An Exploration Of Identity Construction In Gay And Straight Men`s Magazines

An exploration of identity construction in gay and straight men`s magazines.

Christian John Maddock

ABSTRACT

Men`s lifestyle magazines come in a variety of forms, but this dissertation focuses on four publications, sub-divided into two gay men`s magazines: Gay Times and Attitude; and two straight men`s magazines: FHM and loaded. The reader is introduced to the Communities of Practice framework, performativity theory, masculine ontology, "New Lad" and "New Man" as ideologies, and approaches to gender identity which support the importance of stereotypes. All of the above have a bearing on the exploration of language use across gay and straight texts, and are referred to time and time again throughout the discussion. Some general findings include the idea that the gay community use othering in a divisive way, setting up a dichotomy between themselves and the straight community which does little to create inclusivity; and the idea that straight men are represented as far more certain of their identity(ies) than gay men. The study advances a wide variety of linguistic subject areas, and uses approaches thereof in exciting new ways, adding to them a sense of connection to one another.

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CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. A review of relevant literature: Key Concepts 2.1 Membership, participation and reification of Communities of Practice 2.2 Gender, Performativity and "Being a Man" 2.3 The constructions of "new man" and "new lad", and exclusion of homosexuality 2.4 Language about gender, and why we are unable to avoid stereotypes 2.5 Summary (and what`s coming next) 3. Approach Taken 3.1 Representation, Constitution and Identity in CDA/FPDA 3.2 Using FPDA for analyses 4. Data 4.1 The Magazines 4.1.1 Gay Times 4.1.2 Attitude 4.1.3 FHM 4.1.4 loaded 4.2 Interesting features, and potential features to explore 5. Findings and Discussion 5.1 Themes and Discourses present 5.1.1 Gay Times 5.1.2 Attitude 5.1.3 FHM 5.1.4 loaded 5.2 Summary of findings 6. Conclusions / Advancements and suggestions for future studies 7. Bibliography 8. Appendices

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As a gay man I have always had an interest in gay language use; I wrote my first English Language A-level essay on the similarities between gay language and women`s language under the tutelage of Ms. Janet Greenland, who inspired an interest in the language and gender field. From this initial interest sparked a fascination with the dichotomies created by theories relating to gay language.

I would like to thank my mother and father Ellen and Shaun, sisters Kirsty and Michelle, and grandmothers Milly and Jean for their support over the past 6 years (even when I made questionable decisions) and in particular during the time I have been working on this dissertation. Your explicit faith in me has allowed me to produce work which is valuable and detailed, and your attitude towards hard-work has shown me that I am capable of achieving anything I set my mind to.

Thanks also to my close friends, especially Lucie (whose support has been invaluable) and my housemates Anna, Sophie and Warren who have kept me sane.

Dr. Helen Jones, thank you for your input and advice; I could not have gleaned the full meaning of Butler`s work without it. And Dr. Claire Hardaker, thank you for the help and encouragement you`ve given me (and the ribbons!).

Finally, a million thank you`s to Prof. Dawn Archer, the most wonderful and talented supervisor I could have asked for. Your dedication to helping me create the best possible piece of work has been immeasurable, and your motivation has helped keep me afloat during particularly difficult times.

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1. INTRODUCTION

Men`s lifestyle magazines come in a variety of forms, e.g. men`s fashion magazines, cultural and sports focused publications etc. For the purpose of my exposition I will look at four publications, namely Gay Times, Attitude, FHM and loaded, the first two of which are gay texts; the others straight texts (see Chapter 4). I begin by discussing the key concepts which led me to research identity construction across gay and straight men`s magazines. I introduce the Communities of Practice framework (Lave and Wenger, 1991), paying particular attention to its grounding in social learning theory and subsequent focus on the negotiation of meaning. I define two features of the framework, participation and reification (see Chapter 2.1) in order to provide an account of how communities of practice can be evidenced by magazine authorship and readership.

I lead the reader through the theory of performativity, highlighting Butler`s (1990) approach and suggesting a male-oriented alternative (Keisling, 2005). At this point I address the issue of othering and its implications for my study. I go on to describe some of the accounts given of masculine identity construction in men`s lifestyle magazines, and suggest some of the features which may be discoverable in my data set.

I discuss stereotyping as a precursor to the delivery of my findings in order to make clear that I am unable to avoid discussing stereotypes. As we will see, stereotypes are explicitly acknowledged and adhered to by members of both the gay and straight communities of practice. For this reason, I suggest that the dichotomous version of gender (alluded to by the "deficit", "dominance" and "difference" approaches to language and gender studies) is still represented, at least by my data set.

After setting the scene by discussing the backgrounds and aims of the four magazines, I discuss the usefulness of the FPDA framework, a relative newcomer to the world of critical discourse analysis. Note that FPDA is usually used to determine the discourses represented by women (see Baxter, 2005), but for the purpose of my work I use it to look at levels and expressions of power by the perceived powerless and those in power alike.

