5 ms·

I had heard that sperm counts are dropping. What was news to me was that the decline is continuing, even accelerating, and also the concomitant drop in testoste

by zaroth 8y ago

I had heard that sperm counts are dropping. What was news to me was that the decline is continuing, even accelerating, and also the concomitant drop in testosterone levels, starting even in utero. The bit about AGD was also pretty crazy — followed by the bit about men becoming less male. Some fear-mongering there no doubt, but a topic which in this era is more likely to be met with scoffs of “good riddance” rather than alarm bells.

tluyben2 8y ago
> followed by the bit about men becoming less male. This is pretty obvious without any research (papers). The difference between my generation and our children is already staggering in this regard. Not sure if that's just change in culture or physiological though; maybe a bit of both?
- zaroth 8y ago
  I resisted the urge to joke that this finally explains millenials, because it’s exactly that response which leads to the dismissive reactions this trend is being met with. A couple days ago I shared a NYT article with my wife because it was such a strange window into evolving gender standards [1] and the next day a friend of hers shared another story which took it to a whole new level [2]. I could not help but tie it all together in my mind with TFA and dropping testosterone levels, but god help me for admitting it here. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/style/modern-love-he-asked-permission-to-touch-but-not-to-ghost.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/style/modern-love-he-aske... [2] - https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/imagining-a-better-boyhood/562232/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/imagining...
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Jesus Christ, #2 sounds dangerously like the parent pushing her viewpoints on the poor kid.
    - ScottBurson 8y ago
      Where do you see that? I don't get that at all. It clearly sounds like his decision to wear dresses — the mother is just reflecting on the implications of that choice.
      - scarejunba 8y ago
        To me, it sounds like it’s got that tone. Like if your communist friend tells you, “My younger son just asked me why the proletariat allow the capital class to maintain a reserve army of labour. He also told me he wants to go to his third grade class dressed as Engels to protest the violence inherent in the system.” Makes me a little ... queasy. FWIW I’m not particularly bothered by the concept that a little kid may want to wear dresses. It’s just the tone in the story seems a bit ... not reputable.
        Izkata 8y ago
        I read it almost exactly halfway between what you two do: She read waay too much into one of her kid's specific preferences, and accidentally pushed him into dresses because of her own beliefs. Take myself for example, and imagine what that mother would have thought: Up until ~14 I wore various old shirts from my parents to bed and on weekends, which were long enough to look like a dress on me, but it had nothing to do with liking dresses. It had to do with regular clothes being too stifling to be comfortable on the weekend, pajamas being too warm, and me not having confidence to just go around in only underwear.
      - badcede 8y ago
        For children, it's always about what the parents want. Children will do anything for their parents. Kids don't put themselves in news articles. It's the parents who do it, but they always say the child spontaneously behaved that way.
  - vonseel 8y ago
    How do you guys get past paywalls like #2? Seems increasingly more sites have paywalls and I can’t imagine people are subscribing to multiple news providers.
    - zaroth 8y ago
      Sorry, just fixed the link to go direct to The Atlantic where there doesn’t appear to be a paywall.
- jayd16 8y ago
  You can also make the argument just as easily if not easier that women are becoming more manly. Seems like these trends would be dominated by social change and it's silly to assume any kind of physiological difference without a solid study.
  - tluyben2 8y ago
    Yes, I agree with you. It seems to be a social thing. But it seems to be the case worldwide so maybe there is a physiological component; would like to see studied. I see that young people today are absolutely behaving different than my generation but also than my parents and grandparents and great grandparents. I mean to say that my father, grandfathers and great grandfathers were all rather similar while they are all really different than the current generation. I think I like the current situation better. But yes, this needs solid studies if someone someone would be interested in finding the cause; not guessing or speculation.
- gaius 8y ago
  Yes, men today much weaker than their fathers https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19526832/grip-strength-weaker-today/ https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19526832/grip-strength-w...
- craftyguy 8y ago
  > The difference between my generation and our children is already staggering in this regard. Not sure if that's just change in culture or physiological though; maybe a bit of both? Said every parent about their children's generation since the dawn of human civilization..[0], [1] 0. http://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaints-about-young-people-ruining-everything http://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaint... 1. https://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html https://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html
