Drinking cultures are the means by which men negotiate masculinities in leisure activities. This exploratory article examines similarities and differences between two American male drinking subcultures—the fraternity and the U.S. Navy. It shows that in their leisure alcohol use, men negotiate subordinate and dominant masculinities within real-life everyday experiences of increasing cultural diversity. Alcohol use facilitates the creation of masculine homosociality by developing a sense of community and trust, and perpetuates certain kinds of American masculine traditions. It facilitates and inhibits negotiations over social boundaries and hierarchies of class, race/ethnicity, and sexuality. Status hierarchies get negotiated through competitive drinking games, humor, and heterosexual significations. Male alcohol subcultures enact, contradict, negotiate, and challenge a society's masculinities in complex and diverse ways in this ethnography done on the West Coast.
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