I present my findings by referring to discourses and themes found within each set of texts (see Chapter 5). My discussion introduces the reader to the idea that the gay community strives for equality, but uses othering strategies to appear exclusive, setting up a dichotomy between themselves and the straight community which may be less than helpful. The straight texts are found to evince a certain level of certitude (see p7), but appear far more inclusive in their reflections on the straight identity and masculinity.

- 2. A REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE: KEY CONCEPTS

2.1 Membership, participation and reification of Communities of Practice

The framework of Communities of Practice (hereby referred to as CofPs) provides us with a frame for understanding the motivations for and internal goings-on of group communicators. The framework is grounded in social learning theory, and has links to sociolinguistic study as a whole, lending itself to language and gender study through the "discursive" approach. Wenger (1999: 51) says that '[p]ractice is, first and foremost, a process by which we can experience the world and our engagement with it as meaningful'. In this way, a focus on practice is a focus on that which gives meaning to our experiences as part of communities. The meaning that is produced is what counts, because without meaningful experience we would have no motive to engage with CofPs. In order to exemplify what is meant by meaning, Wenger (1999:52) states that:

- 'Meaning is located in a process [...] call[ed] the negotiation of meaning, - The negotiation of meaning involves the interaction of two constituent processes, which [are] participation and reification, - Participation and reification form a duality that is fundamental to the human experience of meaning and thus to the nature of practice.'

A member of a CofP contributes to the negotiation of meaning by bringing their own history of participation to its practice. Other "artefacts" within the CofP can also affect the negotiation of meaning by bringing their own ideologies; for example straight or gay men's lifestyle magazines bring a history and a story to their audience, which negotiates the meaning of the experience of being straight or gay. This provides the reader with a base for examining their own identity, whether they fit the stereotypes and norms; the Barthesian myths by which their reality is portrayed, or stray into a more expressive world of individuality. Note that not all members of the gay or straight communities will be readers of magazines targeted toward them, and not all readers of such magazines will belong to the community they are aimed at.

Magazines and other media artefacts are also important because they reflect the practices being undertaken by the community. As Wenger (1999:56) explains:

Participation [...] is both personal and social. It is a complex process that combines doing, talking, feeling, and belonging. It involves our whole person, including our bodies, minds, emotions, and social relations.

There has to be some form of mutual recognition in place in order for a reified "artefact" to be a participant in a CofP. Magazines often have active readerships who will either agree/disagree with the nature of their content, and are permitted (if not encouraged) to input into the design of the piece; readers' letters are a common feature, and the editor's letter will usually give us insight into the views that have been expressed to the editor in relation to previous issues. As Benwell (2003: 154) puts it: 'the very format and rationale of [magazines] encourages and even relies upon an active dialogue [...]'. Magazines not only exhibit features of group and individual identity, but encourage the reader to engage with their own identity actively, in the sense that magazines essentially hold up a mirror to society and, sometimes subtly but more often overtly, suggest ways in which their readers should live. As such, magazines are one of the many types of artefact relevant to CofPs that Wenger would call reified objects.

A general definition of reification is that it is how we make something concrete out of something abstract. For example, the abstract terms of being part of the gay community are transposed into text and image to be engaged with by an active gay readership. An example of such reification in gay men's lifestyle magazine Gay Times is a page advertising and reviewing a range of new sex-aids being sold by Prowler. The page shows images of each individual aid, accompanied by a "tongue-in-cheek" descri ption of its recommended use. Among the images are three bottles of "room odorisers", or what would be known to a member of the gay community as amyl nitrite, a chemical compound used as a drug. Its recreational use is well known, but because it is only allowed to be sold and advertised under a guise, the images are unaccompanied by descri ption. As an addendum to the article, the author writes: 'Some of our reviewers were ably assisted by Voltage aromas, XXX Hard aromas and Viaherbal Wolfberry Extract.' In this way an abstract construct known to the gay community is made concrete in image and, by this implicit strategy, used to call attention to the products' intended use.

According to Lave and Wenger (1991), a CofP comprises three dimensions. Participants must "mutually engage" in the practices of the community; they must undergo a "joint enterprise"; and must hold a "shared repertoire". For the purpose of my work, I widen the definition of a "joint enterprise" to include the ongoing act of maintaining relationships. This is a joint enterprise in itself because it involves active engagement on the part of all members of the community in the upkeep of "social order" (as understood by a given CofP). Everyday examples of this kind of joint enterprise in action include, but are of course not limited to, situations in which one friend lends a hand to another; where groups of friends come to an agreement about an activity they wish to pursue together; and weekly phone calls from a Son to his Mother. It can also be seen in the way that individuals monitor their utterances in order to avoid face-threatening behaviour (see Brown and Levinson, 1978/1987). Because I cannot definitively say that either the gay or straight community en masse mutually engage in joint enterprises with a shared repertoire, I focus my efforts instead on the readers of FHM and Loaded; Attitude and Gay Times; magazines which are relevant to the straight and gay community respectively.

