The male body politic: Straight strippers, gay spaces, and queer masculinities

Studies of women and gender relations promoted by feminist movements have had a steady progress, which has allowed recognizing many of the phenomena, characteristics and experiences of women, while studies of men have been late and narrowly limited themselves to studies on violence as a characteristic of masculinity. However, it is essential to recognize how masculinities are constructed, and explore their changes and the social mechanisms that give them continuity. It is necessary to examine them, map them, recognize their diversity and identify the practices that favor both their continuity and as their change. Recognizing different forms used to materialize them, reproduce them and inscribe them performatively in the bodies of men will allow us to point out those guidelines that support the success of public policies that promote equality between women, men, girls and boys, as well as the eradication of gender violence. In an effort to learn about an example of diverse masculinities, I conducted postdoctoral research among heterosexual men who strip for other men (strippers), I wanted to know how masculinities conform in environments that favor the overturning of patriarchal practices and that contravene heteronormativity.