Managing Deviance: Hustling, Homophobia, and the Bodybuilding Subculture (From Constructions of Deviance: Social Power, Context, and Interaction, P 529-544, 1994, Patricia A and Peter Adler, eds. -- See NCJ-151012)

• NCJ Number: 151030
• Author(s): A M Klein
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 16 pages
• Sale Source: Wadsworth Publishing Co
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Reprinted from Deviant Behavior, V 10 (1989)

Annotation

Due to the health movement and cultural fears of aging, bodybuilding has experienced significant growth in the past decade, and this study was conducted to analyze the extent of homosexuality associated with bodybuilders.

Abstract

Fieldwork was conducted between 1979 and 1985 at a California gymnasium, and 55 formal interviews and 120 informal interviews were conducted with men and women at the gym. Information was sought on hustling and homophobia in the context of the bodybuilding subculture. Hustling was defined as the selling of implicit or explicit sex by bodybuilders to gays. Hustling was employed for both economic and psychological reasons by bodybuilders. Bodybuilding was central to certain male anxieties associated with society's restrictive notions about masculinity. While fostering behavior and values that underscored virility and "macho" posturing, the bodybuilding subculture simultaneously created new problems. Hustling was shown to be a conflux for contradictory characteristics, in part due to the juggling of disparate male roles. Since male traits like homophobia, hypermasculinity, and gender narcissism all existed in a dialectical relationship with female traits, research findings showed that men underevaluated women and shunned the effeminate. 30 references and 6 notes