Smart Men, Foolish Choices: Testosterone Rules?

I have become increasingly aware of how little I understand men -- how they operate, what drives them. 'You have no idea how much men are led by their...' my very significant other said to me at the dinner table (not for the first time). But this time, it was about John Edwards' choices: while his wife fought cancer, he embraced his political ('you look mahvelous') self and his narcissism-enabling, 'I can make you feel even better about yourself than you already do' been there-done that lover.

Okay, I understand that I don't understand. I learned awhile back -- even before it became a book and cliche -- that 'men are from Mars'. But what I don't get is why men being driven by sexual joneses in their lives to self-destructive behavior that nukes their families and their presidential careers has not been even discussed a tenth as much as women's hormonal cycles.

When I was starting my film/writing career, there were always the jokes when women would express themselves -- 'is it that time of the month?' etc. Often, these 'difficult women' would end up without paychecks. I know cases where 'difficult women' were told their jobs had terminated right when their pregnancies did --a s they gave birth, the call would come from the CEO: 'You're fired'. But when men in power flirted and often promoted attractive, usually younger women, there was almost never the comparable commentary ('his hormones are influencing his behavior'). In fact, men's testosterone has often been used as a double-edged (pardon the expression) sword: the thinking goes: yeah, sure men are ruled and driven by their sexual drive but that's what got us where we are, keeps the human race procreating and our CEOs/political (mostly male) leaders on their game. That argument enables men in power, letting them have their hormonal self-indulgence and well, eat it too.

So what about giving women's hormones equal time? Maybe PMS and menopause fortify women, enable them to quickly handle changing moods of foreign leaders, shifting emotional tides of the times. Men think with their sex and that supposedly makes them prepared for war, but how 'bout women's maternal instinct and nurturing preparing them for peace and working things out?

I think of male U.S. Presidents (sadly, a redundancy to date). I think of the reckless behavior of JFK sharing a lover with a mob boss, of Bill Clinton acting like the Oval Office was a school library where it'd be fun to sneak in some no-no sophomoric sex, of Presidential hopefuls Gary Hart and John Edwards blowing their Presidential and save the poor and world hopes on well, blowing their own horns.

This testosterone is supposed to be leader-friendly, but why are women's emotionally connection-seeking hormones dismissed as less than? Why is a woman under the hormonal influence seen as difficult, when a man surging with testosterone determined strong and electable? Both genders are influenced by raging hormones, or lack thereof.

I understand that no one is perfect. XY and XX have hormone-induced wins and losses. I look forward to seeing a woman leader strut her hormonal stuff in the big leagues with the same level of tolerance and appreciation that has been given to the male political peacocks.

Comments

[DAE]

We're animals, literally. We are members of the Order Primates in the Class Mammalia and act accordingly. It's nothing to get upset about. Just watch any nature documentary on chimpanzees and you'll understand. Its the religious nitwits who would deny our evolutionary heritage and make us out to have been made in the image of god (whatever that may be) who have led us astray. We are a part of nature, not apart from nature.

[dutchgirl55]

YES! Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!!!

I've also noticed that as they get older, and the testosterone fades, a lot of men become aggressive and hostile, prone to make rash decisions out of anger or misplaced male ego. That's why I won't vote for McCain...I don't trust this meek, "I'm your friend, my friend" posing, and then acting like the vicious attack ads have nothing to do with him.

Nope, give me Obama's honest reflection and sincere desire to help the country get out of this mess the Republicans have gotten us into.

[BADEN]

As an old woman, married 30 years to my soulmate who I lived with for 7 "just to make sure", I can state these facts about men:

They are LINEAR
They are ruled by their glans and their cajones and their testosterone.

They think of EVERYTHING from a sex-driven angle. NOTHING - NOT EVEN ACCOUNTING is removed from this fact.

Their minds WANDER because they are SOAKED in sexual-oriented commercials/innuendos/just their own testosterone-enabled fantasies.

And, finally - THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY.

They do not want it to change.
It's FUN...it FEELS GOOD...it's like LIVING IN AN ADULT DISNEYLAND 24/7.

When the day's done, and they find their way home......it ain't because of FEALTY, or LOVING MOMENTS.....it's because it's the ONE place everyone understands their selfish "needs" and allows them to be that person.

Men are the weakest link of humanity.

And, I LOVE my man....but I know what I am dealing with.

A little boy inna man's body who doesn't WANT to grow up and is perfectly happy the whole world enables his little fantasy.

