I have never been able to understand bike riders. They are a marvellous bit of machinery, but it appears to hurt too much, when you fall off.

Then they have funny ways. One mate, who was up touching the very top, racing in the days of 2 cylinder 4 strokes, before the Jap fantastics 4 cylinder 2 strokes shut the old British stuff out, was a prime example.

Those things were bolted together with large bolts, better to avoid damage to the alloys used back then. Ron spent almost 3 months drilling a large hole in the head of each bolt, & a smaller hole deep into the threaded part of the bolt, to reduce the weight of each.

He was very proud at the end of all this work, when the bike weighed 11 pounds less than before he started.

We all thought it was very funny. With a few less beers, & a lot less pies, Ron could have taken 16 to 20 pounds off himself, much more easily.

Still, it sure got him out into the shed.

There was no need to lighten the bikes I had access to, they revved hard and quickly too.

As for sheds, well yes I had the misfortune to have an accident with one of them as well when I was too careful going in to park the bike and the damned thing slipped on the clay and pinned my foot (missed the really hot bits). Big bikes, plenty of power and wind in the hair stuff, sorely missed, but would never let my offspring buy one. Not good on the roads these days.

Back to the subject, it appears you are not wrong to doubt the direction being taken by sociologists and sundry other critics of 'masculinity'. Had a look through any of the links where real doctors are commenting?

I don't agree with you Cornflower- many GPs would gladly deal with all the health issues men can give them, if only they would front up at the surgery with their problems!

Sure, there tends to be a focus on male disorders like prostate and erectile dysfunctions, but aren't these issues very important to most men?
The problems with peeing or how well they perform in the bedroom seem fairly common problems to me.

Most GPs are men too (although female GPs are catching up), so I really don't see any conspiracy to mainly deal with female complaints, as some posters have insinuated.

Nowadays, most modern men seem more able to deal with telling their GP their problems than ever before.

It is often up to their mates or their female relatives to encourage them to seek regular medical help.

No-one is suggesting a conspiracy, those were doctors commenting on men's health and the article, Shifting paradigms: a social-determinants approach to solving problems in men’s health policy and practice, is well-referenced. The author is John J Macdonald, Foundation Chair in Primary Health Care and Co-Director,
Men's Health Information and Resource Centre, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, NSW.

It is a link given by someone else and it is an interesting read. It certainly challenges some of the home-spun wisdom often seen on OLO for a start. Here is the link for those who missed it:

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/185_08_161006/mac10104_fm.html

The author is asking for an evidence based approach and who could criticise that? Good to see that research is being done.

University of Adelaide study:

"It is commonly held that men delay help seeking because they are ignorant about and disinterested in their health. However, this discussion has not been informed by men's lay perspectives, which have remained almost entirely absent from scholarship relating to men's help seeking practices."

"We show that the men in our study were actively engaged in the self-monitoring of their health. We suggest that these findings offer an alternative approach for understanding how we can promote men's interaction with health services."

from "It's sort of like being a detective": understanding how Australian men self-monitor their health prior to seeking help.

Smith JA, Braunack-Mayer A, Wittert G, Warin M.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2008 Mar 14;8:56.

Cornflower that's for that link and making a point of those comments.
A good piece.

I've never quite understood the reluctance to go to the doctor but when I went last week it was pointed out to me that I'd not been for about 12 months. There is some stuff about appointment times which are only flexible from the doctors side and the reading material in the waiting room which bug me (but I can always take my own book) but not enough to be a reason not to go.

I don't go to the dentist enough, I really don't like being lectured about flossing and as far as I can tell I'm unlikely to maintain a long term change in my flossing habit's regardless of how good it is for me.

At one stage my employer used to run some programs around health - skin scan's, general health reviews etc which were great and seemed to get high levels of male participation. They seem to have been dropped for several years.

R0bert