Embodying the Double-Bind of Masculinity: Young Men and Discourses of Normalcy, Health, Heterosexuality, and Individualism

Abstract

Using a poststructural framework, this article critically examines how young men (13—15 years) actively fashion embodied masculine subjectivities by taking up available subject positions within discourse. The study employed semistructured focus groups and interviews with thirty-two participants from two locations in a large urban Canadian city. It is argued that young men are confronted with competing discourses of masculinity where they are simultaneously incited to work on and transform their bodies into culturally recognizable ideals, while at the same time remaining distant and aloof to the size, shape, and appearance of their bodies. Resolving this double-bind of masculinity, it is argued, remains a central task of reproducing the privileges of masculinity. This study demonstrated that young men take up, deploy, and perform discourses of normalcy, healthy active living, heterosexuality, and individualism as technologies of the self in negotiating the double-bind of masculinity. This study extends our knowledge base on the embodied experiences of young men.