I don’t get the soy boy rhetoric. I guess that makes me one. You tell me I can lower my sperm count, and that is supposed to discourage me? That’s win-win in my book. Less alpha stupid and more sex for results if that is a goal
(I’m not a doctor and barely skimmed through the relevant wikipedia articles, but here goes)
The “soy panic” is the result of a similar cognitive deficiency to why flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, sovereign citizens, climate deniers, and anti-nuclear activists exist: they hear something that sounds like it makes sense in their head, promptly shit their pants, and base their entire worldview on that misconception, which also lets them rage against the status quo and gives them a false sense of intellectual superiority (the “everybody else but me is wrong, wake up sheeple” mentality). That misconception then gets spread around in a massive game of Chinese telephone (I hate social media) and everybody else that tries to explain the science behind it gets labelled as a cuck, beta, soyboy, chud, every new-age insult they can think of.
In this case, the base misunderstanding comes from the fact that soy contains something called phytoestrogen. Sounds scary, right? People don’t know what phytoestrogen is. I didn’t. But they saw that it had “estrogen” in it and immediately latched onto the idea that consuming it would somehow suppress testosterone*, ruin their sperm, and feminize them, and the solution is to eat only a Manly Macho Man’s Diet with lots of meat and dairy (which contains actual mammalian estrogen).
The problems with this hypothesis (I refuse to call it a “theory”) are innumerable, not smallest of which is that it’s complete hogwash with zero clinical evidence linking sperm count and testosterone levels to consuming soy products. Phytoestrogen is also a plant-based estrogen, which, unlike animal estrogen, can’t even do whatever they claim it can do to the human body.
* On the topic of suppressing testosterone: it doesn’t work like that. It works the opposite way in fact. Biological males have estrogen, but the testosterone suppresses its effects. That’s why trans women have to take testosterone blockers.
On the topic of suppressing testosterone: it doesn’t work like that. It works the opposite way in fact. Biological males have estrogen, but the testosterone suppresses its effects.
Ooooh, flight fire with fire
“SoY LoWeRs yOuR TeStOsTeRoNe”
“It doesn’t lower testosterone, it just helps identify the low T beta cucks in the room. Real men™ can drink soy all day with no ill effects. It’s the low T boys that get turned into sissies. They’re not man enough for soy. Joe Rogan talked about it”
You joke, but that was literally a defense that an InfoWars “reporter” used when confronted by hbomberguy about why their terrible supplements had soy as the main ingredient.
He quiped that they had to put soy in the super “man pill” they were selling just to keep men from being too virile. Of course, the infowars pill had far, far less of this “virile” ingredient than other cheaper pills, and the ingredient itself is generally derived from, get this, soy.
unlike animal estrogen, can’t even do whatever they claim it can do to the human body
And do you know which type of milk does contain animal estrogen? The one from mammals. The manliest of men™ insist you drink milk with estrogen, instead of the one without.
I don’t get the soy boy rhetoric. I guess that makes me one. You tell me I can lower my sperm count, and that is supposed to discourage me? That’s win-win in my book. Less alpha stupid and more sex for results if that is a goal
(I’m not a doctor and barely skimmed through the relevant wikipedia articles, but here goes)
The “soy panic” is the result of a similar cognitive deficiency to why flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, sovereign citizens, climate deniers, and anti-nuclear activists exist: they hear something that sounds like it makes sense in their head, promptly shit their pants, and base their entire worldview on that misconception, which also lets them rage against the status quo and gives them a false sense of intellectual superiority (the “everybody else but me is wrong, wake up sheeple” mentality). That misconception then gets spread around in a massive game of Chinese telephone (I hate social media) and everybody else that tries to explain the science behind it gets labelled as a cuck, beta, soyboy, chud, every new-age insult they can think of.
In this case, the base misunderstanding comes from the fact that soy contains something called phytoestrogen. Sounds scary, right? People don’t know what phytoestrogen is. I didn’t. But they saw that it had “estrogen” in it and immediately latched onto the idea that consuming it would somehow suppress testosterone*, ruin their sperm, and feminize them, and the solution is to eat only a Manly Macho Man’s Diet with lots of meat and dairy (which contains actual mammalian estrogen).
The problems with this hypothesis (I refuse to call it a “theory”) are innumerable, not smallest of which is that it’s complete hogwash with zero clinical evidence linking sperm count and testosterone levels to consuming soy products. Phytoestrogen is also a plant-based estrogen, which, unlike animal estrogen, can’t even do whatever they claim it can do to the human body.
* On the topic of suppressing testosterone: it doesn’t work like that. It works the opposite way in fact. Biological males have estrogen, but the testosterone suppresses its effects. That’s why trans women have to take testosterone blockers.
Ooooh, flight fire with fire
“SoY LoWeRs yOuR TeStOsTeRoNe”
“It doesn’t lower testosterone, it just helps identify the low T beta cucks in the room. Real men™ can drink soy all day with no ill effects. It’s the low T boys that get turned into sissies. They’re not man enough for soy. Joe Rogan talked about it”
You joke, but that was literally a defense that an InfoWars “reporter” used when confronted by hbomberguy about why their terrible supplements had soy as the main ingredient.
He quiped that they had to put soy in the super “man pill” they were selling just to keep men from being too virile. Of course, the infowars pill had far, far less of this “virile” ingredient than other cheaper pills, and the ingredient itself is generally derived from, get this, soy.
Me, looking at humanity
And do you know which type of milk does contain animal estrogen? The one from mammals. The manliest of men™ insist you drink milk with estrogen, instead of the one without.
That’s super informative, thank you.