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I was thinking particularly of descriptions of impulsivity, immediacy, and emotional intensity. I read accounts by trans men saying that all their desires become both powerful and immediate, as if someone had switched caps lock on for their desires. They didn't get hungry, they got HUNGRY. NOW! And so on. Ironically, the emotional balance they described reminded me more of being a child, prior to puberty, so it was hard for me to associate that with puberty or testosterone.
For what it's worth, I myself had a quite gentle puberty - it was a gradual slope, rather than a wall breaking. As such I've never subjectively understood either why some kids fear it, or why some adults describe it as a very painful, tempestuous time of their lives. It just happened to me quite smoothly, and over a few years my voice dropped lower, I got more hair, and I experienced sexual attraction, but there was never a moment where I found it painful or disconcerting. I was even a little disappointed that nothing dramatic happened. Maybe sex ed at school had just hyped it up too much.
Anyway, their descriptions of getting very horny on testosterone didn't seem to match my experience of sexual desire. I had my sexual awakening just like anyone else, the phase where I hid pictures of sexy women underneath the bed and snuck guilty glances at bikini-clad models on magazine covers, and so on. But it was never a consuming fire for me. Maybe I'm just unusual and this is a universal experience I'm missing, but I don't think that's it? I got turned on by the hot girl sitting in front of me in class. All the basics seemed to happen to me. It just internally didn't feel like this overwhelmingly, uncontrollably powerful force. It felt like, "oh hey, that's happening to me, all right, deep breaths, focus on something else".
I'd be somewhat interested in other men's experiences of this. It's not something I really talk about with other people, since it's obviously a personal and embarrassing subject, and I suspect that the kinds of men who talk about it openly are self-selected for being uninhibited and horny.
Since you're asking, my personal experience was that puberty was smooth in many, but not all areas. WRT my own sexual awakening specifically, yeah, it was pretty smooth on-ramp, and no, it never got to be a consuming fire, but it was a fire that (while abstract) wasn't quite as simple as taking deep breaths and focusing on something else, for me, either. More like I was really eager to find the one and live happily ever after, including lots of hot sex. In retrospect, I feel like I obviously bought into the Hollywood movie version of sex and love way too hard.
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Totally agree with your description of puberty. It was a nothingburger, way overhyped.
I actually think Olive will find their experience of puberty is more common around here than not. Guys for whom testosterone is overwhelming get driven to different interests than mostly polite arguments with strangers about ephemera.
Yes, I suppose it's possible that it's to do with the level of testosterone, and maybe higher-T men are more aggressive, and lower-T people more, for lack of a better term, intellectual or interested in abstracts.
I have no idea whether that's true, though. I obviously don't know my own level of testosterone or how that compares to other men. I would hazard that personality has to do with way more than just a single hormone, though, and while testosterone does make one more aggressive, the behavioural consequences of that seem like they would vary widely with everything else that goes into making up one's personality.
I could just as easily suggest that this forum might select for more testosterone, because I'd guess that it's unusual for people to actively seek out argument. People who post on the Motte are probably positively selected for enjoying conflict.
Ultimately I just really don't know. It would be interesting to have statistical data on the hormone profiles of Motters, but that data is inaccessible to us. I suppose I will file it away as something that would be mildly interesting, but which we won't know. Oh, well. It is an ever-growing file.
I can see how you interpreted what I wrote as being about the level of testosterone, but that was not what I meant. I was talking about the sensation being overwhelming - if it makes you feel like Grug the caveman you'll inevitably end up somewhere other than here imo, no matter why it's overwhelming. It is just a guess, but I will stand by it.
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A shy, quiet, intellectually-inclined friend of mine got his T levels checked and he was dead center average (by male standards).
Obviously there's something important going on with sex hormones and how they affect cognitive and personality traits, but it's not as simple as "number go up = big manly man, number go down = beta nerd".
Was it dead center average by modern standards?
I’ve lost the studies and to be honest I don’t remember how they were coming to these conclusions, but I have heard that there is evidence that testosterone levels have been dropping over the last 60 years or more.
So it may be entirely possible that he is dead center average in 2025, and also that he is significantly less “masculine” than a dead center average man in 1950.
Maybe one of the Motte’s more organized posters will see this and can chime in with the statistics.
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Do we really? It seems that most posting on the motte is either neutral or communal bashing of the outgroup or cooperative exploration of some topic, with very few exchanges being actually adversarial.
People who really don't like conflict subconsciously change their beliefs to match those of the mainstream, so as to minimize the possibility of conflict. To have the beliefs that the average Motteizen does, even in secret, and go through the trouble of registering even a pseudonymous account to post them... does speak to a certain degree of conflict seeking, or at least contrariness.
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I think it really is a question of degree and immediateness. I had some problems with violence around elementary school, like many boys, but over time realised how destructive that was, adapted & looked for new friends, and by the time testosterone really hit in puberty I was already well-adjusted to dealing with it. I haven't had a brawl or anything similar in more than a decade by now, but I also know that I still very much enjoy violence, so it's not hard at all for me to imagine that if a person was suddenly hit with my level of testosterone without any time to adapt or critically reflect on it, they may struggle with their temper.
I can understand it with violence, or I'd speculate possibly with competition or dominance in general? There is a thrill I get from competition, including physical competition, and that involves a certain level of aggression. When I was going through puberty I was involved in fencing, at school, and that was one of the co-ed sports. I remember trying to be chivalrous about it, but... you can't really go all out against the girls, and it's not the same. I wanted to push myself. I wanted to be allowed to be fierce.
That was probably a major difference, because I did recognise that trait in some other boys, but much more rarely in girls. There was definitely a female kind of aggression, but it did not manifest the same way.
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