Misogynistic and Homophobic “Banter” in UK Digitised “Lad Cultures”: Using Research and Homosocial Affect Theory in an Educational Resource to Tackle Harmful Masculine Norms

Abstract

There is a growing scholarship which focuses on the effectiveness of interventions that aim to develop men's critical awareness of harmful norms of masculinity, including those associated with misogyny and homophobia. This paper makes a unique contribution to this literature by showing how qualitative research with young (18–25 years old) cisgender heterosexual men (n = 42) about their digital homosocial practices, alongside relevant theory, underpinned the development of an educational toolkit called #Men4Change. In the paper, we highlight how banter is a potent form of homosocial currency in British young cisgender heterosexual men’s friendship groups as part of “lad culture”, which operates in specific ways in digital spaces. For example, young cisgender heterosexual men (18–25-year-olds) are often reluctant to challenge misogynistic “banter” in the private spaces of their online homosocial chat groups (e.g., those facilitated by WhatsApp) because they want to fit into their laddish friendship groups and benefit from the affective intensities of the groups. We show how hegemonic masculinity theory, alongside scholarship about men’s homosociality and its affective aspects, can be useful in developing gender transformative approaches which help young men challenge normalised misogyny and homophobia.

Keywords

hegemonic masculinity homosociality banter education misogyny humour homophobia affect

Introduction

Following increasing reports of gender and sexual based harassment and violence in UK universities (Phipps and Young 2013) and schools (Riddler 2021), a large body of research now exists around the dominance of hegemonic forms of “lad” masculinity – often referred to as “lad culture” – and an associated normalisation of sexual and gender based harassment and violence (SGBV¹) towards women, girls and non-heterosexual/non-cisgender people (Jackson and Sundaram 2020; Phipps and Young 2013, 2015; Ringrose, Regehr, and Whitehead 2021). Research about lad culture has highlighted the need to engage boys and young men in educational training programmes that support them in critically reflecting on the connections between norms and social practices of masculinity, normalised misogyny, and homo-lesbo-bi-trans-phobia and the ways they can feed into SGBV towards cisgender heterosexual women and LGBTQ+ people (Jackson and Sundaram 2020). Not-for-profit organisations in the UK, such as Beyond Equality, deliver educational workshops to boys and men to help raise their critical awareness of harmful masculine norms and social practices – such as pressure on men to be “dominant”– and their association to SGBV. There is scholarship which has considered the potential and efficacy of such gender transformative interventions (e.g., see Greig and Flood 2020; Keddie et al. 2023) and there is also a growing body of work which looks at boy's and young men’s experiences of masculine norms in digital spaces and their links to forms of SGBV (See, e.g., Ringrose, Regehr, and Whitehead 2021; Roberts et al. 2021). In this article, we make a unique contribution to these two areas of scholarship by considering how research and theory can usefully be applied to develop an intervention which raises young men’s critical awareness of how their masculinised homosocial practices can link to forms of SGBV with a particular focus on digital spaces, which are now so central to young people’s lives (Collier and Perry 2023).

In this article, we report on how hegemonic masculinity theory, alongside scholarship about the role of banter (a form of masculinised competitive humour) and affect in young men’s homosociality, was used to inform the development of a new research-based educational toolkit, titled #Men4change, targeted at British young men (aged 18–25). The toolkit is based on the findings of the ‘Lads on Social Media'² research project, which used qualitative research methods (focus groups and interviews) to speak to young people in the UK (aged 18-25; N = 82) from diverse gendered backgrounds (heterosexual cisgender men and women and LGBTQ+ people), about their experiences of young masculinities, lad identities, and lad cultures across physical and digital spaces.

The #Men4Change toolkit (O’Rourke and Haslop, 2023) is designed to raise young men's critical awareness of a wide range of issues pertaining to norms of masculinity, misogyny, SGBV online and offline, homo-lesbo-bi-trans-phobia and men’s emotional and mental health. However, it is not possible to cover all these areas within this article. Therefore, we focus on extending previous research about the role of banter as a competitive homosocial practice among boys and young men (Jeffries 2020; Nichols 2018; Phipps and Young 2015; Whittle et al. 2019). We develop that scholarship by highlighting how research and theory has informed our approach to raising young men’s critical awareness about how banter can function as a form of competitive and affective currency in their friendship groups which can normalise misogyny and homophobia in digital spaces.

In what follows, we first review the literature that explores the connections between SGBV and lad cultures in the UK. Then, we consider the extant research about evidence-based educational initiatives designed to tackle SGBV including those that use theory-based approaches. Building on that, we make the case for research-based educational interventions which draw on recent theory and research about hegemonic masculinity, men’s homosociality, and affect. In the findings section of the article, we outline how we used our research and other relevant scholarship to develop workshops and activities for the #Men4Change toolkit. We conclude the article by highlighting where further research and evaluation is needed in the pursuit of relevant research-based educational resources to tackle harmful norms and social practices of masculinity linked to SGBV.