  - tluyben2 8y ago
    Yeah , this is about a particular trait that is not in either of the linked articles though. You took what I said out of context which makes it a platitude.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
likely to be met with scoffs of “good riddance” My first thought was that this may also cast light on the rise of the trans rights movement. If men are becoming less male, surely this relates to so many people saying "I'm really a woman trapped in a man's body." or vice versa. This may also help explain why trans people are so often met with open hostility as "freaks" etc. No, I am not defending their mistreatment. But given how charged a topic that is, I imagine bringing it up will get my comment flagged to death, not taken seriously. I'm a fairly traditionally feminine woman and spent a couple of decades as a homemaker and full-time mom. I am routinely met with open hostility from self proclaimed trans activists, feminists, etc. I personally like "manly men" and that's also not a PC thing to admit to. So I will suggest it isn't just men the world is saying "good riddance" to. It's also women in some sense. If you want to argue that, please stop and think before dismissively attacking me. People talk all the time about how gender is a social construct and is not merely the bits between your legs. I stayed home with my kids and that had a profound impact on how I think about many things. And the way I think is alien to that of career women and they are frequently openly hostile to it.
- thomasfedb 8y ago
  > I am routinely met with open hostility from self proclaimed trans activists, feminists, etc. Hostility towards what? I assume they attack a view you hold, rather than your being a stay-at-home mother.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Oh, lots of different things. As best I can tell, the hostility is towards me personally, not a specific view per se. I've been accused on HN of being transphobic for attempting to speak about women's issues. I don't really care to dig up a whole lot of examples to convince skeptics. I was homeless for nearly 6 years and only asking for help with trying to figure out how to make money online. I got damn little support and was actively dismissed, especially on a different forum that likes to imagine it is female friendly. I don't think it really is. Anyway, those painful experiences made it quite clear to me that a lot of people literally would like to see me dead. I'm aware that callous indifference isn't something most people will take seriously as a form of attempted murder, so I don't actually want to talk about this. Additional hostile dismissal of my opinions of my experiences won't change my opinions and, ironically, are unlikely to be seen as supporting evidence for my point.
stevebmark 8y ago
congrats on the worst take on HN
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Analemma_ 8y ago
> a topic which in this era is more likely to be met with scoffs of “good riddance” rather than alarm bells. I'm not sure about that. The Internet "manosphere" (for lack of a better term; consider it the all-encompassing phrase for both harmless and not-so-harmless subcultures like weightlifting, PUA, redpillers, the alt-right, etc.) seems more obsessed with masculinity than anyone I can recall seeing in previous decades. "Plastics in the water are destroying men" has been a ha-ha-only-serious topic in those circles for a while now and this will only solidify it. For better or worse, there are enough people concerned about this stuff that I doubt it will get handwaved away.
- zaroth 8y ago
  It’s exactly those harmless and not-so-harmless subcultures obsessed with [toxic] masculinity who are the fringe groups which somehow (almost by osmosis) seem to corrupt this fairly shocking scientific line of inquiry.
  - Analemma_ 8y ago
    It is unfortunate that this pretty serious issue is going to be somewhat "guilty by association", but I don't think it will get so bad that no one's going to care about it. Men are just, well, too invested in this stuff. I just wanted to allay concerns that nobody's going to care because it would be too "un-PC".
pesmhey 8y ago
I’ve got a hypothesis that there is a set amount of testosterone possible in the world (or social group). More males = less to go around. It would make sense from a not-constantly-on-edge perspective as the amount of males per unit of territory goes up. Just a hypothesis, could make for interesting research.
- amelius 8y ago
  Perhaps this is linked to social media. Men now have 300+ friends (of which perhaps half are male), which is far more compared to the past.
- dwaltrip 8y ago
  The body produces testosterone. It's not allocated from some fixed global reserve.
  - pesmhey 8y ago
    Your body is part of a global network of human beings, where social status and hormones are like, actual things that feed off each other. Here’s some research along those lines: joeytcheng.com

by zaroth 8y ago

tluyben2 8y ago

> followed by the bit about men becoming less male. This is pretty obvious without any research (papers). The difference between my generation and our children is already staggering in this regard. Not sure if that's just change in culture or physiological though; maybe a bit of both?

