I understand more and more things about cisgender men the longer I’m on testosterone. I know why teenage boys use so much axe now. I understand the crying thing. I know why they accidentally break things. I know why they wear shorts in the snow. I know why so many of them don’t use washcloths. I see everything.
Okay. Y’all want explainations? I’ll tell you all the things.
Testosterone makes you warm. With young men especially it can actually get really uncomfortable while their testosterone levels are at their peak. Often times coats and winter pants will keep in all their heat and it gets uncomfortable. So it makes sense to pick a part of the body to be exposed to help them stay cool. The legs tend to be the least uncomfortable part of the body to feel cold on. The arms are uncomfortable, the face hurts when it gets cold, and the torso is where all the important stuff is. It doesn’t actually hurt that much to have your lower legs exposed and there’s no important organs there so that’s what they go with to keep themselves from overheating in their winter jackets. Along this same vein, they might take their shirts off to jog or just have a naked torso in general during the summer because they’re in more danger of overheating than estrogen dominant people. Older men, children, and estrogen dominant people tend to do this stuff less because they have less testosterone and are therefore colder.
The axe thing is because of testosterone as well. Early on in puberty especially and into adulthood as well boys and men will stink no matter how hard they try. People often complain about how men don’t shower enough and while there is some truth to that testosterone makes you sweaty and it makes your smell last longer. It doesn’t smell worse than women’s BO, but it is harder to get rid of and easier to get. Before I started taking T I could get away with taking a shower every other day or even every three days. Now I have to take a shower every day. And some days when I shower, put on deodorant, put body spray on my clothes, avoid heavy physical activity, I still end up smelling awful. I just smell bad and there’s only so much I can do about it and that bottle of axe starts looking really tempting.
With crying? Testosterone just makes you cry less. You still feel all the same emotions. You just don’t cry as much. Men are often socialized to not cry, yes, but even those who haven’t been taught that still cry less. That’s just how testosterone works. They hit puberty and then it’s just harder to cry. It doesn’t necessarily mean they feel less than estrogen dominant people or that they’re repressed. They just have a different physical reaction to emotion.
They accidentally break things because testosterone makes it easier to gain muscle. Sometimes you even do it without meaning to. I already accidentally grabbed or slammed things too hard. Now I have to consciously be gentle. Some people forget about being gentle for a split second. Then things break. Sometimes I look at my hands now like what the hell did I just do. Relearning how to know my own strength. It’s a learning process.
The thing where some men don’t use washcloths and use their hands or a bar of soap instead isn’t because they’re lazy. It’s because they’re covered in hair and the washcloth pulls at it. It’s really uncomfortable actually.
WOW THAT IS AWESOME INFO
This sounds like spiderman finding his superpowers
God, I love that comparison.
Op have you felt the urge to slap the top of the doorframe yet?
OKAY I REALLY WANNA KNOW THAT TOO WHY DO THEY DO THAT???
That one is to test how tall they’re getting. Men are on average six inches taller than women and it’s fun when you get really tall and can reach stuff you never could before. Once they’re done growing it’s either to demonstrate how tall they are to other people or just because it’s fun. Jumping is fun and slapping the doorframe demonstrates both your height and how high you can jump, or if you’re so tall you don’t need to jump. Hitting stuff is fun too when nobody gets hurt from it. I did that even before I started T lol. I stopped growing before I started T but I still do it because it’s fun. It’s just one of life’s little joys. For a lot of people it also just becomes a habit. Like tapping on a desk when you’re thinking or giving your friend a high five whenever you pass them.
“It’s not automatically funny to make an innocent cute character evil/rude/innapropriate” really only applies if you’re being edgy and saying Mario commits violent murder and abuses his brother.
However, drawing Isabelle in a shirt that says “shut the fuck,” saying Yoshi commits tax evasion, and Kirby in the street at night holding a knife outside your house… are all really fucking funny and in those cases, it’s really not deep or worth getting mad about.
The difference comes from a sense of non-sequitur. With the first type of humor, there’s a “logical” negative connection of pessimism where people see a link between two events and automatically assume the worst. Like “Oh Mario’s powerup is a mushroom? That must mean he does the drugs. Peach keeps getting kidnapped? She must be doin THE SEX with Bowser!! Pokemon are like animals? The game is DOGFIGHTING!!!” And so on. It’s not really as funny for us because the connections made are just so cynical.
The stuff like Isabelle wearing a shirt saying “Shut the FUCK up. Biiiiiiitch!” Or Yoshi committing Tax Fraud or Kirby menacingly standing outside with a knife is funny because there isn’t a connection outside of “character is cute and their actions are not” and the extreme disonnance outside of reason between the two is so strong that it’s funny based on that non-sequitur alone. Rather than “Oh its funny because one could theorize Mario has a drug addiction” it becomes more “lol it’s Spyro but with a GUN!!” It becomes more of “haha Isabelle wear a funny shirt” and less “This character is being mean because of what has happened to her, likely due to your own actions”. It also helps that most of the “edgy” humor is stuff like drugs, alcohol, sex, and abuse while the non-sequitur are meant to be more outlandish (ironically, tax fraud is more outlandish due to context)
Anyway I know OP said it wasn’t deep but too bad my over-analyzing ass had to show up
You can sponsor a rat and you will get adorable personalized emails telling you how well “your” rat is doing! I did this for my sister a few years ago and she’s still getting emails about Martok the HeroRat’s mine-clearing successes and called it the best gift ever.
alchemizing shenanigans took up a fairly big chunk of homestuck and it was 100% worth it
Alchemy was, no joke, originally my favorite part of the comic and I feel like something was lost when characters stopped halting the plot entirely to showcase dumb ideas hussie had
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
