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"Sensitive and Real Macho All at the Same Time"Young Heterosexual Men and Romance
Louisa Allen
University of Auckland
What is the place of romance in young men's lives? Do young men enact a romantic masculinity? This article examines young men's experience of romance and what investments they have in romantic identity. Drawing on a New Zealand—based sample of seventeen-to nineteen-year-olds, the author investigates the way in which romantic masculinity is evoked during seventeen focus-group discussions. The article explores whether romantic masculinity offers a new form of masculinity in New Zealand and to what extent it departs from hegemonic practices of "hard" masculinity. Its potential as a nonhegemonic form of masculinity that challenges oppressive heterosexual relations is also analyzed. It is argued that the particular expression of romantic masculinity evidenced in this research no longer constitutes a subordinate form of masculinity in New Zealand. Instead, "doing romance" is theorized as being reconfigured within the operation of hegemonic masculinity in a way that highlights the flexibility and stability of these practices of power.
Key Words: young masculinities • romance • heterosexualities • hegemonic masculinities
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Men and Masculinities, Vol. 10, No. 2,
137-152 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1097184X05284221
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N. Korobov
Expanding Hegemonic Masculinity: The Use of Irony in Young Men's Stories About Romantic Experiences
American Journal of Men's Health,
December 1, 2009;
3(4):
286 - 299.
[Abstract]
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