Graduate Certificate in Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies

Gay men involved in sadomasochistic sexuality display a performance of hyper-masculine behavior. Through the appropriation of masculine artifacts due to fetishistic desire the material traits of masculinity are implemented and hyper-masculine roles are enacted. Sadomasochistic behaviors themselves emulate homosocial interactions in erotic spaces, producing a gay clone of hyper-masculine culture.

This paper considers the different construction of masculinity in the queercore punk scene compared to its mainstream counterpart. Using lyrics and acts of drag through a cultural engine of the Do It Yourself ethic queers mainstream masculinity in acts of queer terrorism. Do these acts challenge mainstream constructions of masculinity or do these acts provide a way for queercore to reinterpret masculinity for its own context?

Gay identity is a creation of social discourse. There are many variations in gay identity that do not conform to the identity that is accepted by the gay community. Queer theory questions and attempts to deconstruct gay identity to move it away from its discursively constructed emulation of stereotypes in culture. Through questioning the identity intersectional identities, such as those found between masculinity and homosexuality or homosexuality and blackness emerge. Difference goes against the categorical construction of the identity and as such the community uses social pressure to attempt to enforce upon members of the community a standard gay identity.

The social constructionist view of sexuality is framed around the concept that sexuality is a construction of social and cultural influences, and that sexuality is fluid. This paper puts forth the concept that social construction is applicable to all forms of sexuality, not just the normative and intercourse driven forms of sexuality. Non-normative, non-genital centric sexual behaviors and sexualities are also socially constructed. Sexuality is influenced by social forces and in turn sexuality shapes the social landscape. Sadomasochistic and Fetishistic sexual identities are formed through processes of socialization, social learning and community formation. This paper explores the creation of subcultures as a necessary part of the maintenance of the identities, the influence of the identities on majority society and the ways in which the gender hierarchy plays a major role in constructing alternative sexual identities.

Feminist discourse proposes a system of gender equality through the destruction of the hegemonic system of power. The traditional approach to feminism constructs a world view that disregards men as being any role other than the oppressor. While in the Western world there may be statistical justification for this, when viewing feminism as a transnational construct with global ramifications that scope loses its validity, but as feminism is fueled by Western ideals, men and their associated masculinity are ignored in feminist discourse. This paper exposes some of the shortcomings of feminist discourse, particularly in the area of sex work. Men are ignored in all but a handful of academic articles, leaving them unrepresented. This paper utilizes those few articles and presents an argument for the need for further representation of men in feminist discourse.