Literature Review

In 1993, Raewyn Connell first published Masculinities, a book which outlined her gender order theory. She argues that there are multiple masculinities that are ultimately set into a hierarchical relationship within ‘hegemonic masculinity’ at the zenith of the social order (Connell, 2005). She explains that hegemonic masculinity legitimizes patriarchy and the subordination of women and other masculinities through coercion, violence, and social incentives (Connell, 2005). Apart from anger or desire, Connell contends that hegemonic masculinity is generally associated with the denial of emotional expression and the affirmation of physical strength, wealth, and generally aggressive sexual attention towards women (Connell, 2005). Notably, hegemonic masculinity is considered by Connell to be historically specific and prone to shift as a conglomeration of social beliefs and practices. 

Bridges and Pascoe (2018) argue that evolution within masculine identities has taken place. They contend that decentralized or local variations of hegemonic masculinity now reflect hybridized aspects of marginal masculinities (e.g., Black, gay, etc…) while fortifying or leaving structural inequalities in place (Bridges and Pascoe, 2018). For example, they demonstrate that white men perform discursive distancing, in which they denounce certain aspects of a previous hegemonic masculinity (i.e., that entails overt racism, sexism, homophobia), at the same time that they strategically appropriate attributes from marginalized masculinities to better secure social capital for themselves (e.g., like ‘sensitive’ demeanours associated with gay men) (Bridges and Pascoe, 2018). 

They suggest that these hybridizations and semantic gestures obfuscate how structural inequalities remain intact even as they may appear to have been thwarted by new modes of masculinity (Bridges and Pascoe, 2018). Notably, Bridges’ and Pascoe’s views have been contested by some masculinity scholars who have noticed patterns of greater inclusion, or its potential, in young men and boys despite some continuation of hegemonic masculinity elsewhere (Anderson, 2018; Campbell, et al., 2018). However, while this may be true in some respects, it does not mean it is in all. 

So, what does masculinity have to do with men’s dress practices? Although the fashion industry is dominated by men, fashion studies has largely ignored men due to the correlation of fashion with femininity, as well as men’s supposed ‘renunciation’ of fashion in the 19^th century in favour of functional and comfortable uniforms like the suit (Craik, 1994; Edward, 2011). Nevertheless, men did—and do—put significant effort into sartorial consumption and into conforming with expectations of dress (see Breward, 1999; Craik, 1994 for examples). Marginalized men in black and gay communities have also relied on fashion historically as part of constructing affirmative individual and communal identities (Cole, 2000; Miller, 2010). This continues today as men actively use fashion to express themselves (Barry and Martin, 2015; 2016b). Fashion is important to men, and therefore to masculinity.

Fashion scholars have recently begun to draw significant connections between fashion and masculinity. De Casanova (2015) outlines the complex negotiations of dress on the part of white-collar men, which demands increasingly ambiguous—yet still important—codes of style that relate to historical and contemporary conceptions of white collar masculinity and privilege. Gender order theory has also been applied to men’s dress to evaluate how items like the suit (Barry and Weiner, 2017), fashion advertising (Barry, 2014), and normative body types for men (Barry and Martin, 2016a) are linked to hegemonic masculinity and the marginalization of men outside its narrow field. Men’s performance of masculinity through fashion is also shown to adapt to their social context to maintain their patriarchal privilege (Barry, 2018). Public performances of masculinity rely heavily on fashion to produce it effectively.

The performance of masculinity is hardly inviolable however, and even the most hyperbolic of masculine symbols can invite resistance and counter-interpretations. Geczy and Karaminas (2019) describe how hyper-masculine symbols become susceptible to homoerotic imagination, thereby opening the door to queer replication, satire, and subversion (Geczy and Karamina, 2019). But what happens when the hyper masculine engages with the feminine, or the queer? 

Ziegler (2016) quotes Tseëlon to describe a ‘sissy’ as a man who wears women’s—or generally feminized—items of clothing and assumes a more submissive and feminine sexual role towards their partners. In Ziegler’s (2016) chapter, the image of queer sissy masculinity subverts normative gender presentation in the autobiography of Gladys Bently—in contrast to how it is reinforced by our case studies. Through this analysis, Ziegler provides a lens for examining how sissy—or sissy-like—behaviours within media can be dissected using the work of Roland Barthes. 

