“Dr. Kauffman: Less than a month ago, Santa Mira was like any other town. People with nothing but problems. Then, out of the sky came a solution. Seeds drifting through space for years took root in a farmer’s field. From the seeds came pods which had the power to reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life...." Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956
Miles: I love Becky. Tomorrow will I feel the same?
Dr. Kauffman: [shakes his head] There’s no need for love!
Miles: No emotion? Then you have no feelings, only the instinct to survive. You can’t love or be loved! Am I right?
Dr. Kauffman: You say it as if it were terrible. Believe me, it isn’t. You’ve been in love before. It didn’t last. It never does. Love. Desire. Ambition. Faith. Without them, life is so simple, believe me.
Miles: I don’t want any part of it.
Dr. Kauffman: You’re forgetting something, Miles.
Miles: What’s that?
Dr. Kauffman: You have no choice.” Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
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“I want to love and be loved. I want your children. I don’t want a world without love or grief or beauty. I’d rather die.” Dana Wynter as Becky Driscoll, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956
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“Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.” William Blake
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“Having your own mind, a critical and constructive ability, makes you aware of possibilities and threats. The ‘go along to get along’ attitude represents a denial of your mentality. Recognizing the reasons for the evils and obstacles is an intrinsic part of moving toward your goals. Without a realistic view of where you are, you can’t expect to go anywhere.” Raymond Peat, PhD
Video from, the motion picture "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", 1956
Estrogen, prolactin, and serotonin tend to increase each other and all three substances appear to be involved in osteoporosis:
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“The stimulation of prolactin by estrogen was first recognized almost 50 years ago, and the means by which this stimulation occurs has been investigated by many laboratories. Estrogen affects almost every conceivable aspect of prolactin production…” Control of prolactin production by estrogen in Biochemical Actions of Hormones, 1985
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“Fenfluramine causes the release of serotonin proportional to endogenous availability and in turn, serotonin stimulates the secretion of prolactin. Therefore, serum prolactin concentrations reflect endogenous serotonin.” “Castration partially reduced the serotonin/prolactin response…” “…aromatase activity correlated significantly with prolactin.” “Altogether, the data suggest that aromatase activity supports serotonin production…" Effects of aromatase inhibition and androgen activity on serotonin and behavior in male macaques, 2013
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“The transient nature of the beneficial effects of estrogens in patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis may result from steroid inhibition of the proliferation of osteorprogenitor cells. In young, cycling female rats, the rate of new bone synthesis falls periodically during the phases of ovarian activity associated with high plasma estrogen.” Endocrine Physiology by Constance R. Martin, 1985
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“Estrogen can retard growth of bone and cartilage, and girls producing too much estrogen often suffer stunting.” Endocrine Physiology by Constance R. Martin, 1985
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"Plasma prolactin concentrations undergo diurnal variations that include sleep-associated elevations. The levels also rise in response to demanding activity and some forms of stress, and sharp peaks have been observed following food ingestion. Estrogens are potent stimulants that affect dopamine turnover in the brain. In cycling females, plasma prolactin reaches its highest levels during the times of maximal estrogen secretion.” Endocrine Physiology by Constance R. Martin, 1985
Wife Swapping in the Stone Age by Nigel Barber, Part Two:
In addition to formal polyandry, many hunter-gatherer societies have informal polyandry that is superficially similar to wife swapping, or swinging, in modern societies. Wife swapping could be described as husband-swapping but that term never took off. The term seems demeaning to women because it implies that they are the property of their husbands. Yet there are two reasons that it rings true. First, sexual intercourse is widely considered a service that women provide to men, rather than vice versa (2). Second, in many societies studied by anthropologists, wives are traded like property and treated like possessions, painful though this is to modern sensibilities.
Informal Polyandry
In developed countries, polyandrous marriage is not recognized and presumably does not occur. Informal polyandry, or wife-swapping, became
fairly common in California in the 1970s when widespread use of contraceptives took the paternity problem off the table (2). Swinging was possibly motivated by a masculine desire for sexual variety in an environment that did not threaten marital stability as much as having affairs. Symons points to the irony that women actually derived much more sexual pleasure from such events (frequently by having sex with other women), whereas men quickly became fatigued. Much of the swinging disappeared due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Informal polyandry is a feature of some hunter-gatherer societies, such as the Inuit of northern North America, or the Yanomamo of the Orinoco river basin in South America.
Among the Inuit, a male guest might be invited to sleep with the lady of the igloo (2). This custom might seem to take being a good host to a dangerous extreme but accepting the offer incurs an obligation to reciprocate by sharing one's own spouse's sexual favors.
There is an even more onerous potential cost because in sleeping with his host's wife, the guest incurs responsibility for her children in the event that the host dies early (1). This helps to explain a pattern whereby societies practicing informal polyandry have high male mortality.
"Are there undiagnosed cases of hypothyroidism in mental institutions? One
hopes not, but possibly there might be. In 1949, a study in Britain indicated that such cases were frequent there and that many, once their thyroid deficiency was recognized and treated, could go home." Broda Barnes, MD, PhD
Photograph from, the motion picture "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", 1975
#oneflewoverthecuckoosnest #jacknicholson #brodabarnes #hypothyroidism #thyroid #mentalhealth
