10. The female hormone (progesterone) can have a
masculinizing effect. Dr. Sherfey writes:
We may have difficulty conceiving it, but natural selection has no difficulty using sexually heterotypic structures for homotypic purposes. For example,
progesterone is the “pregnancy hormone” essential
for menstruation and the prolonged pregnancy. It is as
uniquely a “female” hormone as one can be. Yet progesterone possesses strong androgenic properties. It may be used to masculinize female embryos. In 1 960,
Jones (27, 63) demonstrated that progesterone given
to human mothers early in pregnancy to prevent
threatened miscarriages. . . severely masculinized a
female fetus. 3
11. Visible sex differences are not discrete. There
are men with tiny cocks, women with large clits. There
are men with highly developed breasts, women with
almost no breast development. There are men with
wide hips, women with no noticeable hip development.
There are men with virtually no body hair, women with
much body hair. There are men with high voices,
women with low voices. There are men with no facial
hair, women who have beards and mustaches.
12. Height and weight differences between men and
women are not discrete. Muscle structures are not discrete. We know the despair of the tall, muscular woman who does not fit the female stereotype; we know also
the despair of the small, delicate man who does not
fit the male stereotype.
13. There is compelling cross-cultural evidence that
muscle strength and development are culturally deter-
Androgyny: Androgyny, Fucking, and Community
179
mined. T here are cultures in which there are no great
differences in somatotype o f men and women:
In one small-scale (“primitive”) society for which there
are good photographic records —the Manus of the
Admiralty Islands — there is apparently no difference at
all in somatotype between males and females as children, and as adults both men and women tend to the same high degree of mesomorphy (broad shoulders
and chest, heavily muscled limbs, little subcutaneous
fat).. . . In Bali, too, males and females lack the sort
of differentiation of the physique that is a visible difference in our culture. Geoffrey Gorer once described them as a “hermaphroditic” people; they have little
sex differential in height and both sexes have broad
shoulders and narrow hips. They do not run to curves
and muscles, to body hair or to breasts of any size.
(Gorer once remarked that you could not tell male and
female apart, even from the front. ) Another source
informs us that babies suck their fathers' breasts as
well as their mothers'. 4
14.
There are hermaphrodites in nature. Robert T.