Researching Lad Cultures and Associated SGBV in the UK

The connection between “laddish” masculinities and cultures in the UK and SGBV is now well established (Jackson and Sundaram 2020; Phipps et al. 2017; Phipps and Young 2015). A UK-based National Union of Students funded study of women in universities across the UK highlighted that laddish behaviours coalesce around activities such as drinking, sport and hetero-sex and that normalised misogyny, homophobia, SGBV, and rape culture were connected to university lad cultures (Phipps and Young 2013). More recent research has highlighted that women, non-heterosexual, and non-cisgender people in a range of contexts still experience SGBV, which is often connected to young cisgender young men, hetero-masculinities and lad culture in digital and physical spaces (Diaz-Fernandez and Evans 2020; Haslop and O’Rourke 2020; Jackson and Sundaram 2020). Other research has highlighted how boys and young men are sometimes reproducing or are complicit in misogyny and SGBV online but are often caught up in the demands of performing heteronormative hegemonic versions of masculinity (Ringrose, Regehr, and Whitehead 2021; Roberts et al. 2021). The research we present in this article and the #Men4Change toolkit makes a unique contribution to these areas of scholarship by providing strategies for engaging young men in recognising, challenging and preventing misogyny and homo-lesbo-bi-trans-phobia in digital and physical spaces³ through an educational intervention. Before we present this work it is important to consider how the resource builds on previous research-based interventions which aim to tackle harmful gender norms and behaviours, including SGBV.

Tackling Harmful Gender Norms and Behaviours Linked to SGBV Through Educational Initiatives

There is an extant literature which recognises that the scale, pervasive nature, and impact of SGBV requires educational initiatives that engage boys and men as well as wider communities in tackling associated harmful gender norms and behaviours (see e.g., Casey et al. 2018; Casey and Smith 2010; Flood and Pease 2009; Jewkes et al. 2015; Ricardo et al. 2012). Casey et al. (2018) note that previous interventions have taken different approaches to tackling SGBV, including broader work to raise men’s critical awareness of SGBV, community work with people of different genders and work that aims to develop gender equitable behaviours among men. However, men are more likely to be the perpetrators of SGBV (Jewkes et al. 2015); therefore, work to help men become critically aware of and willing to positively change harmful masculine norms and social practices linked to SGBV has become an important priority – often referred to as “gender transformative” approaches (Gupta 2000). Indeed, there is now increasing evidence (Barker et al. 2007; Dworkin et al. 2013; Jewkes et al. 2015; Kaufman et al. 2014; Pérez-Martínez et al. 2023) that educational initiatives designed to tackle SGBV and support young men to reflect on their part in cultures where these practices are normalised, requires some gender transformative component; an approach which we therefore utilised for much of our #Men4Change toolkit.

A range of approaches to working with boys and men have been used by different gender transformative programmes across the globe. This includes training community advocates to start conversations with men (Abramsky et al. 2014), small group work (Pulerwitz et al. 2015), combinations of community events with small group work (Wagman et al. 2015)⁴ and one programme designed for use in the online space (Salazar et al. 2014). Casey et al. (2018) looked at the outcomes from a range of educational resources and interventions using these different approaches. They based their analysis on the likelihood of these programmes to change gender norms connected with SGBV (Dworkin et al. 2013; Kaufman et al. 2014). In Casey’s et al.’s (2018) review, they note that six of the ten programmes they studied showed positive changes in gender norms, specifically those around attitudes to gender equity. Many of those effective initiatives used group-discussion techniques, an approach which we also adopted throughout our #Men4Change toolkit.

While there are a range of organisations in the UK using men-focused gender transformative approaches to tackle SGBV, such as Beyond Equality, there are few examples of evidence-based educational resources in the UK, which are specfically designed to engage young men (aged 18-25 years). There are two exceptions. The first is Burrell et al. (2020) who have developed an engagement toolkit which helps practitioners have critical conversations about masculinity and harmful gendered norms with boys and young men, though there is less focus on the digital space. The second is Ringrose et al. (2021) whose research informed school guidance and lesson plans about masculinity and SGBV can be used as part of Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) with adolescents in UK schools. While their resources do focus on digital spaces, they are not specifically targeted at engaging young men – a gap which the #Men4Change toolkit addresses. Some gender transformative initiatives have explicitly drawn on hegemonic masculinity theory in their approaches, which we will now review.

Hegemonic Masculinity Theory and Gender Transformative Initiatives

Hegemonic masculinity theory is used across the globe in gender transformative work, though there is little published research about its use (Jewkes et al. 2015) – a point we will return to shortly. Hegemonic masculinity is defined as “the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (Connell 1995, 77). It aims to capture the structures of masculinity which – through gendered relations, attitudes, and practices – maintain men’s domination over non-hegemonic others (cisgender heterosexual women and LGBTQ+ people) (Jewkes et al. 2015). In that way, hegemonic masculinity is often heavily associated with the policing of heterosexuality (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Hegemonic masculinity is the most desired or honoured form of masculinity (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005); while not all men (can or want to) live up to its expectations, men are often complicit in its operation. Central to the theory of hegemonic masculinity is its contextual nature, which suggests—though it is stable (Hearn 2004, 57)—there are possibilities of change (Connell 1995); a crucial point for those involved in gender transformative work (Jewkes et al. 2015).

