Heroes, Rogues, & Lovers: Testosterone and Behavior (26 page)

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Authors: James McBride Dabbs,Mary Godwin Dabbs

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BOOK: Heroes, Rogues, & Lovers: Testosterone and Behavior
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invaded Europe, set up colonies there, and then gone on to colonize the New World. Then the song from the Broadway musical
Oklahoma!,
which presents the happy image of love and marriage going together like a horse and carriage, might have been about a rhinoceros and a carriage instead. When it comes to rhinos, it is easy to anthropomorphize and say they are like macho men. With their thick heads and hides, they would seem equally likely to pull a carriage down the road or into a ditch, oblivious to the needs of passengers.
Peacocks have another set of characteristics typical of macho men. Peacocks appear to have plenty of male ego, and we often say men are peacocks when they show off. I was lucky enough to be visiting the zoo with my family one morning when a peacock was courting. He knew how to show off. He spread his beautiful tail feathers, held his head proudly, turned around slowly so that the little brown peahen could see him from every impressive angle, and from time to time he would stand still and raise a clamor with his special rattling tail feathers. Although he surely wanted admiration from the peahen he was courting, he didn't appear to be looking at her. Courtship was clearly his show. It is hard not to make assumptions about peacock psychology and think they view peahens as "sex objects" only.
Don Juan was a great lover who was not a rhino or a peacock. I read that women loved him not because he was handsome and clever but because he listened to them. While other men chased women and showed off for them, Don Juan paid attention to women and listened to what they had to say. They were so amazed and grateful to find a man who thought what they said was important that they bestowed their deepest affections on him. Don Juan's attentiveness could have helped him succeed in doing business with women, too. The TV show
48 Hours
reported on a woman who was amazed at how helpful salesmen were when she entered a men's clothing store disguised as a man.
27
They listened to her, and they tried to understand what she wanted. When she entered dressed as a woman, they spent less time listening and more time telling her what they thought she needed. Because women are ignored so much, they appreciate men who listen to them. It is not surprising that women compare men to rhinos and peacocks.
Not all male behavior is explained by testosterone. What men learn as boys explains much of what they do as men. I know a man whose
 
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mother always shined his shoes when he was a boy. When he married, he thought his wife would shine his shoes, as part ofher job as woman of the house. She told him he was wrong, and he learned to shine his own shoes. We usually continue to do things the way we first learned to do them, unless we have good reason to do otherwise. While men may have rhinolike and peacocklike tendencies, those tendencies can be moderated by education and social expectations.
Nevertheless, I think men with high levels of testosterone might act like rhinos or peacocks more often than do other men. A student of mine had two boyfriends, and she was fond of them both. The one she knew first was a sportswriter who liked to spend a lot of time alone or with other men. When she went to parties with him, he would often ignore her for a good part of the evening. He liked to go outside to smoke and think his own thoughts. He became a more enthusiastic suitor when the second boyfriend appeared on the scene. The second boyfriend was a sociable and attentive ex-Marine. We assayed the testosterone levels of both men. Both were within the normal range, but the sportswriter was nearer the high end of normal. She married the ex-Marine, the one with lower testosterone, and she has no regrets.
A study of female vervet monkeys indicates they also prefer males who are not too high in testosterone. As discussed earlier, female vervet monkeys have a say in which male will become leader of the group. They pick males who are not especially aggressive or high in testosterone and who have high levels of serotonin, a brain chemical that makes animals more mellow, as if they were taking Prozac.
28
There are some indications, including the "gender gap" that political analysts talk about, that women, like female vervet monkeys, often prefer leaders who do not have traits associated with high levels of testosterone. Iroquois women were exemplars of the feminine influence in politics at the height of Iroquois civilization in the eighteenth century, when the Iroquois were forging peaceful alliances with neighboring tribes. Iroquois women held property and were politically active; the women of each clan selected a clan mother, and the clan mothers selected the men who would serve as chiefs representing the clans at the Grand Council. The clan mothers selected chiefs on the basis of "wisdom, integrity, vision, fairness, oratorical ability, and other statesmanlike qualities."
29
These are qualities that would be consistent
 