zaroth 8y ago
I resisted the urge to joke that this finally explains millenials, because it’s exactly that response which leads to the dismissive reactions this trend is being met with. A couple days ago I shared a NYT article with my wife because it was such a strange window into evolving gender standards [1] and the next day a friend of hers shared another story which took it to a whole new level [2]. I could not help but tie it all together in my mind with TFA and dropping testosterone levels, but god help me for admitting it here. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/style/modern-love-he-asked-permission-to-touch-but-not-to-ghost.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/style/modern-love-he-aske... [2] - https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/imagining-a-better-boyhood/562232/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/imagining...
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Jesus Christ, #2 sounds dangerously like the parent pushing her viewpoints on the poor kid.
  - ScottBurson 8y ago
    Where do you see that? I don't get that at all. It clearly sounds like his decision to wear dresses — the mother is just reflecting on the implications of that choice.
    - scarejunba 8y ago
      To me, it sounds like it’s got that tone. Like if your communist friend tells you, “My younger son just asked me why the proletariat allow the capital class to maintain a reserve army of labour. He also told me he wants to go to his third grade class dressed as Engels to protest the violence inherent in the system.” Makes me a little ... queasy. FWIW I’m not particularly bothered by the concept that a little kid may want to wear dresses. It’s just the tone in the story seems a bit ... not reputable.
      - Izkata 8y ago
        I read it almost exactly halfway between what you two do: She read waay too much into one of her kid's specific preferences, and accidentally pushed him into dresses because of her own beliefs. Take myself for example, and imagine what that mother would have thought: Up until ~14 I wore various old shirts from my parents to bed and on weekends, which were long enough to look like a dress on me, but it had nothing to do with liking dresses. It had to do with regular clothes being too stifling to be comfortable on the weekend, pajamas being too warm, and me not having confidence to just go around in only underwear.
    - badcede 8y ago
      For children, it's always about what the parents want. Children will do anything for their parents. Kids don't put themselves in news articles. It's the parents who do it, but they always say the child spontaneously behaved that way.
- vonseel 8y ago
  How do you guys get past paywalls like #2? Seems increasingly more sites have paywalls and I can’t imagine people are subscribing to multiple news providers.
  - zaroth 8y ago
    Sorry, just fixed the link to go direct to The Atlantic where there doesn’t appear to be a paywall.
jayd16 8y ago
You can also make the argument just as easily if not easier that women are becoming more manly. Seems like these trends would be dominated by social change and it's silly to assume any kind of physiological difference without a solid study.
- tluyben2 8y ago
  Yes, I agree with you. It seems to be a social thing. But it seems to be the case worldwide so maybe there is a physiological component; would like to see studied. I see that young people today are absolutely behaving different than my generation but also than my parents and grandparents and great grandparents. I mean to say that my father, grandfathers and great grandfathers were all rather similar while they are all really different than the current generation. I think I like the current situation better. But yes, this needs solid studies if someone someone would be interested in finding the cause; not guessing or speculation.
gaius 8y ago
Yes, men today much weaker than their fathers https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19526832/grip-strength-weaker-today/ https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19526832/grip-strength-w...
craftyguy 8y ago
> The difference between my generation and our children is already staggering in this regard. Not sure if that's just change in culture or physiological though; maybe a bit of both? Said every parent about their children's generation since the dawn of human civilization..[0], [1] 0. http://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaints-about-young-people-ruining-everything http://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaint... 1. https://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html https://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html
- tluyben2 8y ago
  Yeah , this is about a particular trait that is not in either of the linked articles though. You took what I said out of context which makes it a platitude.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

