‘We’re respectful boys … we’re not misogynistic!’: analysing defensive, contradictory and changing performances of masculinity within young men’s in-person and digitally mediated homosocial spaces

Abstract

This paper critically examines and theorizes how digital technologies and forms of communication, such as men-only private chat groups, facilitate and mediate the forms of masculinity young heterosexual men in the UK co-construct, perform and negotiate in their homosocial interactions. Qualitative data is drawn from 8 focus groups and 17 one-to-one interviews with young men aged 18–25 years, who identify as cisgender and heterosexual (N = 40), which is analysed using critical masculinity theories, including the concept of homosociality. Key findings indicate that the characteristics of online communication, including 24/7 connectivity and the ability to rapidly share online content, such as texts in men-only private chat groups, via the infrastructure of digital platforms, technologies and devices, facilitate ‘digitally mediated homosociality’, which changes in response to gendered hierarchies, relational norms and interactional needs. While participants often use online communications to engage in non-hierarchical homosociality via practices that enhance camaraderie, solidarity and emotional intimacy with other men, they also use them for hierarchical homosociality to acquire masculine status via practices that include non-consensually sexting teenage girls and women’s ‘nudes’, though they defensively distanced themselves from misogyny. We conclude by outlining how these findings can inform educational interventions that tackle misogyny and promote non-hierarchical masculinities.

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