[Working Draft – Conference Paper Format, 2007 ASA Annual Meeting] Brian C Kelly, PhD Purdue University, Dept of Sociology & Anthropology Keywords: masculinity, sex, young men 1
Gender and sexuality have been shown to be linked in profound ways. In their negotiation of everyday life, men and women act out sexual scripts in their expressions of erotic desire and engage in certain sexual behaviors shaped by culturally prescribed conceptions about masculinity and femininity (Simon & Gagnon, 1986). Conceptions of masculinity circulate within society such that they create normative expectations of behavior for both men and women (Deaux, 1984). These expectations profoundly influence sexual interactions and often operate in such a hegemonic fashion that people often unknowingly conform to dominant norms. Research suggests that men are even more likely to conform to social pressures around masculinity than women are to femininity norms (Martin, 1995). Yet, men are not simply passive victims of this process. They actively construct and reproduce norms of masculinity in ways that display and enact their conceptions of gender and sexuality. This occurs in the context of our social relationships, as gender is produced and reproduced within the confines of everyday social transactions. Yet, although men may conceptualize a similar idealized masculinity, they deploy or enact masculinity in different ways (Connell, 1995). I set out to explore the ways in which men deploy these masculinities in the course of discussing their sexual lives. To situate this exploration within a theoretical framework, I draw upon the sociological concept of “identity work.” Within every social encounter, individuals subtly assert elements of their identity (Goffman, 1959). Identity work refers to a “range of activities individuals engage in to create, present, & sustain personal identities”, both Narrating Masculinity as individuals and as parts of collectivities (Snow & Anderson, 1987; Einwohner, 2006). In other words, identity work refers to the practices that construct & negotiate identity while nested within a social context. Individuals may engage in a variety of forms of identity work through their actions, habits, posture, and talk (Snow & Anderson, 1987). It is this discursive identity work that I explore among young men. Identity work becomes a means by which men “do gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Through it, gender is produced and reproduced in our social relationships in dynamic and dialectic fashion. Thus, men will deploy masculinity in some contexts but not others (Connell, 1995). In this case, the discursive identity work entails masculinity assertions of gender identity within the context of discussing sexual experiences. I look at how these young men use discursive identity work to harmonize their social roles, identities, and self-concept within the context of describing their recent sexual experiences. In the ensuing paper, I explore how men construct various forms of masculinity and how these enactments of gender inform sexual interactions with female partners, conceptions of intimacy, and sexual behaviors. In particular, this paper provides an analysis of how idealized masculinity is expressed via sexual narratives. Methods A diverse sample of young heterosexual men completed qualitative in-depth interviews with trained staff as part of the Club Drugs and Health project – a study designed to examine a range of health issues among 400 young adults (ages 18-29) who participate in club subcultures. Each of the subjects enrolled in the project participated in a qualitative interview at baseline and then+ once every four months for a one year period. Baseline interview transcripts were coded and analyzed to further understand conceptions of masculinity among heterosexual men and how it relates to male sexual activity. Qualitative interviews were conducted using Critical Incident Measures to elicit sexual narratives. These qualitative narratives described recent sexual encounters – consisting of narratives relating both sober sexual activity and sexual activity under the influence of alcohol and/or club drugs – and were analyzed for assertions of masculinity within the language used in discussing sexuality, the concordance/discordance of behavior and identity, and reasons for engaging or not engaging in certain sexual activities. Emphasis was placed on how men describe their sexual encounters with women in narrative form. Prior to discussing to the qualitative data I want to discuss the interview context as a social transaction. After coding the data for masculinity assertions, I began to think about my use of the framework of identity work. Since each interview can be thought of as a social transaction, I began to think about the interview context as a determinant of identity work. Given the contestation of gender norms within same-gender circumstances, I hypothesized that the subjects would make more masculinity assertions in the presence of other men. I took the coded data and categorized the interviews into 3 categories: no masculinity assertions, lone masculinity assertion, and multiple masculinity assertions. I dropped the lone masculinity assertions out of the analysis because it was a 50/50 split between interviewer gender. As shown in Table 1, the instances of multiple masculinity assertions were significantly more likely to be concentrated in the interviews conducted by male staff. Results The first element of masculinity assertions that I’d like to highlight revolve around assertions of sexual identity. When starting off the sexuality component of the in- depth interview, we asked everyone their general feelings about their sexuality. Many men were quick to assert their heterosexual identity