The Global War on Testosterone
11.05.2007 - 12:52 PMExperts disagree about the relationship between testosterone and aggression. The endocrine system is complex, and it is difficult to attribute aggressive behavior to any one hormone, or to attribute a particular behavior, as opposed to a predisposition to a behavior, to hormones at all.
But let’s assume that the presence of testosterone does play some role in fostering aggression. One question then becomes: should the U.S. army encourage its production in the blood of its soldiers? Feminists and social conservatives are saying no. I say yes.
The issue has to come to the fore because a Christian group called the American Family Association (AFA) has launched a campaign to force the Pentagon to enforce more stringently a ban on the sale of sexually explicit material on military bases. Apparently Penthouse and Playboy are available for sale in some commissaries.
According to USA Today, the American Family Association is shocked and dismayed to find these magazines there, and even more so by the military’s contention that these publications, based upon its careful analysis of their contents, are not pornography, and thus not subject to the ban. The military has a special unit that makes such determinations. It employs a complex formula that takes into account how many pages of a publication contain lewd and lascivious material and how many pages do not. “They’re saying, ‘We’re not selling stuff that’s sexually explicit’” complained Donald Wildmon to USA Today. “We say it’s pornography.”
On this issue, I’m a bedfellow–not literally–with Nadine Strossen, who heads the ACLU. Her reasoning is that: “we’re asking these people to risk their lives to defend our Constitution’s principles … and they’re being denied their own First Amendment rights to choose what they read.” Although my reasoning is somewhat different, I concur and augment: our country is in a fight. Whether Playboy is pornography or not, we don’t need sexually obsessed prudes running the show. We do need maximum aggressiveness to win.
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November 5th, 2007 at 3:13 PM
Let us reason together.
The Islamists are the most sexually repressed people on earth, and the most aggressive.
Should the US military consider that tack?
November 5th, 2007 at 3:26 PM
it is funny… pornography is one of the items that I was specifically warned against sending to a friend in Iraq. He listed that and chocolate and a few other items. Now I hadn’t really thought of sending any pornography at all until he mentioned it was forbidden. Now thinking along your lines maybe I should. However, he is an artillery man so perhaps he should not be quite as aggressive, considering artillery bombardments are not really a “hearts and minds” type of application.
November 5th, 2007 at 3:33 PM
Donald Wildmon? Is that the same guy I was reading about in Playboy in the 60’s and 70’s? Who’d think there could be a lifelong career in being a bluenose?
November 5th, 2007 at 5:13 PM
Clearly, Donald Wildman needs to get laid. He, and all the rest of his ilk.
November 5th, 2007 at 8:30 PM
We must not permit our precious bodily fluids to be sapped and drained by a diabolical enemy who seeks our essence but to whom we deny it.
Is it true that General Norman Schwarzkopf permitted the distribution of condoms during the Gulf War provided they were all size Extra-Small so the troops would release maximum aggression in battle rather than in alternative forms of combat?
Perhaps we need to consult the Association of High School Football Coaches (assuming there is one) on such matters.
November 7th, 2007 at 6:36 PM
“But let’s assume that the presence of testosterone does play some role in fostering aggression. One question then becomes: should the U.S. army encourage its production in the blood of its soldiers?”
Can someone explain to me how it’s possible that a bunch of push-up-repeating, hand-to-hand combating, butt kicking, fabulously fit 22 year old men could possibly have any more testosterone than they already do?
November 8th, 2007 at 12:13 AM
Sure aggression is a symptom of overly excessive testosterone , if you want to discredit testosterone within healthy range.
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