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Clothes may maketh the man but the best of clothes and appearance can be ruined by a man who is physically a mess, untidy or unfit.

MALE MENOPAUSE: THE SURVIVAL COURSE: THE PHYSICAL FOUNDATION

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Dressing Successfully: The Ten Commandments 10

Look after the body

A major part of getting it right and dressing successfully comes through being groomed, no matter which style you choose to express yourself. You can wear formal clothes in the manner of a high-powered executive or dress in the liberated manner of an advertising agency art director, or dress somewhere in between in an individual look, but to get it right not only must the clothes be clean but so too must the body wearing them. A well-cut suit can mask certain physical faults but it cannot hide the fact that the man beneath is slovenly. And where physical fitness helps with posture only careful grooming from hair to fingernails completes the successful image of a man going places in life.

No man can consider himself well-dressed — nor will anyone else — if his body is not cared for, head to toe.

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MALE MENOPAUSE: HAIR (SHAVING)

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As a dramatic alternative you could also consider shaving your head totally in the manner of Yul Brynner and Telly Savalas. It requires some bravery but if the shape of your head is good the shaven result can be effective. One eminent author with alopaecia has taken to doing so rather than face falling hair each day. His recommendation is that the bald head must be tanned to look right but he also points out that bald heads sunburn easily and feel the cold unless you take protection.

Generally most men benefit from a change of hairstyle after thirty-nine. There may be little wrong with the old cut but it is likely to be dull and a little out of touch. Too long at the back, for example, or bushy at the sides or with Seventies sideburns creeping down the cheeks. To get the newer cut may mean spending more money than usual but if you go to a reputable salon the cut will be natural, good-looking, individual and as the advertisement might say, well worth it.

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MALE MENOPAUSE: HOW TO SURVIVE – BE POSITIVE

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Change your mind when you have good reason, but when you take up an idea be positive, make your action at that moment with enthusiasm and commitment.

Nothing is more unsettling to life than indecision, whether it is your own or other people’s. This applies as much to homelife as worklife. Since childhood we have all been trained to accept decisions and to live along lines designated by someone’s ultimate conclusion and although often we may disagree with the final reasoning, for most of our lives we feel comfortable when decisions are made, we know where we stand. In simple instances it may be a case for deciding which movie to go to or where to eat. Or it might be less frivolous and demand serious consideration like which work offer to accept, which apartment to buy, when to get married, whether or not to divorce. In each instance a decision is made by being positive, a situation resolved by a decision taken.

Of course everyone is entitled to change their mind or opinion as they see fit and should do so. No decision should be seen as necessarily binding if good reasoning proves otherwise. But until for good reason you change your mind, stick by your decision.

And should you find you have reached an incorrect conclusion, worry not. Change again with a positive decision. Situations alter as fresh facts or influences become evident. When fresh facts present themselves each problem has to be reconsidered afresh.

In survival generally, it is vital to be positive in action and pursue decisions with commitment. Being indecisive during the male-menopause only adds to the worry of being a failure.

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MISSING OUT OR FEELING CHEATED: THE HEART (UNHEALTHY REASONS)

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The reason for such an unhealthy decline at this age is that the heart muscles, like the body itself, are weakening with age and in its deterioration its pumping action has become less efficient so that it has to strain in order to supply the body with the circulating blood it needs. Eating fatty foods and smoking tobacco will have helped put it further out of condition by adding a blood pressure problem that forces the heart to strain further.

For some undiscovered reason, although the aging process affects men and women equally, heart problems affect women less. Doctors currently believe this is due to the daily stress and tension on a man brought about by the constant cut and thrust of pressures of work and the demands of being the backbone to the family. It is also estimated that many more men smoke tobacco than do women and men invariably have higher cholesterol levels in the blood — both of which are recognized causative factors of heart conditions. (Where men score over women is the face. A man’s skin dries out less quickly than a woman’s so he ages better.)

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MISSING OUT OR FEELING CHEATED – LIFE PANIC

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Waking alert at 3 a.m. and not being able to sleep again is an unpleasant experience for anyone but waking with anxieties based on self-doubt flooding the mind and with an imagination capable only of seeing gloom, this is like living a wide-awake nightmare. Panic sets in, life has never looked so bad.

An image of failure, a sense of futility, the lack of opportunity for further personal fulfilment, problems with sex, money or work, all loom large in the imagination and become abundantly clear matters for anxiety. In the darkest hours the troubles are at their blackest. And swampingly depressing. Life panic is bleak.

Some men find a book helps concentrate their minds on other things or get out of bed to avoid lying in despair. As the male-menopause resolves itself so the waking problem diminishes and sleep patterns return to normal. Until then life panic magnifies.

It has been observed that too much alcohol late at night can spark off life panic. Whether this is due to waking in order to urinate then being unable to sleep or whether excessive alcohol stimulates mental uncertainty is not clear, but alcohol does, in its short term, make a man feel buoyant, slowing down his nervous system and inducing a feeling of happiness through lessened worry and inhibitions. He thinks less clearly and physical action slows down. At night, however, when the soporific effects have worn off and with a slowed down system reality can be hard to bear. Anxieties appear clearer and more oppressive.

