You know what? You can take your damn testosterone and shove it. A “science” experiment at Northwestern University, (reported in the
New York Times
of Sept 18) has confirmed that having kids reduces men’s testosterone levels. The author interviews Jewish humorists (Adam Mansbach and AJ Jacobs) as well as several men who–before fatherhood–repaired cars, drank at tailgate parties and hunted. To the author, Alex Williams, this all boils down to one thing: a loss of testosterone meant a loss of manliness.
Well, he makes that claim for the majority of the piece. In the last two paragraphs, Williams retracts most of his assertions before ending with a subject who is confidently male because he “bow-hunts, fishes, plays hockey and used a chainsaw just hours ago.”
Well, I’m glad we’ve moved on from 20th century stereotypes of Jewish effeminacy and bullshit macho caricatures of what constitutes “manliness.”
And I’m glad that such progressive ideas are being espoused by the New York Times. “Science” also shows that falling in love causes a drop in the production of testosterone, so heaven forbid any “real men” should do that. We might be so glassy eyed with love we might forget to skin the buck that we’d just wrassled to the ground with our bare hands and killed with the bowie knife tucked into our greasy mechanic’s overalls.
Really.
For what, in the end, has testosterone ever done for us fathers? OK so it’s made us muscular and well-endowed, but at the cost of becoming bald up top, hairy everywhere else, prone to testicular cancer, selfish and aggressive. It’s already sounding like an Al Chayt prayer. “Please forgive me for the sins committed because of testosterone.”
Now Macbeth is no role model (and, famously, no father) but he was right when he said: “I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.” Once you start defining manliness by extremes and stereotypes you are in danger of behaving like an animal or a machine. What a sad world it would be where drawing, skipping, or putting your daughter’s hair into pigtails is inherently unmanly.
If manliness is measured by testosterone levels, ability with a firearm, or size of penis please cancel my subscription to the New York Times and sign me up to the NRA’s free Swedish Pump offer.
Or maybe that’s just my testosterone speaking.