The contextual and pluralistic nature of hegemonic masculinity makes it difficult to reduce it to a fixed or homogenous set of traits (Hearn 2004), though there has been a tendency to do so in much hegemonic masculinities research (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Still, the lived experience of people of all genders in a range of geographical contexts, including the UK, is that hegemonic forms of masculinity often manifest within cisgender heterosexual men’s homosocial spaces via specific hierarchical practices, such as degrading women, homophobic slurs and physical/discursive competition between men, which can become normalised and have detrimental impacts on people of all genders, men included (e.g., see Foley et al. 2022, Hall et al. 2022, Jewkes et al. 2015; Phipps 2020). Therefore, while it is difficult to fix hegemonic masculinity to a set of uniform traits, research has highlighted how some harmful social practices of masculinity can become masculine norms—what Hearn calls ‘the hegemony of men’s practices’ (2004, 63). It is understanding those harmful aspects of masculinised social practices and norms and their role in supporting hegemonic masculinity that has historically been a focus in gender transformative work and which informed our work on the #Men4Change toolkit.

While there is limited literature about how hegemonic masculinity theory has been applied to gender transformative initiatives, there are two notable exceptions. Firstly, Pulerwitz et al.’s (2015) study, discusses how Connell’s theory was used as part of small group work to help men think about how sexual division of labour can create negative health outcomes for men and women. Secondly, Jewkes et al. (2015) have highlighted the value of hegemonic masculinity theory as part of gender activist work by raising critical awareness of how, for example, men’s complicity in low levels of male-to-male violence can validate it and make more serious forms of violence acceptable. Despite these exceptions, there is little evidence of gender transformative work in the UK which focuses on the connections between banter as part of men’s homosociality and hegemonic masculinity, though there is previous relevant research in this area, which we now review.

Hegemonic Masculinity, Homosociality, and Banter

Critical studies of men and masculinities (CSMM) have indicated that men’s homosociality is a set of social practices and performances by which hegemonic masculinity can be maintained (Bird 1996; Flood 2008). In the UK context, a range of studies have noted the prominence of banter as part of the homosociality of lad cultures (Jackson and Sundaram 2020; Jeffries 2020; Phipps and Young 2015). Banter is a form of masculinised humour which operates through teasing or group ‘in-jokes’ sometimes as part of a consensual agreement among friends (Nichols 2018). However, research highlights that banter often supports hegemonic masculinity by asserting dominance over women through sexist jokes (Nichols 2018), through homophobia (Jeffries 2020), or as a form of masculine competitiveness which aims to denigrate by association to non-hegemonic “others”; for example, boys ridiculing other boys who show the same fears as girls (Whittle et al. 2019).

There is an emerging body of literature which looks at how misogynistic and homophobic “banter” is perpetuated in boy's and men’s homosocial relations, including those that occur in digital spaces (Pascoe and Diefendorf 2019; Ringrose, Regehr, and Whitehead 2021; Scotto di Carlo 2023; Whitehead and Ringrose 2021). Some of these studies of digital homosociality and banter have started to consider how emotion and affect are tied up in processes which support hegemonic masculinity. For example, Whitehead and Ringrose (2021) examine the affective resonances of memes among a group of black adolescent schoolboys to consider how shared intensities of feeling, including those associated with humour and fear, work to police hegemonic masculinity. Through an analysis of memes which represent their past girlfriends or sexual encounters with girls as unimportant “experiments”, they highlight how the meme acts as a form of homosocial currency for these adolescent boys, which through misogyny (e.g. dehumanisation), allays their fears about conforming to the compulsory heterosexuality of hegemonic masculinity. Both emotions and affect are involved in these processes. As Shouse (2005) highlights, emotions are the socially constructed feelings we understand and project such as fear, while affect can be seen as the way emotions move “between bodies” (Ahmed 2004, 117). In the case of Whitehead and Ringrose's (2021) research about boys and memes, the boy’s reaction to these memes (humour/fear) in their group creates a shared “affective intensity” (Reeser and Gottzén 2018, 146) which brings the boys together. Examples such as this highlight how homosocial affect can reinforce and support structures of hegemonic masculinity through forms of misogyny. Reeser and Gottzén have proposed that moments of “affective intensity” could also give opportunities for ‘new ways to think about gender’ (2018, 146) if the boys or men involved can call out what triggers these moments. In the #Men4change toolkit, we build on their proposal by developing educational workshops and resources, which seek to help young men become critically aware of how homosociality can support hegemonic masculinity and how understanding its affective aspects can disrupt its structures.

