O câncer de pênis é uma doença de baixa incidência e sua manifestação está associada a fatores intrínsecos e extrínsecos, e sua principal forma de tratamento é a penectomia. Devido à doença ocorrer no órgão genital masculino busquei conhecer como os homens adoecidos lidam com suas masculinidades na situação do adoecimento. Dessa forma, propus a tese de que a cultura influencia na forma como os homens sobreviventes do câncer de pênis lidam com suas masculinidades. Elaborei o objetivo de interpretar os significados atribuídos à experiência com o câncer de pênis e seus tratamentos pelos homens adoecidos. O referencial teórico adotado foi o da antropologia médica e das masculinidades, pois ambas consideram a cultura como um elemento importante no mundo social. Para conhecer a cultura do outro é necessário vivenciá-la de perto, por este motivo optei por desenvolver a etnografia narrativa. Esse método propõe ao pesquisador o uso de técnicas como a observação participante, múltiplas entrevistas, uso do diário de campo, análise temática e a apresentação dos resultados na estrutura de narrativas que contenham a estória das vivências dos participantes. Ressalto que a narrativa tem como principal objetivo mostrar as transformações vividas pelos depoentes, considerando os aspectos comuns e divergentes dos entrevistados. Foram selecionados 18 homens com o diagnóstico de câncer de pênis no ambulatório de uro- oncologia de um hospital do interior paulista. As características sociais e clínicas dos entrevistados são semelhantes aos dados nacionais e internacionais em relação à baixa incidência da doença, faixa etária e os tratamentos empregados. Diante do processo de análise foi possível construir oito sínteses temáticas: O câncer de pênis e seu itinerário; O corpo após a doença e seus tratamentos; O câncer e suas repercussões sociais: o trabalho, o lazer e as relações sociais; Por trás do visível: a confidencialidade da doença; A sexualidade pós- tratamento; Um homem inteiro ou meio homem: a ressignificação das masculinidades; Recursos de apoio social; O hoje e as expectativas para o futuro. Por meio das sínteses narrativas é possível conhecer os sentidos que os homens empregaram ao adoecimento e como a doença afetou sua masculinidade. Estes achados permitiram alcançar o significado de ser homem sobrevivente do câncer de pênis e seus tratamentos, que pode ser compreendido pela expressão \"ser meio homem\". Desde o início do diagnóstico até a vida no pós- tratamento, os homens negociam suas masculinidades com o mundo social, e percebem que algumas características adquiridas durante o adoecimento os tornam diferente dos demais homens, tais como se assumir doente, a extirpação total ou parcial do pênis, redução da força física, impossibilidade de trabalhar e alterações na prática sexual. Comprovo, então, que a cultura tem influência na forma que os homens lidam com suas masculinidades, uma vez que os adoecidos constantemente revisitam seus padrões culturais de masculinidade para obedecê- lo ou ressignificá-lo. Os enfermeiros podem utilizar os achados deste estudo para refletir sua prática de cuidado aos homens com câncer e para desenvolverem outras pesquisas que o complementem / Penile cancer is a disease of low incidence, and its manifestation is associated with intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and its main form of treatment is the penectomy. Due to the fact that the disease occurs in the male genital organ, I sought to know how the ill men deal with their masculinities in the disease situation. Thus, I proposed the thesis that culture influences in the way as the penile cancer survivors deal with their masculinities. The aim of this study is to interpret the meanings attributed to the experience with penile cancer and its treatments by the ill men. The theoretical framework adopted was medical anthropology and masculinities, since both considered culture as an important element in the social world. In order to understand the culture of the other people is necessary to experience it closely, for this reason I chose to develop the narrative ethnography. This method proposes to the researcher the use of techniques such as participant observation, mult iple interviews, the use of field diary, thematic analysis and the presentation of results in the structure of narratives that contain the story of participants\' experiences. I emphasize that the narrative has as main objective to show the transformations lived by the deponents, considering the common and divergent aspects of the interviewees. We selected 18 men with the diagnosis of penile cancer in the uro-oncology clinic of a hospital in the interior of São Paulo. The social and clinical characteristics of the interviewees are similar to the national and international data regarding the low incidence of the disease, age group and the treatments used. From the process of analysis it was possible to construct eight thematic syntheses: Penile cancer and its itinerary; The body after disease and its treatments; Cancer and its social repercussions: work, leisure and social relations; Behind the visible: the confidentiality of the disease; The sexuality post-treatment; The whole man or half man: resignification of masculinities; Social support resources; The today and expectations for the future. Through narrative syntheses it was possible to comprehend the meaning attributed by the patients, what they assigned to illness and how that disease affected their masculinity. These findings allowed us to achieve the meaning of being a man penile cancer survivor and its treatments, which can be understood by the expression \"being half man\". From the onset of diagnosis up to life post-treatment, men negotiate their masculinities with the social world, and realize that some characteristics acquired during illness make them different from other men, such as, to assume themselves as sickness, the fact that they have total or partial penile extirpation, reduction of physical strength, impossibility of working and changes in sexual practice. I then show that culture influences the way men deal with their masculinities, since the ill men are constantly revisiting their cultural patterns of masculinity to obey or re-signify it. Nurses can use the findings of this study to reflect their practice of caring for men with cancer and to develop further researches that complements this one

