GS HIST 6050

A Man? A Boy? OrSomething In Between?

Reflections on the History ofMasculinity

Nelson Marques4/15/2013

Submitted To: Professor Rogers

Marques 1

Masculinity is a problem. As a word its task is to provide

an all-encompassing set of characteristics which allows the world

at large to determine, beyond the shadow of a doubt, what

constitutes a man. As a historical concept it is a virtual

minefield. Over the last twenty to twenty five years the study of

masculinity has been juxtaposed with feminist historiography. By

necessity it has adopted the language of feminism in order to

tease out the realities of male existence. The problem for the

history of masculinity is how to do this in terms that do not

discount the advances made in feminist historiography. For some

the danger in the history of masculinity, as part of the broader

history of gender, is its ability to abstract the realities of

sexual inequality. The idea of a specifically masculine history

is, and has been, seen as dangerous because of this.1 The

introduction of Gender as a uniquely analytic category attempts

to present the idea that representations of bodily difference can

give meaning to categories that are at once separate and

intertwined.2 Using this formulation masculinity becomes easy to

1 Karen Harvey, “The History of Masculinity, circa 1650-1800,” Journal of British Studies 44 ( April 2005), 296-3112Joan Scott, “Introduction,” in Gender and the Politics of History, ed. Joan Scott, 1-14(New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 2.

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define. To do this all that needs to happen is for a compilation

of the patterns of speech, patterns of behaviour, and

expectations of one sex and assign the opposite end of that

spectrum to the other sex.

If the opposite sex is removed from the equation then the

problem for masculinity, or femininity for that matter, becomes

crystallized. How does masculinity define itself? How do men

establish what it means to be a man? These questions have been

examined over and over again. These queries came to prominence in

1994 when John Tosh famously asked, “What should historians do

with masculinity?”3 The only apparent consensus to emerge from

the existing historiography is the emphasis on power as a

mediator of masculinity.4 Where the historiography diverges is on

the question of where exactly this power comes from. In other

words, when men enforce their own dominance on other men by what

authority do they exercise this power? What the historiography

appears to boil down to is the issue of whether masculinity is,

3John Tosh, “What Should Historians do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth Century Britain,” History Workshop Journal 38 (1994): 179-202.4Harvey, “History of Masculinity,” 297.

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at its core, an expression of social behaviour or a sexual

identity.5

This paper will argue that sexual identity underpins all

formulations of masculine identities. This is not to suggest that

there is a uniform conception of masculinity that spans all

manner of historical time, nor is to suggest that the social is

absent. Rather it suggests that periodic reformulations of

masculinity take their cue from what is expected of a man as a

sexual being. This sexual element is not as prominent as it

should be because of its inability to make itself as visible as

social interactions. The question asked by Tosh should not be the

first point of inquiry. That place should belong to questions

such as: What is masculinity? Can we see it? Is it tangible? By

understanding the universal nature of sexual identity masculinity

does in fact come forward as a subjective reality for men across

the historical time. However the taboo nature of sexual activity

makes the nature of sexuality much harder to see, precipitating

the prominence of social behaviour as birth place of masculinity

within the broader historiography. Ultimately this requires a

5Harvey, “History of Masculinity,” 301.

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full understanding of proper sexual conduct between men and women

and men and men. For it is in these preliminary interactions that

men can begin to navigate the social worlds in which they live.

The interactions are not exclusively internal and they are not

unique to any one period. These encounters are at the same time

inter- and intra sexual, they occur in homes, streets, and

countries throughout historical time. In this way even the spaces

in which men engage in their social dialogue are constructed by

the sexual codes of conduct these men have internalized.

Social behaviour came to dominate the field as it provided a

thorough and relatively simple explanation to a variety of

interactions between men of differing social classes. Ideas

concerning social behaviour take as their centre R.W. Connell’s

formulation of ‘hegemonic masculinity’.6 With this concept

Connell posited that only one idea of masculinity came to

dominate at any one time. Usually this was the ethos of the upper

middle classes, who would dominate the discourse on proper

masculinity.7 Other foundations of masculinity existed, but how6 R.W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).7Karen Harvey and Alexandra Shepard, “What have Historians done with Masculinity? Reflections on Five Centuries of British History, circa 1500-1950,” Journal of British Studies 44 ( April 2005), 274-280.

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tolerable they were depended exclusively on their distance from

the dominant form. Alexandra Shepard sees the makeup of social

identities the point of continuing change in masculinity. Over

the course of time what changes is how the qualifiers of

masculinity come to be arranged. No new qualifiers are added,

they are simply rearranged depending on what constitutes proper

sociability.8Shepard sees this rearranging as a product of new

discourse on social relations.9 The discursive process indicates

what is deviant and what is normative in forming masculinities in

the early modern world.10 As a result the model for masculine

social organization is exemplified in four variants of manhood.

