Walking a Tightrope on (Hetero)Sexuality: Performatively Vigilant Masculine Subjectivity in Response to Sexualized Culture

Abstract

Although young men’s subjectivity continues to be defined in terms of their heterosexual performance, they feel vulnerable when women increasingly resist submission to men’s desire and control. However, the sexual objectification of women, driven by consumerist urban culture and commercial media, is rapidly pushing the boundaries of men’s (hetero)sexual expression. Men are thus compelled to renegotiate their masculine heterosexual subjectivities in response to women’s resistance and the demands of the moralistic middle-class society. Based on the performativity-performance framework, this article uses focus group data with Hong Kong college men to illustrate the ways that Chinese young men are “performatively vigilant,” resorting to different cultural and discursive resources to construct multiple and diverse subjectivities in defining manhood and responding to their vulnerabilities in different relational contexts. In this process, the hegemony of men as sexually and culturally superior to women and in control of themselves and the situation is propagated.

Keywords

Chinese masculinity masculine subjectivity performativity performance sexualized media culture vulnerability young men

Young men currently experience “a sense of loss of male privilege in the social gender order” (Almog and Kaplan 2017, 28). With changes in the gender order, young men face contradictory demands upon their masculine expression. On the one hand, heterosexuality remains hegemonic in the construction of masculine identity––sexual double standards, the male sex drive discourse, and the sexual objectification of women continue to constitute the hegemonic masculine subject (Crawford and Popp 2003; Gavey, McPhillips, and Doherty 2001). On the other hand, with the rise of feminism and women’s resistance, sexually desirous men are considered outdated and obnoxious in the bourgeois culture (Johansson 2007). Under changing gender conditions, young men are required to demonstrate their heterosexuality; at the same time, they are expected to limit their sexual expression.

This dilemma of masculine subjectivity is constantly highlighted by the global phenomenon of the sexualization and commodification of women’s bodies that is prevalent in the entertainment business. Neoliberalism and postfeminism promote consumerist values by resexualizing and recommodifying female bodies in popular culture (Gill 2003), producing the constant arousal of heterosexual men’s desire. Because of the transnational cultural flow and consumerist forces in Asia, the sexualized media culture has been expanding rapidly in this region. This media culture promotes the objectification of the female body and pushes the boundaries of men’s (hetero)sexual expression.

The present study aims to examine how young men make use of the available subject positions and cultural resources to negotiate and perform their gender and sexuality in response to the dissemination of sexualized consumerist media culture in the Chinese context. Based on the gender performativity-performance framework, we find that Chinese young men are “performatively vigilant” in crafting their masculine subjectivities. They are active and strategic in positioning themselves in relation to gender, familial, and social power relations with the available discursive resources to avoid stigmatized masculinity. In facing their vulnerability, young men are reflexive in their gender and sexual expression. In the following sections, we first present the specific cultural context in which young men in Hong Kong are situated and then explain our theoretical framework and the methods of our research before presenting the findings.

Sexualized Media Culture in Hong Kong

Despite the common perception that Hong Kong women have relatively higher social and economic status than their counterparts in neighboring Asian societies, the Hong Kong mass media persistently represent masculinity and femininity based on gender stereotypes that ingrain gender inequality (Lee and Fung 2009). In addition to gender stereotypes, the mass media’s portrayal of femininity includes the commodification of the female body, which aligns with the market logic of the Hong Kong media as a capitalist institution. Since the mid-2000s, a decline in the local Hong Kong entertainment industry has given rise to an alternative celebrity system in which young amateur females are scouted and featured as “models” despite not meeting the standard physical requirements for a professional model. As “pseudo models,” these young women began their careers as showgirls (e.g., appearing at public events with sexually revealing clothing) or by creating photo albums containing highly sexualized images. In this way, they quickly caught the attention of the media and the general public.

