Given how the cultural left dislikes manliness as “toxic masculinity,” maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to find some social science behind wimpy liberalism. Behold:
Testosterone Administration Induces A Red Shift in Democrats
Paul Zak, Claremont Graduate University
Abstract: We tested the fixity of political preferences of 136 healthy males during the 2011 U.S. presidential election season by administering synthetic testosterone or placebo to participants who had identified the strength of their political affiliation. Before the testosterone treatment, we found that weakly affiliated Democrats had 19% higher basal testosterone than those who identified strongly with the party (p=0.015). When weakly affiliated Democrats received additional testosterone, the strength of their party fell by 12% (p=.01) and they reported 45% warmer feelings towards Republican candidates for president (p < 0.001). Our results demonstrate that testosterone induces a “red shift” among weakly-affiliated Democrats. This effect was associated with improved mood. No effects were found of testosterone administration for strongly affiliated Democrats or strong or weak Republicans. Our findings provide evidence that neuroactive hormones affect political preferences.
I checked: Paul Zak is a real person, a “neuroscientist,” so this is not a hoax. No wonder the left is suddenly alarmed that many young conservatives are into body building, but then just about any non-left trend is a heavy lift for liberals these days. If Trump really wants to trigger the left (as if he doesn’t enough already), he should promise to promote testosterone supplements when he’s back in the White House.
Meanwhile, now that CNN needs to replace Jeffery Toobin, I think we have found the perfect candidate for his slot. The Guardian reports:
University investigates PhD student’s paper on masturbating to comics of ‘young boys’
A leading university has launched an inquiry after it emerged that one of its PhD students has written a research paper about sexual attraction to young boys.
Karl Andersson spent three months recording his thoughts and feelings while masturbating over images of young boys in Japanese comic books.
In the abstract for the paper, Andersson, who is interviewing fans of shota comics for his PhD, said he wanted to “understand how [they] experience sexual pleasure when reading shota”.
His 4,000-word study, which details his sexual habits and sexual encounters between boys in the comics, was published in the journal Qualitative Research in April. It provoked outrage from academics, an MP and others after it was circulated on Twitter this week.
The University of Manchester and Qualitative Research have announced they are investigating the circumstances of the research and its publication.
If you try to find the original paper now, you get this from Qualitative Research:
What is there to investigate? The journal editors saw nothing wrong with the article until normal people pointed out to them what moral idiots they are. I doubt that’s what the investigation will find. Still, Karl Anderson does seem like a perfect fit for CNN.
UPDATE: Inside Higher Ed has much more on this story here.
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