Shepard classifies these as: Patriarchal Manhood, which is linked to

house holding status and marriage, Subordinated Manhood, which

exemplifies the unmarried bachelor or male servant, Antipatriarchal

Manhood, deliberate attempts to overthrow the patriarchal

imperative, and Alternative Manhood, which is independent but not

necessarily opposed to patriarchal imperatives.11Where Shepard

displays ingenuity is in the proposition of accessibility.8Alexandra Shepard, “From Anxious Patriarchs to Refined Gentlemen? Manhood in Britain. Circa 1500-1700,” Journal of British Studies 44 ( April 2005), 281-295.9Shepard, “From Anxious Patriarchs,” 292.10Ibid., 294.11Ibid., 291.

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Shepard wants to argue that multiple forms of masculinity existed

without much in the way of change. What changed across time was

the way different men gained, and lost, access to these forms of

masculinity and the benefits and disadvantages that came with

them.12 Where this change originates from is the social dialogue

that occurred between men between the years 1500-1700. What is

‘new’ is the discourse itself; the qualities which these men are

engaging with are ultimately the same throughout this period.13

Karen Harvey operates along similar lines in emphasizing the

dominance of social interaction in determining masculinity.

Unlike Shepard Harvey openly acknowledges the boundaries of the

debate in which she has situated herself. Harvey recognizes the

importance of certain assumptions about masculinity in regards to

their existence as sexual beings. However this is but a limited

understanding. Harvey’s recognition of sexuality rests solely on

her recognition of the ‘honour’ of men and its association to the

domination of wives, a feature of her formulation shared with

Shepard.14 The character, or rather the perceived character, of a12 Shepard, “From Anxious Patriarchs,” 281-282.13 Shepard, “From Anxious Patriarchs,” 292.14 Harvey, “A History of Masculinity,” 298; Shepard, “From Anxious Patriarchs,” 283

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woman as a wife and sexual being directly effects the ability of

a man to navigate his social world. While there is mention of the

image of a woman as a purely sexual being the notion does not

translate to her husband. The distinction between wife, mother,

sister and other extended family members is absent.15 As a result

Harvey situates men and women on the opposite sides of the

sexual-social debate. The end product of this distinction is the

examination of men in terms of normative social standards

independent of sexual norms. In a similar fashion to Shepard

Harvey identifies four phases of man to account for the impact

social dialogue had on masculinity: the household patriarch, the

libertine, the polite gentleman, and finally men who viewed

etiquette and domesticity as central. Harvey is seeking to move

the history of masculinity away from, “a cultural history of

masculinity to a social history of men.”16

What is striking about the nature of Sheppard’s’ and

Harvey’s’ formulation on dialogue is how close they come to

acknowledging the role of sexuality, before falling back on their

15 Ibid.,16 Harvey, “A History of Masculinity,” 305.

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initial propositions. While Shepard and Harvey both provide

similar, but ultimately differing, four point models on the

development of masculinity neither of them attempts to discern

the origins of their starting points. Sheppard’s Patriarchal

Manhood and the household Patriarch proposed by Harvey are

presented as fixed points in the historical spectrum rather than

concepts with their own distinct historical process. In both

cases the patriarch is presented as being defined by the nature

of his wife’s sexuality but never his own. Both Shepard and

Harvey both argue that a woman who was seen to be unstable

reflected poorly on her husband, as it would be interpreted that

he had no control over her person as is to be expected of a man.

What is not mentioned is the possibility that a man’s loss of

honour was associated because of his own performance as a sexual

being. The insatiability of a woman’s sexual desire is given in

both cases but is relegated to a matter of lesser importance,

giving way to a man’s presentation among his peers.

This becomes particularly problematic for Harvey as she

outlines her own timeline for the development of hegemonic

masculinities. In her article for the Journal of British Studies her

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stated aim, given quite bluntly in the opening pages, is to

highlight the disjunction between, “the man of 1650 and the man

of 1750.”17 The context for her discussion is the power relations

that men had to engage with on an everyday basis. She argues that

the patriarch has to be reformulated so as to lessen the

importance of female sexuality for the basis of male identity, a

sexuality which was notoriously precarious given their standing

as the lustier of the two sexes.18 As such the four eras of

masculinity postulated by Harvey are designed to remove men from

the sexual nature of the home and wife. The first two represent

the transition phase where the sexual basis of identity was more

evident in the historiography.19 The transition from these

earlier phases to the phases of the polite gentleman and the man

who is defined by domesticity are signalled by the transition

away from sexual based notions. This newer formulation of

masculinity is noted, above all else, by his determination to

demonstrate his self-government. This self-government was

exemplified by his restraint, or his lax of sex, as opposed to

17Harvey, “History of Masculinity,” 297.18Ibid., 299.19Harvey, “History of Masculinity,” 301.

