as opposed to their biological sex was invented in the middle of the 20th century. It is technical jargon used by social scientists and psychologists. I'm really tired of seeing people "corrected" when they use gender as a synonym for sex. When the the Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists "sex" as a definition, it's good enough for me. Stop trying to impose what you were told in your Humanities electives on the rest of us.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
ohh hot damn if i had mod points.
It means more divorce, more women having affairs, less sexually satisfied women who will seek out the men who acutally can give orgasms to them and are not pussies....They will become a super race of dominant men evolved more highly because they will be the only ones women want to be with.
This has obviously failed to explain anything whatever to you.
* There is not an increasing number of gay men "out there."
* Evolution will not eventually wipe out the species. Evolution selects for reproductive qualities, and can not select against them.
* There is no such thing as "the top of the evolutionary chain." Maybe you're thinking of the food chain. Even if there was such a thing, it would not imply that man "must always exist." That is a nonsense conclusion.
* If "lower animals" "surpassed us" in 1,000 years, it would indeed be a problem for evolutionary theory, but not in any way you are aware of.
Apple has persuaded too many straight males into buying MacBooks - The white model, not the black one, not because it's cheaper either - it's just 'more cute'. Guys are turning into sissies.
It's true, I saw that episode of Powerpuff Girls too.
Yes. They're also made by a company that supplies vivisection equipment, so I never bought one, but Nalgene and many other brands of drinking water bottles are made from polycarbonate. I'd suggest a Sigg instead - aluminum with an enamel lining.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Then I realised a few things:
I may not excercise much beyond walking the mutt around the block, but playing
games that up the adrenalin levels and has even forced a girlfriend or two to
leave the room, saying "Too much testosterone for me".
So deathmatch may not be a full contact sport, but the chemical effects are similar.
Guys being guys; talking smack, killing their friends virtually and having a blast being
assholes. Good times.
Quote: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.
I'd ask two questions:
When was the last time you did something that made you say "Hell, yeah" or do/say something non-PC or trash talk.
When was the last time you used a chainsaw (doom 1/2/3 sorta counts, electric chainsaws don't) or any power tool?
If it's been more than a month or so, LAN party and make some noise, buy a fucking overpowered tool for your needs, go to a gun range, paintball war, BB gun and shoot *SOMETHING*, FFS.
Or, hell, if that's too much, too soon and you're worried your missing your favorite cooking
show or some shit, at least go out an BBQ something. Men don't cook unless there is fire or danger involved, eh? Plates, knives and forks and eat.
If you are worried about place settings or matching whateverthefuck... it's hopeless, so just take one of those Sony batteries that needs a recall, short the contacts and place down your trousers where your balls might be located and wait. It'll all be over soon.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Believe it or not: the urine of women who use hormonal birth control. I read about an environmental study in the Pacific Northwest somewhere, where it was shown that sewage, dumped into a river, had estrogenic effects on male fish. The culprit? Synthetic estrogens, which are excreted in the urine of women who take hormonal birth control. Wastewater eventually makes its way into rivers and streams, which feed back into the reservoirs from which we get our drinking water. Not that this is conclusive in any way, but it's definitely something that's being looked at.
raisin nuts tomorrow...
At least they're not ordinary raisins. They take the blah out of bran.
Bullshit. Natural selection doesn't favor the group--it favors individual genes. Homosexuality would never be an evolutionary adaptation for one simple reason--the "gay gene" doesn't reproduce itself. Where resources are scarce and overpopulation occurs, natural selection itself happens at a higher rate: organisms better adapted to collecting those scarce resources survive and reproduce, organisms worse adapted die.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
The presence of homosexuality in a population may or may not enhance the probability of its survival. The reason we see gay people could just be related to the fact that for centuries societies forced people to get married and procreate regardless of their sexual orientation. Ordinarily homosexuality would be considered a genetically fatal trait in animals, but not if social pressures replaced sexual orientation in directing people's reproductive behavior. This could be tested by looking at cultures around the world and their histories of social attitudes to marriage. Personally, I suspect you wouldn't find anything because it seems these gay people are everywhere and no ethnic population has failed to produce them, despite all protestations to the contrary. But I don't really know.
It may just be that no matter where you live, being gay doesn't really prevent you from procreating at all- there's usually much more pressure for a gay person to have straight sex than the other way around in any culture, and if you ask gay people if they've ever done it, most of them have, and it's normal for them to successfully procreate even if it costs them money. So we may be incorrectly assuming that this homosexuality is going to be a fatal genetic trait in whatever individual gets it, just because of our mechanistic thinking. Everybody gets drunk one night, etc. and gay people have children regardless of our assumptions simply because there are motives for procreating that have absolutely nothing to do with one's sex drive. One might need a tax dodge, for example.