This local sexualized media culture was the result of the symbiotic relationship between the agencies of these young female models and the press, faced with fierce market competition. The agencies, which aimed to promote their female talents in the pitiless entertainment industry, were impelled to adopt a strategy to attract the public’s attention. Therefore, while taking cautious steps to avoid crossing the boundary of obscenity, they drew reference from Japanese erotica to feature these young amateur models in photo books as intimate partners and attractive sexual objects of young boys who desire chaste, innocent, and vulnerable “girls next door” who are unaware of their sexiness (Chu 2013). The press, under the fierce competition of a shrinking market and the pressure to provide free content on digital platforms, gave extensive coverage to these young female models in the form of entertainment news. On the one hand, the press sexualized and exploited the physical appearance of these female models through the use of puns and blatant nicknames derived from the models’ physical bodies, with an undertone suggesting that the models wanted such coverage in exchange for attention and fame. On the other hand, it trumpeted a moral panic and called for parental groups and religious organizations to criticize the increasingly sexualized female bodies (Chan and Liong 2012). In this way, the press could cater to both readers who wanted sexualized content and those who were against it. With the interdependence between the model agencies and the press to survive and win in their competitive markets, the model agencies’ marketing strategy for their young female models and the mass media coverage of these models culminated in the local sexualized media culture.

Through extensive media coverage, sexualized female bodies have entered the everyday life of Hong Kong’s society. It is difficult to avoid encountering sexual images and provocative reporting in newspapers and tabloid magazines because these printed materials are common reading in Hong Kong households (Chan and Liong 2012). Young men can no longer keep their heterosexual desire to themselves or within the circle of their close male peers. However, despite a liberal outlook, Hong Kong society exhibited conservative sexual values such as opposition to premarital sex (Lo, So, and Zhang 2010). Young people often need to struggle against the conservative norms of sexuality for sexual liberty (Jacobs 2009).

The phenomenon of sexualized female bodies has occurred repeatedly in Hong Kong and around the world. What makes the recent young and sexy models distinctive is the context in which they emerged: they appeared when the existing social structure and continuous rise of women’s status have shaken the privileges enjoyed by men of the previous generation. Girls have advanced remarkably and have even exceeded boys in both educational participation and academic performance, despite the prevalence of the gender stereotype that boys are more intelligent than girls (Mak 2009). In addition, postfeminist and neoliberal discourses have driven the ideal of girl power, leading women to present themselves as confident, strong, autonomous, and dismissive of judgments and criticisms (Dobson 2014). In contrast, young female models lack proper college qualifications but appear to be able to easily obtain fame and money by “selling” their bodies. This perception challenges the widely shared capitalistic logic that better prospects can be achieved by studying hard to attain higher educational qualifications in Hong Kong’s society (Hu 2010). When the upward social mobility among the younger generation is considered to be in jeopardy (Lu 2007) and masculinity is still constructed based on economic ability and status (Leung and Chan 2014), this social situation may make young men in Hong Kong feel vulnerable. They are forced to renegotiate their masculinities in response to women’s resistance. Thus, studies are needed to investigate men’s subjectivity and their discursive strategies in this new gender context (Korobov 2011).

Masculine Performativity-Performance

To understand Hong Kong young men’s subjectivity, we adopted the theoretical framework of the performativity-performance of masculinities. The theory of gender performativity-performance is proposed by Brickell (2005) and Morison and Macleod (2013) by combining Judith Butler’s performativity theory and the sociological theory of performance (e.g., Goffman’s dramaturgical notion of identity performance). Butler’s gender performativity theory suggests that the gendered subject is the effect of repetitive performance; therefore, the subject does not create gender but rather is constrained by gender discourses in specific contexts (Butler 1993). The theory of performance acknowledges that individuals have agency to manage their self-presentations to obtain favorable impressions, although they are constrained by others’ surveillance and evaluation of their competence as well as frames that follow from the social order in organizing subjective experiences and governing how social events are interpreted (Brickell 2003; Goffman 1971). Although the two theories have different assumptions, since the performativity of gender must be maintained through reiteration and performance (Langellier 1999), they complement each other to yield the conceptualization of an active subject imitating, repeating, and citing gender discourses and norms.