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the emotional impulsiveness of the fop.20 The self-restraint

displayed by the new gentleman had important social consequences.

This is indicative first and foremost by his social interaction

with women. When it came to these setting men would adjust their

language so as to not offend women21, who mysteriously still

retain their status as the emotionally charged sex in Harvey’s

model.

While not arguing the validity of Harvey’s work on the

nature of social interaction I would instead suggest that this

new realm of politeness began first in the minds of men who

decided to break with sexual norms of previous generations. It is

hard to imagine this new realm taking shape if expectations of

men as sexual beings did not change during the eighteenth

century. A lack of sex is still an acknowledgement on sex itself,

is it not? As Harvey herself has stated, politeness emerged as a

result of men shifting the boundaries of what is sexually

permissible among them. What resulted is the forging of a new

social sphere by which they could easily insert themselves as the

20Ibid.21Ibid., 302.

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dominant force. This is a very easy conclusion to draw, and it

coalesces easily with Connell’s formulation of hegemonic

masculinities. Harvey draws on the formulation of the two sex

model of being as a development of the social importance of

masculinity. This is confusing since the two sex model is a

concept with rests first and foremost with characterizations on

sexuality or lack thereof. Harvey characterizes the two sex model

as one which placed women as sexual passive and refined beings.

Yet this did not give men free reign to resume the activities of

their forbears. Hegemonic masculinity was secured by way of this

two sex model as it dictated two things as universal constants:

the refined passivity of women and the rejection of men who

engaged in illicit sexual acts such as masturbation and sex with

other men.22 This two sex model was later anchored in a growing

corpus of medical and scientific literature which fixed gender as

a binary,23 as a social consequence this binary had no perceived

middle ground in the eyes of men who occupied the dominant

position.

22Harvey, “History of Masculinity,” 305.23Ibid., 306.

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This position raises the same question as before: namely how

can this social, and to a certain extent scientific, formulations

come to be without exhaustive attention to men and women as

sexual beings. If we are to pay closer attention to social

spheres and interactions between them, as Harvey demands,24 where

do we start if not the purely sexual? Harvey herself articulated

the need to understand males as sexual beings both in their

representation and in the actuality of their experience.25

Specifically Harvey has examined the way the penis was used

constantly as representation in erotic literature and art and

argued quite effectively that it is, “on to these body parts that

concerns about masculinity in wider cultural, social, economic,

and political contexts were projected.”26 Moreover, her

formulation of masculine history in the Journal of British Studies does

not hold with her later conceptualization, in the same piece, of

the duality of male experience. This is an experience whereby

manhood and masculinity are separate entities: masculinity being

the internalized, and highly personal, formulations of the self24Ibid., 307.25Karen Harvey, “‘The Majesty of the Male Form’: Multiplicity and Male Bodies in Eighteenth Century Erotica” in English Masculinities, eds. Tim Hitchcock and Michele Cohen, 193-214 (New York: Longman, 1999), 196.26Harvey, “The Majesty of the Male Form,” 197.

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within each man. Manhood by contrast is rooted in the sense of

honour each man held, or was supposed to hold, in the eyes of his

peers. The former could be lost in the eyes of a man’s peers,

while the later stayed with him.27 Manhood came to be defined in

later in the eighteenth century by sensibility. In its most basic

form sensibility appears as an evolved state of politeness. It

was a form of refinement, heightened so as to forge more concrete

links between inner virtue and outer manners.28

Harvey and Shepard have come to these formulations of

masculinity, but it is clear that they have very little interest

in masculinity, at least on an individual sense. The ideas

presented by both historians have a particular bend to them. What

they have presented as masculinity is not a narrative of how

masculinity came to be identified as a specific gender. Instead

it is a very well crafted insight into the real world

consequences or behaviours of men throughout the early modern

period. These characterizations are collective in nature, seeking

to tease out the finer points of how specialized groups lived and

27Harvey, “History of Masculinity,” 303.28 Ibid., 304.

