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Testosterone poisoning

Testosterone poisoning is a pejorative neologism that refers not to actual poisoning, but to stereotypical aspects of male behavior. This speculative and controversial expression is based on the belief that an excess of the testosterone creates aggressiveness. Although as an androgen, testosterone plays a part in the biology of gender, there is little scientific evidence to support a link between the level of testosterone and level of aggression.^[1]

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Origins

The earliest printed reference to "testosterone poisoning" came from actor Alan Alda's article, "What Every Woman Should Know About Men", published in Ms. Magazine in 1975. In it he said, "Everyone knows that testosterone, the so-called male hormone, is found in both men and women. What is not so well known, is that men have an overdose... Until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from testosterone poisoning."

http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2002/fromtheissue.asp.

Ten years later, Alda's article was quoted in the 1985 book A Feminist Dictionary:

'Until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from "testosterone poisoning."'²

The famous astrophysicist Carl Sagan gave the phrase more publicity when he praised Moondance magazine writer, Daniela Gioseffi's, American Book Award winner Women on War:

'A book of searing analysis and cries from the heart on the madness of war. Why is the half of humanity with a special sensitivity to the preciousness of life, the half untainted by testosterone poisoning, almost wholly unrepresented in defense establishments and peace negotiations worldwide?'³

Some took offense at this phrase. A Los Angeles Times op-ed piece referred to Professor Sagan's use directly:

Carl Sagan even pompously informs us that the whole planet is imminently endangered by "testosterone poisoning." ⁴

Other men have accepted the term as self-deprecating humor. Sometimes this carries a lingering suspicion that the concept may be all too true. Bruce Tremper, another early user, writes with this tone about avalanches in 1991.

'Testosterone poisoning: The accident statistics show that most avalanche victims are between the ages of 20 and 35 and are male. Very few females get killed in avalanches and those who do are usually following a male at the time. In a number of cases the men involved in avalanche accidents did not listen to the advice of sensible women. But a man has got to be a MAN! And no better way to prove it than in a stupendously violent death.'⁵

This can be related to Darwin Awards, as many award nominees have died in such a "manly" way.

The phrase also achieved a certain amount of fame when it was uttered by the character Susan Ivanova during a 1994 episode A Voice in the Wilderness, part 2 of the popular television series Babylon 5. She said about Captain Ellis Pierce of the EAS Hyperion after Pierce had exchanged ultimatums with an alien ship: "Worst case of testosterone poisoning I have ever seen."

Psychological analysis

Testosterone poisoning is not an actual medical or psychological condition. However, A 1996 Psychology Today article does use the phrase in connection to a summary of several studies about testosterone and male employment. The job success or failure of nine new employees at a southern oil firm corresponded to their testosterone levels. Four out of five with high levels either quit or were terminated within nine months of hiring, while the men who had lower levels remained employed.⁶ Robert Josephs, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, explains testosterone poisoning this way:

'To date, the outcomes that we have shown to bear strong relationships to testosterone include: cortisol reactivity under competitive loss, reactions to rejection by someone of the opposite sex, affective and physiological arousal when testosterone and status are at odds, cognitive functioning under conditions of status threat, and leader-follower dynamics in small group decision making.'⁷

In the words of one researcher, "Identifying testosterone with aggression is an idea whose time has come and gone" (Dabbs, 1998) ^[2]. While males with higher testosterone levels do tend to be slightly more aggressive, this appears to be due to the way acting aggressively raises testosterone levels rather than the reverse (Mazur & Booth, 1998)^[3] Testosterone levels rise upon witnessing (Bernhardt et al 1998)^[4] or anticipating (Neave & Wolfson, 2003)^[5] aggression, even in as subtle a form as team sports. The experience of losing a match is enough to depress circulating testosterone levels in competitive chess players (Mazur et al 1992)^[6]. The difficulty in convincing students of the direction of the relationship between testosterone and aggression is humorously explained by the endocrinologist Robert Sapolsky in the title essay of his 1997 book The Trouble with Testosterone.^[7]

The ideas expressed in the phrase testosterone poisoning may hold more validity when testosterone exposure occurs during the development of the central nervous system. Exposure to high levels of androgens in utero are associated with higher levels of adult aggression (Reinisch, 1981^[8]; Berenbaum & Reinisch, 1997^[9]).