It also may be that the presence of homosexuals in a population enhances its chances of success. Even though this can be a fatal trait on an individual basis, on a collective basis it can present a survival advantage. If you express the genes, as an individual, you obviously are less likely to procreate. But it may be that if you carry them without expressing them, or they run in your family, your reproductive fitness is enhanced over that of someone who doesn't carry them at all because nobody in their group does.
The presence of childless people in your population is usually a good thing for you. They are unencumbered by their own children and can help you with yours. Or they can handle odd careers particularly suited for the childless, like those in the military, or the priesthood. From a survivalist perspective, if someone in your group is going to take care of some weird job that needs doing, and he is not going to be having kids of his own because of it, you certainly don't want him snatching up and "wasting" one of your women- that means fewer wives for you. YOU are more likely to survive and pass on your genome if you carry genes which do not have a high probability of being expressed but that do trigger homosexuality when they are expressed.
If that were the case, then the selective pressure here would be operating via kin selection, which directs the evolution of worker bees and worker ants, where expressing a phenotype doesn't enhance your reproductive success, but does enhance it for people related to you with genotypes similar to your own. This may be partly why the genes involved in determining homosexuality do not appear to follow simple rules of heritability.
The majority of the world's testosterone was held inside the nation's lumberjacks. With machines replacing these mighty beasts it's no surprise that the horomone is now in short quanity.
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.
I think we can safely conclude that you don't have the balls to express your own conclusions.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Estrogens are to blame for this behavior.
No, not the natural estrogens that women produce, but the man-made estrogens present in pretty much every product you can purchase today: soda bottles, laundry detergent, hand soap, gasoline - pretty much anything that is derived from petrolium in some way. These estrogens (IIRC) block the production of testosterone as well as the natural production of estrogen. In women, it contirbutes to fuglyness (hairy lips, etc.) and things like ovarian cancer; in men it contributes to femininity and general lack of testosterone.
And let me be the first to say: this is why there are so many liberals.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Yep. Same goes for shampoos, soaps, gasoline itself, and probably 90% of the materials within your reach (carpet? wall paint? furniture coating? clothing? glasses?).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
USA what? Theres something fishy going on here. Whats this?
BEIJING, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- More than half of Chinese middle-aged men show symptoms of depression, irascibility, aching joints, excessive sweating as well as a fading interest in sex because of a lack of testosterone, a recent health survey suggested.
Are testosterone salesmen shilling the world now? I call shenanigans...
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
From now on you will not use "I" to refer to yourselves, because that word is reserved for female sheep!
No and fuck you, sir!
Whomever tagged this story as "balls" should get a +5
Lindsay Blanton
RadioReference.com
So I guess you didn't catch the news that even the Olympics no longer uses tests for whether a person is XX or XY as the determinant for sex ... they had one case where a woman was found to have XY chromosomes, and STILL ended up having a child.
Sex != Gender. Get over it.
You left off #7 - "Hall sex" - where you pass each other in the hallway and go "F*ck you". "Yeah? Well f*ck you too!"
Ok Anonymous Biologist, try reading up on what happens to rat populations when there is rampant overcrowding and the food supply starts running out.
Rats turn gay.
Makes perfect sense really. If there aren't enough resources available in a controlled population, nature should scale back reproduction. It does this by turning the rats into rump rangers. Of course it's only a percentage, but when rat populations get stressed, they get 'sssuper'.
Our social norms have veered toward preferring men who have less hair on their chests, and therefore less male hormone.
Natural selection, that's all. Move along, nothing to see here.
SOY! SOY! SOY! Soy makes you strong! Strength crushes enemies! SOY!
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Just less people doing physical labor and more doing jobs like protecting IP in court!
Horns are really just a broken halo.
[...]they had one case where a woman was found to have XY chromosomes, and STILL ended up having a child.
Link please. I think I would have heard of a biologically male human giving birth. There are times when an individual can have two X chromosomes and one Y chromosome, but in that case, it usually ends up looking more like a male (they are called "double-X Y males") and is not able to give birth.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Running IE7 on WinVista build 5744, and I don't get any phishing error messages...
Blog
There are correlations between football teams winning the final and more babies being concieved in the winner's hometown right after the victory. I suspect men get a testosterone boost when their team does well.
