For one thing, the seminal theory of hegemonic masculinity (Connell Reference Connell1992) has come under pertinent criticism for how it conceptualises the two foundational axes: hegemony-subordination (an internal schema ranking masculinities with respect to one another), and authorisation-marginalisation (an external schema ranking masculinities according to external criteria, e.g. Titles like ‘I'm gay but I'm not like those perverts’, coming from recent research on Eastern European settings (Weaver Reference Weaver, Buyantueva and Shevtsova2020 for the above Bogetić Reference Bogetić and Milani2018 Buyantueva & Shevtsova Reference Buyantueva, Shevtsova, Buyantueva and Shevtsova2020), precisely highlight the problems in approaching the conflicting orders of non-normative masculinities and their resonance in social reality.Īn attempt to analyse the Serbian context only, or even the single ad above, in fact, runs into deeper difficulties in positioning an approach to masculinity. Analyses have revealed contradicting exclusionary discourses which the genre naturalizes as ‘speaking one's mind’ (Shield Reference Shield2018), and which may range from sexual prejudice, microaggressions of ‘internalized homophobia’ (Shield Reference Shield2018), to racism and xenophobia (McGlotten Reference McGlotten2013). Still, a large portion of research on gay masculinity in online dating in fact points to the subculture's more complex power dynamics. Without a doubt, mobile applications, chatrooms, and web-based personal ads have brought new possibilities for social participation and networking among gay men, remapping social space in revolutionary ways by opening it up for queer interactions (Borrelli Reference Borrelli, Balirano and Palusci2019), especially in the more traditional, patriarchal societies (Dang, Cai, & Lang Reference Dang, Cai and Lang2013).
Most notably, globalised imaginary of a ‘normal life’ and the disillusioned imagination of an ‘actually normal man’ paired with the negative reference to dating ‘websites’ when using one captures the paradoxical and dynamic conceptualisations of ‘proper’ manhood in marginalised groups’ digital culture, which still escape full scholarly and activist understanding. In a simple, evocative style, the author depicts his dream of not being ‘here forever’, which ambiguously and perhaps deliberately refers to Serbia itself, his own life circumstances, or most likely, the gay dating sites setting. This personal advertisement was posted in 2017 on the PlanetRomeo dating portal by a man from Serbia. although judging by the damn sites, no use of dreaming.’ normal male looks and life, a job, a car, open mind for travelling and new experiences, and we move on. ‘still dreaming that I won't be here forever, when an actually normal man contacts me one morning. mada gledajući proklete sajtove od maštanja mrka kapa. normalan muški izgled i život, posao, kola, otvorenog uma za putovanja i nova iskustva, pa idemo dalje. Još uvek maštam da neću zauvek biti ovde, kada mi se jedno jutro javi neki zapravo normalan muškarac. (Gay men, online dating, masculinity, recursive normalization) The findings are further discussed as highlighting the pitfalls of theory and social movements focused on social assimilation, arguing for the need for further queer linguistic deconstruction of the normalising discourses that intersect marginalized communities and broader, systemic hegemonies. A broader mechanism, termed recursive normalisation, is described as underpinning the observed patterns. Overall, the texts are most strongly characterized by adversarial distance towards certain gay men, operating in normalizing assimilation to the national (heterosexual) citizen ideal. The analysis reveals that repeated associations centre on concepts of masculinity and normality, in a local indexical order of ‘proper’ manhood, sexuality, global modernity, and national identity. Selected keywords are analysed in context, and particular attention is paid to collocation patterns, including grammatical collocates that are shown to carry discursive relevance beyond style.
This article investigates sexual and gender ideologies in online dating profiles of Sebian gay men using corpus-linguistic and discourse-analytic methods.