893: Testosterone

27:05Griffin Hansberry is a psychoanalyst and the author of the novel Some Strange Music draws me in. That conversation with Alex Bloomberg happened over 20 years ago during his early transition back in 2002. When we reached out to him today, he told us that he would describe some of these experiences differently now. The way he talked about gender and also the way he talked about looking at women's bodies. In retrospect, he says, it wasn't just the testosterone affecting him when he was looking at women. He says he'd also abdured a lot of very traditional messages about masculinity. Overall, he said, he wouldn't want listeners to come away thinking that testosterone, by itself, explains so much about men's relationships with women, and so much about desire.

27:51If you wanted the sky, I would ride across the sky in letters. That would soar a thousand feet high To serve with love

28:11Coming up, who has the most testosterone? The slightly femmy host of a public radio program? His staff? Or a gay man in New York City? Answer in a minute. From Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues. This message comes from Capital One. Capital One offers checking accounts with no fees or minimums. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash Bank Guy for details. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. This message comes from Mattress Firm. Sleeping hot can ruin your night. Mattress Firm's sleep experts can match you with a temper breeze designed to deliver cooling comfort for hot sleepers.

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30:13Today's show is one that we're rerunning because of the news that Pete Hegseth is ordering everybody in the military over 30 years old to have their testosterone tested and offering extra testosterone to anybody who scores low. As I said at the beginning of the show, back in 2002, we did an episode where everyone in our workplace had their testosterone tested in an episode about testosterone and just how much testosterone determines our personalities and fates. We rejoin that episode now with Act 2 of the program. Act 2, Contest Osterone. At some point in putting together this week's radio show, Alex, who you heard a lot of in the first half of our program, suggested that it might be a fun thing to do and might illustrate some interesting principles about testosterone.

30:57If everybody on the radio staff would get their testosterone level checked, we could each predict who would come out as number one, number two, and so forth based on their personalities. And then we would compare the results with what each of us had predicted. Since men always have a lot more testosterone than women, we would do two rankings, one for the men, one for the women. We invited two of our regular contributors, David Rakoff and Sarah Val, to take part with us, making it five men and four women in all. It turns out to be remarkably easy to get your testosterone assessed. You spit into a little tube twice a day and send it to a lab, in our case, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center.

31:35And I think it was Jonathan and Starley, producers on our show, who you sometimes hear during stories on the air, who pointed out first that the entire enterprise might not be such a good idea. I just think, like, we're opening a whole can of worms here that we don't want to be doing. It's all very, well, this whole thing's kind of a mess, diplomatic-wise. How so? Like, either, you know, I mean, either we'll walk away from this finding out that Starley has more testosterone than I do, and she'll end up being incredibly upset, and I'll be upset, and everyone will just be upset. You know, I mean, what do we hope to gain from all of this?

32:13This whole thing is going to lead to heartbreak somehow. I've been thinking a lot about it, and I can't really decide whether I want to have more or if I want to have less. This is Wendy, another producer. I don't know. Like, having more makes me seem like an a**hole. And having not enough makes me seem like a pushover sucker. For the men, I think it'll be a big deal. This is Julie, the senior producer of our program. I think it'll change all your interactions with each other. You'll know when you're talking to each other who beat you. I think it'll change everything. Nonetheless, we marched toward the abyss.

32:54To find out what personality traits actually correlate with high testosterone and low testosterone, we check with somebody who's done a lot of research on the subject. James Dabbs of Georgia State University, author of a book called Heroes, Rogues, and Lovers, Testosterone and Behavior. The most simple thing I would say is it leads to a certain boldness and fearlessness and confidence in a person's behavior. They tend to focus upon what they do, move forward with less conflict. the downside is they don't pay attention to things going on around them, so they get blindsided by accidents and other things going on.

33:33What are some of the misconceptions you run into? Well, they think it makes them manly and heroic and virile and sexual, which is not really true. It doesn't take much testosterone to have sex. So, I mean, that's sort of beside the point. What scientific studies can tell us is that in general, more testosterone does not mean you're a more successful person. In fact, blue-collar workers tend to have more testosterone than white-collar workers. And unemployed men have more than either group. Actors and trial lawyers, people who basically go on stage in one way or another, tend to have very high testosterone levels.

