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Anger, Sex, Emotional Expression, and
Irritable Male Syndrome (IMS)
Many men combine their anger with their desire for
sex which also limits their expression and
likelihood of getting a positive response. This
often makes us more irritable, angry, and negative.
“When we are in a positive mood, people like
us better, and friendship, love, and coalitions are
more likely to cement,” says Seligman. Men
suffering from IMS find that their negative mood
undermines their friendships and love
relationships. But even men who are not suffering
from IMS are often emotionally inept. We know that
social connection is one of the key factors that
determine health and longevity. Men’s failure
to express ourselves emotionally may account for
the fact that we die nearly 7 years sooner than
women.
Thinking back on the way I was raised helps me
understand why so many of us guys are limited
emotionally. I learned early that “big boys
don’t cry.” Later playing highschool
basketball I learned to “play hurt and not
complain.” I also learned that feelings were
for females and boys learned to express themselves
intellectually rather than emotionally. Figuring
things out was what males did; sniveling over every
little thing is what girls did—or at least
that’s what I thought growing up.
Emotions are what we experience during gaps in
our thinking. If there are no gaps, there is no
emotion. Men often mistake emotions for thoughts. I
recently had a man in my office who was obviously
feeling a mixture of emotions: anger, hurt, fear,
confusion, worry, sadness.
He had been injured on the job and had been
referred to me by his wife because he was becoming
increasingly depressed. He hadn’t been able to
work for the last six months and the medical
procedures he had undergone weren’t working.
After getting some history I asked him how he was
feeling. “I feel like I want to get back to
work.”
“I know you want to get back to work, but
how are you feeling?” I asked.
He thought for a moment and replied. “I
feel like I need to do something, but I don’t
know what to do.”
When I kept pressing for his feelings, he just
looked at me and was obviously mystified. It took
many sessions to begin to help him tune into to the
sensations going on in his body, to recognize the
feelings that went with the sensations, and to put
a word on the feeling. He finally exploded with
feelings and said, “I’m really, really
pissed off.” I cheered and we both
laughed.
“Both men and women feel an incredible
variety of emotions,” says Dr. Helen Fisher.
“Both feel them with piercing intensity and
dogged regularity. Yet the ability to express these
emotions is the special trait of women.” This
is not to say that all men are unable to express
their emotions or that all women are emotionally
literate. I know many men that are much more
expressive than many women. But generally there is
a significant difference between males and
females.
I suspect that this difference is built into our
genetic heritage. For millions of years of human
history, it was women who took the major
responsibility for nurturing young children. An
ability to read and respond to a baby’s
emotions would have been a great advantage. Men, on
the other hand, were the ones who had to leave
their wives and children and go out for days on end
hunting for wild animals. An ability to suppress
their feelings would have made it easier for them
to leave and easier for them to kill.
The men who allowed their feelings for their
wife and children to come to the surface, the men
who broke down when their children called,
“Daddy, daddy, don’t leave,” the men
who couldn’t make themselves “be
strong”, were the men who didn’t hunt and
didn’t bring home food for the family. In the
long run, the children of these men were not as
successful. These men didn’t pass on a whole
lot of their genes to the next generation. We are
descended from the men who submerged their feelings
and went off with the other men.
As men become more nurturing and are required to
be away from their families less, we are learning
to allow our feelings to be expressed more easily.
But millions of years of evolutionary history
continue to have an impact on the differences in
emotional expression between men and women. This
seems to be true everywhere in the world. After
Gallup pollsters asked people in twenty-two
societies which sex was more emotional, they
concluded “More than any other trait, this one
elicits the greatest consensus around the world as
more applicable to women than men. Eighty-eight
percent of Americans think women are more
emotional, as do 79 percent of the French, 74
percent of the Japanese, and 72 percent of the
Chinese.
This evolutionary difference may have a hormonal
basis. Prior to puberty both sexes express their
emotions fairly equally. However, as boys mature
and their testosterone levels increase, they become
skilled at masking feelings of vulnerability,
weakness, fear. It usually is during adolescence
that teen-age boys refuse to discuss their
feelings. “They become fluent at
‘joke-speak,’” says Helen Fisher,
“all of the quips and gags and seemingly
offhand remarks that boys and men employ to mask
their emotions.”
When men do tap into their feelings, especially
into powerful ones such as fear, anger, sadness, or
anxiety, they are more likely than women to be
swamped by these emotions, a condition that
psychologist John Gottman calls “emotional
flooding.” The fact that guys often close down
and refuse to talk to their partner isn’t
because we are being stubborn or emotionally
stingy, it may be that we are overwhelmed by our
emotions.
©2010 Jed
Diamond
See Books,
Issues
+ Suicide
* * *
Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy
wealth. - Henry David Thoreau
Jed Diamond
is the internationally best-selling author of nine
books including Male
Menopause,
The
Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing. The 4 Key Causes
of Depression and
Aggression. and
Mr.
Mean: Saving Your Relationship from the Irritable
Male Syndrome. His
upcoming book, Tapping Power: A Man’s Guide to
Eliminating Pain, Stress, Anger, Depression and
Other Ills Using the Revolutionary Tools of Energy
Psychology will be available next year. For over 38
years he has been a leader in the field of men's
health. He is a member of the International
Scientific Board of the World Congress on
Men’s Health and has been on the Board of
Advisors of the Men’s Health Network since its
founding in 1992. His work has been featured in
major newspapers throughout the United States
including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall
Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and USA
Today. He has been featured on more than 1,000
radio and T.V. programs including The View with
Barbara Walters, Good Morning America, Inside
Edition, CBS, NBC, and Fox News, To Tell the Truth,
Extra, Leeza, Geraldo, and Joan Rivers. He also did
a nationally televised special on Male Menopause
for PBS. He looks forward to your feedback.
E-Mail.
You can visit his website at www.menalive.com
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