“I Wanted to Feel Like a Man Again”: Hegemonic Masculinity in Relation to the Purchase of Street-Level Sex
TLDR
This article examined the narratives of men who purchase sex from street level providers in a mid-sized city in Western Canada and found that their purchase of street-level sex is motivated by a sense of failure to successfully align with classed and gendered norms of hegemonic masculinity.Abstract:
This paper examines the narratives of men who purchase sex from street level providers in a mid-sized city in Western Canada. We explore what men’s stories tell us about how masculinity is constructed in relation to street sex work. These men narrated their purchase of sex as attempts to exercise or lay claim to male power, privilege, and authority; at the same time, research reveals how tenuous this arrangement is for men. Study participants drew on conventional heterosexual masculine scripts to rationalize their actions and behaviors. Their stories reveal that their purchase of street-level sex is motivated by a sense of failure to successfully align with classed and gendered norms of hegemonic masculinity in which the purchase of sex was an attempt to “feel like a man again”. In this paper we move beyond the notion that static “types” of men purchase sex, highlighting instead that sex work customers are complex social actors with multifaceted reasons for purchasing sex but that are nonetheless inseparable from socially valorized forms of masculine comportment. We conclude that hegemonic masculinity is not only injurious to some men, but also to the sex workers on whom it is enacted.read more
Citations
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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Hegemonic Masculinity Rethinking the Concept
TL;DR: The concept of hegemonic masculinity has influenced gender studies across many academic fields but has also attracted serious criticism as mentioned in this paper, and the authors trace the origin of the concept in a convergence of ideas and map the ways it was applied when research on men and masculinities expanded.
What is Narrative Analysis
TL;DR: Recording of presentation introducing narrative analysis, outlining what it is, why it can be a useful approach, how to do it and where to find out more.
Journal ArticleDOI
Intimate partner violence: causes and prevention
TL;DR: Primary preventive interventions should focus on improving the status of women and reducing norms of violence, poverty, and alcohol consumption.
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The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society
TL;DR: Bourdieu as discussed by the authors described the space of points of view of the American Ghetto as a "space of Points of View" and described the politics of urban disintegration.
Journal ArticleDOI
Toward a new sociology of masculinity
TL;DR: A sociology of masculinity, of a kind, had appeared before the "sex-role" paradigm as discussed by the authors, and the field of sex-role research remained a distinctly minor one within the overall concerns of sociology.
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