This morning, as I was waking up, I decided that I’d like to be a man for a week and I’d like to give a man the opportunity to be me for a week. I have always been at the mercy of my female hormonal fluctuations, and more so in the last few years, something which I find most irritating. It seems so unfair.

Lying in bed and thinking about this in the semi-darkness, I wondered whether men feel the same hormonal fluctuations as women obviously do. They don’t menstruate, but perhaps they still have emotional ‘periods’. A google of ‘Do men have periods?’ reveals some interesting thoughts on the matter. The Internet seems to think that they do. This may be psychological, perhaps from living with females who are going through their cycles, or it may be biological. I would need to do more in-depth research to find out (if only I had the time).

Google knows

So, with all this going through my mind, I decided that I’d like to spend some time inside a man’s identity and body, perhaps for a week, to find out first hand. Maybe I’d need a full month. In any case, as I am about to enter my worst hormonal week (the week before the decorators arrive) I thought that now would be a good time to do the experiment (if I can find a willing body).

I wonder if this man would consider swapping with me?

Besides all the interesting observations I could potentially make regarding how society treats ‘male’ vs ‘female’ and whether I’d remember to use the correct public toilet, to stand up to wee and how I’d cope with shaving (I think I’d just let it grow), a very important philosophical question came to me during the consideration of the idea.

To fully ‘feel’ the identity of a male I’d need to fully ‘be’ that male: mentally, emotionally and physically. So I’d need to adopt their self and abandon my ‘female’ self. If there is none of my own ‘self’ in the temporary body I exist in, the question arises: how can I rationalise the experience, analyse it, compare it, and view it from the perspective of my ego? Without my ego to observe, the experience is pointless. If I am fully the ‘man’ I am. Then I have nothing to compare the experience with. Returning to my own body and self, I would not be able to ‘remember’ the experience and put a perspective on it. Yet, if I were to retain some of my self while in the temporary male body, that part of my ego will effect how I act and how I be. I wouldn’t fully be that man. I’d be partly me. The experiment cannot work.

It has become a paradox. I can’t be me in another ‘me’ in order to be that other ‘me’. The scientific and practical impossibility of swapping bodies, emotions and metal states aside, it just could not happen.

That’s a great shame. I guess I’ll just have to weather the storm of the next few days in my own body and with my own emotional ego. I need chocolate.