34:13Higher testosterone correlates with baldness and with bigger muscles. And researchers say that people with lots of testosterone have a wolfish smile. And people with less testosterone have a kinder smile. And they smile more often, as if to say, don't hurt me. Testosterone goes up when you score a victory at something. It goes down when you suffer a defeat. In one study of World Cup soccer fans watching a match on television, testosterone dropped in fans of the losing team and rose in the fans of the winning team. For people, there's not a lot of difference between being in the contest and watching the contest.

34:48We can empathize with it so well. So what would all this mean for our radio staff? Well, when it came to predicting which of the women would have the highest testosterone, there was a clear majority in the voting. Here are Sarah Val, Todd, our production manager, and Wendy weighing in. Julie will win. Julie's tough. She can certainly push me around sometimes. I think Julie has the most because she is the boldest of all of us, right? Like she says the boldest things. When we're all together in the same place, it is clearly Julie who is the alpha of the whole group. Though at some point in putting together this week's radio show, Alex and Julie sat down in a studio, and he asked her to predict which women would have the highest testosterone.

35:32And here's how she lined it up. Wendy first, and then Starly, and then Sarah, I guess. And then? And then me. Just passive me. Yeah. Just taking it easy. Girly, girly me. She's being feminine over here in the corner. Honestly, who do I think? Yeah. Well, I fear me. What do you think it would mean if you won? Well, then it would confirm all my worst, like, suspicions about myself, that I'm really aggressive and pushy and sort of a hothead. I fear me. Among the men, there was no favorite. You could kind of make an argument for any of the men on the staff. Todd likes sports, and he isn't such a bookworm softy like the rest of us on the staff.

36:24Alex plays a lot of sports, and he gets into fights on the basketball court. Jonathan is balding, and he has a lot of muscle, corresponds with testosterone. I host a national radio show, which must count for something, right? But when we sat down to talk about it, it wasn't really clear exactly what else should be taken into account. Here's Jonathan. I don't entirely understand how this whole testosterone thing works. It's like who can yell the loudest, right? Who has the most rage? I have rage. I mean, unfortunately, it's like impotent rage. I don't know how that's going to rank. And then, if the main thing the testosterone corresponds with is decisiveness, how does that swing the whole rating?

37:01I didn't realize that the whole decision-making thing came into a... Is it making you... A full testosterone thing, yeah. Re-evaluate? It's making it more complicated, yeah, because, I mean, I'm just filled with regret. Again, Julie, quick decisions, doesn't look back. Doesn't look back, I know. Same with Sarah. I look back like I'm looking... I look back pretty much every single... Every single second of the day? Every single... Every single... I'm regretting what I'm saying right now. I'm always here. I'm filled with regret. I'm regretting. You're regretting it even as you say it. Even now. Even now.

37:35Even now.

37:45And then there's the question of David Rakoff. He's gay and a fan of Martha Stewart. But he's also balding, and he's worked as a professional actor, which both correspond with high testosterone levels. So how do you figure that one out? The one thing I do worry about the testosterone is, Alex told me when I did my spit that I had to have some extra spearmint gum to activate my salivary glands but the only thing that I could find was extra polar ice which has flavor crystals and I worry that my sample might have flavor crystals in it so in fact I might just simply be the most refreshing

38:31One notable difference between the men and the women, although none of the women wanted to have much testosterone, Alex, Todd, and I very, very much wanted to win. Jonathan claimed he did not want to win, but none of us believe him. And Rakoff also said that he had no interest in winning at all, but then proceeded immediately, I mean immediately, to talk smack about his opponents in a very competitive way. And that was the state of things when we got our results from the lab just two days ago. All right, well, it is two days before our broadcast day as I record this. Our entire staff is on mic, plus contributors David Rakoff and Sarah Val in New York.

39:05Hello, all. Hi. And now for the results. I am opening the envelope.