2.2 Gender, Performativity and "Being a Man"

The interplay of language and gender has been for years at the forefront of sociolinguistic thought. Sociolinguists study the way that we use language to construct our identities, and an integral part of our identities are our gendered identities (see Butler, 1990). The source and implications of our gendered identities are the focus of language and gender theories, which throughout the years have grown and changed in order to align with popular societal beliefs. Currently, the most favoured and pursued body of thought belongs to the "discursive" theory of gender, which is characterised by a focus on social discourses, in keeping with forms of discourse analysis, and on gendered language in use.

Judith Butler is one of the leading theorists in the "discursive" domain of language and gender studies. One prevailing theme in her work is the idea of performativity: that gender is enacted through a series of repeated stylised bodily acts. For Butler, gender is entirely separate from sex. She explains her claim as follows:

Originally intended to dispute the biology-is-destiny formulation, the distinction between sex and gender serves the argument that whatever biological intractability sex appears to have, gender is culturally constructed: hence gender is neither the causal result of sex nor as seemingly fixed as sex. (Butler, 1990:10)

Note Butler's suggestion that gender is not a fixed entity, rather it is malleable, and created by our social and cultural interactions. Sex is important only because it defines a part of who we might become as we make our way in the world. It is impossible to forget that as children most of us are socialised one way or the other, as little boys or little girls, but once we gain independence and an iota of control over our personality(ies), gender becomes the force behind our identity. As a caveat, Butler does not believe that we have total control over the gender that we choose to enact, claiming that the "regulative discourses" existing at any given time within society determine what possibilities are available in performing gender in a coherent way.

[The] doing of gender is not merely a way in which embodied agents are exterior, surfaced, open to the perception of others. Embodiment clearly manifests a set of strategies or what Sartre would perhaps have called a style of being or Foucault, "a stylistics of existence." This style is never fully self-styled, for living styles have a history, and that history conditions and limits possibilities. (Butler, 1988:522)

Our gender can never be wholly under our own administration; we are relational beings, and everything we do and say has been done and said before. We can only use the information we have been given or sought out in order to achieve a sense of ourselves as individuals. In this sense, we must come to terms with our gendered identities as a construct both within and beyond our control.

In order to place performativity in a usable framework, Keisling (2005) discusses the way men use language in order to form and maintain social bonds with other men. Using Whitehead's (2002) definition, he introduces the term masculine ontology, which is 'the pursuit of being and becoming masculine by the masculine subject' (2005: 210). Further to this definition, Whitehead identifies masculine ontology as a performative pursuit, stating that the masculine subject must achieve masculine ontology only through a 'constant engagement in those discursive practices of signification that suggest masculinity' (ibid.). As a result of his engagement with Whitehead's work, Keisling assumes that men not only have a desire to have a sense of self, but construct their identity in the company of others in order for that sense of self to be validated by others. This "self" is both socially constructed and socially legitimated, because it is created out of a desire to be a part of society, whilst maintaining positive and negative face (Brown and Levinson, 1978).

Whilst Keisling's paper makes some assumptions about men that reflect the "dominance" approach to language and gender, which asserts that men use language to maintain their high status in society and devalue women, it has some very clear features of a performative theory. He sets up homosocial desire as the formula behind men's language in social situations, and uses this to discover instances of homosocial desire in the language used by fraternity members. This desire, unlike homosexual desire, is the wish to form and maintain friendships and alliances between a male subject and other men. Although not discussed by Keisling, there are indications that on occasion men might use homosocial strategies as a cover for homosexual desire. In a paper exploring gay men's accounts of growing up in a heterosexist society, Flowers and Buston (2001) discuss the possibility that some men may continue to act out their straight identity, because it is often assumed that a man is straight as a given. They explain that:

Given feelings of isolation and identity confusion, it is not surprising that many men attempt to continue with their assumed straight identity. People are assumed to be straight as if by default [...] Sometimes the straight identity many men grew up with was not initially rejected but maintained, or even managed, as a means to pass as straight. (Flowers and Buston, 2001: 57)

This is an important point in any discussion of the differences between gay and straight men, because it allows us to deal with the idea of "being straight" as the accepted and prescribed norm, and "being gay" as in some way deviant.

The line of argument running through Keisling's work is that men act out homosocial desire by using indirectness in order to attract the attention of other men without, in any obvious way, appearing to express homosexual desire:

[M]en who desire [... masculinity ...] must therefore find ways of not performing homosexuality even while they create and pursue homosocial desire. [... I]n the fraternity these performances rely heavily on indirectness. (Kiesling, 2005:703)

In his study of 37 hours of interaction between fraternity members, Ke