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This article analyses self-portrayals and gender constructions among Swedish male bodybuilders who are engaged in fitness doping. The empirical material comes from a larger ethnographic investigation into gym culture. The results show that there is a strong propensity to conform with particular gender fantasies that rests heavily on a binary understanding of gendered, doped bodies. However, this storyline does not apprehend the entire self-presentation of the analysed drug users. Negotiations and inclusive subversions of traditional gender norms are also expressed. For example, the narratives show how the use of performance-enhancing substances makes it possible for (heterosexual) men to approach, touch and express feelings of desire towards other men and their bodies. As such, this practice can be viewed as a contestation of hegemonic gender values, in which masculinity and fitness doping are detached from a quite heterosexist understanding, and turned into a symbolic world of homoerotic pleasure.

1. Men and Their Health -- 2. The Cultural History of the Prostate -- 3. Narratives of Prostate Cancer: The Social Triad -- 4. Leaking Bodies, Sexual Health, and Masculinity -- 5. Coping Strategies and the Emotionology of Masculinity -- 6. Partners Care, Couplehood, and Intimate Life -- 7. The Care Apparatus and Healthcare Professionals at Work -- 8. Conclusion: Sexual Health and Ageing Prostate Cancer Masculinities -- 9. Methodology and Method.

1. Introduction -- 2. The Cultural History and Digitalisation of Doping -- 3. Community Trajectories within the Online Doping Ecosystem -- 4. Digital Doping Bodies and Diversities -- 5. Tales from a Women-only Forum -- 6. Masculinities between Fantasy and The Real — "Falling Down the Rabbit Fuck Hole" -- 7. Transcending Online and Offline Doping -- 8. Conclusions – The "Cyborgification" of the Doping Phenomenon.

"How does power work in sport, especially when there seems to be no one enforcing unspoken rules? One way of analyzing power is through the concept of hegemony - a soft form of power exercised through consent rather than force, through ongoing interaction between the powerful and powerless to produce common sense understandings of society and culture. This book focuses on how hegemony works, particularly in sport, to understand how power, dominance, and resistance may manifest in different ways within a variety of sport contexts, in theory and practice. It also discusses how hegemony can work within sport and how dominance and power are maintained - as well as sometimes being challenged or resisted. Through discussions to help students develop tools for analyzing issues of power and empirical examples that show how various concepts can bring a deepened understanding of sport and society, this book gives insight into hegemony in sport"--

The interwoven histories of sports and fitness doping -- Trajectories, cultural recalibration, and contextual mobility -- Women's gender-bending in man-spreading cultures -- Sex, drugs, and muscles : "Welcome to Planet Porno" -- Anti-doping : producing health or harm?

Preface -- Contents -- List of Figures -- 1: Introduction -- The History of Fatherhood -- The Nordic Model of Fatherhood -- Aims and Research Questions -- Case Studies and Stories -- Readers' Guide -- Part I: Contextualizing Fatherhood -- 2: Theoretical Explorations of Fatherhood -- Contextualizing Theories of Fatherhood -- Explorations of Fatherhood -- Functionalism and the Father Role -- Family Connections and Social Practices -- Modernity and Reflexive Fatherhood -- Hegemonic Masculinity and Fatherhood -- Intimacy and Fatherhood -- Inclusive Masculinity and the New Father -- Theoretical Explorations of Fatherhood -- 3: Fatherhood and Welfare State Regimes -- The Family, Patriarchy and Individualization -- Welfare States and Fatherhood -- Paternity and Parental Leave -- Paternity Leave: A Measure of Gender Equality -- Parental Leave: Taking the 'Daddy's Quota' -- Unpaid Work and Gender -- Different Families, Different Fatherhoods -- The Changing Landscape of Fatherhood -- Part II: Fatherhood in Transition -- 4: Images of Fathering -- Fatherhood as an Opportunity to Change One's Lifestyle -- Transnational Fatherhood, Sports and Time Management -- Changed Roles and New Masculinities? -- Communicating Fatherhood -- The American Breadwinner -- Variations in Fatherhood -- 5: Breadwinners and New Fathering Practices -- Breadwinners in Transition -- The New Faces of Fatherhood -- Sharing and Caring -- Career and Timing -- Changing Masculinity and Learning Processes -- What Is New About the 'New Fatherhood'? -- 6: Internet and the New Landscape of Fatherhood -- Fatherly Responsibilities, True Masculinity and a Binary Gender Divide -- The Negotiating and Reflexive Father -- Inclusive and Gender-Neutral Parenthood -- Images of Online Fatherhood -- 7: Parenthood After Divorce -- Fatherhood Reclaimed: A Short Overview of the Field