There is a paucity of research on the risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and sexual behavior among general populations of men. Research with male populations predominantly has focused on those subgroups considered to be at high risk of disease transmission, such as gay and bisexual men, injection drug users, and adolescents/young adults. Considerably fewer studies have examined factors among men, in general, and heterosexual men, specifically. Therefore, I conducted analyses with a cross-national sample of adult, sexually active men in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States to investigate sexual behaviors and risk factors associated with the human papillomavirus (HPV) and other STIs. The research questions were: 1) How does sexual risk differ among men residing in Brazil, Mexico, and the US by age cohort?; 2) Do men's sexual behaviors change after being tested for HPV and other STIs?; and 3) Do men's sexual behaviors change after being informed of diagnosis with HPV and other STIs? These research questions were explored through a quantitative assessment of secondary data collected through a risk factor questionnaire administered using computer assisted self-interviewing. The study findings underscore the need for public health interventions to address STI risk and transmission among men across the lifespan. Additionally, this study revealed the potential of STI testing as an effective strategy to reduce sexual risk-taking among men. While this research identifies key issues of importance in improving men's sexual health, additional research is needed to provide an enhanced contextual understanding of socio-cultural, interpersonal, and community level factors that affect sexual behaviors and decision-making among men.

In this dissertation I investigate how individuals group others into sexual orientation (SO) categories based on a target's known sexual behaviors and romantic interests. I hypothesize that individuals known to have any non-heterosexual sexual or romantic interests are more likely to be perceived as "gay" (and not "straight") even when there is clear evidence of heterosexual interests and behaviors as well. This phenomenon has been termed "heterosexual exclusivity" in this work. In the process, I examine relevant writings and research on SO, including works related to SO in history, the conceptualization and measurement of SO, determinants of and influences on SO, the essentialism and social constructionism debate with regard to SO, innate bisexuality, and bisexual erasure. Additionally, I give specific focus to how and why men are affected by, as well as perpetuate heterosexual exclusivity. In doing so, I examine writings and research on the role and construction of masculinity as well as homophobia and the overlap of the two. I hypothesize that adherence to traditional masculinity and increased homophobia are predictive of increased heterosexual exclusivity in men. I also hypothesize that men are more likely to be the primary agents and targets of heterosexual [exclusivity]. The results supported most of these hypotheses. / text

