Are Castrated Males more or less healthy than Regular Males?

[Such_Saturation]

post 65380

The idea that our reaction to our environment is bad says that either we or our environment is bad; the Fall of Adam, either way. As such, I have trouble viewing broad biological categories like 'male' or 'female' as bad.

Yes, I would say the environment is 'bad', or at least, non-optimal.

I don't mean to say male or female are bad, nor do I specifically know whether castration is a good idea. I just want to point out that the sexual differentiation between a young boy and young girl is minimal in comparison to that between man and woman. Also that most of the masculiniizing features, such as hairiness or muscles, contrast against the more neotenized features of a human female (or child).

Reptiles have minimally developed sexual characteristics. It is often difficult to tell which gender they possess by sight. Alternatively, more highly metabolising organisms have more obvious gender, increasing in clarity until you reach adult humans.

That's interesting, but I still don't think it proves that high sexual differentiation is valuable. Yes, human females have clear and present breasts unlike other apes, and partly I'm sure that has to do with how energetically successful humans have been over evolution.

But could someone explain how omnipresent breasts are actually useful to humanity? Or, for example, how is are the giant peacock tails useful? Mostly these things seem like a waste of energy, especially in comparison to the limitless potential of brain-energy. Only in the stressful context of competitive selection do these things become useful or necessary.

western educational institutions are designed precisely to maximise the childishness of the populace

I dislike most educational institutions aswell. However, I don't see their design as maximizing 'childishness', rather I see most of their rules as contradicting and subverting child behavior.

For example, being required to sit still in a chair, or raise your hand to talk, or needing permission to use the bathroom. All these are training obedience, and are quite un-childlike.

I think this depends on how you see children. I don't really see their nature are 'dependent' or 'submissive'. They are dependent, but that's a fact of nature due to their lack of skills and comfort in a new world. Their direction though is constantly towards growing more skills, growing more independence and ability. And I've seen a lot more subversive/playful behavior in kids than I have submissive, for example testing rules or toying with the things people say. I think 'submissiveness' mostly arrives not because the child values submission but because, in their so fresh and weak state they consider that the better option, sometimes out of respect, but in the case of school or harsh parents then out of pain/fear of punishment.

Schooling is how you are made into a link in the chain; keeping you as a child as long as possible is its chief method.

So then, we should expect older adults to be the least child-like, and therefore the most likely to break the 'chain' of behavior, right? But what I see is the opposite. Usually its older adults who want to keep things as they are, and young kids (18-25) who want to shake things up, do something different, break the chain.

The above makes it clear to me that Ray thinks development and differentiation are good things; that they are the creation of order. Developing into a clearly defined man or woman is part of the process of self-actualisation which he cites.

The growing organism makes choices, and generally speaking choices are good (anti-entropy). But these choices are also informed by the progenitor's own history, all of which I believe have been more stressful than could be achieved now (or in the future).

What I'm suggesting is that, if we lived in more optimal environments, we would make different developmental choices, and that these choices would lead us towards less, not more sexual differentiation.

For example, as a male, what use is beard hair, a masculine trait? Would you like more hair? We could go back to looking like apes, with hair all over. Or more muscles, is that really necessary these days? Bigger gonads, or for females, bigger breasts? I just don't really see the point. A breast is a breast and I don't think we need bigger breasts, but rather bigger and better brains.

This isn't just all theory either. I think Asians have the most neotenized features, and you'll notice their males, for example, have much less beard hair, also often having the highest IQ, among other child-like features. I wouldn't call it 'feminization' either, because in this case it just happens that female features are more neotenized than male ones. Really, its neoteny, I think, which will and should be driving our choices, not particularly masculinity or femininity, however we may see that to be.

“In evolution, the tendency toward dominance of the head (cephalization) in animals overlaps with another tendency (known in plants too) called juvenilization, pedomorphism, or neoteny, in which an early stage of the organism’s development, the juvenile stage is preserved for longer periods in the descendants, eventually becoming the normal adult type. Baby apes resemble humans, in body proportions and behaviour, much more than the adult apes do. The infant represents our evolutionary future.”

-Ray Peat

 

[franko]

I have several small varicoceles on both sides of my testicles and that probably impairs testosterone production for me quite a bit. I don't know if health insurance would pay to do microsurgery on them.

I have a varicocele but I am glad I did not have surgery. I suspected it could be causing low testosterone, and then I got my testosterone checked and it was indeed low (300s) but then I experimented with aromatase inhibitors and they raised my testosterone to normal levels (700s). So it was not testicular function that was causing my low T — it was something else.

My recommendation is to get your Testosterone checked so that you are not just guessing whether it's low or not. And if it is low, I would recommend trying changes in diet/supplements and then drugs — in that order. You don't want to spend thousands of dollars on surgery that is not necessary and does not improve anything.

Also, it's relatively easy and safe to experiment with your hormone levels and then you can find out for yourself whether it makes a difference and whether you like the results.

If my testosterone production is indeed lower, would it benefit my health to get them fixed? ... Surely you don't need testicles or ovaries to be healthy, right?

I don't know if its the testosterone that is the direct cause or it is just correlated with something else like dopamine, but when I have higher testosterone my life is much better — more energy, more motivation, more confidence — and when my T was low my life was much worse — apathy, lethargy, depression, social anxiety.

 

[Shredder2]

Feminine traits are not necessarily neotonous. The bodily proportions of a woman, especially "attractive" women are the exact opposite of the big head, short stubby build of an infant.

Apart from body hair, the so called neotonous traits that are associated with female beauty are those of young women i.e., late teens and girls in their 20's, not infants. Women are less neotonous than men in some ways, especially in their teenage years and even early adulthood.

 

[Shredder2]

If castrated men are healthier at all, it's probably because, when one is not healthy, more testosterone can be converted to estrogen etc. Castrates don't just have lower T.