Now look at how Team America's adventures have gone in the last few years... bitch-slapped by Osama, humiliated in Iraq, lost all their fair-weather friends.... is it any wonder their eyes are lowered and their tails are between their legs?
Software patents delenda est.
Chicks dig it when you read the primary sources.
/ jc.2006-1375v1
BTW, always ask who paid for the study. In this case, it's the National Institutes of Health (not the Testosterone Salesmen of America). That's why they have to post the manuscript free online.
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract
This version published online on October 24, 2006
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, doi:10.1210/jc.2006-1375
A population-level decline in serum testosterone levels in American men
Thomas G Travison*, Andre B Araujo, Amy B O'Donnell, Varant Kupelian, and John B McKinlay
New England Research Institutes, Watertown, MA, USA
Context. Age-specific estimates of mean testosterone (T) concentrations appear to vary by year of observation and by birth cohort, and estimates of longitudinal declines in T typically outstrip cross-sectional decreases. These observations motivate a hypothesis of a population-level decrease in T over calendar time, independent of chronologic aging.
Objective. To establish the magnitude of population-level changes in serum T concentrations, and the degree to which they are explained by secular changes in relative weight and other factors.
Design. A prospective cohort study of health and endocrine functioning in randomly selected men of age 45-79 y. Three data collection waves: baseline (T1: 1987-89) and two follow-ups (T2: 1995-97, T3: 2002-04).
Setting. An observational study of randomly selected men residing in greater Boston, MA, USA.
Participants. Data obtained on 1374, 906 and 489 men at T1, T2, and T3, respectively, totaling 2769 observations taken on 1532 men.
Main outcome measures. Serum total testosterone and calculated bioavailable testosterone.
Results. We observe a substantial age-independent decline in T that does not appear to be attributable to observed changes in explanatory factors, including health and lifestyle characteristics such as smoking and obesity. The estimated population-level declines are greater in magnitude than the cross-sectional declines in T typically associated with age.
Conclusions. These results indicate that recent years have seen a substantial, and as yet unrecognized, age-independent population-level decrease in T in American men, potentially due to birth cohort differences or to health or environmental effects not captured in observed data.
Real nerds read the meeting abstracts:
5th World Congress on the Aging Male, Salzburg, Austria, February 9-12, 2006
http://www.kenes.com/aging/aging5/index.asp
I read long ago that when mothers were exposed to PCBs, it led to male children being more feminine--some symptoms being the base of the penis located closer to the anus, or a smaller penis size overall. It's possible that what we're seeing is the ramifications of PCB buildup in our environment--they take forever to break down.
~Ben
... A group of metrosexual rights activists paraded through the town center chanting, "We're here! We're not queer! But we're close! Get used to it!"
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
There is no biological need for testosterone in the modern urban environment. Promiscuity is at levels that allow any male to "mate" almost constantly, without effort, and without the need to "win" the right to mate from other males. There is no responsibility to raise or even have any offspring to male good provider traits are not necessary to display to females. Life in affluent western countries is so antiseptically "safe" and without risk that aggression has no place and is in fact frowned upon by females.
Transplant this study to a riskier environment and I bet the outcome is reversed.
Is it a coincidence that our processed foods became inundated with huge amounts of corn syrup and soya fillers starting in the 80's?
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
future world news-flash "techno-testosterone deficit, a malady of the 21st century, contributed to problems of the species in reproducing itself without cloning....... luckily still can exercise the brain
Is this what one of the earlier posters meant by pussification?
--- Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity
Ok I didnt see anybody post this. But did it ever occur to you guys and girls that the lack of tes in American men, may be due to the lack of interest in American women. And why would American men lack interest in American women? Well, maybe because they have become too much trouble with today's social norms, attitudes, laws, etc.. Please dont flame me. I get along with American women. But my contact with them is superficial. Well, at least superficial practically all of the time.
let's hope that michael jackson, e.g, captain eo - does not reproduce by cloning
No, the evil cat isn't behind the evil genius. It's usually in front. On the evil genius's lap. Purring. Evilly.
and not a son.
:)
If someone attacks her, she can expect society to defend her pronto.
People like you REALLY make me glad I had a daughter.
And my point about Littleton/Columbine is, the mean streets of urban America actually came to the quiet streets of Colorado, for a day.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Testosterone is controled by the amount of estrogen in the body. When the body detects higher levels of estrogen, it thinks that the testosterone levels have increased and drops the testosterone production, since testosterone breaks down to estrogen and the body thinks that the testosterone levels where too high. There are drugs out there that block estrogen receptors or limit the break down of testosterone into estrogen. But a much simpler solution would be to limit the amount of estrogen consumed.
