The sexuality of men and the sociology of gender

In recent years writers in the field of the sociology of gender have turned to psychoanalysis for insights into the psychological dimensions of female sexuality. The same insights are now being applied to the analysis of masculinity. This paper argues that the full advantages of this are undermined by the adoption of an object-relations perspective which restores the social determinism from which many such writers seek to escape. This argument is pursued through a detailed analysis of one recent text in the field —The Sexuality of Men (eds) A. Metcalf and M. Humphries (1985) — but is applied more widely to the treatment of sexuality in the sociology of gender.