Ziegler (2016) introduces the studium and the punctum in their analysis of photographs. The studium represents the perspective of the author, the message they intend to convey. The punctum, by contrast, represents a specific detail or insight that draws the viewer’s attention and excites their interest, potentially disrupting the studium. The punctum is subjective, so the detail that may catch the eye will be different depending on the subjectivity of the observer. This lens helps to provide a means for reading the intentionality behind the portrayals in the films John Tucker Must Die and Whatever It Takes, which are a consistent stream of images as narrative. Examining the studium—and potential punctum—at key points of these films will illuminate the intent and messages being directed to the audience in response to these garments.

It is also worth noting how hegemonic masculinity responds to these feminized male representations. Pascoe (2005) illuminates how adolescent men use the concept of the ‘fag’ as a means of social policing within their gender group. Her work builds on previous studies by pointing out how this term is weaponized not just against perceived gay students, but also against heterosexual boys. She notes that the term does not entail a specific list of traits, but that these traits are made recognizable by generalized codes (Pascoe, 2005). In her words, ‘it is fluid enough that boys police most of their behaviors out of fear of having the [fag] identity permanently adhere and definitive enough so that boys recognize [such a] behavior and strive to avoid it’ (Pascoe, 2005, p. 330). Oransky and Marecek (2009) add that this behaviour seems to be viewed by boys as helpful, as it reaffirms their masculinity through conspicuous rejections of femininity. Invoking the imagery of this vague, yet stereotypically feminized male figure is meant to reassert one’s ‘appropriate’ masculine identity through contrast and ruthless condemnation of this spectre (Pascoe, 2005). 

Sharon Bird (1996) usefully points out that hegemonic masculinity continues to influence men’s behaviour into adulthood, where men who possess non-hegemonic views—particularly around the treatment of women—are either marginalized or pressured into silence. The presence of feminized heterosexual masculinities has shown evidence of increasing homophobic sentiment in adult men who believe in normative masculinity—although this was less true for men who cited norms of masculinity being less important (Falomir-Pichastor, Berent, and Anderson, 2019).

That the ‘fag’ label, or any number of other derogatory or infantilizing terms to discredit ones manhood, can stick to heterosexual men, and that these men are taught to abhor the possibility, demonstrates that the discourse is designed not simply to marginalize queer boys and men but also to enforce specific articulations of heterosexual masculinity. In his book When did Indians become Straight?, Mark Rifkin (2010) questions how the homo-hetero binary negates dissection of how heterosexuality is constituted around specific relational structures and behaviours. Importantly, normative heterosexuality is seen to form boundaries around accepted sexual practices even within male and female sexual relationships (Rifkin, 2010). These boundaries help enforce the marginalization of queer sexuality by creating a mirage of vast difference between the ‘normative man’ and those marked as aberrant. 

The social danger for straight men of crossing these borders within fashion is articulated in Diego Rinallo’s (2011) zones of dress. Straight men must try to occupy a central ‘safe zone’ of acceptable dress practices, which is flanked, on one end, by the danger zone of being seen to lack reasonable care for managing one’s appearance and, on the other end, by the danger zone of being seen as effeminate and/or homosexual (Rinallo, 2011). While these boundaries can consistently move one direction or another, men are expected to reframe these choices—particularly ones that bring them closer to the effeminate or homosexual zone—as logical and utilitarian to justify how these choices fit within their masculine gender practice (Rinallo, 2011). Dress choice, as behaviour and practice, is rigidly policed.

The political viability of the sissy within queer, feminist, and gender studies remains contested. He also seems largely absent in heterosexuality studies, which examines the boundaries, politics, and rituals of heterosexuality (Fischer, 2013). Heterosexuality studies does acknowledge the presence of the feminine man—even establishing a typology for different variations (Heasely, 2005), some of which could be classified as representing hybrid masculinities—but does not seem to address the particularities of men’s feminized sexual practices. For context on why this might be, I would like to draw a connection between the sissy—as defined in Ziegler (2016)—and the crossdresser. The sissy, I would argue, is closely related to the crossdresser, who also eroticizes gendered forms of dress and cross-dress, and has historically remained challenging to define beyond the more general characteristics of its practice (Allen, 2014). Due to the overlapping characteristics of their identities, I think it is reasonable to assume that they are effectively identical in how they are considered within these fields. 

