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The systematic study of non-heterosexual men was quite sparse in the early days of psychoanalysis. As a consequence of decades of normalized gender and sexuality being both male and gynecophilic, the past forty-years have seen a proliferation of gender-based theory, research, and treatment aimed to confront gender and sexual orientation-based alterity. Both within and outside of psychoanalysis, feminist and queer scholars have fervently engaged in the systematic study of women and GLBTG psychologies. Such focus has accomplished much, including shedding light on sociopolitical preclusions to equity and their subsequent impact on psychological well-being; broadening previous monolithic and pathologizing views; and proactively cautioning clinicians and researchers not to apply findings drawn from predominately heterosexual male patients and subjects to women and non-heterosexuals.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, one group has not been including in this admirable widening professional study: heterosexual males. In attempting to remedy the earlier gap in gender and sexuality theory and practice, heterosexual males have been deemed homogenous. The study of gender and sexuality in recent decades has meant the study of women and homosexuality. Although there have been excellent psychoanalytic works debunking the notion of static binary categorizations of gender and sexuality (Nancy Chodorow's 1994 Femininities, Masculinities, and Sexualities: Freud and Beyond and Adrienne Harris's 2005 Gender as Soft Assembly are both classics), contemporary concerted examinations of men have been conspicuously absent. Fogel, Lane, and Liebert's (1986) The Psychology of Men: New Psychoanalytic Perspectives thoroughly investigated maleness, but the text is now fifteen years old. Therefore, a study exploring not only manhood but focused on heterosexuality is long overdue.
Heterosexual Masculinities: Contemporary Perspectives from Psychoanalytic Gender Theory (Routledge Books) makes commendable strides