Walking a Tightrope on (Hetero)Sexuality

Performatively Vigilant Masculine Subjectivity in Response to Sexualized Culture

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7920006
AutoresMario Liong (0000-0002-1568-4981, Ritsumeikan University, autor de correspondencia), Lih Shing Chan (Department of Asian and Policy Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong)
Año2020
Volumen23
Número2
Páginas225-241
Fecha de publicación2020-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaMen and Masculinities (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1097-184X • E-ISSN: 1552-6828
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1097184x17753267
OpenAlexW2794352032
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas40

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

Hegemonic masculinity · Hegemony · Human sexuality · Masculinity · Objectification · Performativity · Political science · Sociology · Subjectivity · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Psychology · Social Psychology