Utilising data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork this article investigates (a) how asylum seekers portray family life in relation to their decision to flee their country of origin, and (b) how asylum seekers' ways of doing family life intersect with the Swedish migration context. Analytically, the article leans on sociologically informed theories of family practices and a conceptual discussion on deportability. The results show how family life among the participants is reconstituted both in terms of geographical closeness and distance, and in terms of ideas about a previous family life in the country of origin and hopes for a possible future in Sweden. The insecurity and the strains placed on people and their family bonds by current migration policies, and the risk of deportation, are interpreted as a specific form of administrative violence that cuts into family practices, serving to maintain physical and emotional distance between family members and break down social bonds.

Research question and purpose: Les Mills is a New Zealand-based fitness distributor with a community consisting of approximately 140.000 instructors worldwide who teach standardized workout routines. This paper aims to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic and related measurements, such as social distancing affect the everyday lives and professions of Les Mills International (LMI) group fitness instructors. The aim was met with the following research questions: RQ1: How are social distancing and social connectedness understood, and how do they condition LMI instructors' understanding of their profession? RQ2: What do LMI instructors think about the #LesMillsUnited campaign to maintain a strong trainer community in the midst of the pandemic? RQ3: How do LMI instructors think that group fitness will change long term due to social distancing? Research methods: Using qualitative measures and a case-study-based approach, data were gathered through interviews with LMI-certified group fitness instructors. Seven semi-structured focused group discussions with fifteen group fitness instructors from different countries were conducted and audio recorded. The first round of virtual discussions took place in April 2020, and the follow-up talks in September 2020. A thematic analysis was employed to analyze the material. Results and findings: According to the participants, online classes as a means of upholding group fitness in times of social distancing is an insufficient substitute to face-to-face instructing, lacking social connectedness that is normally maintained through successful rituals or social scripts. Navigating "instructorhood" during the pandemic includes emotional labor where not only relationships to clients are challenged, but instructors also experience societal pressure to reinvent themselves as instructors. Implications: With no way of telling how long social distancing needs to be practiced, the group fitness industry is facing unprecedented challenges. Making sense of the group fitness profession currently preoccupies instructors who may now have to redefine to themselves how they can teach, and who for.

The widespread availability of doping and its growing prevalence among fitness groups has contributed greatly to the realization of an emergent public health issue. Emanating from an ethnographic study in Sweden, the purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the processes involved in becoming and "unbecoming" a fitness doping user. The study employs a cultural and sociological perspective as its theoretical framework and discusses how the participating users gradually develop their knowledge about the drugs and how the process of becoming a user is negotiated in relation to ideas and ideals concerning health, gender, and individual freedom and Swedish law. Regarding exit processes, (re)entering into what is perceived to be an ordinary "normal" life was seldom a straightforward process. To understand the complex and sometimes complicated transition processes involved in becoming respectively unbecoming a fitness doper, the results highlight the limitations of using stage models for understanding exit process as heuristic tools. Furthermore, the article argue for the necessity to investigate the negotiations of fitness doping, taking place in the intersection between subcultural affiliations/spaces, doping legislation, and mainstream perceptions of living a "Normal" life. It is argued that processes of (un)becoming a fitness doper are anything but linear and thus need to be understood in relation to sociocultural belonging and ongoing negotiation of the individual's sense of self.