despite that the question did not relate to sexual identity. For instance, a typical question by an interviewer was, “Can you tell me generally how you feel about your sexuality?” Amongst other things their responses included, “Um… I’m straight.”, “Completely straight. I like girls a lot.” and, “How do I feel about it? … I’m straight and I really don’t think about it too much.” These men asserted their masculinity through adhering to dominant heteronormative prescriptions for making it clear that they are not gay. Discussions of male and female wiring became a means for constructing masculinity by drawing clear distinctions between themselves and their feminine counterparts. Men, themselves included, are discussed as sexual animals with appetites, whereas women operate differently in both desire and function. For instance a young man said, “Everything makes me want sex. I’m a guy. C’mon, guys think about sex every 6 seconds.” Another echoed these sentiments saying, “Isn’t that the typical modus operandi for anything with a Y chromosome?” Another young man contrasted male and female sexuality saying, “It’s not that hard to get a guy off. Insert, somewhere preferably moist, repeat. To get a girl off is a fuckin’ art form.” It is well known that men in many societies consider it normative for men to be the active partner in the sexual interaction. But the ways in which men construct this activity can serve to further assert their masculinity. Besides simply characterizing their active role in the sexual interaction, some men draw upon imagery of a machine to further assert a masculine identity. One exchange between the interviewer and respondent was: I: What kind of sex did you have that night? R: “Jackhammer sex. I pounded the hell out of her.” Another young man said, “I’m there for one purpose only and that’s to get off. So, if I’ve got to pound the hell out of her or flip her upside down, I’ll do what I have to do to get the mission done.” Another described a sexual experience in a club and said, “So, I bent her over the fuckin’ sink. It’s plowing time.” The young man providing this first quote likens himself to a jackhammer. Men often discussed “plowing,” “pounding,” or “banging” women. Such mechanical assertions served to further deploy their masculine identities. The discussion of a lack of male expressivity or emotion may further serve as a means to construct masculinity. “I’ve had girlfriends who like it when I talk dirty, but I could never keep it up for more than a couple of sentences because I lose my train of thought. I don’t want to talk. If I wanted to talk to you, I wouldn’t have sex with you. I’d sit down and talk to you. The reason I’m having sex with you is because I don’t want to talk, I want to have sex. If I wanted to have a conversation, I’d go down to Starbucks and get a cup of coffee.” In this quote, this young man discusses a disinterest in talking during sex. This coheres with the stereotypic conception of the male as disinterested in communication and concerned with physicality. This focus on physicality is at the core of this man’s masculinity assertion. He ultimately mentions that if he wanted conversation, he’d go down to the Starbucks and get a cup of coffee. Also related to the active nature of men however is their ambivalence towards performing oral sex. Some of this indirectly relates to how men construct their masculinity through a desire to perform with their penis. Some viewed oral sex as unnecessary or others as dirty, sloppy, and gross. The following exchange was but one example: I: “Did you give your girl some oral action too?” R: “Yeah, I definitely hooked it up. I put on my bib and went to work.” Another young man said, “I tell you, some guys say they like it, but they’re lying. They only do it because…” And another admitted to an oral sex double-standard among men. “It’s just that it kind off grosses me out, but I don’t mind them doing it to me.” The first man refers to putting on his bib, which draws in imagery of messiness and creating a barrier between himself and this messiness. Other men simply refuse stating that it is “gross”, yet of course they do not mind receiving oral sex themselves. This is fundamentally about an expression of power and male privilege. Further related to the issue of gendered power relations and male privilege is that many men assert their masculinity through the objectification of women. We came across the use of the word “slam whore,” which is likened to a “fuck buddy” – a woman who will have sex with a man without the “hassle” of a relationship – yet the image of a slam whore evokes a sense of domination. Other men objectify by merely treating their sexual partners as objects for their own pleasure. “I was happy ‘cause if she wasn’t here, I would have been smackin’ it to some friggin’ magazines. So, I was glad it was a person.” Another young man said, “You just want a girl in the club if you’re piss drunk. You might not care about condoms. I don’t know this girl, throw a bag on her head, you know?” Some men are simply glad they had a woman, regardless of who it was, suggesting a detached sex of intimacy and raw sexual physicality. Objectification continued with men discussing women as sexual conquests, such as saying “I was like, ‘Wow, I did that? Great!” “That” being a woman and not even dignifying her with the appropriate pronoun. Other forms of objectification came with referring to women as bitches, whores, or simply pussy. The following exchange was typical: R: Well, once I had sex with two whores, so I don’t know. I: Once you had sex with two horses? R: (laughs) No, I mean two bitches. Another young man succinctly stated, “All I can think about is pussy when I’m drunk.” In this respect, men constructed their masculinity through a