Strictly Masculine: Constructing Normative Masculinity Among Rural Straight Men That Have Sex With Men

• In Event: 062 - Regular Session. Masculinities and Sexualities

Abstract

This study uses semi-structured interviews with ten white, rural, straight-identified men who have sex with men to understand how they perceive their gender and sexuality. All the participants perceived themselves as normatively masculine, and most used images of rurality to describe their masculinity. To help construct their masculinity, they selected male sexual partners on the basis of race, sexual identity, and masculinity. Most had sex with other white, straight, masculine men, and did so secretly, without emotional involvement, in an egalitarian fashion. By choosing these partners and having this type of sex, the participants normalized and authenticated their sexual encounters as straight. The married men framed sex with men as not cheating, helping to preserve a part of their lives that most described as central to their straightness. Through extremely complex interpretive processes, participants reworked non-normative sexual behaviors—usually antithetical to rural masculinities—to actually construct their normative masculinity. The masculinity the participants construct is a hybrid masculinity; they incorporated egalitarian same-sex sex that gay, bisexual, and queer men enjoy, but perpetuated inequalities related to heterocentric sexual norms, straight privilege, the widespread devaluation of femininities, male entitlement, white privilege, and devaluation of emotional non-monogamies. This study is among the first to use straight men’s own narratives to understand their perceptions of their sexuality and gender, and helps address the underrepresentation of rural masculinities research. More broadly, the findings contribute to a growing literature that reveals masculinity is a highly complex construct influenced by race, sexuality, and location, among other factors.

Author

• Tony Silva, University of Oregon