Working out masculinity : negation of effeminacy by homosexuals through a muscular body.

• Main Author: Lim, Andrew Sze Khew.
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Social deviance
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51646
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The binary distinction of male and female gender forms the social reality of normative heterosexuality. Earlier studies based on “…psychoanalysis normalizes heterosexuality, whereby to be one sex is to necessarily desire the other” (Stevi Johnson, 2010). Gay men with their sexual orientation towards the same sex thus deviates from the heteronormative matrix, leading to the belief that they are lesser of a man, and more effeminate compared to heterosexual men. This research seeks to explore the marginalized experiences of homosexual men, and how they try to negate the stereotype of effeminacy, by embodying a visible symbol of traditional masculinity – a muscular body. However, in-depth qualitative interviews conducted in this research shows the inherent instability of traditional gender binary as the respondents through “…purposive and appropriative set of acts…” (Lloyd, 2007) form an identity that does not adhere to predetermined historical ideas of the masculinity but instead, takes into consideration their own experience of what masculinity is supposed to be.