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The Testosterone Principles 2: Manhood and Other Stuff
You should know up front that his book might cause you to reevaluate your life. It might influence you to quit your job and switch careers. You might start to look at your relationships in a different way. Hell, it might even cause you to realize that you're not in a good marriage. That's not just hyperbole, either. T. C. Luoma's popular weekly column-the best of which are featured here in The Testosterone Principles 2: Manhood and Other Stuff -has elicited exactly such potentially life-changing thoughts from the people who regularly read his work. He doesn't preach or rap you on the knuckles. Instead, he shows you glimpses of what life-your life-could and maybe should look like. If you've got even a speck of self-awareness, you end up asking yourself, "Hey, is he talking about me?" His observations, liberally backed up with science and spiced up with quirky references to popular culture, serve as a guide to the weird, conflicted, often horribly flawed creature called man.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 27, 2012
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August 14, 2023
But you gotta understand, people like me never stop lifting weights. The part of us that wanted to slay the dragon? It didn't die. It won't. We seek to constantly get better, to get the perfect body or set a personal record or just be prepared for all the physical challenges - the what ifs the cosmos dumps on us.
But we know deep down that the perfect body or ultimate personal record can never really be achieved, because our imagination always sets the goal a step or two or three ahead of what we've accomplished. And we also know that the universe is merciless enough to give us a few physical challenges that we won't be, can't be, prepared for.
Much like his first book, Atomic Dog, TC Luoma lays out yet another compilation of essays on what it means to be a man and all of the tangential topics that might encompass. You know, things like relationships, society, testicles, hard work, sex, aging, boobs, and philosophy. And he does so with all the delicacy of an elephant in a semiconductor fabrication plant.
Each chapter is an essay that was published on some bodybuilding website like T-Nation, and each one is an easy-to-digest length. Luoma pulls no punches and isn't afraid to offend. Those who see traditional men's behavior as toxic masculinity, the body positive movement, people who don't lift weights, and those who love babies and marriage should avoid this book at all costs.
The quality of each chapter varies as much as the content. Some of them read like his B-material that he didn't want to include in his first book, where his primary goal was to fill page space rather than communicate an idea. Other essays, however, are excellent and strike right at the heart of issues, such as why you should hate other people's babies:
What man is interested in someone else's baby? First and foremost, that baby is the living embodiment of some other male's success in mating. Mating is our biological imperative and the father of the wretched thing won; beat us in this biological imperative. We're the loser. We've let him succeed in perpetuating his genes.
Manhood and Other Stuff is a solid mix of entertaining, informative, and inspirational that few books manage to do well. Luoma's witty style and willingness to stomp all over the modern day politically correct movement is a refreshing change of pace.
But we know deep down that the perfect body or ultimate personal record can never really be achieved, because our imagination always sets the goal a step or two or three ahead of what we've accomplished. And we also know that the universe is merciless enough to give us a few physical challenges that we won't be, can't be, prepared for.
Much like his first book, Atomic Dog, TC Luoma lays out yet another compilation of essays on what it means to be a man and all of the tangential topics that might encompass. You know, things like relationships, society, testicles, hard work, sex, aging, boobs, and philosophy. And he does so with all the delicacy of an elephant in a semiconductor fabrication plant.
Each chapter is an essay that was published on some bodybuilding website like T-Nation, and each one is an easy-to-digest length. Luoma pulls no punches and isn't afraid to offend. Those who see traditional men's behavior as toxic masculinity, the body positive movement, people who don't lift weights, and those who love babies and marriage should avoid this book at all costs.
The quality of each chapter varies as much as the content. Some of them read like his B-material that he didn't want to include in his first book, where his primary goal was to fill page space rather than communicate an idea. Other essays, however, are excellent and strike right at the heart of issues, such as why you should hate other people's babies:
What man is interested in someone else's baby? First and foremost, that baby is the living embodiment of some other male's success in mating. Mating is our biological imperative and the father of the wretched thing won; beat us in this biological imperative. We're the loser. We've let him succeed in perpetuating his genes.
Manhood and Other Stuff is a solid mix of entertaining, informative, and inspirational that few books manage to do well. Luoma's witty style and willingness to stomp all over the modern day politically correct movement is a refreshing change of pace.
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