But "real" isn't the swaggering jock: He is exactly like his counterpart the flamboyant "metrosexual" (how I detest that word -- but it communicates): He is affecting a style of behavior that is not truly his own. I have no respect for him.
Do not be like Napolean, who fought wars to make up for his small stature. It takes the bigger man to show restraint. Master yourself before you seek to master others. Violence is weakness.
Du Toit is correct that the TV-sitcom "man" is weak, hen-pecked, and impotant -- as are too many real life men. But this is not because they do not drink enough beer, and it is not because they do not watch enough football. It is because, chained by guaranteed sex to relationships they do not want, they do not have the strength to hold their principles above their libidos. Restraint is strength.
Take a punch. Stand tall. Do not strike back, but speak clearly: "You will leave now."
Meet a girl. She is drunk, and on top of you. Quietly say, "no." Put her to bed. Close the door behind you.
Whence disappeared "to be a man?" Strength. Respect. Honor. Real men are not pigs. Real men are good men.
as a testicular cancer survivor, I ran on one engine for about 15 years but dropped subnormal last year.
drive dropped to nothing, performance dropped enormously, thinking got very muddy, started having night sweats, reaction speed was low.
Hormone replacement therapy has fixed me-- in fact rolled back the clock to perhaps my 30's. doing well in sports- no night sweats- drive up- thinking clear- wit fast again- performance good- and lust back.
You need to do prostate health stuff tho (saw palmetto, zinc, etc). HRT + prostate cancer currently is bad.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'd love to have the data they collected grouped by race. The more detailed racial subdivison, the better...
O, PUHLEEEASE!
(There. I said it. And probably just lost 100 ml of Testosterone,too!)
But SAY...
Isn't John Wayne's REAL name "Marion"?
I rest my case.
- Eccsad Essemal
- Ecsad Essemal
The Hexadecimal TV-REMOTE!
masturbation
Point being, how would you define 'biological' sex? Is it chromosomes, presence (or absence) of specific reproductive organs, an ability to procreate, a certain hormonal ratio, or a certain genetic sequence?
If you say 'chromosomes', then you've answered wrong: 1 in 25,000 people have chromosomes from the 'wrong' sex, and are sexually functional to varying degrees (there was a story on this on NPR two weeks back, 'Story of the Day' for 2006-10-16 according to my podcast subscription). If you say, 'ability to procreate', then, well, all those men taking viagra would disagree with you. If you say genes (not chromosomes, genes), we still haven't figured out the exact sequence have we.
In the absence of a clear biological definition, I'll happily settle for a mix of psychology and physiology as an answer, if only to clarify things for myself. I'm wondering why you find a construct accepted by well-over half a century by social scientists and psychologists unacceptable.
More than mere navel gazing.
It might if genes can be transmitted horizontally. If you can induce a fertile male to express your genes then you get the benefit of passing on your genes and somebody else raises your offspring.
Why is the prostate so close to the rectum anyway?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
That only works if the fertile male in question has your genes. In other words, if he's your brother. And yes, we are adapted to help our kin survive and reproduce, although I don't see how buggery assists in that endeavor.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
This is natural...as the need for hard work that exercises the body is reduced, men will have less and less testosterone. In 100,000 years and if we have not yet extinguish ourselves, humans will be reduced to blobs mostly occupied by the brain, and physical reproduction will take place in a machine. In a short period of time, caucasian man will be replaced by african and asian man...but in the end, those people will too be assimilated.
A question though: does this reduced level of testosterone affect blacks and hispanics?
It's quite obvious, we need to stop interacting with the French so much. It's rubbing off on us.
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
What??
The alligator dicks are shriveling up / ...
Soon they'll all be through /
Yeah, the alligator dicks are shrinking fast /
And it will happen to you
- David Rovics, "The Alligator Song"
Maddox is going to make this all better. http://alphabetofmanliness.com/
My wife bought a book that used this method to improve the odds of having a boy or girl. We wanted a girl since we already had a boy. Using the formula in the book, she kept me at bay for a week, waited for the magic date, and said "Go". Nine months later, we had a girl. Maybe it worked, or maybe we were just on the right side of the coin flip.
The article is based on data on men in the Boston area. Boston is one town in the northwest US. It is an old industrial town and Boston harbor has a reputation as being horribly polluted. It is not a representative sample of the entire US.