The performativity-performance theory yields an antiessentialist understanding of gender as performative and acknowledges the agency of individual actors. According to this theorization of gender, individuals draw on culturally available discursive resources to structure their gender performances and narratives in a particular social and relational context. The actor is not totally free in performing gender but is subjected to existing discursive resources available to him or her in that particular context (Morison and Macleod 2013). The subject emerges from the discursively based performances; at the same time, the actors construct acceptable masculinities and femininities in citing and repeating the structure through their performances. In other words, the expression of gender involves strategic and tactical improvisation within constraints (Morison and Macleod 2013).

Adopting this theoretical framework, our research aimed to examine how young men make use of the available discursive resources in constructing their masculine subjectivity within the homosocial circle. The performance of young men in same-sex peer groups can reveal acceptable ways to be a man as masculinity is performed for other men who are there to judge (Kimmel 2008). In particular, we focused on masculine performance related to different relational contexts because intersubjective relationships have an effect on one’s naturalized and normalized notion and practice of manhood (Weber 2010).

Method

Focus group discussions were employed in this study because this method can provide insight into the way embodied subjectivities are constructed with available discursive resources. In contrast to individual interviews, focus group discussion consists of social interactions and performance in public. It allows participants to spontaneously express, disapprove of, reject, and change opinions through group norms in a particular context (Halkier 2010). Focus groups become a platform for the young men to perform their gender and sexual subjectivities in front of their peers and the facilitator with available discursive resources as defined in the social processes (Allen 2005). Through what the young men revealed and concealed, we can understand the strategies they used to construct their gender subjectivities. Additionally, multiple and contradictory discursive practices can occur, and these discourses can help to reveal the underlying structure that reproduces hegemony.

We conducted five focus groups, with each focus group comprising four to eight participants, for a total of thirty participants. Each focus group lasted one and a half to two hours. The participants were young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three who were studying in colleges in Hong Kong. All focus group sessions were recorded and transcribed for analysis.

In each session, the participants were asked about their views, desires, and fantasies of the young, sexy female models and about the ways and situations in which they talked about them with their friends, romantic partners, and family members including parents. We observed the interactional patterns that occurred in the focus groups, which resembled the homosocial peer groups in which the young men talked about the young models.

An interpretive approach was adopted to focus on how college men made sense of the social interaction process (Charmaz 2003) and the way their interpretations generated different responses to the situations (Ho 2007). Open coding was used for the focus group transcripts by examining the text line by line (Dahlgren, Emmelin, and Winkvist 2007). Open codes were created by comparing and identifying ideas in the data and were grouped into relevant categories. Two levels of open codes were identified. The first-level coding involved categories that were relevant to understanding the discursive construction of manhood in the homosocial peer group and other relational contexts. The second-level codes were generated by comparing and contrasting the first-level codes to yield thematic relationships among them. The comparison process involved looking for variations in discourses and strategies of constructing masculine subjectivities in relation to their different circumstances and settings. The relational context and available cultural and symbolic resources that accounted for such variations in asserting masculine identities were identified. We further analyzed the themes that arose from the coding process to formulate the conclusions (Tutty et al. 1996).

Findings and Analysis

At the beginning of the discussion of the models, the young college men adopted objectifying language to talk about them. They commented on the size of the young models’ breasts, their appearances and makeup, and their sexualized postures. Most of the participants in the focus group had just met one another. In these newly formed homosocial peer groups, the objectification of sexy women was a “safe” strategy to adopt the heterosexual subject position to build homosocial bonding with other young men (Richardson 2010). A male homosocial peer group is a space that fosters heterosexual performance to construct the boundaries of appropriate and desirable masculinities, to conceal vulnerabilities, and to reproduce a gender hierarchy (Kehily 2001). Sexual objectification is thus a complicit way for young men to build a heterosexual subjectivity and gain homosocial acceptance. However, the discussion of the young models went beyond mere sexual objectification.

Evading the “Toxic Man”

Although our young informants agreed that the young female models were sexually attractive, they apparently avoided emotional or sentimental attachment to these women. This is because emotional or sexual obsession toward the models was associated with a subordinated young masculine label in Hong Kong—the “toxic man,” as illustrated in the quotation below:

Because buying the photo albums will be stigmatized as “toxic men”; that is why we do not buy them. You do not want to spend so much, and, you know, the DVDs are expensive. They cost several hundred!

