And it does happen in the classrooms quite often, especially when there is a sub present, because the kids tend to think that because I’m not the regular teacher, the regular standards of behavior don’t apply. This basically means that I tend to have to deal with a lot more discipline issues and a lot more of this kind of behavior than the regular teachers to. Quite frankly, it’s depressing and I’m not really sure how to address it other than the general discipline referral/sending the kid out/letting them know that I won’t tolerate that kind of behavior route because I’m typically not around long enough to form anything other than a casual relationship with the kids where I could help them to find other, more constructive ways to deal with this kind of pressure.

Your book fills an important niche, and I’m recommending it far and wide.

Hurrah for being back at Cal. Not that Tacoma doesn’t have its charms, I’m sure.

First, let me say thank you Hugo for such a generous and insightful review. It’s always a heartwarming moment for me when I read a review and see my thoughts summed up and rephrased in a much more elegant way! Thank you for taking the time and the care to do so, Hugh. I’m very honored.

I’m grateful that I was able to communicate clearly about the toll I saw the “fag discourse” and “compulsive heterosexuality” take on teenage girls. I didn’t want to repeat the “boys-as-victims” discourse I had seen gaining momentum over the past decade. Indeed, my data indicated that while boys did suffer from the fag discourse, many of them gained social status by engaging in it. Girls could not trade on “compulsive heterosexuality” and the “fag discourse” in the same way. Many (though certainly not all) boys were able to jockey for dominance by engaging in heterosexist and homophobic practices.

That said, boys also suffer. It’s not a zero sum game. In other words I don’t want to pit boys versus girls in terms of who gets victimized more. All of our youth suffer to the extent that we continue to define masculinity based on these practices of repudiation weakness and incompetence and confirmation of sexualized dominance. I think Ricky’s story (bless him) indicates how boys (especially gender variant or gay boys) can be tormented mercilessly. Indeed the fact that 90% of random school shootings over the past 15 years involved boys who were relentlessly teased for being fags or gay (See Michael Kimmel’s fabulous analysis of this) shows how much boys do suffer from these insults.

An apology about the jargon: alas, we sociologists have to speak in the language of our trade. I tried to strike a balance such that academics and parents/teachers etc could all enjoy the book. And one final note, my institutional affiliation has changed. I’m actually at the Institute for the Study of Social Change at UC Berkeley.

Thank you again for the review.

In some respects, one could view gay men as exhibiting even more potential for pure social masculinity than straight men.

Unlike straight men, who generally want to associate with women to form relationships (or at least to have sex with partners of their chosen gender), gay men don’t have the same desire. In principle, therefore, gay men can form an isolated, woman-free subculture and peer group.

Many of the most iconic and enduring images of gay male culture are also exaggerated in their level of masculine sexuality - think Tom of Finland, for example.