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interacted with their wider worlds. The conclusions offered by

Shepard and Harvey are generalized and abstracted, leaving little

room for the experience of the individual and the even murkier

realm of one on one contact. More pressing is the matter of

unresolved sexual identity. Before a man is gentleman, a weaver,

or a husband he is a man and must make sense of himself

accordingly. That Harvey and Shepard miss this point is in one

sense deliberate. Harvey herself notes astutely that historians

have identified several different ‘men’ as a result of the places

in which these men are sought and the questions that are asked of

them.29 Shepard is herself a student of the social interactions

among men, her concern is not with the origins of defined

boundaries of masculinities. Instead she prefers to outline the

ways in which manhood and patriarchy are distinct concepts.

Shepard is concerned with the way patriarchy created a world in

which women as well as other men were disciplined according to

standards of the external manhood discussed above. Manhood was

dangerous to patriarchy as it represented a threat to the order

of things. The many external representations of manhood take

29 Ibid., 311.

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their cues from age, marital status, and context.30 Her aims in

previous publications have been to establish the differences

within each gender as a method of establishing the plurality of

experience within. From this starting point the extent to which

patriarchy granted power and privilege to each sex can be readily

determined. Ultimately the grand question is whether status or

identity eclipsed the notion of gender in the struggle for access

to networks of power. 31

Power relations identify a central theme in the

historiography of masculinity. Certainly it is an organizing

principle around which Tosh, Shepard, Harvey, and Cohen have

constructed their own histories.32 These are the histories that

have traces of Michel Foucault in them. Foucault famously stated

that sexual identity was not only a modern invention but one

which dictated the power relations between the individual and the

state.33 While some historians have avoided adhering to Foucault

30 Alexandra Shepard, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 1.31 Ibid., 2-4.32 See special issue of the Journal of British Studies 44 (April 2005) in which are published the papers from a special colloquium on masculinity held at the university of Sussex.33 Michel Foucault, A History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 5-8.

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verbatim, his influence is easy to be seen. More apparent is the

influence of Joan Scott. Scott provides a majority of the

intellectual backing for the social construction of masculinity.

Scott’s definition of Gender is clear, but at the same time it is

ambivalent enough to be easily exchanged between male and female

constructions. For Scott Gender represents both a constitutive

element of social relations and is a primary way of signifying

power relations.34 In these formulations what appears to be

missing is extensive empirical evidence. Examination of social

forms of manhood tends to lead to a focus on the importance of

language and cultural representations of the social.35

While honour and the language it entailed are certainly

valuable insights into social reality the language available to

individuals and groups must be determined by their sexual

identity. In describing sexuality towards feminism Catherine

Mackinnon wrote, “Sexuality is to feminism what work is to

Marxism . . . Sexual objectification is the primary process of

34 Joan Scott, “Gender as a Useful Category of Analysis,” in Gender and the Politics of History ed. Joan Scott, 28-52 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 42.35 Michele Cohen, “‘Manners’ Make the Man: Politeness, Chivalry, and the Construction of Masculinity, 1750-1830,” Journal of British Studies 44 (April 2005), 312-329; Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, Introduction.

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the subjection of women. It unites act with word, construction

with expression, perception with enforcement, myth with reality.

Man fucks woman; subject verb object.”36 A modified version of

this approach for masculinity would read: ‘Man fucks X’. This

variable determines the nature of the man’s life, his discourse

and his own personal sense of masculinity.

Randolph Trumbach has outlined this process with remarkable

clarity through his examination of the nature of homosexuality

and how men identified, and came to be identified, as a result of

their same sex encounters. This field became inclusive as a whole

manner of sexual acts came to be identified as perverse and

unworthy of a proper man. These acts included, but were not

limited to: whore mongering, masturbation, and the viewing of

erotic literature.37 Where Trumbach succeeds is in his

recognition and demonstration of the fact that the social

standing of men was determined by the sexuality. The existence of

honour and codes of conduct are not denied but rather take a back

seat to how men navigated their world as sexual beings. Much like36 Catherine Mackinnon, “Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory,” Signs 7, no.3 (1982):515-544.37 Randolph Trumbach, Sex and The Gender Revolution Volume One: Homosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 49.

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Shepard38 he examines the use of courts as a means for mean to

protect their reputation against allegations of sexual

impropriety. The stress here is on continuity, this is an aspect

that did not change much from the seventeenth century to the

eighteenth.39 The weapon of choice in socializing a man’s sexual

appetites was gossip. Trumbach writes, “Gossip about a man’s

actual sexual misbehaviour could circulate in a neighbourhood for

some time until some conflict made gossip a convenient weapon

against a neighbour.”40

The temptation is to see such communal dealings as bearing a

simplistic cause and effect nature. The reality presents a more

complex scenario. The acts of sexual impropriety in which men

engaged were not one off. That is too say they were not the

result of drunken courage or curiosity but carefully chosen so as

to ensure discretion. In dealing with whores or other men the

sexually perverse had to keep their own relations firmly in the

back of their minds. They still had to deal with those regarded

as ‘respectable’ on a daily basis. As such accusations of going

38 Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, Ch. 639 Trumbach, Sex and the Gender Revolution, 49.40 Ibid., 51.

