William Frey, Tears, and Emotional Expression

One of the most common cultural assumptions about emotion is that tears are the clearest sign of deep feeling. When someone cries, we assume emotion is present. When someone does not cry, we may assume emotion is absent.

This assumption has serious consequences for men.

Many men feel deeply but cry less often than women. If crying is treated as the gold standard of emotional visibility, then men’s emotional lives can easily disappear from view.

William H. Frey II, a biochemist known for his work on crying and tears, helped bring scientific attention to emotional tears. His work explored the idea that emotional tears may differ chemically from other tears and that crying may have biological and psychological significance.

When tears are treated as the main evidence of emotion, men who have fewer tears may be mistaken for men who have fewer feelings.

The Core Idea

Frey’s work became widely known through his book Crying: The Mystery of Tears, coauthored with Muriel Langseth. He explored crying as more than a sentimental act. He argued that emotional tears may be connected to stress physiology and that crying may serve a bodily function as well as a social one.

One of the important ideas associated with Frey’s work is that emotional tears may contain different levels of certain substances than reflex tears, such as those produced by onions or eye irritation.

Later reviews of crying research have treated Frey’s work as part of the broader scientific conversation about the biology and psychology of human crying.

Men, Women, and Crying Frequency

Research on crying has consistently found that adult women report crying more frequently than adult men. Frey’s popularized findings reported that women cried more often than men and that many people reported feeling better after crying.

Other researchers have continued to examine gender differences in crying frequency, duration, and social context. Some reviews suggest that these differences are likely shaped by a combination of biology, culture, social expectations, and the meaning assigned to tears.

This matters because boys and girls are often not very different in crying early in life. The larger differences appear later, especially after puberty and socialization into gendered emotional expectations.

The Prolactin Question

One biological explanation that has been discussed in connection with crying is prolactin. Prolactin is a hormone involved in lactation, but it is also associated with stress responses and is present in both men and women.

Frey suggested that prolactin might help explain why women tend to cry more frequently than men after puberty. The idea is that higher prolactin levels in women may make tear production more likely under emotional stress.

This should be treated carefully. Biology rarely gives us the whole answer. Crying is shaped by hormones, tear physiology, social learning, personality, culture, permission, shame, and context.

Still, the prolactin question is important because it opens the door to a larger point: emotional expression is not simply a matter of willingness. The body itself may shape how emotion becomes visible.

Why This Matters for Understanding Men

If men cry less often, that does not mean men feel less deeply.

It may mean that men’s emotional expression is shaped by:

• biology,
• hormones,
• social expectations,
• shame,
• fear of humiliation,
• lack of emotional safety,
• and the learned need to maintain composure.

This is crucial. When a man does not cry, observers may conclude that he is cold, detached, avoidant, or emotionally shallow. But that conclusion may be wrong.

He may be grieving without tears. He may be feeling emotion in his body. He may be regulating through action. He may be protecting himself from shame. He may be holding himself together because that is what he learned to do.

Tears and Emotional Visibility

Tears are powerful because they make inner experience visible. They communicate distress, vulnerability, need, tenderness, overwhelm, or release.

But tears are only one emotional signal.

Men’s emotions may appear through other forms:

• quietness,
• action,
• service,
• restlessness,
• work,
• movement,
• humor,
• protectiveness,
• solitude,
• or symbolic acts of honoring.

If we only recognize emotion when tears appear, we will miss much of men’s emotional life.

Feeling Better After Crying

Many people report feeling better after crying. This may be related to emotional release, social comfort, physical changes after emotional arousal, or the meaning of finally allowing oneself to feel.

But the benefits of crying are not universal. Some people feel worse after crying, especially if they cry alone, feel ashamed, or receive a negative response from others.

This is especially relevant for men. If a man’s tears have been mocked, dismissed, or punished, crying may not feel relieving. It may feel dangerous.

Emotional expression depends not only on biology, but on the social response that follows.

A Humane Interpretation

The most important lesson from crying research may not be that women cry more than men. The more important lesson is that emotional expression is complex.

Visible tears are shaped by body, culture, permission, context, safety, and learned expectations.

Men’s lower crying frequency should not be used to claim that men are emotionally deficient. Instead, it should invite a broader question: where else might men’s emotions be showing up?

Once we ask that question, we begin to see emotion in action, silence, responsibility, solitude, protection, loyalty, and the many quiet ways men carry what matters.