ABSTRACT
This chapter understands masculinity as being particularly vulnerable to the dynamics of humiliation and shame, and focuses on the effect of the emotions on masculinities. Vulnerability occurs due to the need to maintain the illusion of the strong and rational ego, the repudiation of any perceived socio-political-emotional weaknesses, and the consequent perceptions of dependency. It addresses matters of class, femininity and sexuality, it concerns the racialised other and relations between the 'West' and the Middle East motivate. The chapter perceives on the news that an American soldier has been given an especially light sentence for his actions in leading a massacre of 24 Iraqi citizens in 2005. The march against the Iraq invasion may be taking place but it is just a blip on the political surface. The Yacoubian Building and Chicago are replete with incidents of women humiliating men through sexual intimacy, thereby gaining power and control over the male protagonists.
