Gastronativism: Food, Identity, Politics

There are fewer surprises here than in the barbershop essay since Nash follows in the footsteps of Löic Wacquant’s study of African American boxers, Body and Soul (1994). Like Wacquant, Nash finds that the young wrestlers whom he studied care a great deal about body image, emotional self-control, and the strategies and techniques of their respective sports. Nash pays close attention to how the young wrestlers try to avoid serious injury. As Nash suggests, wrestling may involve a certain kind of aggression, but perhaps for that very reason it also possesses a well-observed moral code. More than any other chapter in this collection, nothing justifies Nash’s title, Personal Sociology, more than his essay on his own penile implant. Actually, the essay reports his own physical and emotional experiences, from his initially hesitant deliberations, through the surgical procedure, to his postsurgical adaptations. Nash must be credited for his remarkable candor in documenting a process that most men might regard as a private matter. In doing so, he underscores how central the penis is to masculinity. Because Nash reports exclusively on his own experiences, any sociological inferences he might offer would be highly speculative. However, his account does suggest a broad sociological line of inquiry. If the penis is central to masculinity, how is this so? Do men with implants regard themselves differently than men who are naturally potent? How does impotence affect a man’s masculine self-image? How is a man with a penile implant regarded by his sexual partners? Nash’s essay suggests that the study of men with sexual implants opens new vistas in our understanding of masculinity at large. As befits a book entitled Personal Sociology, what ties together essays in this collection is not a continuity in themes, but rather a continuity in the author’s personal sensibility. This sensibility seems to begin with Nash’s absorption in the contexts and events of his own personal life. As Nash makes clear in his introduction, he wants to avoid the overprofessionalized voice that so many students acquire in graduate school. But it requires a certain kind of individual to lead a life filled with contexts and experiences so remote from the mainstream of academic life as to provide the material for sociologically engaging publications. Other sociologists may or may not fit this description, but Nash clearly does.