Male Bodies

Revealing Male Bodies is the first scholarly collection to directly confront male lived experience. There has been an explosion of work in men's studies, masculinity issues, and male sexuality, in addition to a growing literature exploring female embodiment. Missing from the current literature, however, is a sustained analysis of the phenomenology of male-gendered bodies. Revealing Male Bodies addresses this omission by examining how male bodies are physically and experientially constituted by the economic, theoretical, and social practices in which men are immersed. Contributors include Susan Bordo, William Cowling, Terry Goldie, Maurice Hamington, Don Ihde, Greg Johnson, Björn Krondorfer, Alphonso Lingis, Patrick McGann, Paul McIlvenny, Terrance MacMullan, Jim Perkinson, Steven P. Schacht, Richard Schmitt, Nancy Tuana, Craig L. Wilkins, and John Zuern.

Get a detailed look at the Thai sex/gender system—through analysis of the personal stories from transgendered youth in Thailand The Thai term sao braphet song (a “second type of woman”) describes males who reject the gender of masculinity for femininity. Male Bodies, Women’s Souls: Personal Narratives of Thailand’s Transgendered Youth uses the narrative method, stories in the words of these “second type of women” to analyze these transgendered experiences. This previously ignored perspective of the Thai sex/gender system gained through this theoretical and methodological approach offers students and general readers a rich, more readily accessible foundation of knowledge about gendered subjectivity and sex/gender systems. Male Bodies, Women’s Souls: Personal Narratives of Thailand’s Transgendered Youth features in-depth, autobiographical life histories from individual Thai transgendered youth. Life stories, told in the participants’ own words, provides an engaging, at times touching, always insightful look at Thai culture’s sex/gender system. The authors then expertly analyze the narratives to illuminate common themes and constructions within this group, allowing an opportunity for contrast and discussion on transgender experiences in other nations. Male Bodies, Women’s Souls: Personal Narratives of Thailand’s Transgendered Youth analyzes the major themes in the stories, including: identities definitions and descriptive labels etiologies of sao braphet song-ness the notion of acceptance narrator motivations for participating in the project Male Bodies, Women’s Souls: Personal Narratives of Thailand’s Transgendered Youth is illuminating, reflective reading for educators, undergraduate students, graduate students, researchers, or anyone interested in discovering more about transgenderism in a specific cultural context.

Poets, anthropologists, philosophers, artists, sociologists, and others provide perspectives on the male body.

There are few topics in sex research as compelling and confounding to researchers, clinicians, and the general public as that of transsexualism. Upending normative notions of gender, eroticism, and identity, it poses significant scientific and clinical challenges. The book addresses a fascinating and largely unexplored topic within the study of transsexualism: The feelings and desires of conventionally masculine men who are attracted to women yet want to become women themselves. Through a collection and discussion of vivid first-person narratives, the book provides an in-depth examination of these men's unusual propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of themselves as women and how these men's sexual feelings influence their decisions to seek or undergo sex reassignment. These narratives about autogynephilia by autogynephilic male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals provide the first comprehensive documentation of the erotic ideation that underlies the most common form of MtF transsexualism. The narratives provide empirical evidence for Blanchard's theory of MtF transsexual motivation, and thus are of interest to researchers and theorists studying the phenomenology of MtF transsexualism. The narratives are likely to be eye-opening to psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians, and other professionals who work with MtF transsexuals: Most clinicians probably do not fully appreciate the erotic underpinnings of their clients' condition. A better understanding of their clients' autogynephilic feelings and motivations would enable these professionals to provide more empathetic and effective clinical care.

Work That Body: Male Bodies in Digital Culture explores the recent rise in different types of men using digital media to sexualise their bodies. It argues that the male body has become a key site in contemporary culture where neoliberalism’s hegemony has been both secured and contested since 2008. It does this by looking at four different case studies: the celebrity male nude leak; the rise of young men sharing images of their muscular bodies on social media; RuPaul's Drag Race body transformational tutorial, and the rise of chemsex. It finds that on the one hand digital media has enabled men to transform their bodies into tools of value-creation in economic contexts where the historical means they have relied on to create value have diminished. On the other it has also allowed them to use their bodies to form intimate collective bonds during a moment when competitive individualism continued to be the privileged mode of being in the world. It therefore offers a unique contribution not only to the field of digital cultural studies but also to the growing cultural studies literature attempting to map the historical contradictions of the austerity moment.

Revealing Male Bodies is the first scholarly collection to directly confront male lived experience. There has been an explosion of work in men's studies, masculinity issues, and male sexuality, in addition to a growing literature exploring female embodiment. Missing from the current literature, however, is a sustained analysis of the phenomenology of male-gendered bodies. Revealing Male Bodies addresses this omission by examining how male bodies are physically and experientially constituted by the economic, theoretical, and social practices in which men are immersed. Contributors include Susan Bordo, William Cowling, Terry Goldie, Maurice Hamington, Don Ihde, Greg Johnson, Björn Krondorfer, Alphonso Lingis, Patrick McGann, Paul McIlvenny, Terrance MacMullan, Jim Perkinson, Steven P. Schacht, Richard Schmitt, Nancy Tuana, Craig L. Wilkins, and John Zuern.

How do men perceive their bodies? how can empirical study of the body inform our understanding of the social world of men? what are the implications of such understanding for public health?