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posted Monday July 21, 2008 03:05pm EDT

Men: Funny Little Testosterone Factories

John Scalzi

An important milestone: Tor.com's first LOLcatIn the category of things we already knew but it's interesting to have scientific proof for: (Young) men respond hormonally to (young) women almost immediately -- even ones they aren't particularly interested in:

Research involving a group of male students found that their levels of the hormone testosterone increased to the same extent whether they were talking to a young woman they found attractive – or to one they didn't fancy much at all.

After 300 seconds alone in the same room as a woman they had never met before, and in some cases did not find particularly attractive, the men's testosterone levels of the hormone had shot up by an average of around eight per cent.

The study's authors believe the rise in testosterone may be an automatic and unconscious reaction that has evolved in man when faced with a woman, to prepare him for possible mating opportunities.

Essentially, this is why you so very infrequently hear young men say "not if she were the last woman on Earth." Their minds are made up on that score even before the men know their minds are made up. 

Mind you, this is one of those studies determined to create more questions than it answers. My questions: Do young women have the same sort of immediate hormonal response (and if so, is it triggered by the men attempting to act more "manly" as hormones steep through their systems)? Do gay men have the same hormonal response to women as straight men and/or do they have the same hormonal response to men and straight men do to women? And also, how long before some opportunistic lawyer tries to argue in front of a jury that a flush of hormones made his client attempt something stupid and criminal against a woman? Because you know one will. Grumble.

Being a guy, the finding of this study makes sense to me; I do notice that my internal reaction to meeting a new woman is ever-so-slightly different than to meeting a new guy. Of course, the hallmark of being civilized is keeping your involuntary hormonal reactions to yourself. Yes, yes. It's a skill to have, my friends.

 

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15 comments
Jeffrey Richard
Pteryxx Hyperion
2.  Pteryxx
VIEW ALL BY · Monday July 21, 2008 12:50pm EDT
Heh, now I want to know about the hormone response in gay men also; and what about the response of straight men to a convincing female mimic, say a male in drag?

Testosterone's also associated with social rank, so an increase in confidence-associated postural cues might be intended to intimidate other nearby males, not (just) impress the woman.
karen marie
3.  karen marie
Monday July 21, 2008 01:01pm EDT
i heard a story on npr several years ago (possibly more) about a study that had been done subjecting women to the body odors of a variety of different men. women were most attracted to men who smelled similar to their father.
Jeffrey Richard
4.  neutronjockey
VIEW ALL BY · Monday July 21, 2008 01:02pm EDT
Pteryxx, you'll be happy to know that modern science is catching up with what the rest of us already know: people are born gay (okay, not all people but probably 80/20 genetic/environmental -Pareto-ish statistic). So neurological hard-wiring leads me to think same neurochemical response structure.
karen marie
5.  karen marie
Monday July 21, 2008 01:02pm EDT
duh, with such a short comment thread, you'd think i would have noticed the comment above with better info than i had.
Jeffrey Richard
6.  neutronjockey
VIEW ALL BY · Monday July 21, 2008 01:08pm EDT
Karen, you mean you can actually keep up with the pace of this machine gone mad? It's frantic I tell ya!
karen marie
7.  Mike Brotherton
Monday July 21, 2008 01:51pm EDT
I appreciate especially your last point, John. Too many people regard research like this as justification for their actions without realizing the distinction you just made. Ben Stein and others of his ilk, for instance, make the fallacious case that the theory of evolution brought about the holocaust, which isn't true by any stretch of the imagination and moreover depends on an incorrect equating of biological evolution and the misapplication of Social Darwinism. Understanding ourselves and how we work is valuable for creating explanations at best, but an explanation is only that, if that, and usually explains less than people think and rarely justifies behavior or policy. Just because something is "natural" doesn't make it "right."

And what's natural anyway? It's totally natural for humans to build airplanes to fly and to wear clothes and to be compassionate. It's totally natural for us to think before we act. We're moral beings who decide how we're going to conduct ourselves.
paul wallich
8.  paulw
VIEW ALL BY · Monday July 21, 2008 02:22pm EDT
I'd be interested in seeing whether this research held true in a wider setting. All we know is that the same increase didn't happen when the young men were exposed to other young men. But we don't know about any population other than undergrads in Holland willing to take part in a psych experiment, and we don't even know about their response to women other than the "moderately attractive" ones picked out by the experimenters. (Remember that young men are also among the cruelest raters of young women, so the ratings have to be taken with salt.)

