D
Deleted member 18582
Poet laureate of the deep state
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I have always been fascinated by the mental gymnastics that comes out of finasteride discussions. The dubious connections, the sweeping claims based on paltry statistics, the self-sabotaging, the secondhand embarrassment, and the like.
I would now like to psychoanalyze those men in order to understand why the myth of erectile dysfunction from finasteride continues to wield such strong symbolic power. I am interested more in the unconscious workings of these men rather than their conscious appraisals, especially in two ways: (1) the way sociological categories are internalized, internalized in so profound a way they become undifferentiable from "real" phenomena, and (2) the effects of the placebo--the way a physiological reaction can be psychologically induced, even if the reaction is seemingly undesirable.
If I say a few obvious things in this thread, they are just to set up a discussion of the more delicate points.
- - - - -
By way of an introduction, a list:
When a man begins balding, he is faced with two options:
Now, since everybody knows, consciously or unconsciously, that being bald makes you uglier, in order to ease the decision, appeals to masculinity are made. Baldies will make appeals to Bruce Willis, Dwayne Johnson, etc. They will also often claim how they like not having to care about their appearance.
Of those men who opt for path 1, most are aware of the association between finasteride and erectile dysfunction. But what characterizes, psychologically, those men who experience erectile dysfunction from the drug and those who don't? I have noticed those men who experience erectile dysfunction from finasteride otherwise have a hysterical fascination with their dick. Such men, fully aware of the studies, are likely checking their dick to see how it is working every day after they begin taking the drug, to ensure they are not having symptoms. When you become so fixated on something, you begin to notice even the most minute change in functioning, that could well just be related to what you ate that day, or the fact you had a few shots of cognac. Due to penis hysteria, any minute change in functioning then snowballs, resulting in more major changes to erectile functioning.
When I say they are hysterical, I mean it in the restricted sense given to it by psychoanalysis. In Studies on Hysteria, Freud and Breuer describe hysteria as a kind of altered state of consciousness in which one develops an increased sensitivity to minute physiological changes, invests those changes with inordinate import, and then calls out for recognition from society in some way. It is akin, to say, mystic women from the medieval times like Marguerite Porete who interpreted some minor shaking of the hand as the presence of a divinity, and they use this as grounds to placebo themselves into a mystic vision where their whole body vibrates. Or a ouija board, where a minor flicking of the finger is believed--and fully so by the owner of this finger--to come not from themselves but from a supernatural presence in the room. All cases are structurally similar. A myth with some degree of sociological verification effects a physiological response that is indeed very real, breaking down the boundary between nature and culture.
This recognition is an important element of the psychological drama of the baldie. Since the man who experiences erectile dysfunction from finasteride is otherwise very preoccupied with his dick, he is, as we might expect, also very preoccupied with his masculinity. He is likely therefore among those who seriously considered, at some point, taking path 2. He probably views Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson and their ilk in a somewhat positive light, and if he doesn't consciously, he likely does unconsciously. They represent the archetype of a man who does not care about what people think of him, let alone women, and what better way to signal you don't care about what other people think about you then removing what is arguably the premier symbol of beauty everywhere--your hair--in a grand gesture like shaving it off. Perhaps Willis reminds him of a high school teacher he wanted approval from at some point. It certainly also helps, unconsciously, that a strong bald man with a wide neck bears a visual resemblance to the penis and shaft and also that hair is on your "head," and we refer to the top of the penis as the "head." We can speculate. But in short, since he is preoccupied with his masculinity, he probably therefore listened with some degree of investment in the claims by baldies that "bald is masculine."
It is this degree of investment in masculinity that explains his response to the drug in two ways. First, already described above, is the simple way that a hyper fixation on one's dick's functioning is correlated to a hyper fixation on one's masculinity. The second is that despite his conscious decision to take the drug in order to cure his balding, he unconsciously wants to be bald, because he invested some degree of import in the dichotomy implicitly set up by the baldies--the "if you're a real man, you don't care what others think of you vs. men who are too concerned about their appearance, which is a feminine trait" classic dichotomy. He unconsciously wanted the drug to affect his erectile functioning, EXACTLY in order to feel like his masculinity had been tarnished, EXACTLY in order to abandon the drug with a feeling of conviction that he did not have prior to begin taking it. He arrives, in a more psychologically-drawn out way, with a healthy dose of "self-sabotaging" (which really just refers to unconscious resistance to conscious behavior) the same conclusion of those who had simply opted for 2 tout court, but in a way that gives him a kind of recognition of his masculinity not possible otherwise. He is now not only a man who simply accepted the baldness up front, he is a kind of hero who went to battle, almost lost, and in the process had his masculinity tarnished, but ultimately won and lives to tell the tale. A classic psychological narrative script of the masculine man.