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to whores were sure to damage the social networks men counted on

for so much in their lives.41 Beginning in the eighteenth century

there was an abrupt change as to the priority of sexual

accusations. By the middle of the century more traditional

slander suits, in which men were accused of going to whores,

ceased to be as important as they were. By 1730 accusations of

whore mongering instead came to be seen as an impromptu badge of

honour among men. Trumbach identifies the shift as being the

product of a new obsession with heterosexuality. Trumbach

highlights the honour of a man became exclusive to his claims of

heterosexual life.42 What are especially interesting are the

instances in which homosexuality becomes a weapon of choice for

neighbourhood slander. In Trumbach’s examples of the social uses

of sexual knowledge a man blackmails one of his fellows

repeatedly over several months. The victim is unable to do

anything at first and vacillates while mulling his options.

Eventually he seeks the help of friends and a lawyer, when asked

why he had not come forward sooner he replies, “My fear was of my

41 Ibid., 5342 Ibid., 55.

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character.”43 The social networks and inner mechanisms of

masculine power have taken a back seat. Before these networks can

be accessed or even approached each individual man must take the

first step in situating himself as a sexual entity. He may choose

one mode of sexuality or choose from a variety of sexualities

available to him simultaneously. If he chooses the latter a man

takes a very calculated risk of exposure and the loss of status

among his peers.

The gender roles doled out to men and women in the early

modern period accepted at face value the link between these roles

and sexual desire. Beginning in England in the eighteenth century

the new roles for men assumed that, above all else, men desired

women exclusively and that masculine behaviour must emerge from

this desire alone.44 This new trend emerged against the grain of

traditional sexual assumptions for men in the early modern

period. In earlier periods men were more likely to have relations

with women as well as other men.45 Previous wisdom had dictated

43 Ibid., 55-56.44 Randolph Trumbach, “Sex, Gender, and Sexual Identity in Modern Culture: Male Sodomy and Female Prostitution in Enlightenment London,” Journal of the Historyof Sexuality 2, no. 2 (1991), 186-203.45 Ibid., 188.

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this was socially, if not wholly legally, permissible as it

presented no readily apparent threat to gender identities.

Persons engaging in sexual activity within their own gender were

naturally assumed to be attracted to the opposite gender at the

same time. There was no fear that they might reject the opposite

sex in favour of their own. As such sexual acts within gender

were not thought of as detracting from a person’s standing as

masculine or feminine.46 Male on male encounters were not

exclusive to England nor were they as freewheeling as encounters

with prostitutes might be. There was a structure to the ways in

which men would engage sexually with other men. This structure

was primarily concerned with relations between older men and

younger, adolescent, boys. In Italy it was common custom for

younger men to enter into sexual relations with much older men as

part of a coming of age process. This was a part of their life

which was known as the gioventu.47 During this time, typically from

the ages of 13 – 19 or whenever a young man was deemed too old to

partake, young boys would allow themselves to be courted by older

46 Ibid., 192.47 Guido Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love: Sex, Self, and Society in the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2007), 25-28.

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men who had not married. Though this process seems relatively

accepting of sexual relations between males it was in fact quite

dangerous for both parties. Charges of sodomy could still be

implemented if it was felt by the wider community that the older

man was too enthusiastic in his search for young boys or if the

boy himself was not progressing along the proscribed path. The

idea was for the gioventu to serve as a process of self discovery

whereby the young boys would learn that their true calling was in

fact to find a wife and start a family.48

Sexual encounters between grown men and young boys seem to

be the dividing line between what is characterized as proper male

behaviour and what is perverse. Traditional practices dictated

that, while a young boy was permitted to engage in these sexual

activities with older men, by the age of seventeen the sexuality

of a man was to be firmly in place and beyond the shadow of a

doubt.49 In London a man engaging in such behaviour after 1750

was almost certainly to be cast out of all social groups with

access to power by the new aristocratic men who desired only

48 Ibid.49 Trumbach, Sex and the Gender Revolution, 61.

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women, that is should they be discovered.50 In England the

Restoration appeared to herald the end of acceptance for this

practice. The aristocratic men who lived between the years 1660-

1700 seem to be the last to enjoy the privilege of sexual contact

with young males unimpeded.51 Just how far back this tradition

extends in the English context is uncertain. In Italy this

tradition is one with roots at least as far back as the early

Renaissance period, as Guido Ruggiero has demonstrated.52 What is

uncertain at this point is the extent to which men led double

lives; if and how often men who characterized themselves as

purely heterosexual engaged in illicit homosexual behaviour while

simultaneously castigating those who had done the same and been

caught. There may well never be any accurate way of investigating

such a proposition but it would certainly cast doubt onto the

perceived divide between the new polite society and the perverse

underworld of illicit sex.