I've been to Boston on business more times than I can remember. There are a lot of things to love about the Boston/Cambridge area. Not to mention that I have 10th and 11th great grandfathers buried just out side Boston. But speaking as someone who grew up in the western US and live in Texas by choice, Boston is one of the most foreign places I visit. I gave up trying to dress correctly for Boston. You have to be a native to understand the rules. (How many shades of black are there?) And, well what can I say, never ever ask for salsa or for a Hawaiian style pizza in Boston.
Boston is its own unique reality and is not representative of the rest of the US.
Stonewolf
That's because your ID is a special case...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
I vote for plastics above anything else, since air pollution has been on the decline in the US (due to de-industrialization and better pollution controls). Could we also possibly be seeing the deleterious effects of radioactive fallout from nuke tests as well as accidents like Chernobyl. This crap peaked in the late 50s/early 60s, so the last two generations - people up to around 45-50 yo - were born after this. And we know that radiation effects often "skip" a generation since genetic damage becomes amplified with each generation. So people born in the 80s might be paying for the sins[1] of their grandfathers in the 50s.
-b.
[1]- Disclaimer: not any kind of religious nut here. But aboveground nuclear testing *was* a sin against nature and the people who were exposed (don't think the fallout was confined to Nevada and Utah - hot spots extended as far as upstate NY and Vermont). In a just world, the people who decided to test nukes above ground would face a firing squad for crimes against mankind.
To quote from this movie...
"Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina!"
HAHA.. I say its all the people pushing "its ok to be gay" idea around. If you look at the general American male society 50 to 60 years ago then look at it today, Its obvious why someone would say this. Men are slowly fading away into sissy men.
Don't goto the barber shop where they run the vacuum though your hair when done. Goto the beauty parlor where you can also get a pedicure!!
He's obviously overcompensating for having a girl's first name and a French last name.
- Jim Danger McManly
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
That just sounds weird to me.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
the technical term is "gender identity," not just "gender." The use of "identity" clearly conveys, to me, that chromosomes are not at issue.
Well, I'm not a biologist but there have been studies which do suggest a biological basis for a homosexuality-overpopulation correlation.
8 10591.html
For example here's a study showing that sons with older brothers are more likely to be homosexual.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/27/1048653
"If Blanchard is right, then clearly, as average family size decreases, so will the incidence of male homosexuality."
It certainly makes sense as a "naturally selected" evolutionary outcome. As a geographical region became overpopulated with humans, those families and communities which produced fewer offspring would be less likely to overpopulate or overwork the land. Those communities whose mothers and daughters produced too many offspring would be less likely to survive into the next generation. So, mothers who were more likely to produce homosexual offspring (at least sons) after her firstborn would present an evolutionary advantage, and her genetics would be thereby "selected" in future generations.
Similarly it would be an evolutionary advantage, as a mother, to still produce able-bodied sons to work for the community, but not necessarily to have all those sons procreating all the time.
Dictionaries are "descriptive" as much as "prescriptive". If the language didn't change, how would we discuss new ideas and new technologies?
/backward/ compatibility with older English usage? Should we all still be speaking Latin or Sanskrit (or whatever)? Where do you want to freeze language?
Ah -- I see, that's the point: if you don't allow new terms into the language, you believe you can prevent change and circumvent discussion about issues for which there are no words to describe (as you don't allow for the new terms). " Brilliant! "
Near as I can tell, even Microsoft has discovered that maintaining compatibility with those stuck in the "DOS-mentality", isn't possible while providing upgraded ways of doing things and attempting to correct insecurities (or flaws, "misunderstandings") present in the older Operating Systems.
If we can't keep 100% compatibility in OS development, how is it logical to expect 100%
I'd like to know how many of them are in ducks.
Of course. Unbeknownst to you he has already set up us the bomb.
For great justice, indeed.
Fucking moron. It's the pussification of america that's RESPONSIBLE for George Bush getting into office. Men can't be men any more, and women, many of whom WANT a strong man around (like daddy used to be when they were little), will vote for a complete dickhead because that's what they psychologically identify with. Strong men are what make strong communities, and make people feel safe. So men need to be involved in their communities (instead of sitting on their asses indoors watching tv/playing video games/writing blogs) and they need to be ALLOWED to be men.
And BTW, the pussification isn't just a MEN problem. Men have turned into women, and women have turned into children. Children have turned into tyrants, because they no longer have any idea what a proper adult behaves like, do to this rampant pussification.