39:16Wow, that's fascinating. Wow, that's just incredible. Okay, among the men, Rakoff is number one and has like twice the amount of testosterone of anybody in the group. Woo! Wow. Wow. This can't be— I told you. Correlation with both. I voted for you, Rakoff. Oh, everybody's trying to get in with him now that he's number one. Then in order, the men are, it's Rakoff, then Alex at number two, then me, like a point behind you, Alex, then Jonathan, and then Todd, all very closely grouped together. Wow, but Rakoff has twice as much. As any of us, the gay Canadian Jew living in Manhattan. Okay, we really have to dispense with the Canadian ones.

40:08Actually, that is non-corollary. Believe me. What are the numbers exactly? What is it for, what's Rackoff? Rackoff is 274. You're 144. I'm 144. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. When I looked at the women's results in the envelope, even though she is seven months pregnant, Julie was on top, as we all suspected. That's hard. That's hard. It makes me feel really bossy and aggressive. And did they say that the pregnancy would affect it at all? She says trying to make sure you get in that whole girly pregnancy thing. Yeah. The fact that I'm able to bear children. The greatest gift a woman can have.

40:58I have to say, Wendy and Todd, the lowest scoring woman and man on the staff, really did not seem very happy about this whole thing by the end. Todd, like most of the men on the staff, had never been seen as especially manly during his life. But he thought maybe here, maybe here in this group, compared to the rest of us, he might at least stand a chance. Someone would be girlier than I. If I can't be the most manly in public radio, where the hell can I be the most manly? Like, I kind of wish this was SportsCenter, because then I'd be okay. Like, out of all my fellow staff members at SportsCenter, okay, I could be the one with the least testosterone.

41:33But in public radio... We should get them to spit. Is it a real place, SportsCenter? Is it a thing? Now, see, that's not fair. How can he, how can he on the most testosterone and not know what SportsCenter is? I know what SportsCenter is.

41:58The people on our staff who scored low are feeling rather, they're feeling terrible about it. What should I say to them? I hated to measure them. I just knew that would happen. It always happens. I told them that.

42:15Well, they are what they are. Are they in any way different? After our test, James Dabbs reminded me that it was important to remember that any individual person might not conform to the stereotypes of who has higher testosterone. It's not the final answer as to what you're like. I tested a stuntman in a movie set once, and he came out low in testosterone and was terribly unhappy about being low in testosterone. The fact is he still was a stuntman and did all the work that other people couldn't do. So he shouldn't have been focusing upon that testosterone. I think to focus upon the testosterone is the wrong thing to do.

42:49Now, when you tried to convince him that he shouldn't feel bad about it, did he find that persuasive at all? No. No. He was just unhappy.

43:02James Dabbs. I mentioned before that this is a rerun from years ago. In the years since we first broadcast this, James Dabbs has died. Our friend David Rakoff has died, too, back in 2012.

43:17What kind of man are you? Oh, why do I love you so? What kind of man are you? Yeah, yeah. Act three, life at zero. Okay, so a life with very low testosterone. What might that mean? Well, the most extreme case imaginable is described in the GQ article that Alex read that was one of the inspirations for today's show that he talked about at the beginning of the program. The GQ writer very much describes testosterone as the hormone of desire. And by that, it doesn't mean sexual desire. It just means desire, period. He wrote about his experiences anonymously. Here's more of Alex's interview with him.

44:05When you have no testosterone, you have no desire. And when you have no desire, you don't have any content in your mind. You don't think about anything. And during those months, how were you behaving? What was different? It wasn't that I was behaving. It was that I was not behaving at all. I was, when I was awake, literally sitting in bed and staring at the wall with neither interest nor disinterest for three, four hours at a time. If you'd had a camera in the room, you would have thought I was comatose. I would go out. I would buy some groceries early in the morning, and that would be it. My day had no content.

44:50I had no interest in even watching TV, much less reading the newspaper or a book. Food. I didn't want my food to taste good or interesting. And when you're blessed with that lack of desire, you can eat a loaf of Wonder Bread with mayonnaise. And that will be your day. and you know I only saw my girlfriend on weekends since she was living in New York and I was living in Philly so I could get away with it five days at a time and you know needless to say there was absolutely no desire.