If you got the same result with women of races and body types far from the attractive norm for the subjects, that would at least validate this tiny slice.
Pteryxx Hyperion
9.  Pteryxx
VIEW ALL BY · Monday July 21, 2008 02:45pm EDT
Replying to Neutronjockey: Being born gay doesn't necessarily imply hormone responses similar to straight males. In at least one rather major life situation, quite the opposite ; ) A straight man has 1) a male body and 2) an attraction to women. A gay man has only one of those two factors in common. The same experiment on gay males could show that the testosterone peak is a) associated with potential sex partners, or b) associated with women, therefore potential breeding partners. Those classifications happen to be the same for straight men, but not for gay men. Or the results could be something else entirely.

The article that you linked, by the way, is discussing the differences between the neurological wiring of gay and straight men, not the similarities. From the article:

"MRI and PET scan studies are showing remarkable similarities between the brains of gay men and straight women, and between those of lesbians and straight men."
Jeffrey Richard
10.  neutronjockey
VIEW ALL BY · Monday July 21, 2008 03:33pm EDT
Pteryxx, re-read my comment. While not completely and clearly stated--- I'm agreeing with the article. I was referencing and further stated that because of morphological differences in neural structures I'm assuming an equal change in neurochemical responses.

But thanks for clarifying my weekly written response. It apparently needed it.
Jeffrey Richard
11.  neutronjockey
VIEW ALL BY · Monday July 21, 2008 03:39pm EDT
...and as an immediately apology, I've been up for over 36 hours --- which is affecting my typing and ability to think clear. So I'll bow out from here. ;)

No offense meant.
Christopher Davis
12.  ckd
VIEW ALL BY · Monday July 21, 2008 10:32pm EDT
Mike Brotherton:
It's totally natural for humans to build airplanes to fly and to wear clothes and to be compassionate.
Which naturally brings to mind the punchline from Larry Niven's Draco Tavern story "Table Manners: A Folk Tale".

(Hey, wouldn't it be nice to have comment numbers we could refer to?)
Ronald Hobbs
13.  dustrider
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday July 22, 2008 05:21am EDT
@neutronjockey & Pteryxx,
Interesting discussion, though it's like walking on eggshells with the oppertunity to give offence to both sides.

The article neautronjockey links to doesn't go into enough detail but it seems like it's still scientists trying to explain away an anomaly. Gay men are like women and lesbians are like men, look their brains have the same minute hemispherical differences.

I get annoyed by people always wanting to fit things into their preconceptions, they put effeminate gay men in the same box as women and assume that they must have a more "manly" partner. Or they assume that there must always be a masculine lesbian in a couple because someone has to be "the man".

Just because it does happen a lot, most of (but by no means all) the lesbian couples I know do have a masculine partner, doesn't mean that they are "men traped in women's bodies", that last bit is rationalising, and it's harmful because it encourages the thought that there's something "wrong" about it. And that scares me.

Whenever science starts talking about how homosexuals are similar to heteroseuals, I worry that it's only a matter of time until they start talking about "fixing" the difference.
Jeffrey Richard
14.  neutronjockey
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday July 22, 2008 08:22am EDT
dustrider --- don't feel the need to walk on eggshells. I'm open to other people's opinions. I've always personally felt that gay men/women are genetically gay as opposed to "something in their lives made them that way."

While certainly there are gay men and women who have had life events which influenced their sexuality; I'm not denying that.

The article, and what that study is showing us is that yes gay men and straight women share similar neurological make-up; science is not saying gay men are just women trapped in men's bodies. I believe that statement would fall under gender identity and not sexual identity.

Whenever science starts talking about how homosexuals are similar to heteroseuals, I worry that it's only a matter of time until they start talking about "fixing" the difference.


Absolutely. While I look at that study as proof of what I've believed all along, there are some people who have (and there will always be) people that view homosexuality as a disease and attempt to find a 'cure' for the condition.

You concern is valid --- history lends itself to your case.
karen marie
15.  Steve Buchheit
Tuesday July 22, 2008 10:48am EDT
Well, this article only confirms what we all knew back in the 80s and watching "When Harry Met Sally".

Sally: "So a man could be friends with a woman he finds un-attractive."

Harry: "No, you pretty much want to nail them too."
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