Increasing attention has been given to men’s experiences as victims of intimate partner violence in the Western world, mostly in quantitative research, within different research fields. The aim of this research paper is to explore men’sspecific experiences of intimate partner violence in heterosexual relationships in a Swedish context, through a gender perspective and with a qualitative research approach. The paper begins by briefly mentioning key findings in existing quantitative and qualitative research, focusing on Sweden. Additionally, areas of divergence with regard to definitions and differing research approaches are discussed. The theoretical framework builds upon theories of patterns of intimate partner violence and constructions of masculinities. In the five narratives representing the primary data of the study, varying experiences of psychological and physical violence and views on gender relations and masculinities are expressed. Some key elements are identified in the narratives and these are analyzed in relation to prior research findings/theoretical framework. Prior research findings, as well as theoretical suppositions regarding men as victims of intimate partner violence in heterosexual relationships as either unthinkable or stigmatizing, are manifested also in the narratives.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the various definitional strategies involved in and underlying the use of the term ‘masculinity’ in social science literature, with a particular emphasis on psychodynamic literature, and to propose an additional approach (via the metaphor of the ‘lens’ (borrowed from Bem, 1993)) to understanding masculinity as ideology in Althusser’s (1971; 1984) sense of a discourse or narrative which establishes subjectivity and identity. It suggests that masculinity could be usefully viewed as a certain type of discourse which attempts to exercise a hegemony over a more variegated and nuanced personality for the purpose of the attachment of the individual (usually male) to larger social structures and relations, in this case, to the gendered social relations of patriarchy. The idea for the thesis arose out of the writer’s dissatisfaction with current definitional strategies of masculinity employed in social science research and his perceived need to provide a more complex definition of the term ‘masculinity’, which would highlight its meaning for individual men whilst simultaneously placing that meaning in the wider meaning-generating structures of Western culture. It also arose from a growing frustration with all sections of the so-called men’s movement’s attempts to delineate a type of ‘masculinity’ which is respectful of the rights and needs of women and children. Finally, it particularly arose out of the researcher’s own interest to explore the nature of identity narratives within contemporary Western culture. Chapter One explores these problems and provides key definitions of the important terms of the thesis, including the neological verb, ‘to hegemise,’ by which I refer to the process of attempting, but never entirely successfully, to establish hegemony. It also deals with other definitional questions such as the definition of patriarchy against the suggestion of the existence of multiple patriarchies (Petersen, 1998). The thesis is organised broadly into two sections. The first section, contained in Chapters One through Four, deals with what I have labelled (following suggestions by de Certeau, 1984) current “definitional strategies” employed in discussions of masculinity in the social sciences, with Chapters One and Two providing an overview of these strategies, whilst Chapters Three and Four take three of the six strategies identified and examines them in depth through their exemplary use in key literature from three psychodynamic schools of thought. These definitional strategies are, firstly, the three which are not explored in depth: 1) the simple reduction of masculinity to any male behaviour (which I believe is very rarely employed), 2) the argument from statistics (so that whatever men can be demonstrated to do, have, think, and so on, more often than women becomes an example of masculinity), and 3) the argument from key exemplars, (such as John Wayne), real or imaginary (again, such as John Wayne). Secondly, the three definitional strategies which are chosen for more extended treatment, 1) the strategy of definition by deferral to other, equally problematic terms (as in the works of Freud, discussed in Chapter Two), 2) the use of the process or results of presumed male child development (the views of the object relations psychodynamic theory as delineated by Nancy Chodorow, and to a lesser extent, Dorothy Dinnerstein, discussed in Chapter Three), and 3) reliance on common understandings (Jung, also discussed in Chapter Three). This last strategy is a kind of definition by default, in that the writer fails to provide a definition, assuming a common cultural background with the reader (and seems to be a very common strategy). It is my argument, reinforced by a detailed examination of certain key relevant texts, selected for both their influence and timeliness in the social sciences, that the use of any of these strategies inevitably involves the writer or researcher in contradiction and confusion. As this entire thesis is about the definitional strategies employed when using the term, ‘masculinity,’ no specific definition is provided of masculinity in the opening chapters of the thesis. However, due attention is paid in Chapter Two to Connell’s (1987; 1995) notion that there are actually ‘multiple masculinities,’ a definitional strategy, I argue, not without its own confusions. Within Connell’s understanding of masculinity, this thesis focuses only on notions of ‘hegemonic masculinity’. The final five chapters of the thesis sketch a further approach to masculinity on the basis of considering masculinity as a specific type of identity narrative. Chapters Five, Six and Seven provide the grounding for such a consideration through an examination of the nature of identity narratives generally, and Chapters Eight and Nine apply this grounding specifically to masculinity, and, in the case of Chapter Nine, to research about men. Chapter Five delineates the key term ‘identity’, and separates it from the concept of the ‘self’, a term with which it is often, but not always, conflated, whilst comparing both terms, ‘self’ and ‘identity’, on the one hand to the Foucauldian idea of subjectivity and on the other hand, to the Freudian and Lacanian notion of the ego. Chapter Five argues that identity can be meaningfully separated from the self by two markers, 1) its basically moral nature, which in turn 2) arises out of its association with social structures and social discourses. Although no argument is made either for a singular self or a “true” self, it is argued that the human experience of the self and the identity is that they are often in conflict, and the ‘self’ is often experienced as being an unsuccessful copy or diminished form of the identity (or identities). This experience signals what I have called ‘the Ambassadorial function’ of the identity; that is, its ability to