Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities

Nota bene: This introduction was written near the end of 2020, a year that saw the world struggle with COVID-19. These issues make up the primary body of the below text. Yet, as we moved into the new year, perhaps thankful that 2020 had come to a close, on 6 January, and before the introduction was sent to publication, the US Capitol building in Washington, DC, was laid siege by far right extremists, White supremacists, and supporters seeking to stop the confirmation of the election of Joseph Biden. I [Frank] am reminded of a similar note I wrote in an article for the Sexual Violence Research Initiative's “16 Days of Activism” series in early December: “We write this post amidst political protests that have shaken Kyrgyzstan, with the recent election results being annulled. We send our thoughts for those working to ensure a fair, democratic, and transparent government; and hope for a speedabsy resolution to these issues” (Kim and Karioris 2020). In a similar sense, with the events still etched in our minds and processes just beginning to begin (arrests, an impeachment, etc.) and the inauguration still to come, we include this short note affirming our commitment to democratic principles, challenging violent masculinity, and supporting antiracist activism.

On the cover of this issue is an image taken from the Wellcome Collection. Titled “Dance of death: death and the pedlar”, the image shows a skeletal personification of Death picking through a basket of goods. In the basket are included masks, crosses, a deck of cards, swords, and a variety of other items. Published in the 18th Century, it is based on, and an interpretation of a piece in Basel on the Dance of Death. It is black and white and a print produced via etching a plate and using this to print the image.

This article aims to explore the connections between bodybuilding, (hyper)masculinity, sexuality, and the construction of subcultural and sexual spaces among Swedish male fitness dopers. Analytically, the article employs the perspectives of hardcore masculinities—and the potential harms to relationships and health involved in the use of doping—as well as more legitimate and hegemonic masculinity configurations. The results show that there is a delicate balance between masculinity-connoted sexual and other bodily urges and desires, on the one hand, and the loss of control, on the other. Living in a pornographic imaginary can also result in a loss of reasonable contact with the world outside the subculture of bodybuilding. Upholding this lifestyle thus involves an ambivalent construction of masculinity found at the intersection between marginality and hegemony, which sometimes leads to loneliness and a lack of intimate relationships.

This article discusses John Rechy's 1963 novel City of Night and the metaphorical function of the “City.” The sprawling City includes street corners, bars, beaches, movie theaters, and parks. These spaces are public and private, queer and straight. I argue that Rechy's City functions metaphorically—it is the “sexual underground,” with illicit acts conspiratorially narrated by an anonymous hustler—yet, at the same time, the City is also composed of spaces that are inhabited by so-called “average Americans.” Just as his City sprawls beyond officially recognized boundary lines, the novel also illustrates how efforts to demarcate sexuality as either “gay” or “straight” is futile, as are police efforts to differentiate between “legal” and “illegal” activity.

The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo, 1997) is much acclaimed as a comedy film. Yet, its screenplay is based on a serious context, contemporary of its shooting—the industrial crisis in the North of England—and deals with its societal effects—a major shift in gender roles and patterns. The real achievement of the male characters is that they resolve gender conflicts adopting cultural practices traditionally reserved for women, asserting their masculinity while posing as sex objects. At a time when men–women relationships are at the heart of debates in the Western World, this article seeks to demonstrate that the movie has a quasi-universal dimension by suggesting that, rather than a reversal of gender roles, a new kind of balance can emerge, with all its attendant “contradictions.”

Andrew McMillan's poetics dissects the physical minutiae of love and desire, enacting ex post facto a sexual and sexualized innocent pleasure. The scenes play out places such as classrooms, trains, locker-rooms, phone booths, and attic bedrooms, and often reference liquids. Tears, sweat, rain, rivers, blood, and sperm are associated with loss and mourning, a wet erotic (childhood) innocence remembered from a dry(er) perspective of experience and awareness of masculinity. In a post-Thatcher neoliberal framework, McMillan explores scenes of masculinity. Playtime is divided into two parts; if these two parts can be provisionally labeled “before” and “after”—a facile distinction between innocence and experience—McMillan's style and form break down this narrative and open up to fluidity, questioning the possibilities of pleasure (in)formed by neoliberal ideals.

The intersection of sexuality, masculinity, and intellectual disability remains underresearched and only partially theorized. What has been studied identifies that, for these men and boys, the expression and embodiment of their male gendered identity is controlled, to a varying extent, by others. This article unpacks key issues related to identity and intellectual disability, and then describes two ideas. First, the concept of the “conditionally masculine” will be explored. This concept proposes that greater degrees of intellectual disability can change one's perceived or actual gendered identity. Second, the theoretical model entitled “doing intellectual disability boys to men” explores how boys with intellectual disability aspire to be like other boys, yet this embodiment and the hopes and dreams they build are sometimes realized vicariously.