Blog Post #3 - The Male Myth - Paul Theroux

Theroux said that at the age of thirteen when he wanted to meet girls, he was "told to take up a sport, get more fresh air, join the Boy Scouts, and urged not to read much" (Theroux, page 102).  This was not a bad idea.  Boys, at a stage, need to mature and going to camps and participating in camp activities like scouting, playing games and learning to interact with one another help them to mature.  As a matter of fact, in some of these camps, instructors serve as father figures to boys who have no parents and this helps the boys mentally and psychologically.  Most boys in such camps develop various professions which they later pursue in life.  The manliness has to be proved in a way that will make the society accept the friendship of both men and women.

However, just as they learn positive things that help them mature as men, most of these boys also pick up bad behavior from such camps.  Some of the boys see the camps as very relaxed, hung up with bad guys and involve themselves in negative activities like burgalry, pick-pocketing fighting and even rape.  It can therefore be said that most criminals pick up their bad habits from such camps at a young age. 

As Theroux rightly said, boys camps are not comfortable and pleasant places to go, but they are important as they serve as training grounds for positive activities.

Blog Post #2: Fausto-Sterling

Dr. Money's claim that men are made not born and that "gender was merely a matter of body image and upbringing" was challenged by Dr. Milton Diamond and Keith Sigmundson.  Dr. Money had given reconstructive genital surgery to a boy who suffered a circumcision accident at the age of eight months and thought he was successful in turning the boy into a girl.  However, in his thirties, Dr. Diamond and Sigmundson interviewed his patient who confessed that he was not happy about her female identity. 

This goes to show that no body can challenge nature.  If a baby is born a male, no matter what doctors will do to change his gender, his male genes cannot completely disappear.  In the same manner, if a baby is born female, no matter what reconstructive genital surgery she undergoes to change her gender, her female hormones cannot completely disappear. 

As Fausto-Sterling said, "Genetic females should always be raised as females, preserving reproductive potential, regardless of how severely the patients are virilized."  Fausto also went on to say that only a few reports on penile size at birth exist in the scientific literature and that the size of the penis at birth is "not a good indicator of size and function at puberty."  This is because there are babies born with very tiny penis, but grow up regaining the full size of the penis.  If for some reason, this baby undergoes reconstructive surgery at birth, he will definitely grow up as a bitter person and will never be happy. 

The conclusion I am making is that men are born, not made.

    

blog1: Men are born

The sex of every human being naturally determined by the X and Y chromosomes.  XX determine the female sex while YX determine the male sex.  Biologists have researched and found out that the XX and XY cannot always produce a male or female gender.  The Y chromosome, which is the stronger chromosome, sometimes become defect and produces female genetals.  When this happens, it becomes the responsibility of doctors to correct the problem and either make the baby male or female.  However, it cannot be argued that because of such birth defects, men are made.

Having said this, I strongly believe that men are born.  Let us take for example women who conceive and attempt to have ultra sound tests.  During such tests, the gender of the baby, whether male or female, is revealed rightaway and almost in all cases, the women gives birth to the predicted gender unless there is a problem with the pregnancy.  If the baby is a male, he has a penis and if she is a female, she has her vagina.  This proves to me that men are born, not made.