In summary, while research-based gender transformative resources which engage men in tackling SGBV are not new, there is a dearth of research-based educational resources targeted at young men which focus on how harmful gender norms and behaviours in their digital homosocial spaces are linked to misogyny, homophobia and SGBV. We have highlighted that many gender-transformative approaches are underpinned in some way by hegemonic masculinity theory, although there are only a few incidences of this being documented through research. Given the extent to which young people’s lives are embedded in digital spaces, we have argued that intervention tools should utilise relevant research and theoretical approaches alongside hegemonic masculinity theory, which can help to account for the (homo)social practices of masculinities as they operate on and off digital spaces. Before we review our findings, we briefly discuss the research project, which the #Men4Change toolkit is based upon, and outline its methodological underpinnings.

Research Methodology

In this paper, we focus on how the responses of cisgender heterosexual men respondents (n = 42) in our qualitative study shaped our approach to developing aspects of the #Men4Change toolkit. Participant's responses were drawn from nine cisgender⁵ men-only focus groups, two mixed cisgender groups and 17 cisgender men interviews. Although men’s responses might differ depending on the research environment for example, mixed versus single gender groups we have included these perspectives to partially reflect young men’s experiences of their masculinities, which take place in different gendered contexts. Participants were from seven key locations across the UK – London, Brighton, Cardiff, Basingstoke, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Belfast. We recruited participants via advertising which referred them to a website where they signed up for the research project. A purposive sampling strategy was used to recruit participants from a range of gender, sexual, class and racial identities (though the respondents were predominantly White British, which we discuss in our research limitations), as well as geographical locations. Focus groups each comprised of 4–6 participants and lasted around one hour and 45 minutes. The groups were semi-structured to facilitate conversation between the researchers and respondents (Kvale 2007) and we utilized a slideshow with visual and textual stimuli as an established way to generate conversation (Halkier 2010), alongside questions and prompts. We covered a range of themes, including how the young men respondents experienced lad identity and culture in online spaces; young men’s friendships and relationships with each other and their peers from diverse gendered backgrounds; and their views about feminism and the LGBTQ+ community. Our respondents sometimes recalled their experiences in digital spaces from memory, though we encouraged them to look at their online conversations during the interviews where possible, which involved them looking at their phones and relaying relevant material from their conversations. We selected respondents from the focus groups for one-to-one interviews to further explore their contributions in more depth. Interviews lasted around 1 hour. Ethical approval for the research was obtained from the research ethics committee at the University of Liverpool. All data has been anonymized and pseudonyms were chosen by the researchers.

We conducted an inductive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2013) of the focus group and interview transcripts. The process involved the two researchers independently reviewing the data to identify initial themes, agreeing relevant themes of interest, then revisiting the data to identify relevant quotes for themes. We utilised the data to inform all aspects of the toolkit; however, in what follows, we highlight our findings around lad identity and banter as an affective form of homosocial competitive currency, “banter” and misogyny in private chat groups and disrupting the affective aspects of homophobic “banter”. For each theme, we highlight how we used our research findings to develop group-based activities and scenario-based discussion topics for workshops in the #Men4Change toolkit, which was informed by relevant scholarship on masculinities, homosociality and affect.

Lad Identity and Banter as an Affective Form of Homosocial Competitive Currency

Most of the men who participated in our research project indicated that they were part of men-only friendship groups, which had some laddish practices such as group drinking, nights out together, and banter. In that way, the data highlighted the centrality of homosociality to laddish identities, practices, and cultures within their UK-based friendship groups, as the following extracts from several focus groups highlight:

Same gender group 2 (Glasgow), Robert: ‘A lad identity, ya…it’s definitely a personality that you build only with other guys…’

Same gender group 1 (Cardiff), Matt: ‘I mean, I have like sort of two groups of friends […] we both sort of do the same things which is going out and binge drinking and sort of bouncing off each other and…the lads’ holiday type thing’.

Same gender group 3 (Liverpool), Alfie: ‘Yeah…guys are always going to be a little bit different with each other when there’s no girls around…and then obviously that will lead to kind of lad’s banter, that kind of thing’.

The respondents above note that a lad identity is often “built” with other guys by “bouncing off each other” and being different with each other “when there’s no girls around”. These findings reflect those of other UK-based studies which have highlighted that hetero-masculine behaviours associated with lad cultures flourish through a “pack mentality” (Jeffries 2020; Phipps and Young 2015). Alfie, one of the above respondents, notes that banter is a key form of homosocial bonding in his group; a finding that was reflected in many of our conversations with young men, as is highlighted in the following exchange in same gender group 4 (Basingstoke):

Rich: ‘Yeah I think in lad culture, it’s standard to be able to take the piss out of each other…’.

James: ‘Just all about the banter, I guess’.

The importance of banter as a form of homosocial bonding between young men echoes other studies about lad culture (Jackson and Sundaram 2020; Jeffries 2020; Nichols 2018; Phipps and Young 2015). Discussions about banter in our focus groups revealed that it was often competitive; a potent form of homosocial currency, which made men accountable to hegemonic masculinity in their men-only private chat groups that involved their friends or 'mates', as this respondent highlights:

Mixed gender group 1 (Cardiff), Freddy: ‘Well, my mate runs one of the rugby clubs…I’m in their private WhatsApp group chat, and…there’s brutal banter because it is quite funny to mindlessly rip someone apart and show off who’s top dog’.

