ABSTRACT

R. W. Connell's work on hegemonic masculinity is the best-known theorisation of this argument: in Western cultures hegemonic masculinity is both an ideal that associates proper masculinity with strength, heterosexuality, leadership and avoidance of emotion, and the process by which men actively create heterosexual masculinity by distancing themselves from anything contrary to this. There is also a link between this subordination of homosexuality and the subordination of women. In the UK, like the rest of the Western world, attitudes to homosexuality have undergone significant liberalisation. Religion, however, is a sphere that has been particularly resistant to sexual liberalisation. Christians are more likely than the general UK population to oppose gay sexuality according to Alasdair Crockett and David Voas's analyses of the British Social Attitudes Survey and the British Household Panel Survey. An incident that occurred at Westside demonstrates how some men assert their own heterosexual masculinity through subordinating homosexuality. The focus is a 28 year old man called Simon.