soulscape

I listened to an interesting program today on the radio. It was the show “This American Life” on National Public Radio. (In the Los Angeles area, you can access NPR thru both 89.3 and 89.9). The theme of the show was “Testosterone”, and the host admitted that he and others in the show at first was skeptical about doing a show on testosterone, but as it turned out, it was a very interesting topic to explore.

The first segment of the show introduced an anonymous man from Philadelphia who talked about how he lost ALL his testosterone for about a four month period. I forgot why, but it was some sort of physiological ailment. During those four months, his “personality” changed quite a bit. The core of his story was that, without testosterone, he lost all desire. Not just sexual desire, but desire of all kind. He would be in bed for hours at a time, staring at the wall. When he ate, he had no desire for the food to be interesting or good, it was just a desire-free exercise. In that state, he said he could eat “a loaf of bed with mayonnaise” and that would be his day.

He would take morning walks and notice everything, scars on people’s knees, weeds growing, a brick in the wall, every little detail, but he would notice it would complete clinical objectivity. Strangely enough, a thought that repeatedly entered his head was “that’s beautiful.” He would notice these simple details and the objective, feeling-less thought would always enter his head - “that’s beautiful.” He said it wasn’t a necessarily bad experience, although completely humbling, and stated that “when you want nothing, you need nothing.”

He also made the interesting statement that he felt that it was as if he saw everything “like God” would. He said, without testosterone, he just saw right through the skin of everything - he saw everything for what they were, and in general, everything was good, everything had a purpose, everything was “beautiful.”

The second segment of the story featured a man who used to be a woman. Upon deciding to become a man, this person underwent testosterone injections. The amount being injected in him was twice the amount normally found in men who were on the high-end of the testosterone spectrum - “linebackers.” So this person went from being a “butch dyke” to suddenly, with all this testosterone being introduced to the body, having to deal with brand new thoughts. Seeing women who he was the least bit attractive to triggered pornographic thoughts. He started ogling woman while walking on the street and becoming, in his own words, “a jerk.” He considered himself “post-feminist” but was now being called a “misogynist.” To further back the stereotypes on this subject, he started developing an interest in science and found that he was now understanding physics in a way he never did before. He also started finding it much more difficult to cry.

Listening to the show, I wondered how my testosterone levels were, because in different parts of my life, I could relate to all these different range of feelings and experiences, from the lack of desire in the no-testosterone man to the confusing rush of sexual desire in the second story. It’s also a reminder that so much of life, and of who we are, is such a mystery. The more man unwraps, the more mystery remains.

Anyway, interesting show, and I believe “This American Life” does have an audio podcast through iTunes.