Do Men Who Become Women Have Periods? Here's How Two AI Bots Answered.

This week I saw an aritcle in Forbes about a new advertising campaign that "Wants You To Know Transgender People Have Periods Too.

The photo that accompanies the campaign shows ten men in various kinds of underwear, but with one thing in common. They have blood on the crotch area of their underpants.

As an advertising guy I had a couple problems with this strange image. Primarily, though, I was wondering, assuming that if guys who become women could menstruate, what are the odds of finding 10 transgender men who are also having their periods at the same time? In other words, the image is staged, which implies that its message is untrue. 

Naturally this is a topic I have limited first-hand experience with, so I decided to ask Google Bard this question: Do transgender men who become women have periods?

Here is Google Bard's reply:

No, transgender men who become women do not have periods. A period is a natural bodily function that occurs when a woman's ovaries release an egg. The egg travels down the fallopian tube and, if it is not fertilized, it is shed along with the lining of the uterus. This is what is commonly known as a period.

Transgender men who become women do not have ovaries or fallopian tubes. They also do not have a uterus. Therefore, they cannot have periods.

However, some transgender men who become women may experience menstrual-like symptoms, such as cramping and bloating. This is because the body may still produce hormones that are associated with menstruation. These hormones can also cause changes in the menstrual cycle, such as irregular periods or spotting.

This was an interesting and logical answer. I understand it. If guys who become women don't have ovaries, then they aren't going to menstruate.

I then decided to ask ChatGPT the same question. Here is the reply: No, transgender women (individuals assigned male at birth who identify as female) do not have periods. Menstruation is a biological process that occurs in individuals with female reproductive systems, which includes those who are assigned female at birth. Transgender women do not have female reproductive organs, including ovaries and a uterus, so they do not experience menstrual cycles or periods.

Transgender women who have not undergone gender-affirming surgery to remove their male reproductive organs (testes) may continue to produce male hormones (such as testosterone) unless they undergo hormone replacement therapy (HRT) as part of their gender transition. HRT can help suppress the production of male hormones and promote the development of secondary female characteristics.

It's important to be sensitive and respectful when discussing topics related to gender identity and transgender individuals. Menstruation can be a sensitive topic, and not all transgender individuals will want to discuss it. Respecting an individual's gender identity and privacy is essential in these conversations.

Paragraph one pretty much affirms the same.

So now I return to the ad, which seems to contradict "the science."

The advertisement being written about is for a tampon delivery service company. The title of the campaign is "Tell the Whole Bloody Truth." The campaign is essentially an attack on the way menstrual products are sold. Those ads target healthy women, not women who are disabled or trans women (individuals assigned male at birth who identify as female.)

The article itself reads like a promo for the notion that menstruation is not for women only. The discussions being raised here do make me curious about menopause.

How Long Should A Blog Post Be?

BLOGGING BUZZ

There are two kinds of people in the world:
those who like to define everything and those who resist it.

This morning I saw an article in the paper that said many dinosaurs have been incorrectly classified. A British study now claims that the family trees of certain dinosaur lines have been mis-classified.

A couple years ago scientists declared that Pluto was no longer a planet. This verdict, however. is not held universally, and the battle still rages.

Nevertheless, it seems an innate human tendency to name things, define things, and to create definitive rules about every aspect of life. How many hours should we sleep? How far apart should our children be in age? How long should our babies breastfeed?

All this to say that I've been noticing a lot of pundits attempting to make rules about blogging and even tweeting. One expert stated that even though a tweet is only 144 characters, the "ideal tweet" for effectiveness is 100 characters.*

Really?

It seems like I've been reading a lot of discussion about blogging lately. The chief questions revolve around how often we should blog and how long our blog posts should be. This blog post will be my attempt to answer the latter of these two questions.

How long should a blog post be?

There are plenty of folks declaring that longer is better. Marieke van de Rakt at Yoast states that it takes 300 words to get ranked in search engines. Over 1000 words will improve your ranking and 2500 is better.

Seth Godin endorses shorter posts.

I remember when USA Today came out and was criticized for revamping newspaper journalism to accommodate people with short attention spans. Articles were on average 400 words. Yet the newspaper survived. If you need more depth, you still have the New York Times.

