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."

About the Author

Bruce Reis, Ph.D., is on the relational faculty of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and a Contributing Editor Studies in Gender and Sexuality.

Robert Grossmark, Ph.D., is a member of the faculty at the Psychoanalytic Training Institute at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies and adjunct faculty in the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is Clinical Supervisor at the Doctoral Programs at City University and Yeshiva University and at the Psychoanalytic Institute at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies.

Reviews

"The time has come when men can stop complaining that psychoanalysis sells them short. This erudite, compassionate and beautifully edited collection is going to be a benchmark for the engagement of psychoanalysis with the masculinities. Many clinicians are all at sea with the men in their practices. We need authors like these who can, with elegance and punch, traverse gender, cultural and queer studies, balancing the intrapsychic and social dimensions of the work, knowing when that distinction breaks down. Poetically, here's a confirmation of masculinity as a metaphor of being and experiencing for all. Politically, here's a contribution from the clinic to healing a world whose problems reflect those of the men who run it." - Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology, University of Essex, UK

"Heterosexual Masculinities is a long overdue book of essays examining the multiple configurations and subjective experiences of male heterosexuality. Long the stepchild in discussions of gender and sexuality, male heterosexuality is, as the various authors argue, as varied, complex and multiple as female hetero- and homosexuality. Far from being merely the opposite of female sexuality, male heterosexuality has been undertheorized as the "one," rather fixed sexuality. The editors of this book, Bruce Reis and Robert Grossmark, have accomplished a remarkable job of filling this theoretical lacuna by assembling a broad range of texts from contemporary relational psychoanalysts, who demonstrate in their own respective ways the degree of variety and fluidity that exists in the large spectrum of male heterosexuality." - Jeanne Wolff Bernstein, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, USA

"Heterosexual Masculinities makes commendable strides towards filling the gender gap...this book consists of a theoretically and clinically rich chapter from each of the contributing authors...a much-needed addition to the psychoanalytic field... Reis and Grossmark's excellent read is sure to be appreciated by any analytically oriented pracitioner. [The book] will significantly help one's clinical work...a worthy purchase as having this collection of well-written works as a reference in one place is quite handy...a true asset to any clinician wishing to better undserstand the men with whome they work." - Anthony F. Tasso, Division/REVIEW

Book Information
ISBN 9780881635027
Author Bruce Reis
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint Analytic Press,U.S.
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 385g