Drawing on language that is associated with violence (‘brutal'), this respondent's extract suggests that he feels banter reiterates British masculine norms of toughness (Peretz and Vidmar 2021) as part of a competition to be dominant through the harshest banter – to be the “top dog”. Other participants also drew attention to the way friends have competitive forms of banter with each other in WhatsApp chat groups:

Same gender group 3 (Liverpool), Chris: ‘We have social chats which don’t include the coaches and stuff […] basically the kind of stuff that you’d associate with like stereotypical lad culture, and it’s basically just a chat where people are taken the piss out of’.

Here the respondent notes that people will be taken “the piss out of”— another British slang term for competitive banter which is designed to see who can give and take goading (Nichols 2020). These examples draw attention to the way competitive banter in men’s homosociality can work through affective means—to get a reaction which can be felt by individuals and the groups—which in turn supports structures of hegemonic masculinity as men jostle to distance themselves from showing weakness, which is coded as feminine and non-hegemonic (Whittle et al. 2019).

Based on these findings, we wanted to help young men become more critically aware of how forms of homosocial relations such as banter are implicated in hegemonic masculinity and the potential for positive and negative impacts on them and others. To do this, we developed a section of the #Men4Change toolkit titled “Masculinity, young men, and friendships”. To introduce the topic of men’s homosociality, we developed a workshop titled 'Men, masculinity and friendships' that begins with a group-based activity that asks participants to think broadly about how masculinity is enacted through their homosocial groups.⁶

Initiate a discussion with the group using the following questions as a guide:

Do you think men behave in specific ways when they’re with their men friends? Do you think they’re expected to behave as ‘masculine’ and/or as ‘feminine’? What does that mean? Can you give examples.

Do you think dominant forms of masculinity (such as acting ‘strong’, ‘tough’ and ‘macho’) influence how men behave with their friends? If so, how?

What do you think it means to be a good friend? What personal qualities or characteristics are required?

The aim here is to develop critical awareness among workshop participants about how some norms of masculinity, such as acting tough, can be played out through men's homosocial spaces. The discussion further aims to explore how these gendered dynamics can create tensions between reproducing those masculine norms, and being able to be good friends who can empathise and be vulnerable etc. Workshop facilitators can build on such discussions through another group-based activity, which aims to help participants become more aware of how competitive banter can be tied to harmful masculine norms in the pursuit of group affective intensities (Reeser and Gottzén 2018). The activity asks participants to read and discuss a range of scenarios. For example, in one scenario we ask men to think about how competitive banter and ‘pranking' can go too far:

Scenario: You and your mates have been out drinking. You all go back to one of their houses to continue drinking. One of your mates dozes off, lying face down on the sofa. Someone in the group pulls down his trousers and underwear. He suggests getting a marker pen, drawing it on his ass, inserting a straw into it, taking photos of it so and then uploading them online. He thinks that your mates will find it funny. What do you do? Do you go along with your friend’s plan? Or do you suggest it’s not a good idea?

This scenario shows how competitive banter as part of desire for an affective intensity of togetherness, can go too far and would be classed as sexual harassment. Workshop facilitators could use this scenario to encourage participants to think about where they should draw the line on unacceptable banter, and when it is important to call out unacceptable behaviour and support friends in such situations. These scenario-based discussions aim to build young men’s understanding of how desires for the affective intensities of homosociality (e.g. getting a laugh from their peers) can support the expectations of hegemonic masculinity (e.g. competitiveness) at someone else's expense. So far, the aforementioned activities have been designed to introduce participants to the ways that some masculine norms can be played out through homosociality and have affective aspects, which reinforce hegemonic versions of masculinity. These activities are designed to help prepare workshop participants for further critical discussions about the relationship between masculinity, banter and misogyny, which we address in the next section.

“Banter” and Misogyny in Private Chat Groups

Our participants talked about a range of ways that banter as a competitive form of homosocial currency within their men-only private chat groups became misogynistic, such as discussions about images of women that were shared in their men-only private WhatsApp chat groups:

Same gender group 6 (London), Jordan: ‘In the group chats, someone would send a pic of a girl and then we’d be like, “Oh, what do you think of this girl? What would you rate her? What would you give out of ten? That’s quite common’.

Same gender group 7 (Brighton), Brett: ‘Like for example, say, a girl posted a photo, and it gets sent into the chat, like oh, she looks hot, that kind of thing.

Researcher 2: ‘Would she be rated or’?

Brett: ‘I don’t know, yeah. Yeah, actually, she would be rated yeah, definitely’.

Here the participants highlight how women’s images and bodies can be discussed or rated within men-only private group chats; a social practice which normalises the objectification and body shaming of girls and has been evidenced in other recent studies of boys and men’s digital homosocial practices (Ringrose, Regehr, and Whitehead 2021; Roberts et al. 2021). The quotes also highlight that the practice brings the group together affectively through excitement about discussing the pictures. Another respondent told us about a ‘challenge' which he had seen posted to a friend’s private Snapchat story.

