ABSTRACT
Of all the mass media rock is the most explicitly concerned with sexual expression. This reflects its function as a youth cultural form: rock treats the problems of puberty, it draws on and articulates the psychological and physical tensions of adolescence, it accompanies the moment when boys and girls learn their repertoire of public sexual behaviour. Any analysis of the sexuality of rock must begin with the brute social fact that in terms of control and production, rock is a male form. The music business is male run; popular musicians, writers, creators, technicians, engineers and producers are mostly men. Female creative roles are limited and mediated through male notions of female ability. In rock conventions, the collective notion of fooling around refers explicitly to male experience, falling in love refers to the expectations of girls. From this perspective, the cock rock/teenybop contrast is clearly something general in rock, applicable to other genres.