This all may happen EVEN IF he had consciously said, in response to those baldies on reddit, "they don't actually know what looks good--they're just coping with their situation." If he experiences erectile dysfunction, that signals perhaps he is not much different than those men than he thinks he is.
- - - - -
Some takeaways
What can you do to prevent the same outcome if you take finasteride? In short, I don't think there is much you can do. If you are reading this, you already know finasteride is correlated to erectile dysfunction. It doesn't matter if you think it is or not--if enough people believe in a sheer association it can be placeboed into reality by anyone. If you think it's all BS, but you begin experiencing erectile dysfunction from finasteride in any case, it is because unconsciously you actually want to be bald because you actually bought into, more than you think, the baldies' association of baldness with masculinity and the attending masculine thought pattern of "not caring what others think about your appearance." It is because you reverse placeboed yourself into erectile dysfunction in order to exploit the narrative script of "finasteride causes erectile dysfunction," so that you can stage and replay ad nauseam a theatrical drama about your masculinity being lost and regained, and you are doing all of this in order to elicit social recognition of your masculinity of which you feel you have been deprived for whatever reason. And if you have this unconscious desire for recognition of your masculinity, then it is likely so deep rooted as to be impossible to uproot, seeing as it is ingrained in men by society since birth. The stories of finasteride-induced ED is a desperate cry for help, and to it there is no answer.
I would now like to psychoanalyze those men in order to understand why the myth of erectile dysfunction from finasteride continues to wield such strong symbolic power. I am interested more in the unconscious workings of these men rather than their conscious appraisals, especially in two ways: (1) the way sociological categories are internalized, internalized in so profound a way they become undifferentiable from "real" phenomena, and (2) the effects of the placebo--the way a physiological reaction can be psychologically induced, even if the reaction is seemingly undesirable.
If I say a few obvious things in this thread, they are just to set up a discussion of the more delicate points.
- - - - -
By way of an introduction, a list:
- The claim that finasteride causes erectile dysfunction results from the unconscious internalization of a dichotomy set up between "effeminate men who care about their hair" and "masculine men who don't." This dichotomy continues to operate unconsciously even if the subject rejects it consciously, i.e., even if someone claiming to experience erectile dysfunction explicitly says "I don't think caring about your hair is effeminate," the unconscious dynamic may still well be at play in the background, and cause them to experience erectile dysfunction.
- When it comes to anything at all that can be potentially associated with testosterone and male genitalia and their functioning, however tenuous the actual association, the male brain enters a state of hysteria and schizophrenia. The hysteria is understandably a kind of defense mechanism to protect one's ability to sexual reproduce. But it can, in the long run, work against them. In this state of hysteria, connections where none exist can be made and one can heed voices and opinions that while they consciously know do not make sense, unconsciously affect them in any case.
- When it comes to matters of the penis and balls, placebo holds immense power. A power greater than actual physiological responses. For example, if enough people got together to say that eating mangos caused erectile dysfunction and funded studies and started institutions to raise awareness on it, then a man who has encountered these studies, institutions, and associated discussions on online forums, will be inclined to unconsciously internalize this information even if he consciously know it is bullshit. That he does this is due to the hysteria discussed above that accompanies any discussion at all about erectile dysfunction, a hysteria that reduces one's reasoning abilities. Months later, after he has long "forgotten" these studies, he begins eating mangoes, and some time later he begins experiencing erectile dysfunction. Since there is no physiological reason that mangos could cause this, that he experiences it is due to the the way penis hysteria enabled the myth to have unconscious staying power despite his conscious rejection of it.
- A kind of TLDR: A man taking finasteride who never knew that many people associated the drug with erectile dysfunction would never experience erectile dysfunction.
When a man begins balding, he is faced with two options:
- Retain his hair, first through finasteride, minoxidil, and Nizoral shampoo, and then hair transplants if needed
- Shave it off and "embrace the baldness"
Now, since everybody knows, consciously or unconsciously, that being bald makes you uglier, in order to ease the decision, appeals to masculinity are made. Baldies will make appeals to Bruce Willis, Dwayne Johnson, etc. They will also often claim how they like not having to care about their appearance.
Of those men who opt for path 1, most are aware of the association between finasteride and erectile dysfunction. But what characterizes, psychologically, those men who experience erectile dysfunction from the drug and those who don't? I have noticed those men who experience erectile dysfunction from finasteride otherwise have a hysterical fascination with their dick. Such men, fully aware of the studies, are likely checking their dick to see how it is working every day after they begin taking the drug, to ensure they are not having symptoms. When you become so fixated on something, you begin to notice even the most minute change in functioning, that could well just be related to what you ate that day, or the fact you had a few shots of cognac. Due to penis hysteria, any minute change in functioning then snowballs, resulting in more major changes to erectile functioning.
