Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone / Edition 1

by Martin P. Levine, Michael Kimmel

Overview

A sociological examination into the emergence of male homosexuality with a traditional masculine ethos

Before gay liberation, gay men were usually perceived as failed men—"inverts," men trapped in women's bodies. The 1970s saw a radical shift in gay male culture, as a male homosexuality emerged that embraced a more traditional masculine ethos. The gay clone, a muscle-bound, sexually free, hard-living Marlboro man, appeared in the gay enclaves of major cities, changing forever the face of gay male culture.

Gay Macho presents the ethnography of this homosexual clone. Martin P. Levine, a pioneer of the sociological study of homosexuality, was among the first social scientists to map the emergence of a gay community and this new style of gay masculinity. Levine was a participant in as well as an observer of gay culture in the 1970s, and this perspective allowed him to capture the true flavor of what it was like to be a gay man before AIDS. Levine's clone was a gender conformist, whose masculinity was demonstrated in patterns of social interaction and especially in his sexuality. According to Levine, his life centered around the "four D's: disco, drugs, dish, and dick."

Later chapters, based on Levine's pathbreaking empirical research, explore some of the epidemiological and social consequences of the AIDS epidemic on this particular substratum of the gay community. Although Levine explicitly refuses to pathologize gay men afflicted with HIV, his work develops a scathing, feminist-inspired critique of masculinity, whether practiced by gay or straight men.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814746950
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1998
Pages:	274
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Martin P. Levine (1950-1993) received his Ph.D. in sociology from New York University.

Michael S. Kimmel is Professor of Sociology at SUNY, Stony Brook and author of Manhood in America.

Table of Contents

	Editor's Preface	ix
	Acknowledgments	xiii
Part I	The Birth of the Gay Clone	1
	Introduction: "So Many Men, So Little Time": Toward a Sociology of the Gay Male Clone	3
1	"It's Raining Men": The Sociology of Gay Masculinity	10
2	"Y.M.C.A.": The Social Organization of Gay Male Life	30
3	"(I Wanna Be a) Macho Man": The Masculinization of Clone Social Life	55
4	"(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real": Hypermasculine Sexuality and Gender Confirmation	77
5	"Midnight Love Affair": Gay Masculinity and Emotional Intimacy	100
	References to Part One	111
Part II	The Death of the Gay Clone	125
6	Bad Blood: The Health Commissioner, the Tuskegee Experiment, and AIDS Policy [1983]	127
7	Fearing Fear Itself [1984]	138
8	Men and AIDS [1989]	143
9	The Myth of Sexual Compulsivity [1988]	158
10	The Motives of Gay Men for Taking or Not Taking the HIV Antibody Test [1989]	178
11	Unprotected Sex: Understanding Gay Men's Participation [1992]	205
12	The Implications of Constructionist Theory for Social Research on the AIDS Epidemic among Gay Men [1992]	232
	Epilogue: Martin P. Levine, 1950-1993	247
	Index	251
	About the Editor	260

Editorial Reviews

"This book seems destined to become a eulogy for the important contributions that Martin Levine made to the sociological study of sexuality, gender, and AIDS."

Men and Masculinities

A sociological study of the emergence of the gay male culture from the explosion of gay liberation in the early 1970s through the beginning of the AIDS crisis of the mid-1980s. The first half of the book is the dissertation of Levine, who based it primarily on field work conducted in Greenwich Village's growing gay community in the late 1970s. He looks at the sociology of gay masculinity, hypermasculine sexuality and gender confirmation, and the birth of the "gay clone." The second half of the work is made up of essays which chronicle the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, examine the myth of sexual compulsivity, and look at the implications of constructionist theory for social research on the AIDS epidemic. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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