Medical studies have shown a somewhat worrying trend especially in the richest western countries of the average testosterone levels in men dropping below what's considered normal over the last few decades.
This is not just a laughing matter, or a matter of "oh noes, men are less masculine!" It's actually a health problem. As with almost everything else, too much or too little of a particular bodily function can have health consequences, as well as all kinds of other consequences. Both too much testosterone production as well as too little can have negative health effects on men, and the average levels especially in the west are approaching those "too little" levels.
I am in no way a medical expert, nor have I done any research on what kind of medical research has been done and published, but it is my understanding that for the most part the reasons behind this are unclear.
I would like to present a serious hypothesis. This is 100% my personal guess, of course, but I think it could have merit:
The main reason for this is psychology, caused by how men are raised in modern society, in western culture.
The brain can have a great influence in all bodily functions. Things like stress and depression can have surprisingly strong effects on our body, on things that we wouldn't even think are controlled by our higher brain functions and just happen somehow automatically.
For several decades now boys have been raised to behave in "less masculine" ways, to be ashamed of their masculine nature, and to repress themselves. Quite ironically, the whole idea of teaching boys that it's ok to show emotion, it's ok to cry, it's ok to show vulnerability... has had the exact opposite effect: It's teaching boys to repress their emotions and their natural tendencies, rather than "open up". It teaches boys to be ashamed of their boisterous and raunchy nature, and to deliberately tone it down and repress it and restraint themselves.
Boys and men are not allowed to be who they really are, and act how they really feel. By inculcating into them that they need to act more feminine and less masculine, that they need to "open up" and "show their feelings", they actually learn to repress their actual feelings, and bottle them in. When a boy grows up in this kind of environment with this kind of mental inculcation, it becomes a second nature. He actually never learns to be manly and masculine. He never gets that experience because it was suppressed and repressed his whole life.
This can have an effect in how the brain "learns" to control bodily functions, such as testosterone production. When the right synapses are seldom fired, when the boy never needs to show any masculine bravado, never needs to show feats of bravery, strength and risk-taking, when he never needs to impress girls with his masculinity, when he never engages in the physical activity that would build muscle and stamina, the brain never "learns" to produce enough testosterone to cope with these situations. The testosterone-producing parts of the brain never fully develop and get stifled.
And the scary thing is that, I believe, that when the person has fully grown up and matured in this state, the brain may never be able to "learn" this anymore, in adulthood. Like so many other things, if the brain never learns something while growing up, it may lose the capability of ever learning it at all. There are lots of things that humans are capable of that must be learned while growing up, or else the ability to learn them in adulthood will be very limited or even completely impossible.
The west has created a generation of emotionally stunted men with low testosterone levels and a psychology that may have completely lost the ability to become a normal masculine man anymore.
Note that this is not something that has happened in many other cultures, where there has not been such a decades-long anti-masculinity social engineering agenda. Testosterone levels tend to be quite normal in those other cultures.
This has more implications than merely men being less masculine and more emotionally stunted and cowardly. Among other things, depression and suicide rates are at an all-time high in western countries. The happiness of both men and women are at an all-time low.
Tellingly (and somewhat ironically, from the perspective of this "masculinity is bad" agenda), the more typically masculine the man, the more he behaves like a man and works hard to be successful and strong, the happier he tends to be. And the happier his spouse tends to be as well.
This is not just a laughing matter, or a matter of "oh noes, men are less masculine!" It's actually a health problem. As with almost everything else, too much or too little of a particular bodily function can have health consequences, as well as all kinds of other consequences. Both too much testosterone production as well as too little can have negative health effects on men, and the average levels especially in the west are approaching those "too little" levels.
I am in no way a medical expert, nor have I done any research on what kind of medical research has been done and published, but it is my understanding that for the most part the reasons behind this are unclear.
I would like to present a serious hypothesis. This is 100% my personal guess, of course, but I think it could have merit:
The main reason for this is psychology, caused by how men are raised in modern society, in western culture.
The brain can have a great influence in all bodily functions. Things like stress and depression can have surprisingly strong effects on our body, on things that we wouldn't even think are controlled by our higher brain functions and just happen somehow automatically.
For several decades now boys have been raised to behave in "less masculine" ways, to be ashamed of their masculine nature, and to repress themselves. Quite ironically, the whole idea of teaching boys that it's ok to show emotion, it's ok to cry, it's ok to show vulnerability... has had the exact opposite effect: It's teaching boys to repress their emotions and their natural tendencies, rather than "open up". It teaches boys to be ashamed of their boisterous and raunchy nature, and to deliberately tone it down and repress it and restraint themselves.
Boys and men are not allowed to be who they really are, and act how they really feel. By inculcating into them that they need to act more feminine and less masculine, that they need to "open up" and "show their feelings", they actually learn to repress their actual feelings, and bottle them in. When a boy grows up in this kind of environment with this kind of mental inculcation, it becomes a second nature. He actually never learns to be manly and masculine. He never gets that experience because it was suppressed and repressed his whole life.
This can have an effect in how the brain "learns" to control bodily functions, such as testosterone production. When the right synapses are seldom fired, when the boy never needs to show any masculine bravado, never needs to show feats of bravery, strength and risk-taking, when he never needs to impress girls with his masculinity, when he never engages in the physical activity that would build muscle and stamina, the brain never "learns" to produce enough testosterone to cope with these situations. The testosterone-producing parts of the brain never fully develop and get stifled.
And the scary thing is that, I believe, that when the person has fully grown up and matured in this state, the brain may never be able to "learn" this anymore, in adulthood. Like so many other things, if the brain never learns something while growing up, it may lose the capability of ever learning it at all. There are lots of things that humans are capable of that must be learned while growing up, or else the ability to learn them in adulthood will be very limited or even completely impossible.
The west has created a generation of emotionally stunted men with low testosterone levels and a psychology that may have completely lost the ability to become a normal masculine man anymore.
Note that this is not something that has happened in many other cultures, where there has not been such a decades-long anti-masculinity social engineering agenda. Testosterone levels tend to be quite normal in those other cultures.
This has more implications than merely men being less masculine and more emotionally stunted and cowardly. Among other things, depression and suicide rates are at an all-time high in western countries. The happiness of both men and women are at an all-time low.
Tellingly (and somewhat ironically, from the perspective of this "masculinity is bad" agenda), the more typically masculine the man, the more he behaves like a man and works hard to be successful and strong, the happier he tends to be. And the happier his spouse tends to be as well.
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