John Rampton answers this question in a longer post that lays out the case for both short and long blog posts. You'll find his answer at Forbes. In the end he concludes that there's no right or wrong answer. I agree.

According to this article at Snap, the ideal blog length used to be 500-700 words, but is longer now by a factor of three. Part of the reason blog posts are getting longer is because so-called experts are telling everyone that blog posts need to be longer. People without experience feel comforted when experts tell them what to do. "Pluto is not a planet."

In another place we read that people only read 20-28% of the blog post. Could this be because the blog posts are too long now and people are in a hurry?

Yet we still find more advocacy for longgggg posts. This Copypress story begins with a headline that the ideal "average word count" for top-ranked searches is 2416. When I read something like this I can imagine a draconian boss somewhere declaring, "I want 2416 words on every blog post. No more, no less."

At least Neil Patel, who has become a self-styled Marshall Dillon of the Blogging Universe, has the sense to ask what the purpose of your blog is. Why are you blogging in the first place? Business blogging is the only kind of blogging that matters to some people. But there are plenty of other reasons to blog. Some write to inform, others to persuade, others to entertain and still others just to have a soapbox. Some write simply to practice writing. Some write to test their beliefs in the wider marketplace of ideas. Some write for social engagement. Some write to work out their angst.

When I started this blog ten years ago I did it simply to see what blogging was all about. I wondered if it would have value for the company I worked for (and it did.) And as I went along it began having other meanings for me.

A couple years after my this initial blog (Ennyman's Territory) I decided to also start a second blog devoted to sharing my art called The Many Faces of Ennyman. The word count on average has been roughly 30 words, and sometimes less. How does that fit with all these definitions and regulations?

Again, it's all a matter of purpose.

Having been a writer for more than three decades I half think the answer to word length ought not to be based on some arbitrary rules from on high. If you're telling a story, the right length is dictated by the story, not some set of rules. Hemingway's stories range from a few pages to book length. The right length depends on the story that needs to be told.

I would apply these same criteria to blogging.

As people we're all different. Some people need concrete definitions more than others. Others dislike straightjackets. When it's in my power I prefer a little freedom over form, hence this blog post about coloring outside the lines.

The best way to learn is by doing. Remember that what's "in" today may be out tomorrow. Wide ties, miniskirts, bellbottoms. What's fashionable today may be gone tomorrow.

18 years ago I wrote an article about thinking for yourself called Who Are Your Experts?  Upon reviewing it again I see it as still relevant. Social media and blogging didn't exist yet in their current form, but the principles of engagement are really nothing new. And feel free to let me know what you think.


* Kevan Lee, The Ideal Length of Everything Online (Backed By Research.)

Steve Jobs Film Leads To Dylan Insights for CEOs in New Forbes Article

Walter Isaacson's book Steve Jobs was a compelling read when it came out in 2011. I wrote at the time, "Just when you thought you knew everything important that there was to know about the passionate founder of Apple, you discover through this incredible biography how little you really knew." But it's the silver screen that reaches the masses, hence the new film about Steve Jobs is creating more than just a ripple effect.

Dylan receiving the Medal of Freedom.

This past week Forbes published a contribution by Grant Feller* titled Bob Dylan's Guide To Being A Better CEO. Feller opens the piece with a great opening line that will magnetize any Dylan fan: The best reason for going to see Danny Boyle’s new film on Steve Jobs is, as far as I can see, not to indulge in some Apple gadgetry porn but to understand the influence Bob Dylan had on him. 

He immediately follows with this disclaimer:
I’m a huge fan of the latter and have, at various moments, felt just as inspired by Dylan’s moving, incisive and often unique lyrics. By all accounts, so was Jobs.

It's a perfect setup.

According to Isaacson, Steve Jobs was indeed a huge fan of both Dylan and the Beatles. In fact, he was so much of a Dylan fan he pursued and maintained a two year romantic relationship with Joan Baez who had herself been romantically entwined with Bob. Jobs gave it up when he came to realize he didn't really love her but loved the idea of being involved with his idol's woman.

When the iPod came out, a brilliant Steve Jobs concept that revolutionized the way we listen to music, Jobs was asked the question that Apple's TV commercials were asking: "What's on your iPod?" The interviewer then asked, if you had to choose between the Beatles and the Stones, who would you keep? Jobs replied that that was easy, The Beatles. "But if you asked me to decide between the Beatles and Bob Dylan, that would be a much harder question."

