I lived like a man for a couple of weeks. It helped me understand my husband.

[AdamSmith]

I lived like a man for a couple of weeks. It helped me understand my husband.

Taking a dose of testosterone gave me a new sense of empathy.

By Ann Mallen June 30 at 8:52

Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/30/what-i-learned-when-i-lived-like-a-man-for-a-couple-of-weeks/?tid=HP_posteverything

[+ purplekow]

I lived life as a man for awhile.

[+ Gar1eth]

I think she must have gotten some wrong kind of sh*t and gone on a bad trip. Ok yes testosterone is known to cause sexual desire-it's even thought to up the libido in women. But I was on testosterone injections for a year or so-only 200 mg every 2 weeks-but I venture to say my levels were higher than what she achieved from a cream-I don't think my libido was increased much. And I definitely wasn't violent.

 

Gman

[+ quoththeraven]

I was going to stay out of this, but Gar1eth's post has spurred me on. This recounting of one person's experience as if it were representative is what I meant in another thread by unscientific anecdata. Given likely differences in age, body composition, health, expectations, and endocrine system, it would be more surprising if their experiences had been similar.

 

Not to denigrate either of their experiences, but laypeople -- and even scientists who should know better -- not infrequently misinterpret or overstate the meaning of such experiences, especially when extrapolating from a single data point. That seems to be what the author is doing here. She's confusing apparent correlation with causation with a side of possible confirmation bias thrown in.

[+ Gar1eth]

I was going to stay out of this, but Gar1eth's post has spurred me on. This recounting of one person's experience as if it were representative is what I meant in another thread by unscientific anecdata. Given likely differences in age, body composition, health, expectations, and endocrine system, it would be more surprising if their experiences had been similar.

 

Not to denigrate either of their experiences, but laypeople -- and even scientists who should know better -- not infrequently misinterpret or overstate the meaning of such experiences, especially when extrapolating from a single data point. That seems to be what the author is doing here. She's confusing apparent correlation with causation with a side of possible confirmation bias thrown in.

 

 

That's what I was wondering-whether her physician primed her expectations beforehand. And since she expected to feel that way, she did.

 

 

Gman

[+ quoththeraven]

That's what I was wondering-whether her physician primed her expectations beforehand. And since she expected to feel that way, she did.

 

 

Gman

 

It may be even simpler than that. We are so primed to believe that there are well-documented inherent differences between the sexes that we set ourselves up to expect these kind of results. It's also possible she's more sensitive to biochemical changes than most or that even though her dose was smaller than yours, it represented a larger % increase because her baseline T was lower. Differences in size/weight also matter.

 

In other words, her doctor may have had nothing to do with it.

 

Testosterone levels have been seized on as a way of explaining why a particular woman wanted sex more frequently than her male partner, but there is no scientific evidence to support that. While there are obvious differences in men and women's hormonal mixes, that might also suggest that pointing to testosterone as the sole reason for apparent differences in male and female sexual interest is equally ill-founded.