ABSTRACT
"Homosocial" is a word occasionally used in history and the social sciences, where it describes social bonds between persons of the same sex; it is a neologism, obviously formed by analogy with "homosexual," and just as obviously meant to be distinguished from "homosexual." This chapter examines how nonhuman objects allow men to develop homosocial relationships and simultaneously preserve their masculinity and heterosexuality. It presents that women serve as a tool or vehicle for male bonding, and those relationships empower men while simultaneously obscuring or masking the intense homosocial relationship. Homosocial desire describes how men seek the company of other men and promote their interests. Homophobic comments police the boundaries by encouraging men to repress any homosexual desire they may have. Eve Sedgwick argues that "In any male-dominated society, there is a special relationship between male homosocial desire and the structures for maintaining and transmitting patriarchal power: a relationship founded on an inherent and potentially active structural congruence".
