Abstract
The complex relationships between linguistic expression, body, self, and emotions assume a central role in shaping the illness narratives of Israeli and American homosexual men who suffer from AIDS. Drawing on recent sociological work on the “dilemmatic” features of illness as a moral performance, the authors study forty “inspiration stories” published by Israeli and American virtual support centers to elucidate how notions of homosexual manhood take shape, as participants narrate their experience with a highly stigmatized disease. They show how narrators mobilized hegemonic imagery in ways that intentionally broke with their origin and created new contexts of speech. While Israeli narrators stressed the importance of fraternal friendship as a fundamental characteristic of their masculine identity, American narrators emphasized individual accomplishments. Hence, this study sheds light on the mutual effect of nationalistic and gendered ethos on the performance of personal life practices.
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