Although one can recognise that social and cultural performances of masculinities are multitudinous and varied, it is important also to interrogate how, in any given culture and historical era, one particular paradigm of masculinity rises to a dominant position and is thus socially sanctioned as the only acceptable way to be a man in that time and place

O’Brien C (2025) Can Hegemonic Masculinity Ever Be Queer?. JSM Sexual Med 9(2): 1153.

Although one can recognise that social and cultural performances of masculinities are multitudinous and varied, it is important also to interrogate how, in any given culture and historical era, one particular paradigm of masculinity rises to a dominant position and is thus socially sanctioned as the only acceptable way to be a man in that time and place. Originally proposed in a field study of social inequality in Australian high-schools by Martin Kessler in 1982, ‘hegemonic masculinity’ is the label given to this dominant construction of manhood [1]. Hegemonic masculinity can therefore be understood as an overarching paradigm of manhood that rises to social prominence and thus dominates configurations of gender practice within any given society. On an individuated level, it becomes an exalted model of masculinity to which men aspire while, on a societal level, it embeds itself into social structures and cultural practices as a means of legitimising and sanctioning heterosexual male dominance.

Because hegemonic masculinity is popularly imagined, with idealised men appearing in media, sports, drama, film and television, and public discourses, its reification ensures that it is, in actuality, embodied by very few, if indeed any men. As Raewyn Connell puts it, ‘Hegemony is a question of relations of cultural domination, not of head counts’ [2]. Clearly then, while hegemonic masculinity cannot be considered normal because it is rarely achieved, it is certainly normative and asymptotically aspirational; rather than being a suggestion of how men should act and treat other people, it functions as a regulatory diktat. Hence, hegemonic masculinity is competitive, and, being based on a reified ideal, remains constantly unresolved, subject to eternal self-doubt and questioning by other men. This questioning happens most of all in all-male or homosocial settings. Within homosocial groupings of men, the subject’s masculinity must be validated by his peers through systems of surveillance. Men find themselves under the perpetual scrutiny of other men; ranking each other, evaluating their counterparts’ performances of manhood and thus permitting, should the performances be found up to par, entrance into the dominion of hegemonic masculinity. Men in homosocial settings constantly check themselves, and each other: ‘Am I manly enough? Is he?’ This social dynamic thus autologously feeds into hegemonic masculinity’s schema of competition, suspicion,and self-doubt. The constant need to keep up with and then outdo other men’s performances of manhood means that masculine peer-surveillance functions as one of hegemonic masculinity’s most powerful social tools.

Western, or Global North culture, by virtue of white – and in particular American – cultural imperialism and hegemony has been heavily bound up in the project of constructing the social identity of any given nation and promoting the national imaginary. However, what much scholarship has elided is that the project of culturally building the nation is inextricably interwoven with the project of promulgating that nation’s hegemonic masculinity. Performances of hegemonic paradigms of manhood in popular culture, despite shifting and changing over time, so often essentialise white heterosexual men as ‘sons of the nation’ or as symbolic of the state of the nation. As Debbie Ging asserts:

Gender identity and national identity are remarkably similar [3,4], through subtle processes of symbolic and cultural reinforcement, nationality and masculinity tend to become viewed as essential qualities [5], how masculinity and femininity are defined in a given society is central to that society’s collective concept of self, and vice versa [6].

However, the hegemonic paradigms promoted by entrenched bastions of white, Global North masculinity such as elite-level sports, television and cinema (in particular, the romantic hero of the Romcom), and celebrity culture are shifting, a phenomenon that has not gone unnoticed by several prominent scholars of gendered culture [7,8]. The place of hegemonic masculinity in social life and the cultural associations that support it have, since the exposition of Church and Institutional abuse scandals in the early-1990s in countries such as Ireland, the United States, Canada, and Australia, as well as generational shifts in attitudes towards LGBTQ sexualities and women’s rights, made decisive moves away from traditional strangleholds of identity such as Religious Nationalism and its overt homophobia and misogyny. To take an Irish example, In 2009, Dónal Óg Cusack, a high-profile and much admired GAA hurling player, came out publicly as gay via his autobiography Come What May. Cusack spoke subsequently on many national media platforms about Ireland’s entrenched architecture of homophobia and the often life-long harm caused by homophobic bullying of young LGBTQ people while simultaneously raising awareness about men’s mental health. Cusack thus prompted a shift in attitudes towards gay masculinities in Irish sporting traditions and by extension in Irish culture more broadly. Furthermore, his public coming out, I would argue, had a positive influence on the subsequent success of the Equal Marriage referendum in 2015 that enshrined in the Irish Constitution (Bunracht Na hEireann) the right for same sex couples to marry. The GAA has since spoken out in support of gay players and has mounted several campaigns to dispel homophobia from Gaelic games whilst also promoting women’s GAA sports. Simultaneously, the successful passage of the Equal Marriage referendum was overwhelmingly supported by many heterosexual men – both ordinary citizens and public figures – who could be considered exemplars of hegemonic masculinity. Indeed, the Irish National Theatre, as well as the state-sponsored television station, RTE, hosted several events in support of a Yes vote for the Equal Marriage referendum.

