Men, Sex and Mateship: How homosociality shapes men's heterosexual relations

Dr Michael Flood

Abstract

Cutting-edge scholarship in Women’s Studies and Sexuality Studies recognises that gender and sexual relations are organised in part by local contexts and communities, personal and social networks, and other axes of social differentiation. Yet these insights only rarely have been applied to or tested among heterosexual men. This paper extends contemporary theorisations of gender, sexuality, and social life by examining the homosocial organisation of men’s heterosexual relations. Qualitative research among young straight men finds that their sexual relations with women are structured and given meaning by their social relations with other me n. Homosociality organises the male- female sociosexual relations of some young heterosexual men in at least five ways. First, male- male relations take priority over male-female non-sexual relations, and platonic friendships with women are dangerously feminising and rare if not impossible. Second, sexual activity is a key path to masculine status. Third, other men are the audience, always imagined and sometimes real, for one’s sexual activities. Fourth, heterosexual sex itself can be the medium through which male bonding is enacted. Lastly, men’s sexual storytelling is shaped by homosocial masculine cultures. Assessing the workings of male homosociality is significant in theorisations of both heterosexuality and masculinity.

Bionote
Dr Michael Flood is a Lecturer in the Centre for Women’s Studies at the Australian National University. His research interests include feminist scholarship on men and masculinities, sexualities and especially heterosexuality, interpersonal violence, sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, and boys and youth cultures.

Citation
Flood, Michael (2003) Men, Sex and Mateship: How homosociality shapes men’s heterosexual relations. Paper to (Other) Feminisms: An International Women’s and Gender Studies Conference, University of Queensland, 12-16 July.