Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

As certainties dissolve, meanings around heterosexual relationships become increasingly puzzling. Recent changes in academic/media recognition of “what it means to be a man” exacerbate this predicament. Men’s magazines attempt to escape this disorder by offering individual men a shared sense of direction. The present study looks for evidence of this in six issues of For Him Magazine (FHM) and six issues of Loaded, using a form of qualitative research closely related to grounded theory. Along with the simultaneous construction of certainty and uncertainty around intimate relationships, the analysis reveals two themes: the “sexual mode of production” stresses the practices of management, rationalization, and science and “relationship utopia” envisages a fulfilling sex life for the reader via his accomplishment of intimacy. The study concludes that the magazines move readers from chaos to control by constructing a masculinization of intimacy, whereby intimacy is incorporated into a schema broadly consistent with traditional masculinities.

Keywords

masculinities heterosexuality intimate relationships magazines

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bauman, Z. 1991. Modernity and ambivalence. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Beck, U. 1992. Risk society: Towards a new modernity. London: Sage.

Beck, U. 1997. The reinvention of politics: Rethinking modernity in the global social order. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Beck, U. , and E. Beck-Gernsheim . 1995. The normal chaos of love. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Beynon, J. 2002. Masculinities and culture. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press.

Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of good taste. London: Routledge.

Brown, J. 1994a. The Independent, August 9, 26.

Brown, J. , ed. 1994b. Loaded. May, 3.

Butler, J. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. London: Routledge.

10.

Charmaz, K. 1995.Groundedtheory. In Rethinking methods in psychology, edited by J. A. Smith , R. Harré , and L. Van Langenhove . London: Sage.

11.

Connell, R. W. 1995. Masculinities. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

12.

The Emap report on affluent young men. 2002. Retrieved from http://www.emapadvertising.com/insight/insight_report.asp?reportID=1

13.

Faludi, S. 1999. Stiffed: The betrayal of the modern man. London: Chatto and Windus.

14.

Farrell, W. 1993. The myth of male power. Why men are the disposable sex. London: Fourth Estate.

15.

Ferguson, M. 1983. Forever feminine. London: Heinemann.

16.

FHM (For Him Magazine). 2002a. February.

17.

FHM (For Him Magazine). 2002b. March.

18.

FHM (For Him Magazine). 2002c. April.

19.

FHM (For Him Magazine). 2002d. May.

20.

FHM (For Him Magazine). 2002e. June.

21.

FHM (For Him Magazine). 2002f. July.

22.

Giddens, A. 1990. The consequences of modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

23.

Giddens, A. 1992. The transformation of intimacy. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

24.

Glaser, B. G. , and A. L. Strauss . 1968. The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine & Atherton.

25.

Hall, L. 1991. Hidden anxieties. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

26.

Hall, S. 1996. Introduction: Who needs “identity”? In Questions of cultural identity, edited by S. Hall and P. du Gay . London: Sage.

27.

Hawkes, G. 1996. A sociology of sex and sexuality. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press.

28.

Hollway, W. 1984. Gender difference and the production of subjectivity. In Changing the subject: PSYCHOLOGY, social regulation and subjectivity, edited by J. Henriques . London: Methuen.

29.

Horrocks, R. 1995. Male myths and icons: Masculinity in popular culture. London: Macmillan.

30.

Jackson, S. , and S. Scott . 1997. Gut reactions to matters of the heart: Reflection on rationality, irrationality and sexuality. The Sociological Review 45 (4): 551-575.

31.

Jackson, P. , N. Stevenson , and K. Brooks . 2001. Making sense of men’s magazines. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

32.

Loaded. 1994. May:3

33.

Loaded. 2002a. February.

34.

Loaded. 2002b. March.

35.

Loaded. 2002c. April.

36.

Loaded. 2002d. May.

37.

Loaded. 2002e. June.

38.

Loaded. 2002f. July.

39.

Luhmann, N. 1986. Love as passion: The codification of intimacy. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

40.

Nixon, S. 1996. Hard looks: Masculinity, spectatorship and contemporary consumption. London: UCL.

41.

Plummer, K. 1996. Foreword. In Postmodern sexualities, by W. Simon. London: Routledge.

42.

Ritzer, G. 1992. The McDonaldization of society. London: Sage.

43.

Scott, S. , and R. Freeman . 1995. Prevention as a problem of modernity: The example of HIV and AIDS. In Medicine, health and risk: Sociological approaches, edited by J. Gabe . Oxford: Blackwell.

44.

Segal, L. 1997. Slow motion: Changing masculinities, changing men. London: Virago.

45.

Seidler, V. J. 1997. Man enough: Embodying masculinities. London: Sage.

46.

Seidman, S. 1989. Constructing sex as a domain of pleasure and self-expression: Sexual ideology in the sixties’ theory. Culture and Society 6:293-315.

47.

Stevenson, N. , P. Jackson , and K. Brooks . 2000. The politics of “new” men’s lifestyle magazines. European Journal of Cultural Studies 3 (3): 366-385.

48.

Toerien, M. , and K. Durrheim . 2001. Power through knowledge: Ignorance and the “real man.” Feminism & Psychology 11 (1): 35-54.

49.

Whelehan, I. 2000. Overloaded: Popular culture and the future of feminism. London: Women’s Press.

Chaos to Control

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References