The Testosterone President?

The secret to Barack Obama's success.

by Abraham Morgentaler, MD, author of Testosterone For Life and The Viagra Myth: The Surprising Impact on Love and Relationships, and Psychology Today’s Men, Sex and Testosterone blog.

President Barack Obama has been widely lauded for his coolness under pressure. As one of the youngest U.S. Presidents, one has to wonder: Could generous testosterone levels contribute to his calm demeanor?

Ridiculous? After all, we associate testosterone with the darker side of male behavior - violence and aggression. Surprisingly, raising testosterone does not cause aggressive behavior in men. On the contrary, low testosterone causes unpredictable behavior in animals and irritability in men. Testosterone actually appears to act as a mood stabilizer.

William, 48, came to my office with his wife. "He's become a grumpy old man," she said. "Little things set him off. He's not the same man I married." William just shrugged. Tests revealed low testosterone. Three months after beginning testosterone therapy, William reported, "My wife likes me again. I notice I'm more upbeat, and better able to deal with problems and frustrations."

New research reveals important health benefits from having normal levels of testosterone, not only for mood, but also for bone density, muscle mass, sexual function, and sense of well-being. Having a youthful testosterone level may not help us live forever, but with our current President, it might just keep us out of a war or two.

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Read more by Abraham Morgentaler, MD on Psychology Today’s Men, Sex and Testosterone blog.

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Yes, Tonight - and Every Night - Honey

Men do everything they do in order to get laid.

by Satoshi Kanazawa, PhD, evolutionary psychologist at London School of Economics and author of Psychology Today's The Scientific Fundamentalist blog.

From an evolutionary psychological perspective, the ultimate (albeit often unconscious) motive of all human behavior is reproductive success. Among humans (and all other mammals), sex and mating are a female choice; it happens when and with whom women, not men, want it.

The power of female choice becomes apparent in a simple thought experiment. Imagine a society where sex and mating were entirely a male choice; individuals have sex whenever and with whomever men want, not whenever and with whomever women want. What would happen in such a society? Absolutely nothing, because people would never stop having sex! There would be no civilization in such a society, because people would not do anything besides have sex.

In reality, women do often say no to men. This is why men throughout history have had to conquer foreign lands, win battles and wars, compose symphonies, author books, write sonnets, paint portraits and cathedral ceilings, make scientific discoveries, play in rock bands, and write new computer software, in order to impress women so that they will agree to have sex with them. There would be no civilization, no art, no literature, no music, no Beatles, no Microsoft, if sex and mating were a male choice. Men have built (and destroyed) civilizations in order to impress women so that they might say yes. Women are the reason men do everything.

Bill Maher captures the essence of female choice perfectly, when he quips: "For a man to walk in to a bar and have his choice of any woman he wants, he would have to be the ruler of the world. For a woman to have the same power over men, she'd have to do her hair." Any reasonably attractive young woman exercises as much power as the (male) ruler of the world.

Put differently, every woman has the power to predict the future, while very few men do. If a man wakes up in the morning and says to himself, "Tonight I will get laid," the prediction will almost always fail, unless he is incredibly handsome. If a woman - any woman - wakes up in the morning and says to herself, "Tonight I will get laid," the prediction will always come true every time. Such is the power of female choice. This is why men - be they criminals or scientists - must impress women; men do everything they do in order to get laid.

*****

Read more by Satoshi Kanazawa on Psychology Today’s The Scientific Fundamentalist blog.

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Hungry for Heavier Women?

Why men love heavy women in bad times.

by Matthew Hutson, Psychology Today News Editor and contributor for Brainstorm.



When men are hungry they're more attracted to heavier women. Some evolutionary psychologists argue that in an environment where food is scarce, potential sires want to bank their sperm in a body that can provide for its offspring. What about when other resources are scarce? Can financial insolvency prompt desire for a plump mate?

Some evidence says yes. Viren Swami, Martin Tovée, and others have shown that in societies around the world, socioeconomic status negatively correlates with preferred mate weight: men in cultures with fat wallets want skinny women. Comparing populations is scientifically messy though; too many extraneous factors.

Psychologists Leif Nelson and Evan Morrison manipulated individual male participants' financial satisfaction by asking them about personal savings in a way that made them feel either rich or poor, then asked them to name the ideal body weight of a potential partner. Feeling poor added a few pounds to that number. (They also demonstrated that hungry men want fat women by cornering undergrads on their way in or out of the dining hall.)

Swami and Tovée repeated Nelson and Morrison's hunger study, confirming their results. But when they repeated the personal-savings study using purportedly more rigorous methods (subjects rated photographs of women), men induced to feel rich and men induced to feel poor each preferred women with a BMI between 20 and 21. And the groups had identical ratings of women with a BMI of 30. So financial insecurity did NOT arouse a preference for plus-sizes.

So what makes food special as a resource? It's possible that money is too abstract and too recent an invention to tap into the same drives as physiological hunger. Or maybe hunger merely enhances aesthetic appreciation of any heavy object, whether a woman or a watermelon.

*****

Read more by Matthew Hutson on Psychology Today’s Brainstorm blog.

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Welcome to Modern Love

It's still the same old story,
A fight for love and glory,
A case of do or die...

Is it the same old story? What's so different about love in the time of texting and testing? And what universal truths remain the same? Or are there new ways of thinking about dating, mating and relating?

Welcome to the world of Modern Love, a new title and new direction for our blog where we'll be talking about sex, relationships, and health. A variety of guest experts will share their thinking about the way we love today. So whether you're part of a committed couple or are a single seeking someone; a hot body or a homebody, come along and share the ride - and your comments - as we explore the current state of love, sex, health and harmony.

The world will always welcome lovers as time goes by.*

Kate Royston
Community Editor

*© 1931 Warner Bros. Music Corporation, ASCAP

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