The day I started collecting data for my book The Declining Significance of Homophobia: How Teenage Boys Are Redefining Masculinity and Heterosexuality, I was nervous about how I would experience the next year of my life. I was about to spend the next 12 months in schools, hanging out with and getting to know 16- to 18-year-old male students. Socializing with straight guys wasn't something I had found particularly easy when I was a closeted, geeky teenager 10 years ago. Back then, teenage boys were homophobic, misogynistic, and aggressive. They distanced themselves from anything deemed gay or feminine. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that these teenage boys today have adopted a new, softer version of masculinity. Collecting data with hundreds of male students across three high schools in the south of England, I found a new generation of young men had redefined masculinity in ways unrecognizable to their fathers. Here are 10 of my favorite differences:
1. They Are Not Homophobic
2. They Explicitly Support Gay Rights
3. They Openly Express Their Love For Each Other
4. Fighting Isn't Cool
5. They Care About Looking Good
6. They Are Happy To Be Associated With Things Socially Coded As Gay
7. 'I'm So Turned On To You Right Now'
8. 'That's So Gay' Isn't About 'Gay'
9. They Are Less Sexist
10. They Admit Fear To Each Other
Just as boys have redefined what it means to them to be a guy, the meanings of their language have also changed. At one of the schools, many boys would frequently use the term "that's so gay." When they were set homework, or if they missed the bus, they would comment "that's so gay" in frustration. Yet these students also insisted it wasn't homophobic, arguing it meant "rubbish" in that context.
Crucially, this was supported by openly gay and lesbian students in the school, who also used the phrase. Indeed, gay students even used similar phrases as a way of bonding with straight students, for example shouting on occasion, "You're gayer than me." -By Mark McCormack, Ph.D./Huffington Post/March 3, 2012
1. They Are Not Homophobic
2. They Explicitly Support Gay Rights
3. They Openly Express Their Love For Each Other
4. Fighting Isn't Cool
5. They Care About Looking Good
6. They Are Happy To Be Associated With Things Socially Coded As Gay
7. 'I'm So Turned On To You Right Now'
8. 'That's So Gay' Isn't About 'Gay'
9. They Are Less Sexist
10. They Admit Fear To Each Other
Just as boys have redefined what it means to them to be a guy, the meanings of their language have also changed. At one of the schools, many boys would frequently use the term "that's so gay." When they were set homework, or if they missed the bus, they would comment "that's so gay" in frustration. Yet these students also insisted it wasn't homophobic, arguing it meant "rubbish" in that context.
Crucially, this was supported by openly gay and lesbian students in the school, who also used the phrase. Indeed, gay students even used similar phrases as a way of bonding with straight students, for example shouting on occasion, "You're gayer than me." -By Mark McCormack, Ph.D./Huffington Post/March 3, 2012
About the Author: Mark McCormack, Ph.D. is a Sociologist of sexualities and masculinities, Brunel University, England
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