* * * *

Feller's article is an good example of a basic article structure. If you picture of line of railroad cars, the intro is your engine. It's aim is to hook the reader, and Feller does this effectively. The transition must follow. Like a highway billboard it has to be quick and clear. The writer offers up this:

After all, if CEOs can be inspired by lines from Sun Tzu’s Art of War, why can’t content marketers find similar truth in the lyrics of Dylan…

From here we get a string of boxcars which stretch out to the end of the story. No time to argue or to judge the merits of his premise. If the reader has travelled this far he or she will just go with the flow. It's an easy, breezy ride. Here's that link again.

* * * *
I can't leave off without commenting on the author's name. Grant Feller. Grant is a family name that one of my brothers, an uncle and a grandfather carried, among others. I've personally found U.S. Grant to be an inspirational hero for my own life and maintain a photo of him on my office wall.

But I've also found strong inspiration in a man named Feller, specifically the Hall of Fame Cleveland Indians pitcher of the 40's and 50's. When I was born my teddy bears were named after the starting rotation of the Cleveland Indians, and for some reason Feller became my favorite. (I carried Lemon around with me for a long time, too, though.)

Thank you, Mr. Feller, for this fun little excursion through the Dylan catalogue.

* * * *
Meantime, life goes on all around you, within you and without you. Get into it.

Is the Art Dealer Scene Out of Control? What Next?

On this day in 1890 Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh died from a gunshot wound.

When avant garde art dealer and collector Ambroise Vollard died, he purportedly owned 10,000 works of art by many of the leading painters of the previous half century, including Van Gogh, Cézanne, Renoir, Roualt, and the prolific Picasso. With Van Gogh's Vase with Sunflowers selling for more than $80 million, one wonders what Vollard's collection would be worth today.

Vollard purchased 27 canvases from Picasso in 1906 and continued a relationship with the effervescent artist till the dealer caught an early death in a freak accident on the road to his chateau in 1939.

The Second World War was just around the corner and I'm curious to know to what degree these works were successfully whisked out of the country before the Nazi occupation. I recall reading somewhere that after his death efforts were made to send the collection to North America and the first boat, with 500 pieces aboard, had to be routed to Canada.

No doubt Vollard knew the treasures he had. But I am totally convinced that he'd been apoplectic to learn the kinds of prices such pieces have been obtaining in the new art market.

In May, Forbes magazine had a story about this sea change in art valuations that has occurred since Warhol arrived on the scene. The article is something of a sketch in that without filling in all the details it shows us with a few deft lines how things changed. Leo Castelli, himself a collector of avant garde artists' works, was in the center of it -- the center now being New York. After the Nazis set their jackboots on Parisian soil, many of the most talented and intelligent artists and thinkers made a break from the Continent, and a new power center formed in the heart of Manhattan.

Counterfeit Warhol portrait of Ennyman

Caleb Melby's piece, titled Larry Gagosian, Andy Warhol And The Rise Of The Superdealer, shows how the Vollard eye combined with a new collector culture  has made an immense difference in valuations. What changed isn't the interest by some in collecting, but rather, "the explosion of the global nouveau riche, the proliferation of international fairs like Art Basel and, most critically, the fetishlike cult of contemporary art, a phenomenon that has metastasized over the last 50 years."

Interesting word: metastasized. Is Melby calling today's art collecting the new internet bubble? All three definitions of metastasize carry ominous overtones, the first being its association with cancer. The second  is simply, "to spread injuriously." And finally "to transform, especially into a dangerous form."

When Pablo Picasso died in 1973 Andy Warhol read, or heard (I don't have my fact-checker up yet this morning), that Picasso had produced 4,000 masterpieces. Warhol quipped, "I can produce 4,000 masterpieces in one day." Indeed, his screen print presses did crank out volumes. His "work alone accounts for roughly 20% of the value of the contemporary art market."

* * * *

My take is this. You like a piece of art? Don't buy it in the hopes it will increase in value. It's real value is in your relationship with it, your ability to appreciate and cherish it, not just for a few moments in a gallery, but on a wall in your home or office... for the rest of your life.

