Andrew Smiler, Ph.D.
I am a research psychologist who studies masculinity and young men’s sex lives. I now teach in the psychology department at Wake Forest University, but I used to be at SUNY Oswego. I got my PhD at the University of New Hampshire and did a 2 year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan. Before that, I spent 5 years working as a family therapist in the Philadelphia suburbs. During those 5 years, I started teaching undergraduates and leading continuing eduction seminars for professionals.
Masculinity is something that anyone can do, male or female, but people do it differently based on whether they call themselves boy or girl. It also changes as we got older, and it looks different if you identify yourself as a “jock” or a “nerd.” We learn about masculinity from a lot of different sources, especially the media and our family, but these sources don’t always give us the same messages.
My research on young men’s sex lives looks at how guys age 15-25 learn about all aspects of sexuality: dating, romantic relationships, and sexual behaviors from kissing through intercourse. My focus is on identifying what’s typical and when people do those typical things.
For information about my research, click here.
For more about my university teaching, click here.
For more about my continuing education seminars, click here.
To see my appearances in the media, click here.
If you want to reach me privately, I’m “andrew.smiler” at gmail.com .
SallyParadise said
No, masculinity is not what anyone can do. Nor is femininity something that anyone can do. These are core identities and not Etcha-Sketch pictures. When a male acts like a female he is just less of a male and not a female and vice versa with women.
And, gender dysphoria has nothing to do with homosexuality. The gay community only it makes it so noted so as to add to their numbers.
Trans-sexuality is homosexuality dressed as the opposite sex.
andrewsmiler said
Hi Sally,
…respodning to “No, masculinity is not what anyone can do.”
I’d like to make a distinction between what people “can” do and what people “should” do. I think we agree that anyone “can” do masculinity (or femininity) – your comment even talks about guys who act like women.
Whether or not a guy “should” be feminine, even a little, is a related, but different, issue. I suspect that we all want guys to be at least a little caring – they should care about their family members (parents, spouses, children, aunts/uncles) and their good friends – even though we typically think of “caring” as a feminine thing. This is also a fairly recent change in our own history. 125-150 years ago, in the Victorian era, “real men” had “passions.”
In a related vein, many men care at least a little about their appearance (and did so before the new push by companies selling beauty products), but we typically think about that as part of femininity. For me, it’s about “how much” and not either/or.
andrewsmiler said
Hi Sally (#2),
…responding to “gender dysphoria has nothing to do with homosexuality”…
Actually, it does. There’s a DSM-IV diagnosis called “gender identity disorder (of childhood)”; it’s the diagnosis that is given to children who strongly prefer the other sex’s activities and modes of dress. Wikipedia provides a solid summary here . Children and their parents report that the kids have “always” been like this; those who are brought for treatment are typically less than 10 years old. During childhood, these kids are often also identified as suffering from either depression or some type of anxiety disorder; they report having few or no friends and often get beaten up. Given the pressure and harassment that these kids get from their parents, other family members, and other kids about dressing and acting like a member of the other sex, it’s hard to believe that they’re lying about wanting to be a member of the other sex. In long term follow-up studies of kids who get an official GID diagnosis and treatment, more than half describe themselves as homosexual.
Although not all of them seek sexual reassignment surgery, many do, and they typically start seeking surgery in their early 20s. Those who have had the surgery report that they’re much less depressed and anxious than they were as children or teenagers, and that they’re better able to make friends.