The general privacy of crossdresser/sissy practices—due to these practices’ stigmatization—means that these individuals do not necessarily fit well into queer paradigms of community (Allen, 2014). These practices may even be kept private from one’s wife or partner, or otherwise be practiced apart from them (Wysocki, 1993). This privacy puts it at odds with these fields’ built upon mass-movements and leery of the potential of co-optation (Allen, 2014). The crossdresser or sissy may also not be invested in breaking the binaries of gender due to their own pleasure in playing with it (Allen, 2014). For these reasons, the sissy or crossdresser seems to occupy a liminal space between straightness and queerness, a space that makes them anathema to hegemonic masculinity and heterosexuality, but that also leaves them outside the realm of queer scholarship and community.

Summarizing our Case Studies

Men who are represented in media wearing more ‘feminine’ forms of underwear are punished either with ridicule, abuse, or some mixture of the two. The films I will use to illustrate this are Whatever It Takes (2000) and John Tucker Must Die (2006). In both films the male antagonist is a masculine icon of their high school; a popular jock from a rich family who is renowned for his tally of sexual partners. He is the prototypical image of hegemonic masculinity within this setting.

In Whatever It Takes (WIT), the antagonist, Chris Campbell, decides to exchange information with the protagonist, Ryan Whitman, about their female friends for both men to manipulate their love interests toward them (Raynr and Schwahn, 2000). Chris uses this information to convince Ryan’s best friend Maggie that he shares her interests and to build a relationship with her (Raynr and Schwahn, 2000). At the climax, Ryan realizes he wants to be with Maggie—instead of the girl Chris helped Ryan manipulate into liking him—and reveals the deception to her (Raynr and Schwahn, 2000). After prom, Chris and Maggie find a hotel room where Chris undresses—revealing a g-string (Raynr and Schwahn, 2000). Maggie, angered by his deceptions about their similarities, convinces Chris to let her tie him to the bed in his g-string before she blindfolds and gags him (Raynr and Schwahn, 2000). She then takes photos of him bound in his underwear, leaves the hotel room to share the pictures with other classmates crowding the hallway, and encourages her peers to go into the open hotel room and do whatever they want to him (Raynr and Schwahn, 2000). Chris’s situation is framed as something to enjoy as a deviant being rightfully exposed, humiliated, and tormented. Ryan, attempting to find Maggie, comes across Chris’ supine form and smiles in satisfaction as he is abused and jeered at by their classmates (Raynr and Schwahn, 2000). But despite the framing, Maggie’s revenge against Chris is still both child pornography and assault, while Ryan’s relish towards Chris’s torment borders on sadism. 

In John Tucker Must Die (JTMD), the movie’s namesake, the school basketball star and heartthrob, makes the mistake of dating three prominent female characters simultaneously (Thomas and Lowell, 2006). When they find out, the young women decide to coach another female student, Kate, into wooing John so that they can destroy him (Thomas and Lowell, 2006). During an overnight school trip, Kate convinces John to come to her bedroom in a thong. John does this to impress her but is given the wrong door number—leading him to arrive at the door of a shocked female teacher (Thomas and Lowell, 2006). Outraged by his appearance and trespass, she loudly drags him before the school coach who chews him out in the hallway—still wearing only a thong—while laughing crowds of fellow students take photos of him (Thomas and Lowell, 2006). John later discovers that he enjoys thongs and continues to wear them to the shock of his teammates—until he demonstrates a utility as to why thongs are valuable attire (Thomas and Lowell, 2006). John explains, ‘It’s like letting your best friends sleep in a silk hammock. They’re breezy, they don’t bind, and they give you just enough swing’ (Thomas and Lowell, 2006, 1:11:00). The male friends remained unconvinced until he jumps several feet in the air, flips in mid-air, and then slam-dunks the ball into a basket (Thomas and Lowell 2006). Cue a cut to the next scene with every other player wearing their own thongs underneath their athletic shorts (Thomas and Lowell, 2006). John Tucker, framed as too unintelligent to realize his own foolish behaviour, leads his sheep-like followers in wearing the garments, including some older male teachers by the end of the movie—to the shock and derision of the lead female characters (Thomas and Lowell, 2006). 