Others:

(laugh) You know the price! (laugh)

I only know that from FRIENDS! I do not even download the pictures but just browse them online!

The “toxic man” refers to a man who is lonely because he lacks appropriate social skills and abilities that are valued by the society and hence cannot attract women. It is similar to the concept of the “nerd” in the Western context. “Nerdiness” refers to a lack of social and romantic skills and experiences despite intellectual achievement and is considered “uncool” (Almog and Kaplan 2017, 29). Nerdy men are said to be physically weak and shy due to their poor knowledge and understanding of social situations, especially romantic interaction with women (Kendall 1999). In Hong Kong, the term “lonely man” in Chinese was initially used to denote a man who is obsessed with his own interests and is socially withdrawn. Because the characters for “lonely” and “toxic” sound the same in Cantonese, the dominant language in Hong Kong, “toxic man” became more widely used. It carries the connotation that these men are toxic because they cannot function well in society and are unpopular, especially among women. Sex with girls is considered a desirable and highly expected goal and achievement among young men. This is similar to situations in the United States in which men continue to receive praise and recognition for having heterosexual encounters (Bradshaw, Kahn, and Saville 2010) and men who lack sexual experience often feel ashamed (Carpenter 2002). Thus, the “toxic man” is actually a stigma to sanction masculine identity that continues to be defined in terms of heterosexual attractiveness.

“Toxic men,” according to our informants, fantasize about having relationships with young female models; invest considerable money, time, and sentiment on them; and are losers in reality (i.e., with no socially valued abilities and an unattractive appearance, lacking social skills, shy with women). They only dare to speak their minds in the virtual space. Toxic men are said to be lustful, yet they cannot satisfy their sexual needs in reality because of their lack of attractiveness to women. Therefore, they can only fantasize about having relationships and sex with women. These men are considered to be so obsessed with women that they are vulnerable to women’s sexual seduction. Because a man is expected to display his heterosexual desire but not to the extent that women can have power over him (Quinn 2002), being labeled a “toxic man” involves continual teasing from peers.

As indicated in the quotation above, due to the heavily stigmatized toxic men label, it was typical that the young men in our focus groups reacted vigorously to deny their interest in the sexy models when others ridiculed them for knowing too much about or investing too much in these women. Because young masculinity is based upon the recognition of male peers in their heterosexual relationships (Cohan 2009) and because friends’ teasing has been found to be a powerful social control for young men (Fleming, Andes, and DiClemente 2013), these college men were afraid of being associated with the “toxic man” label. Unlike their counterparts in the West, who usually already have sexual experience when they reach the college level and thus perceive less pressure from their peers to have sexual experiences (Flood 2008), Chinese college men in Hong Kong use romantic and sexual relationships to mark their adulthood (Bosco 2007). Therefore, in the discussion, the young men often stressed how they were different from the toxic men by using “we” versus “they”:

Yes, we will look at [those sexy female models], but they [toxic men] will go further to buy the pillow and the products. And…they will have a biological reaction [read: erection]!

Instead of constructing their masculine identity as opposite to femininity, these college men distanced themselves from the stigmatized subject “toxic man.” As Mouffe (2009) suggests, identity is relational and is based on the assertion of difference from other identities, which often implies a hierarchical relation or even antagonism. The construction of one’s own masculine identity also occurs by giving meaning to and locating oneself in relation to the masculine Other (Norman 2013). By relegating those undesirable attributes to the “toxic man,” the Other, these college men created a boundary of their status as sociable, valuable, and proper masculine subjects who deserved access to heterosexual relationships. They constructed the “toxic man” as an “uninhabitable” subject position against which to define themselves (Norman 2013, 420).

Only one of the participants of the focus groups, B, was open about his fondness toward one particularly famous sexy female model. He was not ridiculed because he had previously disclosed his heterosexual relationship. Because a “toxic man” is said to be lonely and incapable of attracting women, having a girlfriend is an effective way to evade this stigma and is considered an achievement among male friends.