This article describes and analyses the historical development of gym and fitness culture in general and doping use in this context in particular. Theoretically, the paper utilises the concept of subculture and explores how a subcultural response can be used analytically in relation to processes of cultural normalisation as well as marginalisation. The focus is on historical and symbolic negotiations that have occurred over time, between perceived expressions of extreme body cultures and sociocultural transformations in society—with a perspective on fitness doping in public discourse. Several distinct phases in the history of fitness doping are identified. First, there is an introductory phase in the mid-1950s, in which there is an optimism connected to modernity and thoughts about scientifically-engineered bodies. Secondly, in the 1960s and 70s, a distinct bodybuilding subculture is developed, cultivating previously unseen muscular male bodies. Thirdly, there is a critical phase in the 1980s and 90s, where drugs gradually become morally objectionable. The fourth phase, the fitness revolution, can be seen as a transformational phase in gym culture. The massive bodybuilding body is replaced with the well-defined and moderately muscular fitness body, but at the same time there are strong commercialised values which contribute to the development of a new doping market. Finally, it is possible to speculate on the development of a fifth phase, in which fitness doping is increasingly being filtered into mainstream gym and fitness culture, influencing the fitness doping demography.

Drawing on qualitative interviews with Mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes and stakeholders, this study aims to investigate the relationship between, on the one hand, MMA as a spectacle and imaginary world, and on the other, the fighters' experiences of violence, pain and 'the real'. Analytically, we are influenced by the literature on the spectacle and on hyperreality. The results show that athletes' negotiations concerning the sport largely connect to a particular way of approaching violence – culturally and in terms of physical experience. On the one hand, there is a desire to portray MMA as a civilized and regulated sport. The athletes develop different strategies by which to handle or renegotiate the physical force and violence in the cage. On the other hand, however, the fighters' bodily control and management of their fear sometimes breaks down. When the spectacle of the octagon becomes 'real', the legitimacy of the sport is questioned.

This study focuses on the physical expressions and intensity of embodiment that occur in the Ironman Triathlon. More specifically, the study investigates the transformational bodily experiences taking place during Ironman competitions. Using an ethnographic approach, a total of 29 Ironman triathletes participated in the study (15 men and 14 women). Theoretically, the article focuses on how triathletes' bodies 'move' between different forms of embodiment. The results show that, in the process of disciplining the body, the athletes reconceptualized feelings of pain, nausea and even disgust, making these emotionally expressive aspects of the corpus into a part of the experience and bending them towards the pleasure of reaching potential divinity. Situated in a long tradition of philosophical and sociological explorations of the transgressing and transcending body, the study interprets and understands the performing body as a site for change and utopian possibilities. Thus the study adds to existing debates on contemporary individuals' exploration of the existential and corporeal dimensions of modernity.

Using a netnographic and case-study-based approach, this article uses different blogs as data in order to analyse how loneliness is conceptualized and understood. More precisely, the study aims to investigate experiences of loneliness and related themes in the context of online communication. In approaching the nature of loneliness, we have analytically leaned on the theories and some of the most basic assumptions of symbolic interactionism, according to which, social encounters and situations, their qualities and their existence, have a profound impact on emotional life. This study can be read as an archaeology of online loneliness and the findings suggest that the experiences of online loneliness can be categorized in different genres, such as the poetics of loneliness, the diagnostics and self-harm of loneliness, and loneliness and family life. Although loneliness is approached and discussed differently, the bloggers' estranged relationships to society tie these identified genres of loneliness together. The different genres derive their character, form and social dynamics from the narrators' struggle and urge to somehow find a way to fit into contemporary society and achieve satisfying social relationships. Furthermore, displaying and presenting the self, and thus becoming the object of other people's attention and interest, in the context of online communication, can be a profound way of reconnecting to society and hopefully avoiding isolation and marginalization.