portrayal of women serving the function of fulfilling male needs. Distancing is a classic form of discursive identity work. Distancing from sexual dysfunction was a concern for many men given that dysfunction is perceived to be in direct conflict with their masculine identities. These issues of dysfunction were particularly germane within the context of sex under the influence of alcohol or drugs. One young man asserted his masculinity through the following quote: “I don’t know if you know, but doing a lot of coke, it’s a little hard to get hard. But then I persevered through it.” Another young man said, “Coke can go one way or the other. Coke can make me fuckin’ limp as a ramen noodle or make me a fuckin’ porn star.” In discussing dysfunction, men often hedged their bets in a variety of ways in attempts to preserve their masculinity. Some men discussed issues of perseverance, as if connected to the ideal of rugged individualism, through which they could prove their masculinity by overcoming the dysfunction. Other men leave themselves a way out, by acknowledging the dysfunction but by asserting that they still performed on other occasions. Other men constructed their masculinity by distancing themselves from dysfunction simply by making it clear that they do not have a problem. “It takes longer to reach orgasm. Not that I feel I have any performance problems.” Another said, “I’ve never gotten to the point that I cannot get an erection.” The following exchange ended with the respondent barking at the interviewer in their discussion of dysfunction. I: A lot of guys report having problems performing when using coke. It doesn’t sound like an issue for you. R: NO! In some cases men had to contend with the issue of female sexual agency. These often led to dismissals of female agency in a means to juxtapose their own masculine identity through identifying gender non-conformity among their partners. One young man said, “Girls who approach guys usually tend to so that more than once and if she has a history… I don’t really talk to her much to know about that but if she has a history, I don’t want to get anything from her.” Such men were often dismissive suggesting that women who expressed sexual agency were potentially disease carriers or had problems with nymphomania. Another said, “She might be a nympho.” In other instances, women who were expressing sexual agency were described as begging for it, which of course evokes a sense of these men having unbearable desirability. Typical of such assertions was the young man who said, “She was basically begging for it.” Of course a fundamental means by which men constructed their masculinity was by discussing their sexual prowess. Some men liked themselves to athletes or champions connecting their sexual exploits to physical feats. One man noted, “It’s pleasurable because you’re having so much of it and it kind of turns into a sport, you know? You feel like an Olympic athlete. So that’s fun.” Another young man touted his one night stands saying, “I loved it. I never did the one night stand thing, so every time I did it I felt like a champ.” Others likened themselves to masculine animals, such as bulls, in order to assert their masculinity. “I was fucking like a bull.” Such assertions evoked images of virility and ruggedness. Others discussed their prowess by asserting that they could do things that other men couldn’t, most commonly being that of brining female partners to orgasm. One young man touted his ability to provide women with pleasure by saying, “I can make them like twenty, thirty orgasms. I work as a bartender so the women talk to me sometimes. They tell me they don’t have orgasms… so, you know, I can make it… ten or fifteen.” Another said, “For instance some women don’t have orgasms. Some of them have their own partners but they don’t please them, so sometimes I please them, you know what I mean.” Despite that some expressions of prowess border on the implausible, such instances of fictive expression still account for how men conceptualize themselves and assert their masculinity. Discussion Men engage in “identity work” to construct various masculinities when discussing sex in an attempt to harmonize them with their sexual self-concepts. Though this identity work occurs in a variety of forms, discursive identity work is a key mechanism to construct masculinity in sexual stories. The identity work involved in interviewing will yield a particular type of gendered data. I suggest that the practice of gender matching should be re-examined as the social transaction will yield a particular type of data. Assertions of masculinity should not be blindly considered to be a better type of data, simply a different type of data. The dynamics of gender power can be seen in the sexual narratives of heterosexual men. Many men asserted their masculine dominance in a variety of ways from the objectification of women, to male sexual privilege, to discounting female sexual agency. Even the tempered nature of the discussion of sexuality by men in relationships about current romantic partners suggests an element of protection and control by these men. These constructions of masculinity are discursively reproduced by heterosexual men and provide a means for them to harmonize their masculine identity with their sexuality, social roles, and self-concepts. In sum, the telling of sexual stories provides a forum for young men to engage in identity work as a means of harmonizing their sense of self with their performance of gender. Table 1. Masculinity Assertions Interviewer Gender No Masculinity* Assertions Multiple Masculinity* Assertions Female 8 (66.7%) 4 (33.3%) Male 2 (9.5%) 19 (90.5%) * Statistically significant diff at p < .001 level
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