Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users, please click the view more button below to purchase a copy of this dissertation from Proquest.
(Some titles may also be available free of charge in our Open Access Dissertation Collection, so please check there first.)
Guts and muscles and bears, oh my! The body, embodied identity, and queer erotic space online
Abstract
This study explores the online embodied experiences of gay men, contending that these experiences deconstruct naturalized physical world understandings of the attractive and healthy erotic body. In particular, this study examines discourses emerging from three distinct queer-identified IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels: #gaymuscle, a community formulated around images of the muscular male body; #gaychub, a community celebrating male obesity, where—in diametric opposition to #gaymuscle—fatness holds considerable value; and #gaymusclebears, a space representing the erotic convergence of the obese and muscular male body. Constructed by gay male interactants, each of these three IRC channels represents an affirming space for the discussion, exploration, and eroticism of the male body. Utilizing the methods of critical ethnography, I analyze not only the terms and forms prevalent to these online communities, but the deeper intricacies concerning the negotiation of embodied identity and eroticism in cyberspace. In doing so, I demonstrate how interactions in the virtual can provide significant embodied experiences while subverting naturalized conceptions of physical beauty and normative sexual practices.
Subject Area
Mass media|Cultural anthropology
Recommended Citation
Campbell, John Edward, "Guts and muscles and bears, oh my! The body, embodied identity, and queer erotic space online" (2001). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI1402224.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI1402224