Heterosexual Masculinities

Contemporary Perspectives from Psychoanalytic Gender Theory

Bruce Reis, Robert Grossmark, Bruce Reis, Robert Grossmark

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781135468453
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Human Sexuality in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In recent years there have been substantial changes in approaches to how genders are made and what functions genders fulfill. Most of the scholarly focus in this area has been in the areas of feminist, gay, and lesbian studies, and heterosexual masculinity - which tended to be defined by lack and absence - has not received the critical and scholarly attention these other areas have received. Heterosexual Masculinities rethinks a psychoanalytic tradition that has long thought of masculinity as a sort of brittle defense against femininity, softness, and emotionality. Reflecting current trends in psychoanalytic thinking, this book seeks to understand heterosexual masculinity as fluid, multiple, and emergent. The contributors to this insightful volume take new perspectives on relations between men, men's positions as fathers in relation to their sons and daughters, the clinical encounter with heterosexual men, the social contexts of masculinity, and the multiplicity of heterosexual masculine subjectivities. What to a previous generation would have appeared as pathological or defensive, we now encounter as forms of masculine subjectivity that include wishes for intimacy, receptivity, and surrender, alongside ambition and the pleasures of "phallic narcissism."

1
Masculinities, Plural

Ethel Spector Person

There is no realm in which theoretical controversy within psychoanalysis has more dramatically reflected larger intellectual currents than in the area of sexuality and gender.

Mitchell & Black (1995, p. 218)

Masculinity cannot be regarded as a single entity. Both within Western culture and across cultures, a wide variety of masculinities are easily observable. Yet masculinity is so often contrasted with femininity that the many differences among men are at times obscured. To in part correct this deficiency, various “psychologies” of men are explored, as well as the cultural components that shape a society’s ideas of what constitutes masculinity. Male heterosexuality and homosexuality are also examined, as are a number of the fantasies and fears that men typically experience. What cannot be left out of any exploration of male psychology are those sources of strength that permit so many men to fiercely protect their families and, when called upon, to fight their country’s wars. Nonetheless, the differences between individual men are significant and can even be said to be vast.

Our field has undergone a sea change in how we think about the origins and development of femininity and masculinity. Freud fluctuated between two divergent theories about the sexes, centered on the nature-nurture controversy. He ultimately integrated them into what he called a “complemental series,” which I take as an attempt to integrate masculinity and femininity, nature and nurture. Rivto pointed out that Freud’s phrase, “a complemental series,” was based on Goethe’s insight that “[fate and chance] and not one or the other is decisive” (1990, p. 42).

We now know that in addition to nature and nurture, the culture in which we live plays an important role not only in our sexual practices but also in the way we conceptualize gender. Our formulations about what is innate and what is learned (or socialized) can never be definitive or universal, if only because sexual mores and gender preconceptions are parsed differently in different cultures and centuries, sometimes even in different decades. To some degree, however, we have been so intent on distinguishing between men and women and masculinity and femininity that we have not systematically explored the wide variety of ways in which masculinity is expressed.

Before I discuss the different kinds of masculinities that can be observed, I want to call attention to how many differences there are among men. One comes to know men in different aspects of their lives, whether as sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, lovers, men of the clergy, scholars, businessmen, athletes, porters, conductors (whether of orchestras or trains), and on and on. Not only do we know men in different roles; we also know men of different religions and nationalities, who hold to different systems of belief regarding what constitutes optimal masculinity and what kind of relationship is to be sanctioned between men and women. What I am trying to get across is that I am not sure that as analysts we are in the best position to provide a fully comprehensive overview of the range of masculinities that exist. Nonetheless, in this chapter I have put together some thoughts about the varying range of what we call masculine.

Let me note from the start that masculinity is not the exclusive province of heterosexual men. Masculinity encompasses particular attitudes, behaviors, and self-identifications that are observed not only in the majority of heterosexual men but also in many homosexual men. Needless to say, men, both straight and gay, can display effeminate characteristics. Then, too, some women are perceived as masculine, among whom some self-identify as such (Person, 1999, pp. 296–315). To put it simply, what we generally think of as masculine is not restricted to men. However, my focus here is on masculinity in men.

