Testosterone
Ken Wilber [...]
Q: Is there any sex in the book?KW: With diagrams, actually.
Q: You’re kidding.
KW: I’m kidding. But yes, sexuality is one of the main themes, and especially its relation to gender.
Q: Sex and gender are different?
KW: It’s common to use “sex” or sexuality to refer to the biological aspects of human reproduction, and “gender” to refer to the cultural differences between men and women that group up around the sexual or biological differences. . .
Q: And these differences have their roots in the biological differences between male and female?
KW: In part, in seems so. Hormonal differences, in particular. . . . I don’t mean to be crude, but it appears that testosterone basically has two, and only two major drives: fuck it or kill it.
And males are saddled with this biological nightmare almost from day one, a nightmare women can barely imagine (except when they are given testosterone injections for medical purposes, which drives them nuts. As one woman put it, “I can’t stop thinking about sex. Please, can’t you make it stop?”)
-- Ken Wilber
Testosterone vs. Oxytocin
I started reading "A Brief History of Everything" by Ken Wilber. One of the first notions he presents is the gradient from sex, biologically defined characterization of the male and female, to gender, the cultural analog defining masculinity and femininity. He presents the idea that the difference of value spheres between males and females is primarily attributed to hormonal differences: namely, testosterone, which has the drives of "fuck it" or "kill it," and "oxytocin," which promotes feelings of attachment and nurturing. Wilber brings in the biological evolutionary significance of these hormones: testosterone for reproduction and oxytocin for mothering. -- http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~mshlimov/MT/archives/cat_philosophy.htmlSummer Movies
Summer movies are pure pagan spectacles, for which critics have little vocabulary and less sympathy. The great Pauline Kael (she and the gay Parker Tyler are in my view the best modern film critics) had instinctive rapport with the popular audience, but as a tartly literate urbanite, she wasn't particularly interested in high-decibel, testosterone-drenched demolition derbies.Summer movies are the revenge of the seething id, after the long school year of the paralyzing, castrating superego. If their special effects sometimes seem ferociously fascist, it's just a reflection of the intensity of those natural youthful energies that have been caged for the past nine months. Summer movies are our Saturnalia, temporarily overturning the hierarchic order and plunging us into a restorative bath of the senses. As always, popular culture rebalances mind and body in this rootless yet overcontrolled society of ours. --Camille Paglia for salon.com
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