The new consciousness towards homosexual behaviour appeared

to be frightened by the ambiguity homosexuals represented in

50 Trumbach, “Sex, Gender, and Sexual Identity,” 188.51 Ibid., 189.52 Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love, Ch.1.

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terms of gender relations. During the early decades of the

eighteenth century there was a campaign initiated under the

auspices of the Societies for the Reformation of Manners to

combat sodomy among the London poor. Not just any sodomy, their

target was a new kind of ‘effeminate’ sodomy which they saw as an

emergent threat to social well being. This campaign was in a way

terrified of this kind of behaviour precisely because it did not

conform to normative gender roles of the time. Sodomites did not

fit because they were neither male nor female in the traditional

sense. Instead they occupied a middle ground, or a third gender

category, that selected and harmonized characteristics of both

groups.53 The charge of effeminacy came from the perceived sexual

passivity associated with sodomites. Sodomites were strictly

viewed as the receivers of sexual acts whereas the

(traditionally) older males were ‘givers’.54 As such sodomites

are the unnatural imitators of women in the act of sex. Due to

this perception of active and passive sodomites were seen to

embody the hallmarks of effeminacy that set them apart from true53 Trumbach, “Sex, Gender, and Sexual Identity,” 189.54 Randolph Trumbach, “The Birth of the Queen: Sodomy and the Emergence of Gender Equality in Modern Culture, 1660-1750,” in Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, eds. Martin Bauml Duberman, Martha Vicinus, George Chauncey Jr, 129-140 (New York: New American Library, 1989), 129.

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masculine behaviour. Once this concept of effeminacy took root in

popular culture sexual passivity was no longer accepted as a

representation of any time period in a man’s life. This

passiveness would rob a man of his masculine status and mark him

as an outcast. Men engaging in sodomy thus had to be cautious to

not display any perceived signs of effeminacy overtly. Some men,

however, were unable to do so and ended up displaying

‘effeminate’ characteristics in public, marking them as sodomites

and damaging their reputation.55

Fear of effeminacy permeated all aspects of thought

concerning masculine behaviour during the eighteenth century. As

Michele Cohen as argued, politeness gave way to chivalry in part

because aspects of proper ‘polite’ conduct took away from

masculinity.56 One troubling aspect of politeness was the

function of women within this code of conduct. In order to

properly fashion themselves as polite men had to learn to

converse with and around women. This meant toning down harsh

language into refined speech fit for the ears of a woman.55 Trumbach, “Sex, Gender, and Sexual Identity,” 189-190.56 Michele Cohen, “‘Manners’ make the Man: Politeness, Chivalry, and the Construction of Masculinity, 1750-1830,” Journal of British Studies 44 (2005): 312-329.

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However, the danger, which soon became apparent, was that by

spending too much time with women men would quickly lose their

intrinsic masculinity and adopt the qualities of a woman.57 Cohen

writes that such fears led to a revaluation of the ways in which

young men were educated during the eighteenth and early

nineteenth centuries. The traditional grand tour, an exclusive

privilege of the wealthy, was seen as a danger. The grand tour

typically took young boys to France, in order to learn from the

most refined society in all of Europe, and Italy so that young

men could take in the classics. A complete rejection of this

educational model came to be presented on the grounds that it

produced individuals who were robbed of their “manly English

character.”58 This rhetoric was implicitly nationalistic,

designed to cast non English as being less masculine. Customs

from abroad were associated with effeminacy and quickly

abandoned. An example would be the custom of men kissing each

other on the cheek which became suspect around the middle of the

eighteenth century. It became suspicious as it was the product of

Italian culture, serving as a first indication of a path leading

57 Cohen, 322.58 Ibid.

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towards sodomy, Italy being perceived as, “the mother and nurse

of sodomy.”59

Despite the place accorded to men derided as effeminate and

the circumscribed nature of sexual activity the sodomite had a

very important role to play. Karen Harvey has noted the

development of the two sex model and its importance in

establishing codes of conduct for the new hegemonic masculinity.

