Queer kinships: race, sex, belonging, form

Abstract

and as a result this chapter brought home the magnitude of the issue that Cassino and Besen-Cassino seek to underline. They cite the 2018 AP VoteCast survey, in which men were asked if they were homosexual and if they owned a gun as part of a survey. The findings show that ‘asking men if they’re gay leads to 4% of them suddenly deciding they have guns that they otherwise would not have had’ (p. 80). Cassino and Besen-Cassino concluded that ‘questions about sexuality can serve as threats’ (p. 80). This well-considered and disturbing chapter serves to remind the reader why this study and its findings are paramount and contemporary. ‘God, guns and pornography’ considers how gender permeates other aspects of life as well as politics and sexual harassment. Having ventured this far into the book, the findings become unsurprising: men under threat are more likely to turn to extreme religious ideologies, own a gun and view pornography that degrades women to assert power and masculinity. Cassino and Besen-Cassino consider the divergence in public and private behaviours for the first time here. Whilst gun ownership and pornography usage cannot be certainly accounted for as they depend on the interviewees’ self-reporting, state-wide and national data are analysed to examine the extent that these compensatory behaviours ‘bolster an otherwise threatened masculine identity’. (p. 87) In the last chapter, ‘Alternate masculinities’, Cassino and Besen-Cassino defer from exploring further socially influenced behaviours, choosing instead to examine how fathers adopt positive compensatory behaviours when under economic stress. The authors explore numerous viewpoints derived from online narratives (discussion boards and blogs) that show men using their position in the home after the recession to ‘do a lot of things around the house’ (p. 113) and ‘to model good behaviour for my daughter’ (p. 116). To these men, these behaviours reinforce their masculinity as much as owning a gun. This fascinating and timely book appeals to readers of all disciplines, including those beyond the gender studies realm. Cassino and Besen-Cassino analyse a range of behaviours and their relationship to gender threat, to uncover how masculine compensatory behaviours threaten contemporary society. Although much weight is attributed to economic context, to some extent leaving other societal pressures unconsidered, the text serves to illustrate how masculinity is perceived to be threatened in contemporary American society. Despite the book’s generally pessimistic tone, the authors conclude on a positive note: ‘masculinity is changing, it’s adaptable’ (p. 140) and it can be expressed in a way that benefits the individual man, as well as wider American society.