Robert Stoller was one of the first psychoanalytic theorists to emphasize the innate biological contributions to primary masculinity and primary femininity. He described sex and sexual self-identification as determined by chromosomes, external genitalia, internal genitalia (for example, the uterus and the prostate), hormonal states, and secondary sex characteristics. He also emphasized that for men the penis is not the whole story. Stoller drew on the work of Spitz (1962), who had observed that before 8 to 10 months of age little boys do not play with their penises any more than with any other organ. Stoller’s work is important on many levels, not the least of which is his acknowledgment of the importance of body and hormones along with early relationships.

Although the penis is not the whole story, it nonetheless is an important one. Tyson and Tyson (1990) have provided an excellent account of the boy’s “discovery” of his penis, which they date as occurring in the second 6 months of life. They noticed at that time a conjunction in which intentional self-stimulation of the penis is paired with affectionate glances at the mother (p. 278). Clearly the boy takes pleasure in his penis from very early on, and it is one of the ongoing components in what we call masculinity. By the second year, the boy also takes pride in his urinary control.

Differences between masculinity versus femininity and differences among males are apparent relatively early in life. The first ejaculation, a key event in the male’s sexual development, generally occurs between the ages of 10 and 16. In Sexual Orientation and Psychoanalysis, Friedman and Downey (2002) describe certain boyhood characteristics that are generally predictors of which boys will grow into the cultural norm for men. For those destined to be “masculine,” their

peer groups tend to be cohesive, bounded both from girls and from adults, and organized hierarchically. Dominance rank governs much behavior. In free play juvenile boys tend to be territorial, competitive, not accepting participation by girls and devaluing behavior deemed feminine or girl-like. Verbalizations tend to be confrontational and replete with challenges, mockery and bravado.… Whereas girls gravitate to dyadic interactions and those between dyads and relatively small groups of peers, boys are drawn to groups of five to eight individuals or even more. (p. 209)

These male groups are more often than not hierarchically structured, with members organized around leaders. Friedman and Downey note that from early life not only boys, but also grown men, tend to negatively categorize boys who do not match the cultural male stereotype and who participate in girlish interests. I would add that the hierarchical structure among males endures into adult life and often becomes a defining feature of males’ self-identity.

What later-life characteristics can be said to define masculinity? Gilmore (1991) observed that although androgynous cultures exist, they are relatively rare. She proposed that “in most societies … three moral injunctions exist for men: to impregnate women, to protect dependents from danger, to provide resources for kin” (quoted in Friedman & Downey, 2002, p. 223). For Gilmore, ideologies of manhood

always include a criterion of selfless generosity, even to the point of sacrifice. Again and again we find “real men” are those who give more than they take, they serve others. Real men are generous even to a fault. … Non-men are often stigmatized as stingy and unproductive. Manhood therefore is also a nurturing concept. … It is true that this male giving is different from and less demonstrative and more obscured than in the female. It is less direct, less immediate, more involved with the external; the “other” involved may be society in general rather than specific persons. (quoted in Friedman & Downey, 2002, p. 229)

My impression is that Gilmore emphasizes the best traits of masculinity, its protectiveness of others, traits that certainly exist in many men but not in all. In contrast to men supportive of women, there are those men who perceive women as weak and inferior, or overbearing, and a relatively small group of men who abuse women. Overall, each culture has standards for what constitutes masculinity, a construction that is generally internalized by the men and women who grow and develop in that culture (Friedman & Downey, 2002, p. 123).

Masculinity is undertheorized compared with femininity. Dimen and Goldner make this point explicitly: “Freud’s idealization of phallic masculinity not only erased and debased femininity as a category and as a lived, embodied self experience. It also delayed the theorization of masculinity in all its specificity and multiplicity” (2005, p. 99). Clearly there is more than one kind of masculinity. A broad array of “masculinities” exist, not only within different cultures but also within any one culture, particularly in such a complex culture as our own. To put the matter simply, there are considerable individual differences in the way masculinity in defined (or understood), both in our own culture and in different cultures and subcultures.

I have a dictionary dating from 1858 that defines masculine as

1. having the qualities of a man; strong; robust; as a masculine body;

2. coarse as opposed to delicate or soft; as a masculine feature;

3. cold, brave; as a masculine spirit or courage;

4. in grammar the masculine gender of words is that which expresses a male, or something analogous to it; or it is the gender appropriated to males, though not always expressing the male sex.

