SUPERBOWL FEMINIZING MEN? OR IS IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND?!

Well, this is fun! A piece in the DAILY BEAST, entitled "The Superbowl May Harm Your Masculinity," caught my interest this morning. Turns out, though, that the article was about how excessive carbohydrates, of the kind ingested in mammoth proportions by many men during football games, cause testosterone levels to drop.

Here's an excerpt:

"As you stock up on pizza, nachos, chips, soda, and beer for your Super Bowl feast, here’s something you might want to consider: Those foods are feminizing men. Not exactly the way you meant to celebrate our annual tribute to red-blooded American masculinity, is it? But undeniably true. Many of the unhealthy things we eat today have been found to cause a drop in sperm count and testosterone, the essential male hormone. If you routinely eat sweets, or carbs such as bread, pasta, baked goods—which your body turns into a form of sugar—you are continuously hammering your ability to produce testosterone."

Okay, that's a fascinating but basically 3-dimensional cause and effect linear formula: a lot of carbs/sugar lowers testosterone, which leads to various physical problems related to the production of that hormone.

So, let's offer a 4th dimensional look at the situation, one that isn't as linear and includes the intentionality of the nacho-chomping, beer-guzzling pig skin aficionado.

For example, what if the guy watching the majorly macho gladiatorial game known as football is doing so with such extreme gusto, and gustatory bingeing, because he is compensating for his own latent feminine feelings, feelings that cause him a great deal of subconscious anxiety? In other words, maybe that big guy with the big bowl of chicken wings and blue cheese dip is reassuring himself that he's a manly man by watching 300+ pound behemoths give each other concussions. Yet, by virtue of the gorging, he is emasculating himself hormonally while consciously fantasizing about extreme masculinity. (I'm sure that a statistical study of the incidence of men having sex with their girlfriends or wives on Superbowl Sunday evening would show a dramatic drop-off of marital coitus.)

Personally, I like to watch the Superbowl, even though I don't really watch football for most of the season. I like the drama of high-level sports contests at times, and the Superbowl can be quite a spectacle in that regard. (True confession, though - I TiVo the game, so I can fast forward through the commercials and some of the navel gazing. And I won't be having any nachos or beer. Maybe some organic popcorn and a Manhattan, but only one, especially because I may still want to be able to...