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with moderate levels of testosterone and high levels of serotonin.
It is not surprising that many women are less like the women who leave their telephone numbers at construction sites and more like the Iroquois women, who prefer men who are not too macho, because less macho men make better husbands. A general restlessness and dissatisfaction with marriage goes along with high testosterone, as was found in a study of three dozen professional married men.
30
Each man had been married about eighteen years, most were in their first marriage, and none of the men were physically abusive. Overall satisfaction with marriage was less among those who were higher in testosterone. They were likely to say that they did not get along well with their wives and children, that they rated the quality of their marriages low, that they were not happy in their marriages, and that they preferred activities and relationships outside their marriages. This undoubtedly affected their health, because other studies show that satisfaction with marriage and children is related to men's health and well-being at mid-life.
31
The men who were lower in testosterone enjoyed their marriages more.
Another large study, which included married and divorced men, also showed testosterone to be very important. In this study Alan Booth and I analyzed marital relationships among 4,462 military veterans in their thirties and early forties.
32
The most striking finding was that high-testosterone men were less likely to marry, and if they did marry they were more likely to get a divorce. Figure 5.1 shows that the lowest-testosterone men were those who had married and stayed married. Next were those who were married and had been married at least once before. Above these were single men who had never married, and highest of all were men who had been married but were currently single.
Another way of looking at this is to examine differences in the marital behavior of low- and high-testosterone men. Individuals in the top 2 percent of the testosterone distribution were twice as likely to have extramarital affairs than men in the bottom 2 percent. Examining other kinds of marital disorganization and misbehavior, the overall picture of the macho extreme is bad. The top 2 percent were twice as likely to be physically abusive, hitting or throwing things at their wives. High-testosterone men are also psychologically remote from their wives. When asked, "Whom have you felt closest to in past years?" higher-
 
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Figure 5.1
Testosterone and men's marriages. Testosterone is lowest among men who are
married and have never been divorced. It is highest among men who divorced
and are now single.
testosterone men were more likely to name someone other than their wives.
A study of the ability of men and women to identify facial expressions reveals an ability difference that may underlie masculine remoteness and insensitivity. The study reported that although women were equally good at identifying unhappy facial expressions in people of both sexes, men were poor at recognizing unhappiness in women.
33
Ruben Gur, who helped do the study, believes that sex hormones play a role in the difference. It seems probable to me that high-testosterone men are less likely than average men to notice when their wives looked unhappy. Perhaps egocentrism, along with insensitivity, leads men, particularly high-testosterone men, to brush aside their wives' complaints as trivial. They may not see problems with their marriages until their wives threaten them with divorce; then the men often feel they have lost control of the relationship and tend to respond with anger. Men are most likely to become violent when they feel belittled or insulted, as happens when women leave them or threaten to leave. Men who feel rejected or
 
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abandoned sometimes become violent toward their mates. In such a situation, the husband is likely to be thinking, ''She double-crossed me," while the wife is thinking, "He ignored me for years. Why should he get so mad when I want to leave?" The problems that high-testosterone men have with marriage are likely to include drinking, drug taking, infidelity, an unwillingness to spend time with the children, and so forth. Nevertheless, I suspect a major reason for divorce among high-testosterone men is that there is more peacock in men than there is peahen in women. To some men, a good relationship allows them to strut while their wives admire them. Many women want more than this from a relationship.
There are differences in what bothers men and women about their marriages. Men are more jealous over sexual infidelity, and women are more jealous over emotional infidelity.
34
Men are prone to violence toward women who leave them; women seldom are violent toward men who leave. There are more male than female stalkers, people who pursue others relentlessly and cannot believe that their "prey" do not want them around.
Rhinolike behavior, in courtship and marriage, comes more from men than women, but we should not ignore the behavior of women. Women have testosterone, and some women are pretty tough. When Geraldo interviewed Animal's girlfriend Michelle, the camera zoomed in on her smile. One of her front teeth was missing. Geraldo thought maybe Animal had attacked her. She said no, it was not his fault. She explained:
"Ah . . . Jack Daniel's one night. I decided to grow balls, and I hit him and I made him bleed. I cut his nose open, and so he, in reaction, hit me in the face, knocked my tooth out."
Michelle was tough. Animal was tough, too, and she did not hurt him badly, but suppose a more peaceful man ended up with her as a mate? Given the way we think about men and women, it may sound like a joke to hear that a wife has beaten her husband. People laugh when they hear it, and the victim is ashamed to go to the police. Few women beat their husbands, but it can happen, and when it does happen the pain of the male victim is great. I would like to discover whether testosterone in

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