The Masculinity Complex: Heterosexual Men, American Culture, and Emotional Intimacy

Abstract

This dissertation poses the question: What shapes the relationship between heterosexual men, contemporary American culture, and emotional intimacy? In searching for these dynamics, this study finds its foundations in research and literature on masculinity, patriarchy, and gender relations within American society. Drawing primarily upon depth psychology and integrating insights from anthropology, philosophy, sociology, feminist theory, critical theory, popular culture, and classical literature, this study is anchored in Jung’s theory of complexes and the post-Jungian concept of cultural complexes. Employing hermeneutics, the research first explores the interconnection between culture, complexes, and the psyche, leading to the identification of interlocking complexes significantly impacting culture and the collective discourse, comprehension, and attitudes about manhood and masculinity. Borrowing terms from dialogical self theory (DST) and family systems theory, and adding them to cultural complex theory, this study creates an integrative conceptualization of the inner triangulations and constant repositioning within the ever-changing landscape of the individual and collective psyches. The result is a revisioning of cultural complex theory that describes an ouroboric cycle of circular causality within culture, supporting the homeostatic endurance of what this researcher has named the masculinity complex. The masculinity complex is the metaphorical flagbearer of interlocking cultural complexes whose constellations impact culture’s relationship to masculinity and much more. This study concludes by turning its attention toward heterosexual men and intimacy in American culture, postulating that the masculinity complex fundamentally shapes the relationships between men, culture, and emotional intimacy.