Usage

References to testosterone poisoning are often used to criticize men. Magazine editor Tina Brown uses the phrase thematically in a 2005 Washington Post essay about the downfall of Harvard University president Larry Summers and the problems of Disney's former embattled CEO Michael Eisner.⁸ Beth Gallagher's Salon.com essay "Road Sows" about the drawbacks of sports utility vehicles describes those vehicles' growing popularity as having spread beyond testosterone poisoned men to soccer moms.⁹ Dr. Karl Albrecht makes testosterone poisoning a synonym for old fashioned male chauvinism in his 2002 book The Power of Minds at Work: Organizational Intelligence in Action where he describes it as one of 17 basic syndromes of dysfunction.¹⁰

Occasionally this perceived moral decadence of men turns against women, as in Kay S. Hymowitz's sarcastic reference to Western feminists in a 2003 Wall Street Journal essay chiding them for neglecting the rights of Third World women in Muslim countries:

'There is no need, in their minds, to distinguish between Osama, Saddam, and Bush: They're all suffering from testosterone poisoning.'¹¹

Several readers submitted "testosterone poisoning" to a 2001 Atlantic Monthly competition to find a male equivalent for hysteria (which was originally regarded as a female-only condition). ¹

Risk of prostate cancer

It has been believed that the pathway of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, one of the Androgens, has caused Prostate cancer which many men suffer from ^[10]^, ^[11].

Criticism

Although testosterone may have behavioral implications, the use of the expression testosterone poisoning is more of a metaphor than a scientific concept. Testosterone is not poison in any meaningful sense of the term and there is no scientific evidence to suggest that it is ruining society. The evidence linking it to human aggression is largely correlational, and does not prove cause and effect.^[12] Testosterone is actually a natural and normal chemical found in the human body. Antonia Feitz has protested against the use of the expression in a 1999 essay in the Australian Daily Issues Paper, calling it hate speech.¹⁵

Humor

Men often use the phrase about themselves and each other with gentle self-deprecating humor. National Public Radio's popular show "Car Talk" has used the term repeatedly. ¹³ ¹¹

The Darwin Awards lists one category of its dubious winners under the heading "Testosterone Poisoning." ¹⁴

Notes

Note 1: [1].

Note 2: A Feminist Dictionary, ed. Kramarae and Treichler, Pandora Press, 1985.

Note 3: [2].

Note 4: [3]. "In Academe, Misogyny Meets Its Match: Misandrosy," by Father Patrick M. Arnold, SJ, assistant professor of theology at the University of San Diego, Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1990.

Note 5: [4].

Note 6: [5] "The Trouble with Testosterone," by Peter Doskoch, Psychology Today, Dec. 1996.

Note 7: [6]

Note 8: [7]. "Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman?" by Tina Brown, The Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2005.

Note 9: [8].

Note 10: [9].

Note 11: [10]. "The Women Feminists Forgot," by Kay S. Hymowitz, The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 7, 2003.

Note 12: [11]

Note 13: [12].

Note 14: [13].

Note 15: [14]. "Demonizing Men," by Antonia Feitz, The Australian Daily View, Feb. 9, 1999.

References

^ Dabbs, J.M. Jr. (1998) Testosterone and the concept of dominance. Behavioral & Brain Sciences 21:370--371.
^ Dabbs, J.M. Jr. (1998) Testosterone and the concept of dominance. Behavioral & Brain Sciences 21:370--371.
^ Mazur, A. & Booth, A. (1998) Testosterone and dominance in men. Behavioral & Brain Sciences 21:353--397.
^ Bernhardt, P.C., Dabbs, J.M. Jr., Fielden, J.A. & Lutter, C.D. (1998) Testosterone changes during vicarious experiences of winning and losing among fans at sporting events. Physiology & Behavior 65:59-62.
^ Neave, N. & Wolfson, S. (2003) Testosterone, territoriality and the "home advantage". Physiology & Behavior 78:269--275.
^ Mazur, A. & Booth, A. & Dabbs, Jr., J.M. (1992) Testosterone and chess competition. Social Psychology Quarterly 55:70--77.
^ Sapolsky, R. (1997) The Trouble With Testosterone' and Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament. Scribner.
^ Reinisch, J.M (1981) Prenatal exposure to synthetic progestins increases potential for aggression in humans. Science 211:1171--1173.
^ Berenbaum, S.A. & Reinisch, J.M. (1997) Early androgen effects on aggression in children and adults with congenital adrenal hyperplasia Psychoneuroendocrinology 22:505--515.
^ Thompson, Ian M. et al. (2003). "The Influence of Finasteride on the Development of Prostate Cancer". New England Journal of Medicine 349 (3): 215 - 224. Retrieved on 22 October, 2007.
^ Tombal, B. et al.. Testosterone and PSA response in a one-year, multicentre, randomised study of degarelix, a gonadatrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) receptor blocker, in patients with prostate cancer (CaP). 2006 Prostate Cancer Symposium. Retrieved on 23 October, 2007.
^ Dabbs, J.M. Jr. (1998) Testosterone and the concept of dominance. Behavioral & Brain Sciences 21:370--371.

Archer, J. (1991) The influence of testosterone on human aggression. British Journal of Psychology 82: 1-28.
White R.E., Thornhill, S. & Hampson, E. (2006) Entrepreneurs and evolutionary biology: The relationship between testosterone and new venture creation. Organizational behavior and human decision processes 100: 21-34.