represent and commend, as well as prescribe and command, cultural norms and expectations for an individual’s personality to the self. Chapter Five suggests that whilst the number of selves in a particular culture may be close to infinite (in that one body may contain many selves), the number of identities prescribed by a given culture which uses identity narratives may be multiple, but quite finite. Chapters Six and Seven explore the human attraction, at least in modernist Western cultures, to identity narratives, and suggests that their current cultural importance arises out of both personal need and social compulsion. In order to establish personal motivations for the adoption of the identity, Chapter Six takes a necessary detour through conceptions of agency as they appear in the work of Anthony Giddens (1979; 1984), Rom Harre and his associates (particularly in Harre’s discussion of ‘positioning theory’, Harre and van Langenhove, 1999a) and in the recent work of Judith Butler (1997). Each of these asserts the possibility of human agency against some post-modernist interpretations of Foucault, Althusser, and others which suggest agency is entirely an artefact of discourse (an interpretation denied by Foucault himself (Foucault, 1994/2000, p. 399)). Although I do not believe any of these accounts provide a particularly satisfying notion of agency, they do make it plausible to consider the possibility that identities take on their compelling nature because they provide an answer to individual concerns, as well as the role they play in the construction of human subjectivity, and of course, it can also be argued that some of these individual concerns are themselves created by social subjectivities. Chapter Seven examines this collusion of interest which occurs in modernist Western cultures which promote the adoption of identity narratives. Based on theoretical work by Otto Rank (1936a; 1936b), Ernst Becker (1962/1977), Theresa Brennan (1993; 2000), as well as on research by Theweleit (1977/1987; 1978/1989) and Foxhall (1994; 1995), it suggests that identities serve to protect a person from overwhelming fears of mortality, change and the flow of life (see also Goodchild, 1996). As a result of these fears, an individual is primed to adopt narratives which attach them to larger, less changeable social wholes, whether these narratives are of a collective religious nature, or whether, as in the case of modernist culture, they are identities. These fears can then be exploited to instil identities which serve wider, and not necessarily equitous, social purposes. Chapter Seven concludes, however, that such a project is always unsuccessful, for as Butler (1993, p. 2) states, ‘Bodies never quite comply with the norms by which their materialization is impelled.’ No strategy, however clever, can solidify the processes of flow. Chapter Eight presents the case for considering masculinity as a type of identity narrative, which, because of its relationship to biological sex and gender, reflects the social relationships between the genders in modernist cultures (the assumption that there are only two genders acknowledges a cultural belief, and not the writer’s own assumptions about gender). It suggests that it makes sense to think of masculinity as an identity discourse to which both men and women are initiated as they come to understand the specific speaking conditions under which this discourse must be appropriated (these occur more often for men than for women). It further proposes limiting the use of the term masculinity to those societies which have two necessary pre-conditions; 1) they rely on identity narratives generally, and 2) they are patriarchal. It argues that many societies which are/have been patriarchal do not/did not have a concept of masculinity, and men exercised their privilege over women and children through other forms, such as in the social roles they played. (For example, Connell, 1993, p. 604, cites classical China as having a patriarchal, yet non-identity based culture.) Chapter Eight argues that to refer to men’s conceptions of masculinity in these societies is to import an anachronistic term into discussions of those societies’ conceptions of manhood. Chapter Eight further suggests that the “speaking conditions” for the employment of masculinity must be learned by the members of a culture, and that men’s everyday behaviour is often non-masculine; in fact, I suggest it is usually non-masculine unless the male is made aware that the situation requires the production of the masculine identity narrative. Following suggestions from narrative therapy (for example, Jenkins, 1990; 1996; White, 1991; 1992; C. White and Denborough, 1998), I believe greater hope for promoting equity towards women and children and respect for diversity amongst men can be achieved by focusing on those occasions when a male is not “speaking” masculinity than for reform of masculinity, which in my view, remains locked into its relationship to patriarchal social relations. In this sense, I present further arguments which I believe buttress the case already made by MacInnes (1998) that the abolition of the masculine identity narrative totally (and perhaps gender narratives generally) is more desirable than the reform of masculinity. Chapter Nine briefly illustrates the application of this approach to researching masculinity through the understandings of the development of the masculine identity narrative generated by two male focus groups using the ‘memory work’ methodology pioneered by Frigga Haug (1987; 1992a) and extended by June Crawford and others (1992). In all, this thesis contributes to the current debate on the nature of masculinity by seriously considering the implications of the links masculinity provides to patriarchal social relationships as an identity narrative. The specificity of these links, as well as their deeper functioning within human life have, to date, been largely unexplored in the literature on men. The thesis explores these links through the use of some of the literature which first brought the problems identities seek to resolve to academic and therapeutic attention (such as the work of Rank and Becker). Further, in proposing an approach to masculinity limited by cultural constraints (that is, patriarchy and the general presence of identity narratives), the thesis facilitates a potential shift in the literature from approaching masculinity via one of the definitional strategies to a more focused definition, which allows one to delineate when a man is being masculine and when a man is not being masculine. As such, this allows for a re-emergence and perhaps a re-appreciation of the diversity and multiplicity that lies not only between individuals, but also within each individual’s life and experiences.

Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-65).

Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-65).

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Apr. 30, 2006). Includes bibliographical references (p. 66-68).

Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-65).

Thesis (Ph. D. in Religion)--Vanderbilt University, May 2006. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.