How Bonds between Men Shape Their Sexual Relations with Women

This version was published on April 1, 2008
Men and Masculinities, Vol. 10, No. 3, 339-359 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1097184X06287761

Men, Sex, and Homosociality

How Bonds between Men Shape Their Sexual Relations with Women

Michael Flood

Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University

Male-male social bonds have a powerful influence on the sexual relations of some young heterosexual men. Qualitative analysis among young men aged eighteen to twenty-six in Canberra, Australia, documents the homosocial organization of men's heterosexual relations. Homosociality organizes men's sociosexual relations in at least four ways. For some of these young men, male-male friendships take priority over male-female relations, and platonicfriendships with women are dangerously feminizing. Sexual activity is a key path to masculine status, and other men are the audience, always imagined and sometimes real, for one's sexual activities. Heterosexual sex itself can be the medium through which male bonding is enacted. Last, men's sexual storytelling is shaped by homosocial masculine cultures. While these patterns were evident particularly among young men in the highly homosocial culture of a military academy, their presence also among other groups suggests the wider influence of homosociality on men'ssexual and social relations.

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.