Testosterone

This American Life is one of those really underrated brilliant shows. Radio shows, that is. I suspect most people who listen to this NPR show also agree in its brilliance, but it gets little play because it's NPR, and it's on the radio, and mostly, you listen to the radio when you're driving. Only occasionally are there folks like my previous roommate Adam that listened to radio like people watch TV, except, even in this case, he listened to it sparingly.

I was listening to an episode about testoserone. Part of the amazing amazingness of this show is its willingness to delve into topics that you wouldn't imagine anyone would care about. What kind of perverse mind thinks you can make a radio show devoted to testosterone?

There are four segments, of which I heard three. The first involved a man that had no testosterone. My sense, lacking information from the start of the show, was that he somehow had some treatment that prevent his body from making testosterone for a period of time.

The second was about a man, who was born a woman, and considered herself a dyke. She liked other women, and eventually came to an epiphany that she'd rather be a man, and started taking testosterone as part of becoming transgendered. She said, as a dyke, she was aggressive and outgoing. As a guy, however, he found he needed to be less "dyke". Indeed, his friends now found him a bit nerdy, which he found a bit disconcerting, that he had become rather boring in his new life.

In order to pass, he made up a few fictions. When he was a she, he had gone to Bryn Mawr, well known as a women's only college. Bryn Mawr, as it turns out, has an affiliate college, namely, Haverford, where girls and guys both attend. He would tell people who asked that he went to Haverford.

Now Jaime goes to Haverford, and he's proud of this fact, so I found the next part rather funny. This man (Griffin Hansbury) felt Bryn Mawr was a superior college to Haverford, even as he had had many friends at Haverford, so it really pained him to say he had gone to what he had thought was an inferior school.

The third segment was about getting the various people on This American Life to have their testosterone measured. Given gender differences, they had the guys ranked separately from the girls.

Testosterone's main effect for most people is a sense of boldness, and lack of fear. People can often ignore many things while focusing on a specific task. It's also been tied to baldness. The question came up whether the gay male, who is balding, and works out, would have the most testosterone or not. Most women felt one of the women, who was aggressive, and a bit short-tempered would have the most testosterone. Some wondered about the wisdom of knowing someone's testosterone levels.

As it turned out, the gay guy did have the most testosterone, and while he didn't particularly care whether he won or not, he still seemed to gloat in this victory. The guy who came in last felt bad. He said he could understand it if he was at Sportscenter, and he came in last, but what does it say when he comes last to a group of guys in public radio. The gay guy asked what Sportscenter was, and he lamented that he knew what Sportscenter was, and was still last.

This show isn't so much about news. It isn't about campaigns. It isn't about the Presidency. It isn't even about Roger Clemens.

It's about people. Maybe not the average person you know. It's about brainy people who are able to find unusual people, unusual everyday people, whose stories are utterly fascinating to listen to. This isn't even the mythic everyday quality you get when listening to Charles Kuralt, who famously wandered the countrysides in his journeys across the US, interviewing the plain folk he met along his travels.

Yeah, it's pitched at the so-called NPR elite, but I don't think it's such a bad thing to do, to hear stories about what a chemical that our bodies produce have to do with how we perceive the world, and ourselves.