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From the romantic liaisons of Peter the Great to the birth of the Russian 'queen', this collection of essays presents recent research from the new field of Russian masculinity studies. Peasant patriarchs, aristocratic dandies, anxious young bureaucrats, workers in search of father figures, heroic warriors, promiscuous bathhouse attendants and vodka-soaked athletic stars populate this volume. Its essays take as a starting point the notion that masculinity, like femininity, has a history.

This article is a theoretical examination of Connell's social theory of gender, discussing how hegemonic, complicit, subordinate, and marginalized masculinities interact and relate to one another in the men's everyday lives in particular social contexts. Connell's theory is articulated in global terms that need to be localized to examine the actual interactions of men with one another. The theory implies a multilevel framework that the authors develop more explicitly. They investigate two interrelated theoretical concerns: (a) inadequately detailed interdependencies between structural, individual, and cultural factors with respect to masculinities, and (b) the lack of contextualization of masculinities in specific relational settings. The authors suggest that theoretical insights gained from social network theory and analysis allow such issues to be addressed and assist in local-level accounts of gendered power relations. The authors conclude by specifying Connell's theory into particular, testable hypotheses for use with statistical models for social networks.

The study of masculinities has not escaped the influence of Judith Butler's writings on gender, performativity, and subversion. However, this article suggests that Butler's formulations of performativity and subversion express a lack of clarity and engender a number of problems with respect to agency, action, interaction, and social change. This article argues for reformulating performativity and subversion in a more explicitly sociological frame to render the concepts more useful for examining agency and subjectivity in the study of masculinities. The writings of Erving Goffman suggest ways to reclaim the socially constructed agency of "performance" from the mire of "performativity," with the latter's apparent disappearance of subjective action. This article suggests reworking subversion away from parody and resignification toward a consideration of resources for subjectivity and challenges to prevailing social structures. In this way, performativity and subversion may be set more convincingly within a sociologically informed study of masculinity.

This Encyclopedia is the comprehensive guide to the current state of scholarship about men, masculinities, and gender around the world and across three dimensions: areas of personal and social life, academic disciplines, and cultural and historical contexts and formations

Many straight men experience and demonstrate "queer masculinity," defined here as ways of being masculine outside hetero-normative constructions of masculinity that disrupt, or have the potential to disrupt, traditional images of the hegemonic heterosexual masculine. This article proposes language and a typology for such men: (1) straight sissy boys, (2) social justice straight-queers, (3) elective straight-queers, (4) committed straight-queers, and (5) males living in the shadow of masculinity. The benefit of building a typology of straight-queer masculinities is to begin to give voice and legitimacy to the queerness that exists within the straight male world. Naming the diversity of masculinity and its relationship to queerness will ideally provoke greater discourse on the topic and, ideally, extend awareness of the influence of the hegemonically straight masculine context not only over gay men but straight males as well.

The past two centuries have witnessed tremendous upheavals in every aspect of Chinese culture and society. At the level of everyday life, some of the most remarkable transformations have occurred in the realm of gender. Chinese Femininities/Chinese Masculinities is a mix of illuminating historical and ethnographic studies of gender from the 1700s to the present. The essays in this highly creative collection are organized in pairs that alternate in focus between femininity and masculinity, between subjects traditionally associated with feminism (such as family life) and those rarely considered from a gendered point of view (like banditry). The chapters provide a wealth of interesting detail on such varied topics as court cases involving widows and homosexuals; ideal spouses of early-twentieth-century radicals; changing images of prostitutes; the masculinity of qigong masters; sexuality in the era of reform; and the eroticization of minorities. While most of the essays were specifically written for this volume, a few are reprinted as a testament to their enduring value. Exploring the central role of gender as an organizing principle of Chinese social life, Chinese Femininities/ Chinese Masculinities is an innovative reader that will spark new debate in a wide range of disciplines

This article looks into the art of male sexuality. Its starting point is the traditional biological focus on male sexuality, which has narrowed the understanding of male sexuality. Through readings of authors such as D. H. Lawrence, Catherine Millet, Susan Bordo, and others, the author seeks to lay out a cultural understanding of sexuality on the basis of positions of masculinity within culture. He also discusses possibilities of a male sexual ethics based on the penis as a bridge from me to you.

Eric Bogosian's Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll provides a case study of masculinities as they were performed in society in the 1980s and performative directions for masculinities in the future. In this article, using Arthur Frank's sociology of the body as an organizing lens, I examine the rich narratives Bogosian wrote and performed. The problematization of the performance of the male form provides fertile ground for testing what it meant to be a man at the time and more importantly how masculinities danced across popular culture using consumer, aggressive-consumer, aggressive, and communicative forms. I interrogate Bogosian's performance as a text that argues against the "sex," "drugs," "rock & roll" lifestyle of the era in favor of a more communication-based orientation.