Same gender group 3 (Liverpool), Seb: ‘There was this thing on Snapchat...this private story…and it was called shag a heifer challenge…so, the guy had taken a picture of the girl and said shag a heifer challenge completed’.

Here the respondent highlights that a friend took part in a pre-agreed activity for a lad’s night out—the “shag-a-heifer challenge” (Heifer is British slang for being overweight)—and then uploaded a photograph of the girl he claimed he had sex with to his private Snapchat story, which would be accessible to his chosen close friends. This account shows how a desire to be competitive in men-only homosocial spaces can involve misogynistic practices, such as demeaning and dehumanising women, which functions as a form of homosocial currency. Similar sexual practices have also been seen in Irish lad cultures where women are dehumanised by heterosexual men as part of pressures for young men to prove their heterosexual virility through quantity and range of sexual experiences with women (Bolton et al. 2022). These practices simultaneously bring young heterosexual men together affectively, through shared experiences of desire and excitement. However, they also reiterate competition between them around who can demonstrate they have had the most sexual experiences with women, thus rewarding dominance both within the men-only group and also over women, while reifying British forms of laddish hegemonic masculinity.

It is important to note that although many young men in our research study recognised how women could be dehumanised as part of their competitive homosocial practices, some of the men we spoke to were aware of these effects, though they also indicated that they felt these practices were not intentionally malicious:

Same gender group 9 (Belfast), Jon: ‘I think it’s more that lad culture and the setting […] everyone’s bragging about their conquest so to speak. But I don’t think they mean anything ill by it. I think it can be dehumanising to talk about that stuff and refer to the other person in that context, but I don’t think they actually mean it to be that way […] there’s no…maliciousness’.

Other men who participated in our research felt that misogynistic practices, such as talking about women as sexual objects, was and should be less acceptable in public spaces, which is why it happened more in private chat groups:

Same gender group 7 (Brighton), Jayden: ‘Yeah, I think just because it’s less acceptable now to be a proper laddie publicly…Well, I mean like, rightly so but things like talking about women in a certain way and things like that, it’s less acceptable and it probably has to happen in private for people to feel comfortable with saying these kind of things’.

Despite some men in our study highlighting their awareness of or opposition to misogyny in lad culture, as these respondents note, many found it difficult to challenge their friends in their men-only private chat groups:

Same gender group 7 (Brighton), Phil: ‘…yeah…at times if I’m in that kind of certain group then you can always get caught up in it because…it’s a way to get on with them… and to fit in’.

Same gender group 2 (Glasgow):

Mike: ‘I mean I suppose you kind of turn a deaf ear to some comments’.

Researcher 2: ‘For the comments that you’re talking about, I don’t know if you want to kind of talk about these sort of comments’.

Dan: ‘Just your average sexist, racist remarks and stuff and I don’t know’.

In this way, many men we spoke to felt they could not challenge misogynistic comments because they wanted to “fit in” and be included in their men-only homosocial groups. As the Brighton respondent Phil notes, he felt he got “caught up in it”, which highlights the way that the affective dynamics of his homosocial groups can offer feelings of togetherness which are desirable enough to ignore sexism. In this way, our findings highlight the potential for men’s commitment to those groups and desire for the affective intensities can contribute to the normalisation of misogyny, which thus makes them complicit (Connell 1995) in supporting structures of hegemonic masculinity. The privatised group dynamic of men-only chat groups have some similarities to other geo-temporal men-only spaces such as the lad’s stag holiday when men might openly objectify women in ways that are not acceptable in their home environment, but they collude to keep what happened “on tour” a secret (Thurnell-Read 2012). In the next section, we highlight how these findings informed our educational resource.

De-Normalising Misogynistic “Banter” as an Affective Homosocial Currency

To address the normalisation of misogyny in men’s private online chat groups, we developed a series of workshops in section 3 of the #Men4Change toolkit, titled “Gender, sexuality and relationships”. This section includes a workshop titled ‘Sex, masculinity and private chat groups', which explores how homosociality is exercised through sexual discussions in men-only private messages and chat groups.⁷ We start the workshop through a structured discussion based on the following questions:

How do you think young men talk about sex with their friends in online spaces, including their private group chats?

Can you give examples of online chats about sex that are harmless?

Can you now give examples of online chats about sex that are harmful?

After introducing the topic and asking participants to think about their experiences of discussing sex with their men friends, we move on to an activity designed to help them think about what harmful sexual discussions or ‘banter' are and to consider their impact in more detail. This activity is based on a range of anonymised scenarios, some of which are taken from our own research findings. To initiate discussion about these scenarios, we ask participants to form groups and decide whether posts to a group chat or to a friend would be classed as harmful or harmless. Below is an example of a scenario which looks at a sexualised message posted to a men-only WhatsApp private group chat:

Lads, my new job is working out well, thank fuck. There are some cute Birds (British slang for women) in my office. Check out my ‘top five’. What do u think? How would u rate them? Which one would u fuck? (Our addition in italics).

