Castrating rapists
AunTEE
>
>Charles Fiterman <c...@geodesic.com> writes:
>
>
>>Lets suppose PC was right. There is a strong connection between
>>testosterone and violence.
>
>
>Actually the links are not clear cut. There is evidence that low
>status males have lower testosterone levels than high status and
>low status males are involved in most street crime. A study which
>recently made the wires came up with claims that men with high
>testosterone are likely to be more confident and calm.
Ya know, I read that report! I could not believe it.. Additionally, I
think they found that high levels of estrogen tend to make wimmin bitchy.
Hmmmmmm... Go figure!
>Reports of eunuchs kept in various harems indicate that they were often
>a bickering nasty lot.
Hehehehe.. I wonder why!
Martina
AunTEE
>
>Charles Fiterman <c...@geodesic.com> writes:
>
>
>>Lets suppose PC was right. There is a strong connection between
>>testosterone and violence.
>
>
>Actually the links are not clear cut. There is evidence that low
>status males have lower testosterone levels than high status and
>low status males are involved in most street crime. A study which
>recently made the wires came up with claims that men with high
>testosterone are likely to be more confident and calm.
And..wouldn't ya know it..I just dug the article up dealing with that
particular study.. Must be my lucky day!!
"Fortunately, we've got enough ammunition to keep the war between the
sexes going indefinitely, and it's a good thing, too, because the latest
scientific research undermines one of our most effective conventional
weapons.
A woman can no longer confornt a passive suitor with the withering
assertion that he needs a wee mite more testosterone to successfully woo
her. His wimpery, in fact, may be the result of too much testosterone.
Nor can she tell a muscle-bound gentleman caller with extra-crispy chest
hair creeping from his shirt collar--embracing her with a cave man's
machsim--that he's suffering from too much testosterone. he may be
lacking in the devilish stuff.
Gone are the descriptive cliches of testosterone-driven prise fighters,
fighter pilots and football players. In their place are high-testosterone
men who are more likely to be friendly, happy and calm. Someone you could
take home to meet your mother (if not your father).
If this osunds like a version of "Al in Wonderland," where up is down, in
is out adn square pegs fit round holes, maybe it is. or maybe it's merely
the latest tehory destroyed by testosterone-meddling scientists.
When 54 men, diagnosed as "hypergonadal" and also suffering from a
testosterone deficiency, received supplments of teh male hormone, thei
rmoods changed from aggressive irritation and edginess to mellow-fellow
feelings of friendliness and optimism--exactly the opposite of what the
scientists expected. Testosterone, they discovered is user-friendly.
"Every parameter we looked at went in the same direction," Christina Wang
of the University of California at Los Angeles told the New York Times of
her research. "The positive mood increased, the negative mood decreased."
Other scientists have turned up similar evidence revealing that
supplmental testosterone cured rather than created feelings of testiness
and aggression: Give that hairy brute testosterone candy and he'll be
eating out of your hand."
Science also has some surprises for women. Supplemental estrogen that
women sometimes take to tolerate life after hot flashes cool actually may
precipitate aggressiveness. We have this from learned papers presented to
the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society. No longer can a middle-aged
husband blame out-of-control feminism for his wife's increased
assertiveness.
These estrogen experiments are fairly primitive and, truth to tell, the
initial findings are based upon studies with mice. Normal male mice,
we're told by researchers at Rockefeller Univeristy in New York and the
National Institutes of Health, do not ordinarily wander across open
fields as female mice do. They prefer to skulk along borders (Isn't that
like a male mouse?) But deprive them of the estrogen receptior and they
walk freely through field and meadow, just like nice female mice.
Complicated explanations don't concern us here, but we can conclude that
our favorite hormonal myths may go the way of peni senvy and the Oedipal
complex. Ifa girl mouse falls in love with an estrogen-deprived male
mouse, she'll simply have to teach him how to skulk.
The medical profession, which has not always been kind to women, is
trying to catch up and make up. Doctors have recently discovered a way to
relieve the tension and irritabiility of premenstrual syndrome, or PMS,
that monthly affliction of one in 25 women. That's the good news. Maybe.
Doctors now prescribe Prozac for PMS. Prozac is the miracle
antidepressant that turns depression into optimism and anxiety into calm.
But that raises certain questions. If a woman can't work into a rage at
least once a month, her man will get away with murder. Imagine a man
hearing lines like these:
"Forget my birthday?? Oh, that was adorable of you not to remind me that
I'm getting older."
"Oh, you're working late at the office again?? Well, you're so generous
to work so hard for your family."
"You want to play ina golf tournament in Florida? On our anniversary?
Without me? Aren't you clever to see that I needed time and space for
myself, alone, at home, in Washington, in February."
Without PMS who can we blame for our rages but ourselves. That's
unilateral disarmament. better to give the guy the Prozac and let the
lady rage. he'll like her all the better for it. Fair is fair."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suzanne Fields, "Latest Scientific Findings Add Ammo to War Between
Sexes," The Washington Times, pg. 40 (Insight)