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THE CONDOM 2

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Condoms have several other advantages compared with other contraceptives. For example, condoms have no side-effects, because no hormones or chemicals are used; the condom protects by making a mechanical barrier which prevents the spermatozoa reaching the cervix.

A condom helps to prevent the spread of venereal disease, particularly if the man has casual sex with multiple partners, one or more of whom may have gonorrhoea. If the penis is ‘protected’ by a condom, the germs of gonorrhoea, which live silently in the genital tract of some women, are unable to get into the delicate tissues of the opening of the eye of the penis, and the chance of getting a sexually transmitted disease is reduced.

The advantages of the condom, which make it the most commonly used male contraceptive, are reduced in the minds of some men by its supposed disadvantages. The first is that until a man’s penis is erect, it is difficult to put on a condom properly. Some men think that this interferes with the spontaneity of love-making and decide to ‘take a chance’. This can be avoided if the woman puts the condom on to the man’s erect penis during sex-play.

Some men believe that a condom reduces that sexual pleasure by reducing the sensitivity of the glans of the penis. There is no evidence that this is so. The reduction in sexual pleasure is not due to the physical presence of the condom but to psychological hangups about its use, particularly its use as a ‘prophylactic’ (the name sometimes used for condoms) against venereal disease.

Its reliability in protecting the woman against an unwanted pregnancy is more difficult to estimate and depends on the integrity of the man, and the motivation of the couple, not to take a chance. Among motivated couples a pregnancy rate of less than 5 per 100 woman-years is reported, and highly motivated couples will have a pregnancy rate of less than 3 per 100 woman-years.

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The problem of drug treatment is that, although it is very effective in reducing your high blood pressure, there are some side-effects of the medication, and the drugs have to be taken for life. Because of this, many doctors want to be sure that people whose blood pressure is permanently in the ‘grey area’ will benefit more (by having fewer strokes and fewer heart attacks) than they will be disadvantaged by having to take drugs for life.

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE – DRUG TREATMENT

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At present the answer is not as clear cut as most doctors would wish. All would agree that if you are under the age of 70, and your systolic blood pressure is consistently above 180 or, more importantly, if your diastolic blood pressure is consistently above 110, you need treatment. You will have to alter your life-style and you will be prescribed drugs. But if your systolic blood pressure lies between 160 and 180, and if your diastolic blood pressure is persistently between 95 and 11 о – in the so-called grey area – no firm decision about the need for treatment has been reached by medical scientists. For example, drug treatment would be appropriate if you were a 45 -year-old man whose systolic blood pressure was 160 after three checks, who smoked more than 30 cigarettes a day (and refused to give up), and who had evidence of heart strain on an electrocardiogram.

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In fact, apart from their erotic preference, homosexuals maintain masculine or feminine interests and attitudes to the same degree and with the same variety as do heterosexuals.

UNIDENTIFIABLE HOMOSEXUALS

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Over 95 per cent of homosexuals are unidentifiable in the community. They are invisible, because they have no distinguishing characteristics, no brand, no stigmata. They are your neighbours. They are found equally in all social classes and in all occupations. They have no peculiarities of manner which identify their erotic preference. Some maintain an image of heterosexuality to the extent of being married; some have ‘come out’ and openly admit their homosexual preferences. No greater number have soft skin, a smooth face, poor musculature, ‘feminine’ hands and gestures, or a feminine body fat distribution than are found among heterosexuals. They are not more ‘neurotic’ than heterosexuals, nor more aggressive.

A male homosexual could be, and is as likely to be, a rugby forward as a window dresser, a lawyer or doctor as an actor, a business executive as a hair-stylist, an academic as a chorus boy, a metal worker as a shop assistant.

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The truth is that none of the many drugs which have been available has any effect, except a psychological one, upon impotence.

DRUGS AND IMPOTENCE

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Throughout the centuries the desire to make money out of other people’s suffering has induced smart operators to sell a wide, and apparently increasing, variety of drugs. The drugs have followed fashions. One hundred years ago in the U.S.A. the chosen remedy was snake oil (notice the sympathetic medicine). Today vitamin E is said to help.

Perhaps a more scientific treatment, but usually no more successful than other treatments, is to give an impotent man a series of injections of the male sex hormone (androgen) in the form of methyltestosterone. The argument is that a man’s libido is due to the androgens which circulate in his blood and stimulate the sex centre in his brain. If his libido is reduced, as evidenced by his inability to obtain an erection, injections of androgens will stiffen him up! Large quantities of testosterone have been given by injection to impotent men with no improvement, except that due to the psychological effect of an injection. Unfortunately, few of the enthusiasts have used a scientific approach – that of the double blind trial. In a double blind trial of a drug, a series of injections (or tablets) are made up, one half containing the drug under test, and the other half containing an innocuous substance, which is indistinguishable in appearance, taste, or feel from the drug under test.

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