This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Bar-Lev, S. Articles by Tillinger, E. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

A Life Worth Living: Israeli and American Homosexual Men Performing Masculinity on HIV/AIDS Bulletin Boards

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: shirly.barlev{at}gmail.com.

	Abstract

The complex relationships between linguistic expression, body, self, and emotions assume a central role in shaping the illness narratives of Israeli and American homosexual men who suffer from AIDS. Drawing on recent sociological work on the "dilemmatic" features of illness as a moral performance, the authors study forty "inspiration stories" published by Israeli and American virtual support centers to elucidate how notions of homosexual manhood take shape, as participants narrate their experience with a highly stigmatized disease. They show how narrators mobilized hegemonic imagery in ways that intentionally broke with their origin and created new contexts of speech. While Israeli narrators stressed the importance of fraternal friendship as a fundamental characteristic of their masculine identity, American narrators emphasized individual accomplishments. Hence, this study sheds light on the mutual effect of nationalistic and gendered ethos on the performance of personal life practices.

First published on July 25, 2008
Men and Masculinities 2008, doi:10.1177/1097184X08322613


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?