In the workshop, as well as discussing the harmful nature of this sexualised message, we also ask participants to think about how they could respond, encouraging them to call out this behaviour if they observe it in their peer groups. In this way, the activity is designed to interrupt a pernicious cycle that can occur within men’s heterosexual homosocial groups, whereby their desire to be part of a men-only friendship group and its affective intensities means they are sometimes prepared to “fit in” with misogyny within these spaces. These findings highlighted to us the importance of further helping young men understand the emotional and affective dynamics of their homosocial groups, which we explore further in the next section of this article.

Disrupting the Affective Aspects of Homophobic “Banter”

As we have highlighted, emotion and affect are important homosocial currencies which are tied up in the regulation and maintenance of hegemonic masculinity. This was also evident in a range of discussions with our respondents which highlighted that it was not just having the banter, but getting a reaction to that banter, that mattered, as the following respondent notes:

Same gender group 4 (Basingstoke), Charlie: ‘[…] my group of friends were kind of, let's see who can go past the line and try and get that person to react because that person’s reaction was the banter, so to say’.

In this way, affect as a homosocial currency which polices hegemonic masculinity can be seen in the moment when one of the young men gets a reaction (or tries to get a reaction) from another man in the group. It is at once a moment of togetherness—a way to bond—but also when the structures of hegemonic masculinity are reasserted.

Our focus group and interview discussions with young men suggested that banter and its emotional and affective aspects operate across digital spaces and can play out in ways specific to the affordances of digital media. For example, the private nature of men-only digital chat groups means that the desire to get the reaction can go too far or become misogynistic (O’Rourke and Haslop 2024) or homo-lesbo-bi-trans-phobic in ways that would not be acceptable in more public forums. While many of the young heterosexual men we spoke to highlighted that they believed homophobia is on the decline within their homosocial groups, some respondents told us that the word “gay” is still used as a derogatory term in their homosocial groups and is perceived to be a jokey form of “banter” designed to get a reaction. As the following respondents note:

Same gender group 8 (Cardiff), Ian: ‘Oh, yeah, it’s definitely the f*cking jokes made is all […] it’s never actually homophobic but it’s taking the piss…it’s like we would take the piss out of each other…’

Interviewee, London (Amir): ‘Everyone says, “Stop being gay” quite a lot “Just stop being gay.” I don’t know where it’s come from, but we just say that quite a lot.

In another conversation, a respondent discussed a ‘prank' between young men in private digital spaces and how normalised homophobic “banter” is used to get a specific reaction within this homosocial space:

Mixed group 1 (Cardiff), Oliver: ‘[…] See, I know a group of lads that like to sort of create fake Tinder accounts for girls […] get them to send them some pictures over and then bam it’s in like the lad group chat, they’re all rinsing each other[…]’,

Researcher 1: ‘[…] they’re catching each other out and they’re using these ‘dick pics'⁹ as part of this then are they or…’

Oliver: ‘Yeah, it’s just sort of like ah look what you sent, oh, gay as fuck, like…just rinsing each other.’

Here the respondent notes that private digital messages are used as part of a ‘prank' to send their friend ‘dick pics', which facilitates them calling the other “gay” to get the reaction. In this way, our research reflected other recent studies which suggest that while cisgender heterosexual men might be less homophobic (Anderson 2009), their language can often still use the word ‘gay' in a derogatory way, thus linguistically reaffirming heterosexuality as a superior form of sexual identity (Jordan et al. 2022; Pascoe and Diefendorf 2019).

To address these findings, we developed scenarios in the #Men4Change toolkit which draw attention to the potency of homophobic banter as an affective currency in men’s digital homosocial spaces.⁸ Through discussions about these scenarios, we encourage young men to challenge such banter in their homosocial groups, so that those affective moments of “reaction” could encourage their peers to see how banter has gone too far. For example, in the following scenario about banter, we highlight how trying to get an affective reaction becomes homophobic:

Mate, I haven’t seen u pull recently

Have you turned queer!!!

We should create a profile for u on Grindr!!!!

We’ll post some of those topless photos of you from our holiday in Shagaluf LOL!!

When discussing this scenario, we ask participants to think about how they would respond and suggest that they can tell the others in the group to leave their peers alone, rather than try to provoke a reaction from the men in their homosocial group. In this way, we highlight that by naming that this is about trying to get a reaction, there is a possibility to diffuse this affective moment and draw attention to its potency to reassert heterosexuality as a key tenet of hegemonic masculinity.

Conclusion

In this article, we identified a lack of research-based educational interventions, resources and initiatives which engage with young people’s experiences of masculinity and SGBV in the current context where digital spaces are so enmeshed in their affectively infused homosocial spaces (Collier and Perry, 2023; O’Rourke and Haslop, 2024). Given the centrality of digitally mediated homosocial spaces such as private group chats in young people's social interactions, we argued that there is a need to combine context-based research with theories which can account for how hegemonic masculinity operates through digital homosociality and affect, in developing interventions such as the #Men4Change toolkit, which address harmful practices within young men's peer groups.