45:33You know people who are deprived of testosterone don't become Spock-like and, you know, incredibly rational. They become nonsensical because they're unable to distinguish between what is and isn't interesting and what is worth noting and what isn't. Describe your thoughts on your morning walk in this state. It's very quiet at 5.30, 6, 6.30 in the morning. And yeah, and I would see, you know, a brick and a wall, and I would think a brick and a wall. I would see a pigeon and think a pigeon. It's the most literal possible understanding of the world.

46:21So in this time when you're without testosterone, you're walking down the street, you're just sort of ticking things off, just making these very simple observations. Like a grocery list. Yeah, like a grocery list, exactly. You also have a thought that comes to you all the time, right? Yes. Talk about that. Which is a very strange sounding thing, which is that is beautiful. Everything I saw, I thought that is beautiful, which is odd sounding, I know, because that sounds like the judgment of a person with passion. But it was the exact opposite. It was thought and sometimes even said with complete dispassion, with objectivity.

47:04And you see, I was looking at absolutely everything, the most mundane sight in the world, you know, a weed in the sidewalk and thinking, oh, that's beautiful. The surgery scars on people's knees, you know, the bolts in the hubcaps of cars, all of it, it just seemed to have purpose. And it was like, oh, that's beautiful. Everything is beautiful from the bugs to the cracks in the sidewalk to the faces of other people. And it was automatic. perhaps to see things objectively is to see them, all of them as beautiful but in the most, you have to understand that the thought was expressed in the most flatline boring way possible oh yeah, that's beautiful, that's beautiful

48:02You know, you would think that this would be a terrible thing, a terrible state to be in, and for most people it is. But it was weirdly pleasant. And there is a certain appeal, an impossible appeal, to that Rip Van Winkle existence. of being without testosterone. You just have to remember that it doesn't matter if you have nothing, if you want nothing. Very tricky to get inside that mindset. In some ways, it's difficult for me to even remember it now, but it had its allure. Well, I can understand that because desire often feels like a burden. It often feels like if I just didn't want that thing, not having it wouldn't be so painful.

48:50There you go. Yeah. all that wanting.

49:04Act four, learning to shut up. Okay, so we started today's program with my coworker, Alex, remembering what it was like to be a 15-year-old boy. And we're going to end it now with another 15-year-old boy, someone who's experiencing the years when a boy's body is flooded with 10 or 20 times the hormones he has in early childhood, or more. And so much of the story is about his mother's questions about what it's like for him. His mom, Miriam Taves, tells the story. First off, his hair is red and shaggy and longish, and he's pale and slim and six feet tall. Music is everything to him, which makes sense because he's 15.

49:42I was 22 when he was born. I'd never had brothers or any close male relatives, and I'd always dreamed of having a brother or a son. The idea of having a boy in my family was strange and exotic. When he was born, it was like I had given birth to a llama or something. All my girlfriends came to visit me and him in the hospital, and I took them down to the second-floor nursery, and we stared at him in awe from behind a glass window. That's him, I said, with the orange fuzz on his head. He was lying naked and spread-eagled under a bright heat lamp. He seemed very content. My friend Carol gasped and said, Oh my God, he's got the biggest balls I've ever seen in my life.

50:19We all started laughing our heads off, and then the nurse came and told us his scrotum would shrink to normal size in a few days. I haven't seen him naked in years, but it still often feels, when I look at him, that I'm gazing at an odd creature from behind a glass. So, do you think about girls? Yes. And, like, what do you think about them?

50:47Um, I don't know. Some of them are cool. Yeah? So what makes them cool? I don't know. All his life, Owen's been a quiet kid. Not sullen, but just rather silent. When he was a baby and I'd be pushing him around in his stroller, people would stop and crouch down and talk to him and expect him to laugh and smile. And all he'd do was sigh and stare at them. When he got a little older and went over to his friend's places to play, and it was time for him to go home, he just got up and walked right out the door to the car. He didn't say, hey, thanks for having me, or next time we'll play at my place, or even goodbye.