Both films involve revenge fantasies where invoking the imagery of a sissy or ‘fag’ is weaponized to produce feelings of shame, humiliation, and emasculation in their targets. Men who enjoy wearing this sort of attire are pathologized as shocking and this incites vicious retribution. The lead female characters of both movies end up with men who reflect some form of hybrid masculinity but with traditional male dress practices; Maggie ends up with Ryan (who spends the WIT being just as manipulative and callous as Chris) and Kate ends up with John’s younger brother—who defends John’s treatment of women as objects and presents a hybrid masculinity that does not involve thong-wearing (Raynr and Schwahn, 2000; Thomas and Lowell, 2006). But why would a hegemonic-hybrid masculinity care about establishing sartorial boundaries and where are the marks of its delineation?

Tensions within Hegemonic/Hybrid Masculinities

Michel Foucault (1990) notes that ‘discourse [is] a series of discontinuous segments whose tactical function is neither uniform nor stable […] discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance, and a starting point for an opposing strategy’ (pp. 100-101). Hybrid masculinities involve merging with something of the Other. In the case of hegemonic masculinity, we have discussed how this newness can perhaps be symbolic in nature (Bridges and Pascoe, 2018) or represent a positive shift (Anderson, 2018). But not all Others, or aspects of Others, are created equal. So, what is to be hybridized, what remains out of bounds, and why? 

In WIT we are presented with a male protagonist and a male antagonist who both represent hybridized masculinities by the end of the film—although one is deemed unacceptable. Ryan returns to elements of his ‘sensitive nerd’ persona while demonstrating contempt for a woman he has manipulated into being emotionally dependent upon him and taking pleasure in his former friend’s demise (Raynr and Schwahn, 2000). He selectively uses elements of this sensitive side to distance himself from his own actions and Chris’s slick ‘man’s man’ persona, to charm the woman he wants, and to leave intact social structures that treat women as objects to be won. 

Chris, meanwhile, fails in moving from a traditional hegemonic masculinity into a viable hybrid one. The reason he fails is his choice to selectively borrow the practice of wearing thongs from women. He decides to invest in feminine sartorial choices and embraces a submissive role in erotic play, rather than invest in knowledge that would frame him as learned and sensitive but still fully ‘masculine’. For this, he is punished and then disappears from the narrative entirely—for all we know he is still nearly naked and tied to the bed in that hotel room. 

WIT demarcates what can be hybridized. You can be quirky, ‘sensitive,’ and/or have ‘nerdy’ hobbies, but to embrace material objects of femininity and sexual submission is a dangerous gambit that will not pay off. Ryan represents a successful hegemonic hybridization because he engages with attributes outside hegemonic masculinity without ever opening the door to the displacement of patriarchal power—even a temporary one. 

JTMD faces a more complicated challenge with John’s embarrassment at the hotel leading into a successful hybridization of thongs during gym practice—at least within the film itself. His ability to use the thong’s utility as a justification for wearing it and to convince other male characters to do the same runs parallel to Rinallo’s (2011) zones of heterosexual men’s dress and the manner in which their boundaries can be shifted. In JTMD, the condemnation of John by hegemonic masculinity is performed through the female protagonist and her cohort. As the ‘heroes’ of the film we are told to see the film from their perspective—and they do not respond positively to this sartorial shift. They appear as the only sane people left in a world gone mad as they travel the halls of their school surrounded by male students conspicuously wearing thongs. 

