ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the interplay between masculinity and heterosexuality, specifically focusing on how ideal masculinity and heterosexuality are constituted within the family. I argue that these men demonstrate that heterosexuality, family, and sporting institutions play a significant role in the construction of this ideal, drawing from the cultural frames as identified earlier in the historical overview of Australian men and masculine identity, and contemporary representations in Australian media. The maintenance of the ideal masculinity is constituted through the facilitation and adaptation of the traditional, nuclear family structure. But what is significant about this structure of family, masculinity and heterosexuality is the way in which both my participants and results from my content analysis articulated that sports, sporting identities and sporting metrosexuality as having become integral parts of this particular narrative of Australian identity, heterosexuality, and masculinity. In doing so, sporting identities and culture contribute to the maintenance and structure of a heterosexual, masculine identity that traces back to the social institution of the family, where ideal masculinity is formed for and executed by this institution.
