How Do Men Grab the Phallus?

Abstract

A number of influential gender theorists contend that men suffer from a pandemic crisis of masculinity in their work and family roles that they seek to assuage through the compensatory consumption of phallic symbols. We critique this conventional view through a cultural analysis of the consumption practices of a group of men who fit the stuck-in-the-middle socio-economic profile commonly associated with the crisis of masculinity. We first discuss the ideological structure of phallic masculinity. Then, in our analysis, we find that our men’s everyday consumption practices construct a specific socio-cultural articulation of phallic masculinity whereby its internal paradoxes are leveraged as a means to produce desirable experiences and self-identifications. We further show how men adapt feminine practices as a revitalizing retreat, which we conceptualize as a form of gender tourism.

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