Wen: The Analytical and Sexless Position

Although all the participants evaded the stigma of the “toxic man,” some participants introduced an analytical discussion of the sexy models as a social phenomenon. As the discussion continued, some of the college men changed from objectifying language to demonstrating their knowledge of the female models and the media industry. They described how the models were influenced by the Japanese female swimsuit artists, and they categorized the young models into different cohorts and stages of the development of the industry. They compared the positioning of these models in the entertainment business against movie stars. They commented on the unfair treatment of these young women by the local media and analyzed the social situations that pushed them into the business.

Often, such an analytical stance led other members in the group to adopt this position to criticize Hong Kong society. Some of them even showed sympathy toward the female models as victims of the morally conservative society:

These young girls just want to make fast money. Hong Kong society has a conservative attitude toward sex and thinks that making money with the body is morally unacceptable. However, some of the young models have kids, and so they need that job to make money. It is understandable.

Some models have been in the entertainment business for some years but cannot get famous and thus want to go down that sexy path to see if they can succeed. They may not want to be sexy at the beginning. Not necessarily because of making fast money. They may go through a long struggle with themselves.

The social location of these college men allowed them to think of some underlying factors that fueled the sexy model phenomenon, leading to sympathetic conclusions toward the young women. Many of these young men still needed financial support from their families, even though some of them held part-time jobs. Some of them were struggling in their attempt to obtain a university degree. Their in-between status as economically dependent students and independent adults triggered the adoption of the sympathetic position in evaluating the young models who, in the eyes of the young men, were struggling to succeed in the entertainment business. This subject position could easily gain recognition from their peers who shared and understood the situation.

More importantly, the culturally prestigious status of college men provided them with the resources to assume an analytical discursive position to transcend the humiliating and demeaning popular discourses about the sexualized models. This subject position is related to the Confucian masculine quality, wen, which is the hegemonic masculinity in Chinese culture. It refers to “those genteel, refined qualities that were associated with literary and artistic pursuits of the classical scholars” (Louie 2002, 14). It is a personal quality that is deemed sophisticated and culturally superior, even in modern Chinese societies (Louie 2003). For example, Taiwanese male politicians and Chinese immigrants in Australia assert their manhood through academic achievements (Louie 2002). In contemporary Hong Kong society, college education is understood to be associated with this literary quality because of the high value associated with and the keen competition for higher education qualification (Kember 2010). Wen is thus a discursive resource that college men can mobilize to build their manhood and gain status as cultural elites by displaying knowledge and analytical depth in societal matters.

The wen-related analytical subject position induced these young men to exhibit insider knowledge, independent thinking, and insight toward society. This sublimation compensated for the objectifying and lustful comments toward the young women at the beginning of the discussion by speaking for them, thus helping the men to avoid the stigma of being lustful nerds. Hence, because of wen, these Chinese college men could show empathy toward the young women they initially objectified.

In addition to the analytical self-presentation, the requirement of the subject position of wen regarding the containment of excessive sexual desire and the suppression of one’s sexual urges (Louie 2003) brought about the discontinuation of sexual talk. Under this cultural notion, heterosexual desire must be expressed in an appropriate form, degree, and context to avoid the label of subordinated masculinity. Some of the college men who utilized the discursive position of wen talked about how they found the photo books of the sexy models “too sexual” for them. They said that they lost interest in the sexy women after initial exposure to them. Since their initial interest in the young women had proved their heterosexuality, they could express that they were sophisticated enough not to be obsessed with the sexy models, unlike toxic men:

For me, these young models are just a topic for discussion. They are not at all significant. They cannot give me what I need. So it is just a topic to gossip about.

I agree. They caught my eye when they appeared some years ago. But now, bikinis again? Sexy again? Nothing special.

