I Bled For This Column

By Joel Stein

I cannot wait to lather up my naked, hairy body in an inflatable pool full of testosterone gel. I have felt testosterone deficient since I was five, when, surrounded by female friends, I spent my days compiling my sticker collection, listening to the Annie sound track, baking in my Easy-Bake Oven and arranging my glass-animal collection. Peggy Fleming had a more masculine childhood than I did.

But I needed to know precisely how unmanly I am, so I went to my doctor to get my T count checked. Unfortunately, my doctor could not administer the test via saliva; he would need a blood sample. That made me consider canceling my appointment, which in and of itself delivered the result I needed. But I made the appointment anyway. In 48 hours I would know how much man was in me.

For a long time, I've overcompensated for my lack of manliness through sportswriting, porn watching and stock buying, but deep down I know I'm a little shy on T. I cannot yell at other drivers, raise my voice, pick up women in a bar or grow a full beard. All whiskey, no matter how expensive, just tastes like burning. Yet deep inside I long to sleep around, to kick some ass, to release my first rap album. As I saw it, I had little choice but to score some of that testosterone gel when it comes out this summer. I could keep it in my jacket pocket for emergency situations, next to my lip balm and antibacterial hand gel. I'm thinking about marketing this as a first-aid kit for wusses.

Waiting for my results, feeling especially insecure, I called my masculinity mentor, Adam Carolla, the host of Comedy Central's The Man Show. "I'm guessing you're a little light," Carolla said. He suggested that I sign up for the AndroGel now. "A little extra aggression, a couple of extra inches on the biceps, a little body hair could help you," he said. When I mentioned my concern about taking unprescribed medication, Carolla suggested that I just eat a lot of beef jerky. "I believe there is a lot of testosterone in jerky. That would be the most logical food to put it in, anyway." I suggested I might enjoy it more as a pasta with a light tomato-basil sauce, which I could market as "testosteroni." Carolla said he had to go.

Still anxious about my results, I called a former girlfriend, figuring she'd make me feel better. "I bet it's freakishly low," she said. "You're afraid of dogs; you once owned an Easy-Bake Oven; and you've never been much for fighting." Now I remembered there were good reasons our relationship didn't work out (one of them being that I told her about the Easy-Bake Oven).

After two neurosis-filled days, my doctor called and told me my testosterone level was totally normal. When I pressed him for a number, he said it was within the normal range of 260 to 1,000. When I really pressed him for a number, he told me it was 302. When I started to freak out about being in the bottom 10%, he again reassured me that it was completely normal. Yeah, normal in that I don't have breasts.

One of my female friends tried to comfort me, saying that women may have hot, wild flings with high-testosterone men, but they settle down with hormonally balanced guys. This did not make me feel better. You'd have to have a T count of 20 for this to make you feel any better. All I could think about was that now I have one less excuse for having an affair. Unless, of course, I'm all hopped up on man gel.