All because 6 inches of very vulnerable flesh hangs outside the body.
Damn.

PS: Viagra/Cialis BANNED from this household, thankyewverymuch.
t

[woodsywizz]

This may be your experience, but that does not make it 'true'.

I enjoy every part of being in love, including the groady bits (garbage, dishes, diapers, laundry).

To me, loving behavior (hand-holding, foot-rubs, shopping together) make sex all the better when it transpires. And it's always about much more than short fleshy appendages.

So your generalizations aren't really true, are they?

[bronceye]

Only in America can this be a career ender. Our marriages last less than 7 yrs. and we get upset when someone else gets laid. Monogamy is not normal for the way that God made us. Marriage is a less than 1000 yr. old notion that statistically doesn't work. Women don't need protection, anymore. Men should be freed from this unnatural marriage bond. It's only for legal, sanctioned sex or profit. People who have no children should definitely not be married.

[JennyJay]

I have decided that God gave males so much testosterone - to keep the planet from being over populated. Male animals eat their young, and no matter how civilized, human males still love war and killing. Can you even begin to imagine how many people would be on this earth if the males, throughout history, had not killed off so many people? Hitler alone, killed over 11 million human beings. Maybe this is all part of "nature's big plan" to keep balance on the planet.
And they may wear suits and ties and look civilized, but so many voted to kill innocent people, men, women AND CHILDREN in a place called Iraq.
It is what it is -- testosterone -- creates new life, and at the same time - IS A KILLING MACHINE.

[Fabienne]

There are female animals that eat their young also.

[standard]

" . . . how 'bout women's maternal instinct and nurturing . . . ? "

Do women play no role in and have no responsibility for extra-marital affairs? Are "younger women" no less responsible than older women's cheating husbands? How does maternal instinct and nurturing enter into that? It doesn't. Some women are just as driven by sex as most men evidently are. The "other woman" is a woman, too.

[DryBrook]

Thinking that one's audience approves infidelity in order to explain why the audience is wrong and shameful is a questionable rhetorical tact.

"But what I don't get is why men being driven by sexual joneses in their lives to self-destructive behavior that nukes their families and their presidential careers has not been even discussed a tenth as much as women's hormonal cycles."

1. The premise is incorrect. Historically, there is much more literature on men cheating than on menstruation. (Somewhat tragically, most of the literature on women's hormonal cycles is less than 30 years old.)

2. It's progress that menstrual cycles are now discussed so openly -- women are talking the shame out of menstruation. So long as personal and family destruction is shameful, you should expect secrecy about infidelity. Should everyone talk about cheating until it, too, isn't shameful?

"Why is a woman under the hormonal influence seen as difficult, when a man surging with testosterone determined strong and electable?"

1. Men who cheat are not seen as electable -- not Edwards, Fossella, nor Hart. (Though, Clinton '96 is a counterpoint.)

2. Women merely under the hormonal influence aren't seen as difficult. Most women behave normally throughout most of their cycles. People do not see that a woman is about to menstruate and assume that she will become difficult.

3. Instead, complain about the occasions when women who are merely assertive and competitive are seen as hormonal.

[ESerafina42]

However, the fact that men are driven by their hormones ISN'T used (except by the occasional woman trying to make a point, like this writer) to tar ALL men with the same brush and deny men as a whole the right to participate fully in civic or business life. I think her main point is that if it's ridiculous to do that with men, it's every bit as ridiculous to do it with women.

[luziannagirl]

In my 50-something years, it's been my experience that men are given far more to making rash, emotional, and often poor decisions than are women. Women are often more level-headed in tight situations than are men, too.

Yet we don't refer to men as "hysterical".

Give me a non-venomous rat snake used to being handled, and my choice of presentation audiences: either a group of high-heeled female office workers, or a group of boot-clad outdoorsmen.

I'll take the lady office workers any day.

[mergina]

BECAUSE TESTOSTERONE IS THE EVIL HORMONE. EVIL. VIOLENT. SEXUALLY ADDICTIVE. UNCARING. FOOLISH. CHILDISH. That my dear is testosterone.

Now ESTROGEN on the other hand IS PURE, TENDER, SEXUAL, CARING, WISE, COMPASSIONATE, AND clearly the superior hormone in every respect.

NOW GO TO WAR, OR GO USE YOUR TOOLS, OR JUST PLAIN GO TO HELL TESTOSTERONIES!