51:27We'd be driving home, and I'd be trying to explain to him that it seemed rude and that sometimes we just had to say certain things at certain times. It was polite and expected. He'd just sigh and nod and kick the dash or stick his head entirely out the window. But back then, I could kind of figure out what was going on in his head, even if he didn't come right out and say it. Like when he was three and he didn't want me to go out, instead of grabbing my leg or having a tantrum or something, he'd hide my shoes and then sit on the couch pretending to read the newspaper while I searched all over the place.

51:59When he was eight and angry and sitting in a tree and throwing stones at the car or something, I'd go outside, knowing it would be a matter of minutes before he'd start to cry, and then slowly spill his guts about whatever series of events it was that led to his meltdown and that the whole scene would end with hugs and apologies and probably a large muscle activity, like him cheerfully taking shots at my head with a soccer ball. Now, though, the signs are harder, if not impossible, to read. I'm not sure there are any, actually, and I have no idea where to begin my search. What do you think girls think about you when they think about you?

52:36I don't know. Nothing. You think, like, no girl ever thinks anything about you? Maybe. I don't know. He brought 85 CDs with him for a family road trip that would last 11 days. He also brought a sketchbook, which started out as an art class project and has since evolved into a kind of diary, I think. He tends to write things down like, Jesus, I've got to find someone irrational, or the s*** I'm passing off as writing is slowly killing me.

53:12The first day of our road trip, through North Dakota to South, the music war started. His 12-year-old sister, Georgia, claimed the very backseat of the minivan and was content to lie there surrounded by nail polish and beads and thread and Hershey Kisses and Archie Comics and listen to her music on her Discman, mostly R &B stuff, Destiny's Child and the Save the Last Dance soundtrack. My husband Cassidy and I sat in the front, and Owen sat on the seat right behind us so he could listen to his CDs on the stereo. We'd tell him to listen to them on his Discman, which he did sometimes, but then he'd miss out on our sporadic conversations, which he enjoyed either participating in or mocking.

53:50Sometimes he'd give us a choice of his CDs to play. Nirvana, he'd say. You guys like Nirvana, right? Yeah, but the unplugged one, we'd say. Oh Lord, help me now, he'd say. He'd pop a dozen CDs into the player. They Will Know Us by The Trail of Dead, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, At The Drive-In, other stuff. And we'd listen to half a song from each one and go, nope, nope, nope. I had wanted to learn more about him from his music. I was pretty sure his lyrics would tell me more about him than he would. But the problem was I couldn't understand most of the lyrics, and none of his CDs, which he'd bootlegged, had liner notes.

54:27We asked him if he didn't miss having liner notes, and he said, Man, liner notes. You guys have this unnatural relationship with your liner notes. What are some of your favorite lyrics?

54:44I like some of the lyrics from the Pixies. Can you say some of the lyrics from the Pixies?

54:52You're so pretty when you're unfaithful to me. So what does that mean to you? I don't know. I just thought it was funny. When Owen was little, I discovered I could get him to do anything by timing him. Go get your jacket, I'd say, or clean up your toys, quick, I'll time you. He loved competing with himself and beating his old records, even if I just made up times. And it evolved into a huge, competitive, sports-loving thing that I still don't really understand or enjoy. That timing thing didn't work at all with Georgia. She'd just look up at me and say, What do you mean, time me? What for?

55:38The difference between him and Georgia in the talking department is huge. Georgia will come home from school and literally reenact her entire day so that she's telling me about it almost in real time, hour after hour. Owen, on the other hand, might tell me that his day was good, even if it was bad. but usually he just shrugs and makes an I don't know kind of sound and then he'll head down to the basement and play his guitar. So like do some of your friends have girlfriends and do you ever think that you'd like to have a girlfriend? Yeah. What do you think they think? Like how would they describe you to their friends do you think?

56:23I don't know. Do you think you do know about it, you just don't really want to talk about it with me? I think that, yeah, I think so. I can dig it.

56:41I've learned over time not to worry too much about his silence, although it used to drive me crazy. I wondered if maybe he'd turn out to be a psychopath, although I'm not sure why I associate evil with silence. Anyway, I'm getting better with it. Cassidy often reassures me by saying stuff like, it's a guy thing, or he's a 15-year-old boy, what do you expect? He told me that when he was Owen's age, he sat in his bedroom by himself for hours on end, typing page after page of angry vitriol against the world on an old manual typewriter until his fingers bled. And he seems really happy now. I realize my kids sound like boy and girl stereotypes.