* * * *

For what it's worth, next week on August 5 I will be giving a talk on Picasso, Storytelling and The Unknown Masterpiece at the Tweed Museum of Art here in Duluth. Never been to the Tweed? They have a great collection. Check it out sometime.... You will be impressed.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it!

Advice for Would-Be Art Buyers

Sunday the New York Times published a lengthy, in-depth critique of the unregulated art market in a piece by Robin Pogrebin and Kevin Flynn titled As Art Values Rise, So Do Concerns About Market’s Oversight. The writers detail some of the shenanigans that art auction houses pull to make sure sellers get the prices they want.

The Big Apple art scene is an eight billion dollar business, so it's a bit more than a flea market. Nevertheless, the Huffington Post's response to the story was that for most Americans this kind of news is a big yawn. As chief financial writer Mark Gongloff puts it...

It's a story involving bubbly prices, lax regulation and shady market practices.  this sounds like a recipe for the next financial crisis, then you are right. It does sound like that. But it's probably not.... It turns out that your local Sotheby's is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, where the wealthy are bilked out of their cash by shady art dealers. Sometimes auctioneers just stone-cold make up bids until prices get closer to where the seller wants them. Galleries refuse to share their prices. Wealthy people may end up paying millions more for a piece of art than necessary. Naturally, if you're like me, when you read a story like this, you feel... um... not much?

The Times' influence is such that other publications weighed in as well in response to the Pogrebin/Flynn story. Kathryn Tully, writing for Forbes, used the piece to re-affirm some of her own views about art as an investment in a piece titled How Much For This Art?

As I’ve argued before, the opaque nature of the art market and the lack of price transparency are two reasons why art cannot be treated like other investments and certainly why it is not interchangeable with other commodities, even those with which it is commonly lumped together, like gold or silver.

Well, for most folks, making decisions like whether to buy the five million dollar Picasso or twenty million dollar Picasso is somewhat irrelevant. I'm fairly certain that offering advice on that decision would be meaningless for most readers here, but a few tips on how to purchase art wouldn't be a bad thing. At this point I am going to share this one.

Someone recently told me a story about how her mother was in Seattle or Portland many years ago and she saw a painting at an art show that she really loved. She wanted to buy it, but hesitated and ultimately left it behind. To her dismay she never stopped thinking about that transaction that failed to occur. Thirty years have passed and her mom still regrets that she never bought that painting.

My advice for the average person is this: don't buy it for the value you believe might accrue over time. Buy it because you love it. When you see it you take pleasure in it. When you share it, you take pleasure in it. When you see it tomorrow, you enjoy it.

I've often repeated this sentiment at art events I've been to: "You can enjoy this piece for a few minutes here or you can take it home and enjoy it for the rest of your life."

Yesterday I sold a painting to a happy buyer. The transaction was fun for both of us. I love knowing that a piece I've created is being appreciated and will have a new home. It is way more fun than trying to find more storage space in the garage.

Why Did Cisco Kill the Flip?

O.K. I've loved my Flip camera. I mean, I didn't use it fanatically, but it sure made it easy to make videos for the Internet. I mean, the Flip video camera was so simple you could hardly make a mistake. It was designed for low-tech non-geeks who wanted something they could point and shoot. It was the Polaroid camera for videography.

Not only was it simple to use, it was the perfect tool for what so many of us wanted to do... upload video to YouTube. The movies you made with your Flip required no re-formatting. They were ready to go and you did not even need a fast connection to the web to upload.

An article at the Forbes blogs by Anthony DeMarco tells his reaction to the story. The title says it all: Upon Further Review Cisco's Decision to Kill the Flip Makes Even Less Sense.

If you'd like to check out some of the videos I created with my Flip, here's the link.

I've had fun with it, even if nothing I made was entertaining enough to go viral like some vids that have seemingly been shared with the entire cyber-universe. Items in my playlist include some live painting, turkeys gobbling, my assistant hitting a golf ball, scenes from the NSRA Nationals in Louisville, a train going by on a rural road, and a few other brief diversions.

My camera still works fine, too. Even if the company has distanced itself from it I'll keep it around and upload a few more snippets for our mutual benefit.

In the meantime, have a great day.