Return Fantasies: Martial Masculinity, Misogyny and Homosocial Bonding in the Aftermath of Second World War

Abstract

Abstract This article explores male popular culture in Australia in the mid‐1940s, particularly men's magazines of the period, to illuminate aspects of the psycho‐sexual dimensions of Australian veterans returning to civil society. The sexual landscape of Australian society had undergone considerable transformation, especially through an increasing sexualisation of popular culture in the 1920s and 1930s. This provided a context for considerable sexual anxiety and tension, especially in the context of numerous stories of Australian women consorting with American servicemen during the war. Men's popular culture, especially short fiction, where more lurid fantasies could play out, often depicted women as sexually voracious and duplicitous. Many of the short stories involved love triangles where the men were betrayed by women. But the resolution of these rivalries often pathologised women while preserving the male bonds of war. Homosocial bonds were a bulwark in the troubled transition from war to peace.