Visual Heteromasculinities Online: Beyond Binaries and Sexual Normativities in Camera Chat Forums

In: Men and masculinities, Band 18, Heft 2, S. 159-175

Abstract

This article presents a critical account of heterosexual men's online sex webcam performances in terms of the capacity for challenging or disrupting heteronormativity and opening the field for the representation of a greater range of heterosexualities. Using a narrative analysis of selected examples of heterosexual performances on visual sex sites, it is argued that a deeply felt attachment to heterosexual identity coexists in complex, critical, and potentially disruptive ways with a contemporary, online approach to diverse, individualized sexual practices. Investigating examples of male performers who articulate an avowed heterosexual identity but perform acts for a gay male spectatorship and engage in practices such as self-penetration that are discursively marked by nonheterosexuality, this article explores the potential for the productive disruption of normative views of masculine heterosexuality without the need to resort to a free-floating argument for sexual fluidity. It is argued that, while heteronormativity is disrupted in such sites, masculinity has the capacity to reincorporate nonheterosexual behaviors and acts.