However Harvey, unlike Trumbach, neglects the differences between

subaltern forms of sexuality. Trumbach writes that the sodomite,

under this system, had to accept a Third gender role that was

neither wholly man nor wholly female. The female prostitute could

regain entry into the general population of women. The sodomite

was afforded no such route to social redemption. The sodomite,

through his desire for men, ensured a permanent divide between

the sexes.60 In an age concerned with growing femininity the

sodomite acted as a permanent antithesis to proper masculinity

that ensured the survival of the two sex model.61 That is to say

the sodomite made the line between sexes clearer, rather than

59 Trumbach, “The Birth of the Queen,” 134.60 Trumbach, “Sex, Gender, and Sexual Identity,” 19361 Ibid., 203.

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blurring them. A man could fall from social status and climb the

ladder a second time provided that he did not engage in sodomy or

was accused of such behaviour, which would be his permanent

undoing. This social ostracism was not one way; Trumbach

suggests that it may even have been initiated by these men, who

came to view themselves as a kind of outcast group of women.62

In dealing with the reactions of the broader society what is

clear is that masculinity derives in large part from sexual

nature both real and imagined. The differences between competing

forms of masculinity are not as apparent as the continuities in

masculine behaviour across the early modern period. Shepard noted

that that a great deal of the components that made up masculinity

remained constant. What had changed was the way these components

became configured to provide a broad spectrum of male

identities.63 Some of these continuities in behaviour would later

be characterized as effeminate and used to shun men who had taken

part. Case in point is the distinction between male friendship

and sodomy. As Alan Bray has written, many of the qualities that

62 Trumbach, “The Birth of the Queen,” 137.63 Shepard, “From Anxious Patriarchs,” 292.

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defined aspects of male friendship in Elizabethan England were

simultaneously used as markers to identify sodomy.64 What

separated the two characterizations was no more than a simple

matter of context. Bray noted sodomy was not only a matter of

sexuality but a matter or religion and politics as well. As such

a carefully worded text could suggest sodomy where there was only

friendship.65

Effeminacy came to encompass many activities and gestures

that had been readily acceptable forms of male behaviour. In the

early 1660’s and 1670’s the male libertine was held up in awe for

his ability to triumph over characterizations of male and female.

Throughout this period, however, there is no trace of the purely

effeminate sodomite. The man who encapsulated the qualities of

the third gender is nowhere to be found amongst this classical

age of libertinism. Even the famous ‘fop’, who came to be

associated with effeminacy, and by extension sodomy, appears much

earlier than the eighteenth century. What must be remembered is

that the fop was not associated with sodomy before the 1690’s.

64 Alan Bray, “Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England,” History Workshop Journal, 29 (1990): 1-19.65 Ibid., 13.

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That association occurred only with the introduction of the

‘Beau’ as a sexualized character, which allowed sodomy to become

the exclusive purview of the fop.66 The behaviour need not only

be sexual, during the course of the seventeenth and early

eighteenth centuries the practice of young men cross dressing for

theatre performances was phased out due to this fear of

effeminacy.67 The cultural discourse surrounding familiar styles

of behaviour, not necessarily sexual in nature, becomes crucial

in this sense for determining which way perceptions about what is

and is not masculine might turn.

A central feature of this cultural discourse concerns not so

much the men so much as the spaces in which they operate. Where a

man operated or where he was seen to be operating was an

important feature in how opinions were formed regarding his

sexual activity. That is to say men had to be careful of not only

who they were with but where they were. Concerning Renaissance

Italy Guido Ruggiero writes how the behaviour of a man was likely

to change relative to his physical space. In describing the

66 Trumbach, “The Birth of the Queen,” 133-135.67 Ibid., 139-140.

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events concerning one of Machiavelli’s letters Ruggiero guides us

through the process of how one of his friends engaged in the act

of courting a young male prostitute. What is interesting is that

that the man in question was very careful to distance himself

from such behaviour in Rome yet was eager to go ‘hunting for

birds’, using the distinct sexualized language of male whore

hunting, once returned to Florence. Even more striking is that

the man in question adopted the name of his close friend, a man

known to engage with young boys, in order to be more easily

accepted while walking that street of ill repute.68 This example

is highly illustrative of the social and cultural mapping of

early modern cities. It is assumed that men would know where to

find sex of both kinds through word of mouth or simple

association with surrounding areas. The highlight of Ruggiero’s

example is the adoption of a pseudonym in order to enter into

this world of intimate male encounters. What this suggests is

that process of identification of sodomites was internal as well

as external. Sodomites may well have been a small enough

community that knowledge of their fellows may have been common

68 Ruggiero, Machiavelli In Love, 98-104.

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enough so as to make sure they would not engage with a man

hostile to their behaviour.