57:18Owen is taciturn and into sports, and Georgia is chatty and prone to the occasional crying jag, But it really just is that way. I don't know why. It's not like we planned it. I don't want to think it's because he's a boy and she's a girl. But if it is, who cares? When Georgia was upset about something at school the other day and face down on the couch, he sat on the floor beside her and said, It's hard being a girl, isn't it? I'm not sure that it's any easier being a boy, and I don't know what he does exactly when he's sad other than listening to music. Except for once, it's been years since I've seen him cry.

57:52I'd kill to read his notebook. Is there anything about girls that you envy? No. Nothing. What about their, it seems, their ability to kind of talk about how they feel about things easier?

58:12Sure, yeah. You envy that? I definitely envy that.

58:23We were all pretty quiet as we drove up to Colorado Springs, on our way to Denver. The sun was shining, but it was raining a bit, and we saw not one, not two, but three dead cows in fields, stiff with their legs in the air, and it bothered us. After the third dead cow, I played my favorite song of the summer, Jillian Welch's Elvis Presley Blues. It's a wistful song about the king as a 15-year-old boy, just starting out with a big rock and roll dream in a shirt his mother made. and it was kind of miraculous because Owen actually liked it too. For me it was a song about a boy becoming a man and leaving home and it made me a little sad.

59:00I think Owen was probably hearing it as a song about a cool 15-year-old who was about to conquer the world. But really, I haven't got a clue how he heard the song or how it made him feel. All he said was that it had a decent pop sensibility and then he was quiet.

59:20These days, the more I press him for information, the faster he shuts right down. The other day I tried a new approach. His. I was annoyed by a bunch of things, and rather than broadcast it all over the house, I sat on the couch and glared at the TV and sighed periodically. And strangely, Owen responded. He observed my weirdness for a while, and then left. Then he came back and looked at me again and said one word. Mom. But in such a nice way that I smiled and said, Owen. And that was it. And then we sat there for a while, silently. I was surprised by how completely comfortable it felt. And then, finally, wordlessly, he got up and took his laundry upstairs.

1:00:12Miriam Taves. She's a writer in Toronto. Her son Owen is now a grown man, and Miriam tells us is long past his taciturn days. Her latest book is called A Truce That Is Not Peace. You know I'm almost grown. Yet I'm doing alright in school. They ain't said I broke no rules. I ain't never been in Dutch. I don't browse around too much. Don't bother me, leave me alone. Anyway, I'm almost thrown out. Well, our program was produced today by Alex Bloomberg and me, with Wendy Doerr, Jonathan Goldstein, and Starlee Kine. Julie Snyder was our senior producer for this episode. Helping today's rerun from Molly Marcello, Stowe Nelson, Ruby Schwartz, and Matt Tierney.

1:00:58Also thanks to Dr. Martin Miner. This is our last week with Molly Marcello, who is our production fellow here at the show. She has been wonderful to work with. We all wish her the best. Special thanks today to El Jefe, to Buzzy Goldstein, to Robert Powell, to Jim Nelson and GQ, Daniel Foster and Sarah Val, Alex Blumberg, who produced this week's show and did two of the stories in it. These days, he is out of the radio game. He's running a building electrification and decarbonization platform called Daisy Chain Energy. If you reach out to him through his website, he'll tell you all about it. Thanks also today to This American Life partners, Michael Seaton, Cynthia Hill, and Connie St.

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1:02:08Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Troy Malatia, who owns a very, very, very big radio. This is what he says about it. This big, shuddering, warm, inanimate object would just drive me crazy. It was very, very erotic to me. I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

1:02:50Next week on the podcast of This American Life, 29 days after a local hospital closed its birthing unit, Katie went to labor. So that's not great, right? And then something else happened. I said, Sasha, then get a chainsaw and cut the wall down because I didn't want the baby to die. One doctor doing incredible things, so many of them, things she has never done before. That's next week on the podcast or on your local public radio station.

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