likely to be met with scoffs of “good riddance” My first thought was that this may also cast light on the rise of the trans rights movement. If men are becoming less male, surely this relates to so many people saying "I'm really a woman trapped in a man's body." or vice versa. This may also help explain why trans people are so often met with open hostility as "freaks" etc. No, I am not defending their mistreatment. But given how charged a topic that is, I imagine bringing it up will get my comment flagged to death, not taken seriously. I'm a fairly traditionally feminine woman and spent a couple of decades as a homemaker and full-time mom. I am routinely met with open hostility from self proclaimed trans activists, feminists, etc. I personally like "manly men" and that's also not a PC thing to admit to. So I will suggest it isn't just men the world is saying "good riddance" to. It's also women in some sense. If you want to argue that, please stop and think before dismissively attacking me. People talk all the time about how gender is a social construct and is not merely the bits between your legs. I stayed home with my kids and that had a profound impact on how I think about many things. And the way I think is alien to that of career women and they are frequently openly hostile to it.

thomasfedb 8y ago
> I am routinely met with open hostility from self proclaimed trans activists, feminists, etc. Hostility towards what? I assume they attack a view you hold, rather than your being a stay-at-home mother.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Oh, lots of different things. As best I can tell, the hostility is towards me personally, not a specific view per se. I've been accused on HN of being transphobic for attempting to speak about women's issues. I don't really care to dig up a whole lot of examples to convince skeptics. I was homeless for nearly 6 years and only asking for help with trying to figure out how to make money online. I got damn little support and was actively dismissed, especially on a different forum that likes to imagine it is female friendly. I don't think it really is. Anyway, those painful experiences made it quite clear to me that a lot of people literally would like to see me dead. I'm aware that callous indifference isn't something most people will take seriously as a form of attempted murder, so I don't actually want to talk about this. Additional hostile dismissal of my opinions of my experiences won't change my opinions and, ironically, are unlikely to be seen as supporting evidence for my point.

stevebmark 8y ago

congrats on the worst take on HN

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Analemma_ 8y ago

> a topic which in this era is more likely to be met with scoffs of “good riddance” rather than alarm bells. I'm not sure about that. The Internet "manosphere" (for lack of a better term; consider it the all-encompassing phrase for both harmless and not-so-harmless subcultures like weightlifting, PUA, redpillers, the alt-right, etc.) seems more obsessed with masculinity than anyone I can recall seeing in previous decades. "Plastics in the water are destroying men" has been a ha-ha-only-serious topic in those circles for a while now and this will only solidify it. For better or worse, there are enough people concerned about this stuff that I doubt it will get handwaved away.

zaroth 8y ago
It’s exactly those harmless and not-so-harmless subcultures obsessed with [toxic] masculinity who are the fringe groups which somehow (almost by osmosis) seem to corrupt this fairly shocking scientific line of inquiry.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  It is unfortunate that this pretty serious issue is going to be somewhat "guilty by association", but I don't think it will get so bad that no one's going to care about it. Men are just, well, too invested in this stuff. I just wanted to allay concerns that nobody's going to care because it would be too "un-PC".

pesmhey 8y ago

I’ve got a hypothesis that there is a set amount of testosterone possible in the world (or social group). More males = less to go around. It would make sense from a not-constantly-on-edge perspective as the amount of males per unit of territory goes up. Just a hypothesis, could make for interesting research.

amelius 8y ago
Perhaps this is linked to social media. Men now have 300+ friends (of which perhaps half are male), which is far more compared to the past.
dwaltrip 8y ago
The body produces testosterone. It's not allocated from some fixed global reserve.
- pesmhey 8y ago
  Your body is part of a global network of human beings, where social status and hormones are like, actual things that feed off each other. Here’s some research along those lines: joeytcheng.com