Women in this country are titanic cowards now, terrified of taking any initiative or standing up for themselves with others, relying instead on backstabbing and conniving. Laws written to correct genuine harrassment in the workplace are now being used by cowards to commit harrassment, which I can testify is not fun. I was told by my boss at the time I'd be fired if any more 'inappropriate comments' were made or _even reported_.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
I'll happily bet a week's pay there were never any shootings at any of the schools MacArthur or Patton went to, except maybe accidental shootings on the rifle range at West Point or something. People in those days may have had fights, but they knew what the limits were. Where'd they learn them? From strong, 'testosterone-poisoned' parents who were _involved_in_their_lives_ instead of spending way too many hours working for some dickhead corporation, or sitting in front of the tube, wasted.
Parallel case: rhinos were showing up dead at one of Kenya's national parks. With their horns intact. Not shot. Turns out they were killed in fights with adolescent male elephants. These males were dripping with hormones and secretions from a condition called must (spelled musth on wikipdia). The parks went and got full-sized adult males from another park and let them loose and the younger males immediately went out of must, went into it less often, and had the condition for shorter periods while the adult males were around. And the rhinos quit getting killed.
Our society needs to recognize that local action is the only one that's truly effective for social problems; we can't rely on big government to do everything for us. Government's job is to keep corporations from getting too much power and destroying our lives and environment. (Which obviously they've royally screwed up on lately.)
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
Gosh, where to begin. I've had to become knowledgeable about this in the last 18 months due to being a bit strange biologically, and here's a simplified summary of what I've found out.
It's simple for most of us - we either have 46xy chromosomes, a male body, and a male gender identity, or alternately, 46xx chromosomes, a female body, and a female gender identity. Some of us are Gay, some Lesbian, some straight, some bisexual, some asexual, but that's beside the point.
First, I'll start with the hundreds of different syndromes that collectively are called Intersex Conditions. What is Intersex? A practical definition is that the body is neither wholly male nor female. Some definitions insist that the condition must be present at birth to be "truly" Intersexed, others require both male and female characteristics to be present. Depending on your definition, 1.7% of the populace are Intersexed, but in only 1 in 1000 is it noticeable, and causes a problem.
Now to Genetic Sex. 46xx equals boy, 46xx equals girl, right? Not necessarily. From Nature :
See what I mean? Then there's conditions like Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, where a 46xy girl results. For real biological weirdness, look at 5-alpha-reductase deficiency (5ARD) syndrome, where a child who appears to be a girl until puberty becomes a boy afterwards.
I say "girl" and "boy" because that's what they look like externally.
But gender - or gender identity if you like - appears to be a consequence of brain morphology. Just as there are Intersex conditions that can give people cross-gendered genitalia and secondary sex characteristics, it's possible to have a cross-gendered brain. Most are familar with how exposure to the drug Thalidomide causes foetal deformity of the limbs - though many have limb deformities without exposure. But few are aware of the effect of the drug DiEthylStilEstrol, a drug commonly administered to pregnant women in the 50s, 60s and 70s. A 5 year study of DES-sons showed that 1 in 5 had some degree of Gender Dysphoria - basically, they thought like girls, they had girls emotions, and a male body felt terribly uncomfortable to them. Their brains were female, and we now know from dynamic MRI scans, autopsies, and examination of individual brain cells that male and female brains are far more different that we'd believed even ten years ago.
So in addition to the obviously Intersexed, there's the people who have Congenital Neurological Intersex, or Harry Benjamin's Syndrome, or Transsexuality.
How and why do I know all this? I had one of the really odd conditions. Until age 47, I was thought to be a male with partial androgen insensitivity, slight hypogonadism. Then weird stuff happened, and my body rapidly feminised - something I'd dreamed of but knew was medically impossible. Turns out it's not, I know 7 other cases now of women with HBS who have spontaneously feminised between age 40 and 55. There's at least 3 different mechanisms that can cause it. Being a Geek Girl, I blogged about it as it happened, of course.
Neither Gender nor Sex are easy things to determine for a tiny minority of
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
I love watching guys like that talk their big game.
You hardly ever see them showing up to do anything that actually counts. Except, of course, getting your change wrong at the gas station.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Strong men have been obviously despised enough that they're being pushed aside by history.
As for women... thanks for the misogyny. They've turned into cowards and children, eh? I bet you definitely don't get laid.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Your post reads like a line straight out of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe does Talladega Nights"...
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Wow, that's disturbing. Not so much the rabbit restrainer, but the idea that every boy scout and college kid in the country is being regularly dosed with synthetic estrogen.
Creepy.