This kind of sexualized urban planning was not unique to

Italy nor was it unique to sodomites. In London sodomite

communities constructed their own physical spaces around brothels

and taverns and dubbed themselves ‘mollies’,69 though sexualized

spaces did not have to be as obvious as a tavern or other blatant

physical structures. Moreover the sodomy itself did not have to

real. The connection between certain places and acts of sodomy

were enough at times to bring charges of Sodomy against a man.

Trumbach demonstrated how men could be victimized by accusations

of sodomy simply by walking through places such as St. James’s

Park or Ludgate Hill.70 In the eighteenth century heterosexual,

mostly aristocratic men, forged for themselves new places of

masculinity such as the coffeehouse.71 As John Tosh has noted the

development of separate spheres was crucial to implementation of

the two sex model. It was crucial as one of the differences it

69 Trumbach, “The Birth of the Queen,” 137.70 Trumbach, Sex and the Gender Revolution, 55-57.71 Harvey, “The History of Masculinity,” 309

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stressed was in rationality versus emotionality.72 Moreover older

places were refashioned so as to serve as protectors of older

masculinity. The concept of household authority continued to be

an enduring force in the formation of masculine identities at the

expense of other forms such as arms bearing.73

This paper has sought to identify the importance of

approaching masculinity first and foremost as a sexual identity.

Approaching masculinity this seeks to bring sexuality to the

forefront of the discussion. It has been nearly twenty years

since John Tosh asked what should be done with Masculinity. Tosh

approached masculinity primarily as a social identity.74 In doing

so he highlighted, indirectly it must be said, the difficulties

with such an approach. Seeking to pin down what it means to be a

man by way of the social interactions between men is nearly

impossible. As Tosh himself notes, in one of the first

adaptations of Connell’s theory, the problem with any form of

hegemony is that it is inherently unstable.75 Connell and Shepard

72 John Tosh, “The Old Adam and the New Man: Emerging Themes in the History ofEnglish Masculinities, 1750-1850,” in English Masculinities, eds. Tim Hitchcock andMichele Cohen, 217-238(New York: Longman, 1999), 221-22673 Tosh, “The Old Adam,” 222.74 Tosh, “What should Historians do With Masculinity?” 19875 Ibid., 193

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have recognized this over the years. In order to account for this

instability a variety of terms and formulations have come forth

in order to make some sense of it all, thus we receive words such

as manliness, patriarchy, domination, authority and the ever

popular internal – external juxtaposition of male identities.

Stepping back from the realm of social interactions allows an

unfiltered view of masculinity yet it must be done without the

restraints of any particular period. The proscriptions of the

social and the reality of male experience often undermine ideas

of masculinity as a social identity. Looking at contemporary

discourses on masculinity it becomes apparent that sexuality is

nowhere to be found.76 The lack of sex or the call to master

sexual impulses in proscriptive literature indicates that there

was a universal acknowledgment that sex is a fundamental element

to masculine identities. This is also an acknowledgement that

eliminating sexuality is not an option, rather is must be

controlled or circumscribed. This is where the social comes into

the forefront of masculine identity. The tendency throughout most

76 Ibid., 182-183.

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of the historiography is to approach masculinity as something to

be earned.

John Tosh and others have followed the formulations of

Michelle Rosaldo in articulating masculinity as something to be

achieved, something that the boy is born without and can only

achieve with the acceptance of his peers.77 This starting point

has led to emphasis on the home, the workplace, and other

institutions within the public sphere (coffeehouses, all male

associations, pubs, etc) as places where men go to earn their

masculinity. Such an approach undermines the reality of male

experience. Masculinity is defined by its sexual nature as much

as femininity, that is too say men are born with a sense of

themselves as sexual beings. The amount of ways men and women can

interact socially is virtually infinite, the same cannot be said

of them sexually. Men can engage sexually either with other men

or with other women. They internalize this aspect of their

sexuality and carry it forward throughout their lives. Men enter

into the public sphere not to earn their masculinity but to earn

acceptance of the masculinity they bring with them. The work of

77 Ibid., 184.

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Randolph Trumbach and Aland Bray on homosexual behaviour has

demonstrated that what changes is not the sexuality of a man but

rather how his sexuality will be perceived in the public sphere.

This is admittedly a longue durée approach but it is easily

adaptable. To understand the rise and fall of various

incarnations of masculinity requires an understanding of

contemporary attitudes towards sexuality, both mainstream and

subaltern.

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