• Question: Why are mens sexual hormones stronger than womens?

    Asked by maciej to Alison, Artem, Caroline, John, Gunther on 19 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Artem Evdokimov

      Artem Evdokimov answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      I am afraid that you’re mixing terms here 🙂 Male sex hormones aren’t in any particular way ‘stronger’ than female ones. In fact one could consider the effects of female hormones to be much more profound (menstrual cycles, menopause, osteoporosis, the list goes on). Male sex hormones (testosterone in particular) have been speculatively linked to aggressive behavior but even that ‘obvious’ statement is under question because testosterone can also lead to induction of ‘fair’ behavior – based on expectation that others would be more likely to reward/accept the fair person than the unfair one. In the same study (Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviour. Nature, 2009) the authors claim that subjects who received no testosterone but were instead led to believe that they did, showed more unfair behavior – possibly justifying their actions by the stereotype of ‘testosterone = aggression’.

    • Photo: John Short

      John Short answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      If you give the same quantity of testosterone that men have to women – they develop more and thicker body hair, increased muscle, sexual appetite and would generally be more aggressive like men. This has been found in female body builders that take testosterone – not a pretty sight in my opinion.
      Women naturally produce testosterone, but at 8 times less than that of men in the pituitary gland. Women also produce more of it during sexual arousal, further increasing their sexual arousal!

      Equally, if you eat too much or don’t exercise, you grow fat. Fat cells produce oestrogen, one of the main female hormones. The fatter you get the more oestrogen you produce. In men this is a huge problem – that is why men can grow “moobs” or breasts like women and are even at an increased risk of breast cancer!

      Oestrogen is importnat in both men and women. Oestrogen has profound changes on the female body during puberty and during pregnancy, such as breast development, regulating the menstrual cycle etc. For men, oestrogen is important for maturation of sperm and other sperm related development. Oestrogen for women is very important in even regulating the moods of women and for sexual appetite – more so than testosterone in women. Women have higher levels of oestrogen when they are ovulating and research has shown that this increases their sexual desire for attractive men
      Women with naturally lower levels of oestrogen have lower sex drives, lower moods etc. This also happens during the menopause when there is severe drop in oestrogen levels.

      I would argue that Oestrogen and Testosterone are just as powerful as each other in the developmental changes they produce in men and women.

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