Saturday, November 6, 2010

Men and Mascunility Links - 11/6/2010

Oy vey! So many links, so little time. Rather than simply delete these links because they are aging and I haven't had time to post on them, I'll just share them here and let you choose what may or may not interest you.

I'm posting the first few paragraphs of each article, so follow the title link to read the whole post.

The first two are from Science Codex, a cool research summary site.

Low testosterone linked to heightened risk of early death

Posted On: October 19, 2010 - 11:30pm

Low testosterone levels seem to be linked to a heightened risk of premature death from heart disease and all causes, suggests research published online in Heart.

The finding refutes received wisdom that the hormone is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

The researchers base their findings on 930 men, all of whom had coronary artery heart disease, and had been referred to a specialist heart centre between 2000 and 2002. Their heart health was then tracked for around 7 years.

On referral, low testosterone was relatively common. One in four of the men was classified as having low testosterone, using measurements of either bioavailable testosterone (bio-T) - available for tissues to use - of under 2.6 mmol/l or total testosterone (TT) of under 8.1 mmol/l.

These measures indicate clinically defined testosterone deficiency, referred to as hypogonadism, as opposed to a tailing off in levels of the hormone as a result of ageing.

* * * * *

Why are men more susceptible to alcoholism?

Posted On: October 18, 2010 - 2:50pm

Philadelphia, PA, 18 October 2010 - Alcohol is one of the most commonly abused substances, and men are up to twice as likely to develop alcoholism as women. Until now, the underlying biology contributing to this difference in vulnerability has remained unclear.

A new study published in Biological Psychiatry reveals that dopamine may be an important factor.

Researchers from Columbia and Yale studied male and female college-age social drinkers in a laboratory test of alcohol consumption. After consuming an alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink, each participant underwent a specialized positron emission tomography (PET) scan, an imaging technique that can measure the amount of alcohol-induced dopamine release.

Dopamine has multiple functions in the brain, but is important in this context because of its pleasurable effects when it is released by rewarding experiences, such as sex or drugs.

Despite similar consumptions of alcohol, the men had greater dopamine release than women. This increase was found in the ventral striatum, an area in the brain strongly associated with pleasure, reinforcement and addiction formation.

"In men, increased dopamine release also had a stronger association with subjective positive effects of alcohol intoxication," explained Dr. Nina Urban, corresponding author for this study. "This may contribute to the initial reinforcing properties of alcohol and the risk for habit formation."

* * * * *

This one comes from Graham Phoenix at Male eXperience:

Men Shy Away From Intimacy

REM

Men often have difficulty dealing with intimacy, particularly when a relationship appears to be out of their control. The interesting part of this is that men also have difficulty acknowledging that they have difficulty dealing with intimacy. They usually sublimate the emotions into actions that they can understand.

I understand this, I have been there. I went through a period in my life where I had great difficulty dealing with the behaviour of my ex-wife. She was an alcoholic and I found increasing problems coping with intimacy in light of this behaviour. I was angry at how she was and expressing it only made the situation worse. I retreated into my man cave to find a way to deal with the situation. There were times when, during arguments, I would get so frustrated that I would go to bed, hide under the duvet and scream loudly. I did not know how to deal with the emotions I was feeling.

In the end I had to cut myself off and withdraw intimacy. That was the beginning of the end of our marriage. Using intimacy, or lack of it, as a weapon in a battle was not a clever thing to do. To me it felt like I was ‘doing’ something to solve the situation, in fact I was just hiding away from it. I was refusing to actually deal with the emotions I was feeling.

* * * * *

This piece is from Gene Latimer at Divine Masculine:

Emerging...

About 30 years ago, halfway through an intense 12+ year process of learning/working with inner light/fire (a Western version of Agni Yoga), my mental chatter stopped. At the time, I was amazed and elated...as time passed, that just became the norm which I took for granted.

Now, I wonder about the loss/gain ratio of it all, of being so cut off from the voices of my own shit...having been shaken the past few days in uncovering a core feeling of being unloveable buried deep, deep within.
* * * * *

Finally this cool post on sexuality and intimacy comes from David Cates at Deep Masculine:

Make no mistake about it: sex is power.

Kingdoms rise and fall for sex. Societies legislate marriage to control sex. Churches advocate celibacy, on pain of hell. They want to keep the genie in the bottle.

The raw experiential nature of sex gives it mindblowing potency. Something that powerful, happening in the body, sweeping us along emotionally, overriding the senses, seems more real than anything we’ve been told to believe.

Sex creates its own reality.

If you are using the power of sex for egoic purposes, no matter how refined and pure your ego, sex will reinforce the consciousness you’re coming from. Every act of sex will drive you deeper into separation. Partner, solo, ritual, group, loving, healing, using: doesn’t matter what kind of sex. If you start from ego, you will end at ego.

If you start with God, you’ll end with God.

Hope you found something you like.


No comments: