Thank all of you for your posts. They give me baselines to understand my own experiences.
I am slowly realizing that my hypogonadalism came after loss of libido. I suppose my hypogonadalism comes from normal aging. The loss of libido emerged as a side effect to medication. I must have confused the process of aging and response to medication. Certainly, the following effects seem to apply in my case:
1.) I'm certain that I'm infertile. The semen has been without colour for a long time. I never got anyone pregnant even in my youth. I suspect that I might have always had a low sperm count.
2.) For a long time, I had almost no thoughts about making love. I think that I became much less aggressive and assertive. For five years roughly from about 51 to 56, I had immense energy for hiking, travel, and reading. I felt this to be the best time in my life. I did masturbate about once or even twice a month during this time just enough to recall the sensations without being overwhelmed by the exercise.
3.) Reduced libido began almost sixteen years ago (in May). I am now sixty-years-old. I last made love at 49. I had erections for many years but they began to disappear within the past two years or so. I haven't had a nocturnal emission in years. I'm not certain when I lost the ability (most of the time) to masturbate to orgasm.
4. I went from 145 pounds to 165, then to 186, and recently to 225 pounds. I hate the weight but I don't have much desire any longer to fight it. I suppose my skin got smoother and softer. I'm not certain. I got older looking.
5. I'm not certain about loss or thinning of body hair. I've always had a lot of body hair. When I entered puberty, I recall thinking about the loss of the soft hair of childhood as a loss but I liked the body hair. We didn't shave back then. though I did mild body building from about 15 to my late 30's. For sixty, I have a pretty full head of hair. I don't know about body odor. I bath more than any other human being who ever lived. I used to shower or bath three or four times a day. Now I shower only once or twice a day.
6.) Five years ago, I could hike for hours and many miles at 8,000 feet. Two years ago, I struggled to walk three miles-an-hour at near sea level. I lost muscle definition in my chest. I tire easily. I feel sleepy a lot of the time. I'm not assertive about reading or study.
7.) Testosterone shots and exercise seem to have reduced mild breast development as well as
Andrew (imported) wrote: Sat Mar 29, 2003 11:17 am
mild fat redistribution around the hips and thighs.
However, my breasts are no longer large from my former weight-lifting but from extra fat in the pectoral area.
8.) Horror of horrors, my penis did shrink. I call it the move to Adlai Stevenson status from John Kennedy status. My testicles atrophied, but with HRT they are full again.
9.) Hot flushes and night sweats disappeared after my bypass surgery.
10.) Medication seems to control moodiness and tearfulness.
11.) I definitely experience cognitive losses in focus, concentration,
Andrew (imported) wrote: Sat Mar 29, 2003 11:17 am
spatial orientation and short term memory.
In youth, I had an extremely high spatial intelligence and great short-term memory. I suspect that both are now in a normal range.
With testosterone shots, I now get "hits" from women or get noticed in ways that didn't happen during the past two or three years. I have begun to regret that I lost libido as young as I did, but those are the breaks.
The psychological effects of hypogonadism are considerable and the counter effects of HRT are also considerable. Not responding sexually to women (or men for that matter) had the effect of isolating me. It took me out of the cycle of daily interactions that make life intriguing and rich (to me).
I miss making love. I miss courship. I would love to do some "wild" things before I get even older. I would be open to what an adventurous lover wanted to do. I would at least consider a lost of stuff. I did enjoy many years of sexual play with a fantastic wife. I loved being with her.
Not being in play, perhaps, did liberate me from the work that courtship entails, but it also denied me the chance to get to know another person in the deep way that sexual interaction allows (yes, I got the pun). It denies me the chance to feel fulfilled and complete. It denies me he chance to feel part of human interaction at its most basic level. I consider this a substantial loss.
With HRT I have at least for the moment found some sense of desire returning. I do have a girlfriend (though she lives rather far away). Whether I could actually share complete intercourse with her, I don't know, but I think that at least in some sense I could.
I'm not certain that the "eunuch calm" or a decrease in aggression (or assertion) is all that great (for me). The physical side-effects noted above are not desirable because I liked looking manly. I liked feeling buff. I liked nice hard erections. I loved having orgasms. I liked the bliss in getting a lover off.
Yet, during the time before HRT, I said that I did enjoy the calm and being out of play. Of course, at sixty, I know that much of what I experience is simply aging. And I now know that many of the effects that I took to be from hypogonadism were effects of loss of libido from medication.
I would hate to be without balls. I would hate to be without testosterone again, though I recognize that eventually will happen (again).
Anyone considering castration ought, in my opinion and if possible, first try chemical castration over physical castration. The losses from castration are considerable. Still, as with Andrew, you may want some of these losses, but you ought to weigh all possible medical side-effects.
I think being older helps me deal with the losses. However, loss of libido in my late forties still seems more than a bit early. And lust has its own pleasures.
Now my fantasy about penectomy is something else. That fantasy requires functioning with a high level of libido but thwarted libido. Being manly in all ways but having a penis is the essence (for me) of that very real and intense fantasy.