Our research highlighted how set against the relatively private context of the online chat group, our participants' desires to fit into their hetero-masculine friendship groups and benefit from the affective intensities of those groups, means that misogyny and homophobia in these homosocial spaces can go too far and be ignored. This can mirror the dynamics of other geo-temporal men-only spaces such as the lad’s stag holiday where young men foster a sense of togetherness in and through silence and collusion about what happened “on tour” (Thurnell-Read 2012). We revealed how these homosocial dynamics can feed into a cycle of taking part in or being complicit in misogynistic or homophobic banter, which in turn supports and reifies the structures of hegemonic masculinity.

Our research highlighted that young men who participated in our study often sought to get an emotional and affective reaction from their men peers through banter, which was often a key objective in laddish homosocial relations. In trying to get this reaction, young men enter an affective dynamic which turns on their ability to “take” a joke, show their resilience, exert their dominance – be a “top dog”. In this way, hegemonic masculinity trades on fears that you might not be “quite enough” to make or take the joke. The affective dimensions of banter are the moments when it hits; the intensity of “the reaction”. However, misogynistic and homophobic sentiments can be caught up in those affective moments.

To address these findings in our #Men4change toolkit, we have aimed to develop thinking at the intersection of research, theory, and praxis by designing workshops and scenarios which raise young men’s critical awareness of the role of banter in their friendship groups. We argued that by helping young men see how the desire for affective intensities can go too far, and by giving young men strategies to disrupt those moments, there is a possibility to mobilise positive change. In this way, we have shown how Reeser and Gottzén’s (2018) call to create opportunities to change hegemonic masculinity through affective moments can be realised through research-based praxis. Going forward, the #Men4Change toolkit and other similar initiatives need to be carefully evaluated in the long term, so we can continue to improve much needed men-focused educational resources, which tackle harmful gendered practices and norms associated with hegemonic forms of masculinity. This evaluative process should consider whether young men’s increased awareness of how hegemonic forms of masculinity are maintained via homosociality and its affective dimensions has a direct impact on their normalised misogynistic and homophobic practices, on and off digital homosocial spaces.

Research Limitations

This research has two key limitations. While we did speak to some respondents from racialised and ethnic diasporic communities in the UK, much of our sample was White British. Therefore, our data is not representative of the UK population (see also O’Rourke and Haslop, 2024). Whitehead and Ringrose's (2021) research highlights that misogyny, homophobia and SGBV manifests differently through homosocial relations in racialised and ethnic communities which requires a greater degree of focus than was possible in our research and educational work. As such, our guidance to facilitators delivering workshops in the #Men4Change toolkit highlights the importance of adapting them to suit the locally specific needs of their participants, which should include paying attention to their social and cultural backgrounds. Future research and educational work should have a focus on young people from racialised diasporic communities in the UK to help develop focused gender transformative work to tackle harmful gender norms and SGBV which can be more closely tailored for those communities. Secondly, our respondents were self-selecting to the study. In that way, our respondents might have been more willing to talk about aspects of masculinities, lad identities and cultures, than young cisgender heterosexual men who did not self-select. Future research and interventions should focus more carefully on difficult to reach men, such as those with less access to the internet, to ensure their perspectives are accounted for in research-based praxis.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research for this paper was supported by funding from the UK Economic Social Research Council (ESRC) New Investigator Grant. Grant number ES/P010628/1.

ORCID iDs

Craig Haslop

Fiona O’Rourke

Notes

Author Biographies

Craig Haslop is Senior Lecturer in Media in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom. Dr. Haslop has published extensively about contemporary masculinities on social media and television. His research explores questions around representation and power of gendered and sexual identities in the media with a focus on inequalities. He is Principal Investigator for the ESRC funded ‘#Lads on Social Media' project, which examined young people's experiences of lad culture on social media and included the development of the #Men4Change toolkit, He also led the Office for Students funded #Speakout project \which explored student's experiences of online harassment including how research can inform educational interventions designed to tackle sexual and gender-based harassment and violence.

Fiona O’Rourke is an Honorary Researcher in the Department of Communication and Media, University of Liverpool. Her research critically examines the relationship between social identifications, power inequalities and discriminatory practices, particularly in relation to race and gender, which she has used to develop educational interventions that aim to mobilise for social equality. She is the lead author of ‘#Men4change: Tackling and transforming harmful gendered norms and behaviours', an evidence-based toolkit that has been designed for UK-based youth leaders who support young men in recognising, tackling and preventing harmful gendered norms and behaviours in their online and offline peer groups, including gender-based abuse, harassment and violence. She is also the lead author of an educational resource titled ‘Addressing masculinity influencers and teenage boys - A guide for schools, teachers and parents/guardians’, which offers evidence-based guidance on how to engage teenage boys in critical discussions about online masculinity influencers, particularly those associated with the 'manosphere'. This resource was co-produced with researchers at The Observatory on Cyberbullying, Cyberhate and Online Harassment, Anti-Bullying Centre, Dublin City University.

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