Mens Health Blog. Medical Blog

There is no truth that girls respond more to sounds and boys to sights. Neither sex is more ‘visual’ nor more ‘auditory’ than the other. This is interesting because it is still believed that adull women respond less to erotic visual stimuli than do men, which 11 >. i \ be the basis of the publication of a large amount of erotica In newspapers and magazines showing curvaceous, nubile women; while erotica of naked males exposing their genitals are rar found.

There is no truth that boys are better at understanding complicated ideas than girls, and that girls are better at rote-learning and doing simple repetitive tasks than boys. Nor is there any truth in the belief that boys can analyse problems better and can reason logically better. This means that the following verse is a libel on women:

It was written by a man, of course!

It does seem that girls do better academically, as judged by school grades, until adolescence is reached, but the difference between boys and girls is not great. And when a boy is aroused to compete, by pressure from his parents or from his age-mates, he becomes a greater ‘achiever’ than a girl.

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Increasingly in adolescence, the youth is influenced by others of his own age group. Peer group influence starts in childhood but becomes much stronger in adolescence. In the period of adolescent adjustment, his group of friends is important in helping the adolescent to interact with his age-mates, to share feelings, and to solve problems with his contemporaries. The friendships of adolescence, which are often intense, though short lived, may compensate for the weakening of family relationships, particularly if these are emotionally charged, as the adolescent strives to become independent while yearning for the security of dependence. In relationships between parents and adolescents, in which warmth and understanding may be minimal, a deep friendship with one of his friends may provide much needed support and enable the youth to develop his personality.

It is also true that peer group influence can be harmful, as the group influence may induce the adolescent to suspend his own judgement and to behave in a way which he may later regret.

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During the early adolescent spurt of growth, sex differences in body shape become apparent. The pelvic region of a girl grows more than her shoulder girdle, becoming wider, roomier, and more shallow than the male pelvis. Fat is deposited over her hips, so that she begins to develop feminine contours. In boys, the reverse occurs. A boy’s shoulders become wider and heavier. These changes are due to the secretion of a pituitary hormone – the human growth hormone.

A boy’s body growth starts later than a girl’s but goes on for longer, until the age of 20 or so, which is why men are usually taller than women.

The secretion of the sex hormones into the blood circulation produces an even greater difference between the sexes than does the secretion of the growth hormone. In boys the main sex hormone secreted is testosterone, in girls it is oestrogen (but each sex secretes a quantity of the main sex hormone of the other sex). The hormones are secreted by the sex glands, or gonads. These are a boy’s testicles and a girl’s ovaries. They start producing hormones because they are stimulated by hormones produced in the pituitary gland, called gonadotrophins.

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These are that only a man can impregnate a woman (although to do this sexual intercourse is not essential, as in the case of artificial insemination of a woman with a donor’s semen). Only a woman can carry the growing foetus in her uterus and give birth to it, and provide it with breast milk once it is born.

Beyond these biological imperatives the sex hormones impart no more than a ‘flavour’ to a person’s behaviour. Almost all of the way the two sexes behave is learned by observing ‘models’ in infancy, childhood, and adolescence. This implies that most (or all) differences in behaviour of the two sexes are learned.

In our society, until recently at least, most people had – and still have – fixed beliefs of how men and women should look, how they should behave, and what roles they should perform. These beliefs are beginning to weaken, but are still present to a greater or lesser degree in different sections of society.

In this time of rapid social change, and of more open discussion about the relations between the sexes and about sexual roles, society has two choices.

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The gender-role in children fostered so assiduously by parents induces the child, if a boy, to behave as a boy should behave in our culture, and also to feel that he is a boy. In other words, he develops a gender-identity. He knows he is a boy and accepts that he will behave to others in a specific male way. The lack of ability to have a completely male gender-identity, at least in erotic matters, is a problem faced by homosexuals in our critical, disapproving, society.

The contribution of the parental (and later peer-group) behaviour towards the child in the development of his gender-identity is further emphasized by studies of intersex children. These children are genetically of one sex, in other words they are XX-female or XY-male, but because of the abnormal development of their external (and sometimes internal) genitals they are classed, at birth, as being of the other sex. They are ‘intersex’. The child can be brought up happily, and confidently complete in its adopted sex, and will behave in a manner conforming to that gender-role once it has developed the gender-identity of its adopted sex.

The evidence shows that the process of change is met with the least disturbance if the parents decide (after advice) which sex they wish the child to have and if, having made the decision, they (and all other people) behave consistently towards the child as if it were of that sex. They will be helped in their behaviour if surgery is used early to correct an obvious genital ambiguity. This is because many parents find it difficult to behave to the child as if it were a girl, if it has an apparent penis; or as if it were a boy if the child has only a tiny phallus, with a urinary opening in the female position.

In most cases, the decision is made to rear intersex children as females, and to perform surgery on the external genitals to make them concordant with the chosen sex. This is a sensible approach, for the ‘girl’ can have a reasonable psychosexual life after puberty when additional surgery and hormones can make her into a woman, capable of enjoying sexual intercourse although, of course, unable to bear children. Conversely, if the child is made into a male, he will always be defective sexually because of his small abnormal penis, and will fear the mocking of his companions and the distress of any female partner he may find.

In a few cases, the parents continue to be in doubt about the desired sex of the child, and transmit this doubt to the child by their behaviour. These children also have ambiguous genitals, and can observe that they are different from other children – the girls have an apparent penis, the boys have an inadequate penis and pass urine in a non-male way. These psychological and anatomical uncertainties may lead to emotional conflicts in the child and to failure at school and in human relationships. When sex reversal is made early, when the surgery is skilful, and, most importantly, when the parents (and the community) accept and behave to the child as if it really belonged to the chosen sex, the adopted sexual identity of the child is strongly established. It becomes an individual of that sex.

It would seem from the study of these children that gender-identity is not preordained by the genetic or chromosomal sex of the child, nor by pre-natal hormonal effects on its developing brain circuits, although these play a part in modifying some behaviours, but is due to the way others behave to it in its first four years of life.

A criticism of this theory is that the children in these studies had surgery to correct (as far as possible) the ambiguous genitalia and to remove their testes, so that no male hormone was secreted, particularly at puberty when the quantity of testosterone in the blood increases considerably. In the absence of this surge of testosterone, the individual is likely to remain in his assigned sex, and the pre-natal ‘imprinting’ of maleness does not become apparent.

In a remote area in the Dominican Republic thirty- eight individuals (whose chromosomes are the normal male 46XY) have been found to have a rare enzyme disorder. This disorder prevents testosterone from being converted into dihydrotestosterone, so that in foetal life their genitals are not converted into male genitals and at birth they resemble those of a girl, although they do not look completely like those of a girl. Nineteen of these individuals were reared as girls, and behaved as girls, until they reached the age of between 9 and 12 when strange events occurred which coincided with the surge of testosterone production accompanying puberty. The high quantities of testosterone in the blood permitted the enzyme to convert some of it into dihydrotestosterone. The circulating hormones led to unexpected changes. The ‘girls” breasts failed to develop, their small phallus began to grow into a penis, two lumps appeared in their labia, and their voices deepened. They also began to feel they were not girls, and to have male sexual fantasies. As the years passed, they developed a strong male gender-identity, and began to have orgasms and ejaculations. By the age of 16, the individuals believed themselves to be men, although they were worried about being ridiculed because of the small penis and because they urinated like women. However, they felt that they were men and fifteen are living with women and have sexual intercourse.

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