My Decade of Turning 50

My other favorite boomer blog, The Boomer Chronicles, weighs into with a post titled “Male Menopause is an oxymoron.” I remember sitting through a conference workshop in the mid-1990s on this subject, and both blushing and leaving the room in fear of my 50s. Of course, at 40-something, 50 seemed a distance island I would simply bypass on my way to Nirvana.

As she who knows ennui writes in TBM, the proper name for the changes SOME (did I type that in caps? Should I underline it as well?) men experience is andropause, which, she says, includes — FOR SOME — these things (which, if I were mean and reading a list of jokes for turning 50, I’d read during the roast as a list of things for your pal to look forward to):

1. Reduced sexual desire
2. Infertility
3. A decrease in spontaneous erections (such as during sleep)
4. Swollen or tender breasts
5. Loss of body hair
6. Small or shrinking testes
7. Height loss and thinning bones
8. Reduced muscle bulk and strength
9. Hot flushes and sweats

Fortunately, for me, I never had No. 8, so I’m good on that one. And I might be OK with No. 5, if it meant no more shaving.

(Hey, anyone written a play called Andropause? Sort of a bookend for Menopause The Musical? If not, I call dibs.)