Being a Smart Boyfriend and Respectable Family Member

In discussing how to respond when their girlfriends mentioned the sexy young models, the college men who were in relationships presented themselves as “smart guys” who were in control of the relationship and their girlfriends. In the college men’s narratives, they would never initiate talking about other attractive girls or the sexy models because these were “sensitive topics” that could make their girlfriends jealous. Women were said to be very sensitive, yet it was always women who initiated the discussion about the sexy models. Because the men had no way to escape the topic, they had to skillfully respond to their girlfriends to ease the tension. In the focus groups, they discussed strategies for responding:

My girlfriend […] asks me sometimes whether a certain model is pretty.

She just wants to trick you. Do not get tricked.

Moderator:

How did you respond?

I agreed with her.

You should say, “You are much prettier.”

She wants you to stand on the same side as she does.

If she talks about some really cool [read: non-sexual] model, I can [discuss with her]. However, if she talks about [some sexy ones], then I will not […] I am afraid that telling her my desire would affect my image in her mind.

Women were portrayed as being tricky and emotional with regard to the sexy models, as described by M and L at the beginning of the above quote. At the same time, these women’s responses were interpreted as women’s need to be comforted and supported by their male partners, as O suggested. According to these college men, women felt insecure in the relationship and expressed this in an aggressive way. Hence, on the one hand, women were considered fragile and delicate in their sentiment, whereas men, who were stereotyped as more powerful than women, should not hurt women’s feelings (Reid, Elliott, and Webber 2011). On the other hand, college men acknowledged their vulnerability and their girlfriends’ power in romantic relationships, as shown in the college men’s perception of “being tricked” and their fear of giving their girlfriends a bad impression.

Despite this sense of vulnerability, the young men demonstrated control within heterosexual relationships. To compensate for their weaknesses in romantic relationships, the college men adopted the discursive position of outsmarting girls in their narratives. Just as L showed that he was in control of his image to his girlfriend by avoiding showing any sexual interest in other women, the college men showed that they had the wit to twist the threat of sexual expression (as indicated by the perception of the girlfriend tricking them) into pleasing their partners while not sacrificing their heterosexual desire in front of their peers. In this way, they could gain recognition from their peers by presenting themselves as being in control. At the same time, women were discursively constructed as easily fooled by men’s performance (Mooney-Somers and Ussher 2010). Taken together, gender norms seem to loosen slightly in some circumstances but remain strict in other situations (Reid, Elliott, and Webber 2011).

In the family, the college men were again well aware of the social position they occupied in the familial hierarchy and managed their sexual expression accordingly. Most of the college men reported that their parents disliked the sexy models. Therefore, young men in those families refrained from directly confronting the taboo desire to be recognized as filial sons or respectable brothers. The hierarchical structure and the prescribed agenda in the family discouraged them from discussing the models. The only legitimate approach for them was to frame the discussion of the models like a piece of news.

Even when family members invited the young men to discuss the young models’ bodies, they had a reserved attitude. For example, J interpreted his relatives’ invitation to talk about the sexy models as an intention to sound out his “forbidden” sexual desire:

My cousins are 10 years older than me, and I do not want to show that side of me to them […]. They are in their 30s and can be more lustful and think that it is normal. However, for me…I cannot talk about these things with them…Sometimes they sounded me out, [pointing at a sexy model] “Do you like her? Do you have classmates who look like her?” And my male cousin would say, “Introduce her to me!” or “[J] will just keep them for himself!” They wanted to know how you would respond.

Discussion and Conclusion

In response to the sexualized media culture, young men in Hong Kong exhibited “performative vigilance” through the discursive construction of different masculine subjectivities in different relational contexts. They practiced the hegemonic convention of sexual objectification of women in the homosocial circle to act out their heterosexual desire but were careful not to tread into the stigmatized terrain of licentiousness among their male peers, family members, and female partners. They made use of their cultural capital to assume available hegemonic masculine subject positions and, at the same time, devised ways to dodge the masculine stigma. Because college men have not yet obtained sufficient economic, social, and symbolic capital to legitimize their masculine power, they adopt different strategies and narratives to demonstrate being in control as acts of repairing inconsistency between their situations and the masculine norm, which results in a “performatively vigilant” subjectivity. This subjectivity reveals young men’s “shaky” attempts to restore and reproduce the naturalized and normalized notions of men that continue to dominate the discursive realm of defining masculinity.

