The Masculine Mystique of T

I have no clue whether anything in this article is true or false. Only that people might have used Testosterone to justify male dominance. Not saying it is false, but like what is the evidence? I just see vague anecdotes and personal opinions from people with no scientific training.

I admit, it did get me to think and I am very curious what the answer is.

Since she quotes Cordelia Fine approvingly, here's an amusing review from a slightly different perspective:

https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/old-t-rex/

https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/steroids-vs-natural/

> no one individual gets to choose precisely what changes it produces. As one friend who had started T said to me, “Let me know if you find a way to get the big muscles and keep the head hair!

Actually, we know. DHT causes the male pattern baldness. The conversion from T to DHT by 5 alpha reductase can be blocked by drugs.

We don't have good topicals or selective drugs yet, so people complain about the side effects of current drugs like finasteride. But it's not like we are talking of a huge scientific unknown, or if it is impossible to do that is described.

I began working out when I was 13. After college post 2010 I experimented with Testosterone, from 200mg a week to 600mg a week. It’s a whole underground culture.

My own experiences were exactly like the stereotype— increased libido, increased muscle mass, increase strength, increase mood swings. The sex drive is palpable. It’s ferocoiously potent, increasing sexual stamina, confidence, euphoric feelings of dominance.

I have coached many pupils in the realm of Testosterone injection. Every single one has experienced the same side effects.

I want to stress something. The endocrine system is vastly complex. Every hormone influences a cascade of other hormones. For this reason, maintaining health (strenuous exercise and a sound diet) is essential for ensuring those side effects are predictable.

For example, when testosterone levels are high, the body naturally wants to convert excess testosterone to other hormones— namely estrogen.

High estrogen can cause all sorts of side effects, including bloat, fat gain, mood swings, acne, and gynomastia. (Think what happens when a woman gets her monthly period... her body is flush with estrogen, and all the accompanying side effects).

To remedy this, you take estrogen blockers. Or AI’s (aromatase inhibitors, which is the enzyme catalyst responsible for converting T into E).

However, some estrogen is good. It is what causes a lot of that well-being and euphoria. Block all estrogen and energy levels plummet.

This is just one. There is DHT, or di-hydro-testosterone, which is 10x more androgenic than testosterone. There is cortisol. There is insulin. There are effects on HGH levels.

The list of cascading influences on the endocrine system is complex.

What else effects hormones? Exercise- circulation and digestion.

Diet. What food you consume effects your sugar levels, which effect your hormones. Your fat and cholesterol consumption affects your hormones. (Cholesterol is the base fat molecule that the body uses to manufacture all other fat based hormones. Without it, hormone levels are depressed, and the endocrine system functions sub optimally).

I say all this because it’s complex.

Human organisms are complex.

If you don’t understand or appreciate the complexity, you’ll ascribe cause where it’s undue.

There is no magic bullet.

We are a complex organism.

I will say, however, that testosterone is powerful.

I am no longer on it today, and I look back and think about how powerfully it affected me psychologically, physically, and emotionally. It definitely can change your life, and you can get addicted to that change. It’s empowering.

However, I felt no effects of the hormone. It did not solve the original problem - my libido was flat, my erections still adequate but no more energized than before, my intercourse still failing to stimulate me to orgasm. But I had also read the literature ahead of time and had come with expectations of many other side-effects that sounded great: the obvious muscle and strength effects, increased alertness or energy, decreased fat percentage. It seemed like everything that could be improved, was! (Except infertility and a chance to grow boobs in an ironic twist of stereotypes.) But I didn't see any of those effects - my numbers at the gym were still unremarkable, I still sometimes felt tired for no reason, my body looked the same. As far as I could tell, I was on placebo - except the bloodwork confirmed its effects. (I think I experienced more spontaneous nighttime erections, something that I only naturally got sporadically and considered more of a nuisance than a benefit.)

This was extremely disheartening. I stopped taking it after half a year when my relationship died in large part due to lack of good sex.

I say this mostly because all accounts of TRT seem to skew towards the miraculous. Like all things, its effects vary from person to person. Had I had tempered expectations, maybe I would not have been so discouraged. Maybe I would have tried alternative approaches to solving my problems. I don't know.

Some years later, I finally had satisfying sex. No medication involved, just a little persistence and finding the right person. I still struggle with not climaxing every time and sometimes am fantasizing that I could go back onto T and fix that. Maybe I'll try it again with expectations for a small, incremental improvement. Or maybe not.

So while this article is being met with a fairly negative reception in this comments, I actually found it a breath of fresh air. Had I read it ahead of time, I might have had more realistic expectations! I didn't really read it as giving a stamp of approval to attempts to over-state the sociological and gender studies points of view (it seems fairly critical of those, opting more to just say that it was too complex a hormone to sum up as a miraculously masculine molecule). Those using it to reshape society seem to be criticized by the article as possibly relying mostly on placebo effects, on society's expectations for what testosterone should do, ironically.

Also, the literature on TRT is surprisingly limited. I thought that young males with below normal levels, as one of the most approved recipients of TRT, would have been a large portion of the studies. Instead, I struggled to find ones that studied my cohort. Older men with dropping T levels (which is entirely normal) were often the subjects, presumably because that's where the money is these days. I worry also that the increasing use of it in young transgender people may be equally poorly studied.