It tempting to thus argue, particularly given the success of the not just the Irish marriage referendum but more so the legalisation of same-sex marriage in many Global North nations, that Western hegemonic masculinity has evolved to encompass queerness or at least gay-identified men. In this vein, scholars such as Eric Anderson argue for ‘inclusive masculinities’ [9], a hybrid model of hegemonic masculinity in which gay men allegedly function freely and without oppression. However, for other critics, this formulation is too simplistic. Scholars to date have asserted that one of hegemonic masculinity’s defining characteristics is heterosexuality; therefore, any social enactment of male homosexuality was considered to sit firmly outside the boundaries of the hegemonic project. Up until the last two decades or so, this claim certainly held weight, particularly when we consider that hegemonic masculinity – because it is an unstable, idealistic identity with ever-shifting boundaries – has always defined itself as that which it is not, rather than state what it is. Homosexuality, therefore, has functioned as a key counter identity for hegemonic masculinity.

There exists, however, a narrow, limited performance of commodified and market-driven gay masculinity which, while it cannot exactly be considered part of hegemonic masculinity, can operate in tandem with it. I speak here of a mode of gay lifestyle and living that theorists such as Michael Warner, Lisa Duggan, and Gavin Brown identify as ‘homonormativity’ [10-12]. I would also argue moreover, that within the realm of queer-identified masculinities, homonormativity can be conceptualised as the gay equivalent of hegemonic masculinity. This model of gay manhood, apart from a same sex partner, looks and acts very much like heteronormative masculinity and is inextricably bound up in neoliberal consumerism. Men who subscribe to homonormativity not only buy into but also buy – in the monetary sense – their identity. Indeed, contrary to Anderson’s claims that the apparently reduced homophobia of hegemonic masculinity has facilitated the emergence of more inclusive or non-homophobic forms of manhood, several scholars argue that Anderson’s ‘inclusive masculinities’ may be little more than a strategy for so called ‘progressive’ straight, white, middle-class men to increase their economic, social, and political power [13].

Gay masculinities we cannot therefore assume will always already be pro-feminist or anti-patriarchal merely by virtue of same-sex coupling or because this was once an outlawed and oppressed sexuality. Indeed, upon closer scrutiny, it appears that hegemonic masculinity will allow gay masculinities to operate alongside it on the provision that the common bond is misogyny. Ging demonstrates in a 2017 study of online self-labelling masculinities – a toxic digital space known as ‘the manosphere’ – the ways in which both gay and straight men espouse virulent misogyny in the name of ‘men’s rights’. Indeed, as Connell and Messerschmidt remind us:

Men can dodge among multiple meanings according to their interactional needs. Men can adopt hegemonic masculinity when it is desirable; but the same men can distance themselves strategically from hegemonic masculinity at other moments. Consequently, ‘masculinity’ represents not a certain type of man but, rather, a way that men position themselves through discursive practices [14 18].

It follows, then, that the pro-gay yet anti-feminist discourses that Ging identifies demonstrate the ways in which Anderson’s ‘inclusive masculinities’ not only exclude women but can also be explicitly invested in uniting men – regardless of sexual orientation – in a bid to secure social privilege over women.