[whatsthatsound]

I think this is the funniest thing I have read on Huffpo in a long time. Except I'm not sure that it's a joke.
Aw, what the hell. Thanks for the laugh either way, Mergina.

[mike53]

"Now ESTROGEN on the other hand IS PURE, TENDER, SEXUAL, CARING, WISE, COMPASSIONATE, AND clearly the superior hormone in every respect."

As a married man I dispute that.

[customgreen]

It takes two to tango. The women who are in league with the wandering men are just as bad. They can't have affairs without someone to have them with.

[ESerafina42]

Ah, but those women are castigated as tarts or bimbos. (Although Monica Lewinsky has a master's degree in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics, so she can't be that dumb, at least in an intellectual sense.) The men on whose arms they appear, or who (ahem, John McCain, Newt Gingrich) dump their wives for them, are looked up to, admired, and/or seen as studs.

[Chatto]

Actually, most human behavior is governed by a complex set of factors -- certainly hormones play a part, but so does genetic make-up. An individual with a strong manic drive (to use layperson's language) is far more likely to run for elected office and far more likely to make impulsive judgments. If this person has a high libido, then some of those judgments may end up being made regarding sexual behavior.

Americans, especially, like to fixate on the morality of individuals, without accepting that morality -- like any other human gauge of behavior -- is dependent upon context. A person born with a low libido and depressive ideation is far less likely to engage in aggressive sexual behavior -- regardless of any moral issues involved.

[nunzia]

Look closely at those chromosomes.
Every Y is a broken, unfinished, defective X.
Hence, the male of the species.

While the Xs were busy birthing, feeding , carrying and protecting the babies of the species, the Ys were gathering together making noise, beating their chests and more importantly, making the rules.
Hence that rule.

[woodsywizz]

Recent genetic studies show that the 'Y' chromosome has a great deal more complexity than previously thought.

The same studies show the second 'X' chromosome is not redundant to the first. It too is interestingly diverse.

It is fun, of course, to make witty, biting comments.

[sparkandy]

I like your theory that women's shifting hormonal states gives them the flexibility to deal with the complicated world we live in. And the truth is, we've always run the world anyway. We just let men think they were running things, when we were actually running the men who thought they were running things. It's time for us to just get out there and take our rightful place.

[hippynanainblingland]

sparkandy:

A nice little fantasy, that women have always run the world anyway... if so, we, then, invented business models, governments, prohibitions against abortion and birth control, religions, competitions of all kinds, from games to sports to war, economic hierarchies which leave so many of us so poor and desperate that we turn to prostitution to support ourselves, marriage... yes, marriage, let's not forget marriage, the ulimate business arrangement!!!!

No, Sister, I tend to agree more with the poster above you, nunzia, who in my opinion, gets it right: MEN created the rules, MEN enforce them, and MEN hold most of the positions of power... to the detriment of peace.

Your last statement, though, that it's time for us to just get out there and take our rightful place, is more than welcome, and correct.

[luziannagirl]

Setting aside for a moment the likelihood that no American woman, whether she "runs" her man or just runs herself ragged trying to keep her and her family's finanial heads above water, would CHOOSE to make 70-something cents for every dollar a man makes , tell me, sparkandy, what woman or group of women is behind the brutal, sadistic "Janjaweed" bands of armed men and boys terrorizing rural communities across northern Africa?

What woman or women inspire the use of mass rape as a tool for economic , political or military gain?

What woman or women engineered the wholesale mutilating, kidnapping, sexual enslavement and murdering of women and girls, for any reason?

Of boys and men, for that matter? Of anyone?

I mean, when do women have TIME for it, for one thing?

The only participation women have had in many if not virtually all of the world's atrocities is that a woman (or girl) gave birth to the men who committed them. If women did more than simply enable men to run the world, there would have been no Hitler, no Janjaweed, no Pinochet, no George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney.

You are right about one thing, though. It's time for us to get out there and kick butt, before the men send all of us and the entire planet to hell in a stolen handbag.

[jgaines7]

Me, I was no longer under hormonal influence at the age of 30. The urge to have sex with just about every woman that I saw was gone, and it was great. I could finally make better life decisions. I now recommend that men not marry before 30. Every man is different, but 30 is when I developed a manageable sex drive. When it comes to men John Edwards', or President Clinton's age, I think it's being under the influence of power that causes them to have lapses in judgement, not testosterone. Anyway, each individual should have the ability to control their urges or influences, no matter how strong.

[Romeover]

God gave women PMS so they could experience, once a month, how men feel every day.