When I say they are hysterical, I mean it in the restricted sense given to it by psychoanalysis. In Studies on Hysteria, Freud and Breuer describe hysteria as a kind of altered state of consciousness in which one develops an increased sensitivity to minute physiological changes, invests those changes with inordinate import, and then calls out for recognition from society in some way. It is akin, to say, mystic women from the medieval times like Marguerite Porete who interpreted some minor shaking of the hand as the presence of a divinity, and they use this as grounds to placebo themselves into a mystic vision where their whole body vibrates. Or a ouija board, where a minor flicking of the finger is believed--and fully so by the owner of this finger--to come not from themselves but from a supernatural presence in the room. All cases are structurally similar. A myth with some degree of sociological verification effects a physiological response that is indeed very real, breaking down the boundary between nature and culture.
This recognition is an important element of the psychological drama of the baldie. Since the man who experiences erectile dysfunction from finasteride is otherwise very preoccupied with his dick, he is, as we might expect, also very preoccupied with his masculinity. He is likely therefore among those who seriously considered, at some point, taking path 2. He probably views Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson and their ilk in a somewhat positive light, and if he doesn't consciously, he likely does unconsciously. They represent the archetype of a man who does not care about what people think of him, let alone women, and what better way to signal you don't care about what other people think about you then removing what is arguably the premier symbol of beauty everywhere--your hair--in a grand gesture like shaving it off. Perhaps Willis reminds him of a high school teacher he wanted approval from at some point. It certainly also helps, unconsciously, that a strong bald man with a wide neck bears a visual resemblance to the penis and shaft and also that hair is on your "head," and we refer to the top of the penis as the "head." We can speculate. But in short, since he is preoccupied with his masculinity, he probably therefore listened with some degree of investment in the claims by baldies that "bald is masculine."
It is this degree of investment in masculinity that explains his response to the drug in two ways. First, already described above, is the simple way that a hyper fixation on one's dick's functioning is correlated to a hyper fixation on one's masculinity. The second is that despite his conscious decision to take the drug in order to cure his balding, he unconsciously wants to be bald, because he invested some degree of import in the dichotomy implicitly set up by the baldies--the "if you're a real man, you don't care what others think of you vs. men who are too concerned about their appearance, which is a feminine trait" classic dichotomy. He unconsciously wanted the drug to affect his erectile functioning, EXACTLY in order to feel like his masculinity had been tarnished, EXACTLY in order to abandon the drug with a feeling of conviction that he did not have prior to begin taking it. He arrives, in a more psychologically-drawn out way, with a healthy dose of "self-sabotaging" (which really just refers to unconscious resistance to conscious behavior) the same conclusion of those who had simply opted for 2 tout court, but in a way that gives him a kind of recognition of his masculinity not possible otherwise. He is now not only a man who simply accepted the baldness up front, he is a kind of hero who went to battle, almost lost, and in the process had his masculinity tarnished, but ultimately won and lives to tell the tale. A classic psychological narrative script of the masculine man.
This all may happen EVEN IF he had consciously said, in response to those baldies on reddit, "they don't actually know what looks good--they're just coping with their situation." If he experiences erectile dysfunction, that signals perhaps he is not much different than those men than he thinks he is.
- - - - -
Some takeaways
What can you do to prevent the same outcome if you take finasteride? In short, I don't think there is much you can do. If you are reading this, you already know finasteride is correlated to erectile dysfunction. It doesn't matter if you think it is or not--if enough people believe in a sheer association it can be placeboed into reality by anyone. If you think it's all BS, but you begin experiencing erectile dysfunction from finasteride in any case, it is because unconsciously you actually want to be bald because you actually bought into, more than you think, the baldies' association of baldness with masculinity and the attending masculine thought pattern of "not caring what others think about your appearance." It is because you reverse placeboed yourself into erectile dysfunction in order to exploit the narrative script of "finasteride causes erectile dysfunction," so that you can stage and replay ad nauseam a theatrical drama about your masculinity being lost and regained, and you are doing all of this in order to elicit social recognition of your masculinity of which you feel you have been deprived for whatever reason. And if you have this unconscious desire for recognition of your masculinity, then it is likely so deep rooted as to be impossible to uproot, seeing as it is ingrained in men by society since birth. The stories of finasteride-induced ED is a desperate cry for help, and to it there is no answer.
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