The passage goes on to define masculinity in terms of the male’s “coarse-ness of features, strength of body, boldness,” and masculinity as “suitable to, or characteristic of, a man; virile, robust; sometimes, of a mannish woman.” I find it striking that there is a reference to a mannish woman in a dictionary published so long ago.

As already noted, masculinity is not the sole propriety of heterosexual men. Because both heterosexuals and homosexuals may be masculine, masculinity is clearly not dependent on a man’s sexual object choice. It is also important to note that there are both heterosexual and homosexual men who “fail” to conform to the cultural stereotype of what constitutes masculinity. We now understand masculinity and femininity as the construction of male and female gender role identities that develop fully only after the establishment of core gender identity. Masculinity and femininity incorporate identifications and fantasies of oneself as male or female. Although nearly all individuals self-identify as either masculine or feminine, what has been observed in analytic work is that there are subliminal thoughts and fantasies that suggest each of us internalize multiple identifications.

Gender Identity

For both boys and girls, a significant interest in their genital orgasm becomes evident somewhere between the years of 3 to 5, although, as I have noted, most boys begin to play with their penises beginning between 8 and 10 months of age. Endocrines play a large role in sexual behavior, particularly, it would seem, for men. If the testicles are removed before puberty, secondary sex characteristics do not develop, and there is little or no impulse toward sexual activity, whether masturbatory or interpersonal. This would suggest that libido may be not so much an inborn drive as a drive developed as a result of the mentalization and integration of bodily experience and its associated pleasure (Stoller, 1968, p. 11).^* It appears that some of the typical behaviors and attitudes of boys are stoked by the presence of testosterone. In a sense, the brain acts as a computer that contextualizes messages from the body.

However, this is not the way gender was originally understood. For Freud, masculinity was the natural state for both sexes. He postulated that the girl retreats from masculinity into femininity upon the fateful and unhappy discovery that she has no penis (Freud, 1924, 1925, 1931, 1933; see Person, 2005). In sharp contrast, Horney (1924, 1926, 1932, 1933) and Jones (1948/1927, 1948/1933, 1948/1935) suggested that both femininity

* In contrast, the girl who is clitorectomized early in life may nonetheless engage in normal sexual activity with orgasm. Apparently, this is because minute amounts of androgens produced in the adrenals act to stoke pleasure.

and masculinity predate the phallic phase, and that each originates from an innate predisposition. In their view, both masculinity and femininity have preoedipal origins. Most contemporary theorists seem to hold the same opinion.

Although both biology and acculturation impact on core gender and gender identity, there is another factor attached to self-identification. In 1955 Money, Hampson, and Hampson published a study that established gender as distinct from sexuality. They demonstrated that the first and crucial step in gender differentiation was self-designation by the child as female or male in accordance with the sex of assignment and rearing. Designated as either male or female at birth, most of the children they studied came to self-identify as such in the first few years of life and to internalize behaviors consistent with their designated sex. There were, however, exceptions. A few individuals who had been sexually reassigned because of abnormalities of their genitals reverted to their biological sex. Self-definitions encompass both core gender identity and gender role identity. Core gender identity refers to one’s self-identification as male or female. However, gender role identity refers to a self-identity that comprises behaviors and preferences referable to masculinity or femininity.

Gender role identity is believed to be shaped to a significant degree by gender identification with the same-sex parent, but this cannot be the whole story. A male raised solely by his mother may grow up with a s...

Table of contents

• PSYCHOANALYSIS IN A NEW KEY BOOK SERIES
• PSYCHOANALYSIS IN A NEW KEY BOOK SERIES
• Contents
• Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Masculinities, Plural
• 2 Masculinity and Its Discontents Making Room for the “Mother” Inside the Male—An Essential Achievement for Healthy Male Gender Identity
• 3 Names of the Father
• 4 Two Men Talking The Emergence of Multiple Masculinities in Psychoanalytic Treatment
• 5 Imperfect Love, Imperfect Lives Making Love, Making Sex, Making Moral Judgments
• 6 On Intimacy Between Men
• 7 An Eruption of Erotic Vitality Between a Male Analyst and a Male Patient
• 8 David and Jonathan
• 9 Psychotherapy With Poor African American Men Challenges Around the Construction of Masculinities
• 10 “Fathers” and “Daughters”
• 11 Finding a Father Repetition, Difference, and Fantasy in Finding Nemo
• 12 Interiority and Inner Genital Space in Men What Else Can Be Lost in Castration?
• Index