Before and after

(above left and right, before and after pictures of Sammy Sosa; immediately above, Bruce Jenner triumphing in Olympic decathlon, 1976; right, a more recent picture of Jenner)

Steve Sailer's blog (isteve.blogspot.com) recently featured before and after pictures of Sammy Sosa in a post about skin color and status in foreign countries. And whatever dermal treatment Sosa has used has bleached his skin quite a bit. Sailer attributes Sosa's "creepy" appearance to the newly heightened contrast between his skin color and lip color.

But Sosa's features also seem to have become feminized. He now has a vaguely drag queenish look: his cheeks are fuller and softer. This is what happens when you stop taking steroids. If your body receives an exogenous supply of testosterone for a while, it stops generating the hormone on its own. (This is why the testicles shrink.) Eventually, when you go off them, your body will be receiving no testosterone from either source, and as a result you'll develop feminine secondary sexual characteristics. (This is why ex-steroid users sometimes start to grow breasts.)

There is a difference between the two sets of before and after photos with Sosa. In the set at top left, the before shot shows Sosa at the peak of his home run swatting powers; he has a hard, gristly look. In the set on the right, the lefthand shot shows him after he's off the steroids, but before the bleaching treatment: although his skin is still dark, he has already acquired a softer look.

(It makes one wonder if having a lower level of testosterone predisposes one to having one's skin lightened; the only other guy I know of who had a similar treatment was Michael Jackson.)

Bruce Jenner went through a similar metamorphosis. Jenner was the Olympic decathlon champion who later went on to become a sort of show biz hanger on; he is probably now most famous as the stepfather to the Kardashian clan. His striking change in appearance since 1976 is generally attributed to plastic surgery. But he was widely rumored to have been one of the first Americans to use steroids, and as such, was not familiar with the fact that you're supposed to cycle them, i.e., use them for brief periods and take breaks in between doses, otherwise you permanently kill your own body's ability to produce testosterone.

As a result Jenner's cheeks have had very feminine contours since the 1980's, and now he actually looks more like the Kardashians' stepmother. (Note to Bruce: that pouffy hairdo, which must be intended to evoke 1976, does nothing but emphasize your feminine appearance.)

There's a neat yin and yang symmetry to what has happened to these men. Try to make yourself super-masculine at some point and eventually you'll pay the price by becoming more feminine.

It's sort of like that story "Flowers for Algernon," but about masculinity rather than intelligence.

In any case, both men are now cautionary tales.