Young men currently face a different social and gender situation than the older generations (Johansson 2007). The rise of women’s status and their empowerment has resulted in strong forces for change among men (Whitehead 2002). Men’s privileges are diminishing, but conventional demands on them still prevail. Hence, young men must renegotiate their masculine identities with new discursive strategies and subject positions.

At the same time, although the sexual climate is becoming increasingly liberal, the sexually moralistic force is also becoming more intense. With postfeminist and neoliberal forces, the sexualization of female bodies has become more pervasive in the media. Young men are exposed to sexualized images in their everyday life and are compelled to express their sexuality more than ever before. Nevertheless, the moralists in Hong Kong, consisting mostly of Christians and parents (Chan 2002), fuel the moral panic in the society against the prevalence of sexual liberation. The promotion of this conservative sexual morality conveys the message that sexual images and desire are potentially harmful to society (Wong 2013).

In the midst of changing gender and social conditions, the pervasiveness of sexualized images puts young men in jeopardy as they often face greater social control than older men (O’Donnell and Sharpe 2000). They thus need to be performatively vigilant to maintain their masculine status. Through different cultural and discursive resources, young men work together to avoid the masculine stigma while asserting their heterosexuality. Because “discourse is a multifaceted public process through which meanings are progressively and dynamically achieved” (Davies and Harré 1999, 35), the articulations of masculinity are not static or fixed but are performative, multiple, and shifting (Norman 2013). Young men can take on diverse and even contradictory subject positions in performing gender (Wetherell and Edley 1999). However, rather than simply being a dominant gender group, men are subject to the power that produces masculine subjectivity and can make use of the discourses to maintain their status (Moller 2007). Young men do not just assert their dominance; more importantly, they want to avoid being stigmatized as the lustful toxic men. The sexless cultural subject position becomes a valid strategy with consent from the homosocial circle. In the process of discussing sexualized media images, young men construct multiple meanings of masculine subjectivity and go beyond the stereotypically dominant mode of sexual objectification.

Nevertheless, we argue that these performatively vigilant subject positions do not subvert the existing structural discourses of men. Instead, the different subject positions point toward the naturalized and normalized way to be a man (Hearn, 2012). Men are constructed as sexually and culturally superior to women and as in control of themselves and situations. Additionally, through the stigmatized masculine subject, the “toxic man,” which young men distance themselves from and police one another’s masculinity against, the dominant definition of manhood in terms of economic, social, and cultural abilities as well as heterosexual attractiveness is normalized.

This study moves away from a static topological analysis or mere criticism of the structure that is said to govern individuals’ actions in masculinity studies. Our study differs from the many studies that address how young men think about and practice sexual encounters and relations; instead, this study is an investigation of how the performativity/performance of masculinity is manifested through different subject positions in relation to heterosexual discussion in the homosocial context. We find that young men are aware of the everyday power relations between and within genders and between social actors in different relational contexts and that they are capable of locating and mobilizing the discursive resources and subject positions that are available to them to navigate their vulnerabilities. In the process, the normalized and naturalized definitions and practices of men are reproduced when new gender boundaries are recreated. The construction of masculine subjectivity is not fixed but is fluid, shifting, and ambivalent. Thus, studies of masculinities must acknowledge the agency of men in constructing their masculine identities in terms of their desires and emotions in addition to their struggle with the structural requirements (Fine and Kuriloff 2006).

To achieve gender equality, it is important to understand the processes by which agents make meaning, avoid penalties, and gain benefits (Quinn 2002) and the restrictive discourses and subject positions that are available. The avoidance of excessive sexual objectification demonstrates young men’s acknowledgment of resistance to this perspective and practice. This implies an opportunity for young men to reflexively produce new discourses and even assume some gender-egalitarian subjectivities. Future studies can decipher the gender dynamics that limit and permit such masculinities and how these new discourses of manhood are adopted and reproduced in both homosocial and mixed-gender contexts.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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