This fashion trend remains ongoing for the remainder of the film, which could have led to an affirmation of people expressing themselves in the manner they see fit. However, the final moments of JTMD affirm the idea that men wearing thongs is not only bizarre, but perhaps should not be eroticised. In the end, the female protagonists scoff and giggle at the top of a staircase as multiple fat male teachers are bent to pick up a bunch of loose papers—revealing that they have taken up the trend of wearing thongs as well. They cringe at the implied faux pas of these faceless mentors (Thomas and Lowell, 2006). The studium, to me, is clear: these men look ridiculous and seem oblivious to this fact. The punctum seems to convey a deeper lesson that stretches back to the thong’s original appearance; audience members might be drawn to the original images of John in the thong because he has an athletic, muscular body, and had nothing to do with the thong besides how little it left to the imagination. The image of John was able to conjure attraction or arousal in an onlooker because of the body to which it was attached—the garment itself is embarrassing and will only result in heterosexual women’s scorn. Thongs are not what desirable men wear, and they will not make undesirable men more attractive either. Considering the growth of research on diverse men’s body anxieties (Bordo, 1999; Pope, Phillips, and Olivardia, 2000; Wiseman and Moradi, 2010; Barry, 2014; Barry and Martin, 2016a; Barry and Weiner, 2017; Pope, Khalsa, and Bhasin, 2017; Salomen and Brown, 2019), this imagery feeds perceptions of both how an attractive man’s body should look and how that body should be adorned. In both cases hegemonic masculinity is affirmed, and the image of the sissy is denigrated. What import is there to posing this identity—and identities like it—as unviable?

Why Queer Studies Should Care About the Heterosexual Sissy

Jacques Derrida notes that hierarchies of meaning, or ‘first principles’ are often defined by what they exclude or marginalize to construct their logic (Eagleton, 1996). These principles can be undermined, however, by deconstructive criticism that hones in on the inconsistencies and contradictions within the principle, demonstrating perhaps the presence of the excluded within the principle and with it the constructed nature of the principle itself (Eagleton, 1996). Hegemonic masculinity, entwined as it is with normative heterosexuality, could be seen to embody such a principle as it positions itself in opposition to femininity using tools like the fag discourse to reinforce strict conformity to rigid norms and expelling or marginalizing the queer as part of femininity—which is why Connell (2005) noted the importance of terrorizing queer masculinities within the gender order. As I mentioned earlier when citing Rifkin (2010), the illusion of vast differences between straight and queer identities or sexualities is maintained by the forming of strict boundaries in normative heterosexual behaviour. Within queer literature itself, heterosexuality can be portrayed as a monolithic Other to queer subjectivity (Allen, 2014).

The danger of subversions to masculinity—and heterosexual patriarchy—through feminized behaviour leads fag discourse to be far more punitive towards some masculinities than others (Pascoe, 2005). For example, Pascoe (2005) observed that white boys needed to eschew care for their appearance and avoid participation in activities like dance to evade the fag label. Black students who followed norms of hip hop culture could take care in their appearance and engage in dance—and be admired for it even by their white male peers—without facing the fag label (Pascoe, 2005). White masculinities are seemingly pressured to be more puritanical in adherence to norms of hegemonic masculinity due to their proximity to this nexus of privilege built on strategic exclusions. However, Black male students could only care about their appearance to the extent that such care reinforced racial stereotypes. 

That Chris (WIT) or John (JTMD), who represent hyper masculine embodiments of hegemonic masculinity, would engage in transgressing these norms by wearing feminized forms of underwear and submitting to their female partners’ desires (through accepting bondage or the initial trying of the underwear) sets a dangerous precedent for masculinity. For, if an icon of masculinity could be revealed to carry this element of femininity or queerness within themselves, then the foundational arguments of masculinity’s essential essence, built on excluding these attributes, can be delegitimized. The reflections of the Other(s) are revealed to be much closer than they appear, and the impression of distance must be restored. To ensure this is done, Chris and John need to suffer and/or face marginalization of their own. 

This is not to make martyrs of either of these characters. Chris and John align themselves completely with tenets of hegemonic masculinity in the public sphere, mirroring some of the less charitable perceptions of the sissy/crossdresser—to the extent they can be labelled as such—within queer and feminist scholarship (Allen, 2014). It is when their private deviance from these norms becomes public that they are ultimately brought down. The takeaway from their presentation to us, as the audience, is less that the potential allyship of this nebulous group of men to queer, feminist liberation than with illustrating the violence, and slippage, around hegemonic masculinity’s borders. This illustration provides a dire social warning for normative men thinking to experiment with their dress practices and a reminder to the feminine and the queer of hegemonic masculinity’s essential fragility.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the reviewers and Dr. Frances Latchford, who reviewed an earlier draft of the paper.

ORCID iD 

Johnathan Clancy https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3167-3809

Funding

No financial support was received for the research, authorship, or publication of this article. 

Declaration of Competing Interests

The author declares that they have no competing interests.