ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the gender politics of the subculture, focusing extensively on how the subculture and its central activities are gendered. It discusses how the code of gender relates to the popular films in the subculture and research about addiction. The subculture contains a series of the attributes that in the past century and even earlier have been associated with tough manhood. These can be summarized by four terms; action, outsidership, strong character and material wellbeing. All heroin users will, with hindsight, want to stop using heroin. At the same time, many cannot imagine a completely law-abiding life, and claim that in the future they would buy stolen goods, and participate in break-ins or similar activities. The strong character has been described earlier and it is about reaching a condition of rationality where feelings are not shown and control is kept in extremely stressful situations. Action environments are the ultimate test of strong character.
