"I'M NOT ASKING WHAT I CAN'T GIVE": SIMMETRIC MASCULINITY IN VIRTUAL HOMOEROTICISM

Abstract

The article is about the representations of the male homoerotic practices among users of two virtual environments: the UOL chat rooms and the social network Manhunt. We can perceive a tension between a model based on the heterosexual matrix, that aligns top to male and bottom to female and another that seeks to affirm masculinity, regardless of sexual position, trying to erase the effeminacy of whom holds the bottom position in sex. However, interviews with some of the users and personal experiences, as well as postings of the participants in which they debate the homoerotic online market, demonstrate how the classifications game is situational and oscillating: my point is that speech transit on the network and in "real" life does not allow us to plaster the categories; the performativities unfolding in the virtual world are always incomplete and open to breaks and displacements.

homoeroticism; performativity; masculinity; chismogenesis; internet