Certainly the ‘straight-acting’ homonormative paradigm of gay manhood is easily digestible to the mainstream and, in keeping with hetero-patriarchal hegemonic masculinity, will subscribe to normative lifestyle choices such as proclaimed monogamy, the creation of a family with children (either through adoption or a surrogate mother), home ownership, and the right to join the military, amongst other things. Here, then, is a model of gay manhood that seeks assimilation into normative structures as opposed to radical queer masculinities which look for liberation from capitalist systems of governance and their incumbent market-driven lifestyle paradigms. And while the assimilatory aspects of this gay manhood are no bad things in and of themselves, they become problematic when they become normative; by which I mean when these cultural codes and scripts are not only popularly understood but more so politically promulgated as the only way in which gay masculinity can and should operate in social and cultural time and space [19-23].

Just like hegemonic masculinity, homonormativity, over the last two decades, has evolved into an asymptotic identity and lifestyle drawn along class and ethnic lines and is thus achievable by none but the very few. In order to achieve homonormativity certain criteria must be met: elevated levels of disposable income; high-end housing and home-ownership; monogamous partnership (with some leeway for “playing together” in group settings); a gym-toned body with incumbent diet and fitness regimen; and the unspoken, open secret only revealed on gay hook up app profiles, recreational drug use. Most crucial for entry into current homonormativity, I would argue, is white affluence. Thus homonormativity, just like hetero hegemonic masculinity, proves an impossible goal for most gay and queer-identified men [23-28].

This leads me to argue, then, that the relationship between hegemonic masculinity and gay male identity has changed irrevocably on two levels. First, certain social performances of homonormative gay masculinity are now subsumed into or at least permitted to operate alongside hegemonic masculinity, particularly in virtual online spaces. Second, homonormativity now operates as the model for gay hegemonic masculinity, a hegemon within a hegemon. A hierarchy of socially acceptable gay male identities has emerged in Global North cultures,a hierarchy that is underwritten not only by this “good gays vs bad queers” binary but more so by a discourse of shame, both external and internal, directed at those queer subjects who cannot or will not subscribe to the codes and scripts of homonormative lifestyles and living. We can therefore now identify two discourses of queer shaming; homophobic shame which comes from a heterosexist society, and homonormative shame that radiates through the commercialized gay scene.

Global North queer content creators, particularly on social media, have turned their attention to critiquing the effects of homonormativity and its neoliberal economic policies and cultural practices on men who love and desire men. Whether this content interrogates the impact of homonormativity on out and proud gay men, or explore the lives of men whom, while they have sex with other men, for various reasons do not identify as “gay” in any conventional sense, all such content has two thing in common: First, it shines a light on the links between socio economic status, neoliberalism, and the almost impossible attainability of homonormative lifestyles. Second, it plays with – indeed, makes queer – the mediated form or genre within which they are working, be that narrative drama, social media appearances, or performed poetry and monologues [29-31].

What all this content make clear is that the media friendly term ‘LGBT community’ is not a community at all but rather a disparate, commercially driven, primarily metropolis-based cluster of venues and events in which radical queer masculinities are afforded no comfort – they do not fit into its spaces; or from which many men who have sex with men but do not identify as gay are excluded. Although able to access commercial gay venues, many are, for multitudinous reasons, shamed by their counterparts for not fitting into commercially acceptable and thus officially sanctioned paradigms of homonormativity. These undesirable queers, whether because of ill health, disability, ethnic identity, lack of disposable income, body shape, HIV-positivity, how they dress, unemployment, older age, or, most significantly, a politics that propels them to buck homonormative trends and perform their queerness against the commercial grain, experience this new form of queer-shaming [32,33].

Because this model of gay manhood is now part of normativity, brought into being primarily through consumership and in online and mediated spaces, it slots neatly into the already patriarchal structures of the State and shores up the neoliberal status quo. Moreover, as this essay has demonstrated, while many of these shifts in Global North hegemonic masculinity, including its tolerance of homonormative manhood, are inherently progressive, they are nonetheless underwritten by political and social practices of neoliberal capitalism. If we are to aspire to, indeed ever achieve, a truly egalitarian society and culture, it is crucial that we not just attend to but also learn from and thus critique and call out all of these recent, ostensibly ‘progressive’ shifts in Western manhood, both hegemonic and homonormative. By doing so, it is hoped, we can augment, advocate for, and further a nascent body of intersectional queer cultural content and scholarship: A corpus of vitally important content and scholarship that interrogates not just how both straight hegemonic masculinity and idealised ‘good gay’ homonormativity is performed by gendered subjects operating at the top of a social hierarchy, but also the ways in which masculine hegemony plays out across the bodies and lives of others, throughout all walks of cultural life.

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