Testosterone Tumbling in American Males?

John Wayne must be rolling over in his grave.

The French are probably laughing at us for a change.

An article just published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism describes a study that documents a decline in the testosterone levels of American men. The study apparently measured testosterone in different groups of men in 1988, 1996, and 2003. Men who were aged 65 to 69 in the 2003 study had only 84% of the testosterone that another group of men the same age had in the 1988 study.

The article indicates that smoking, obesity and other factors can't fully explain the differences.

John Kerry would probably say that global warming is the cause. He blames everything on it, including colder-than-usual weather last winter. I think just the opposite. I think John Kerry is to blame for lowering testosterone levels. John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Bill Maher, politically correct speech, and a ban on Christmas decorations in town squares, smoke-free zones are all emasculating American men.

A few weeks after "the 11th" (I find it a bit too clinical to call it "9/11," and don't even get me started on that lame phrase "the events of September 11th") Peggy Noonan published a column called "Welcome Back, Duke." In it she praises not so much the return of manly men, but their return to grace. Let me quote a few key paragraphs, but please, read the whole piece:

A certain style of manliness is once again being honored and celebrated in our country since Sept. 11. You might say it suddenly emerged from the rubble of the past quarter century, and emerged when a certain kind of man came forth to get our great country out of the fix it was in.

I am speaking of masculine men, men who push things and pull things and haul things and build things, men who charge up the stairs in a hundred pounds of gear and tell everyone else where to go to be safe. Men who are welders, who do construction, men who are cops and firemen. They are all of them, one way or another, the men who put the fire out, the men who are digging the rubble out, and the men who will build whatever takes its place.

And their style is back in style. We are experiencing a new respect for their old-fashioned masculinity, a new respect for physical courage, for strength and for the willingness to use both for the good of others.

You didn't have to be a fireman to be one of the manly men of Sept. 11. Those businessmen on flight 93, which was supposed to hit Washington, the businessmen who didn't live by their hands or their backs but who found out what was happening to their country, said goodbye to the people they loved, snapped the cell phone shut and said, "Let's roll." Those were tough men, the ones who forced that plane down in Pennsylvania. They were tough, brave guys.

She goes on to explain how they fell from grace in the 1970's:

I should discuss how manliness and its brother, gentlemanliness, went out of style. I know, because I was there. In fact, I may have done it. I remember exactly when: It was in the mid-'70s, and I was in my mid-20s, and a big, nice, middle-aged man got up from his seat to help me haul a big piece of luggage into the overhead luggage space on a plane. I was a feminist, and knew our rules and rants. "I can do it myself," I snapped.

It was important that he know women are strong. It was even more important, it turns out, that I know I was a jackass, but I didn't. I embarrassed a nice man who was attempting to help a lady. I wasn't lady enough to let him. I bet he never offered to help a lady again. I bet he became an intellectual, or a writer, and not a good man like a fireman or a businessman who says, "Let's roll."

This isn't to blame women alone for the decline of testosterone. Lots of intellectual sissified men participated. We manly men let them. No wonder our testosterone is in decline.

Of course, that medical study on testosterone was done on men in the greater Boston area. I'll bet that New York men would have scored higher.