-accepted masculine, heterosexual male, and feminine, heterosexual female. Because gender and sexuality often are conflated in sport, it is presumed that feminine females are heterosexual and masculine females are lesbian. Female masculinity often confers marginalized status in U.S. college sport, whereas feminine
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Mallory Mann and Vikki Krane
Jonathan Robertson, Ryan Storr, Andrew Bakos, and Danny O’Brien
population takes for granted. For example, homosexuality was a crime in Australia until the introduction of the Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act in 1994 . Over 70 different Australian legislative acts contained sexuality-based discriminatory elements in areas including, but not limited to, taxation
James Riordan
Never have women athletes made such rapid progress in a wide range of events in such a short time — some two or three years — or improved world records by such remarkable margins. The reasons for the progress of Chinese women athletes are examined in this article. One of the reasons is an absence in China of a number of deep-seated prejudices in regard to sexuality that have been common in western historical develoment — prejudices centred on the notion that sport was a ‘male preserve’.
The major factors that have facilitated Chinese women’s progress in sport have to be sought in various elements intrinsic to Chinese society and shaped by historically-conditioned attitudes to sport and women that differ markedly from those that have formed the dominant values of sport in western society, at least since the time of Ancient Greece.
Insosfar as world-wide women’s sporting attainments are reflecting, reinforcing and sometimes even precipitating processes of social change in the role and status of women, the Chinese women’s example offers exciting prospects for the future of women in all societies, particularly the modernising communities of Asia and Africa.
Edited by Vikki Krane
I titled this special issue “Sexualities, Culture, and Sport” to stimulate reflection on important issues inherent in the culture of women’s sport. Sport has the opportunity to provide many positive benefits for women, such as personal and physical empowerment (Blinde, Taub, & Han, 1994; Krane & Romont, 1997; Theberge, 1987); in sport a woman can challenge herself, push her physical limits, and achieve new goals. Concerns related to sexuality however can interfere with the attainment of these benefits. On one hand, stereotypes about athletic females and concerns about femininity linger over women’s sport. Yet, there also is a shroud of silence concerning sexuality (Griffin, 1992; Sparkes, 1996). As a whole, women’s sport is not accepting of diverse sexualities (e.g., lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered individuals). This lack of acceptance has created an oppressive sport environment for all participants. A primary goal of this special issue is to bring to light some of the issues related to female sexuality, which are magnified by the heteropatriarchial American culture and are widespread in women’s sport.
Marja Kokkonen
athletes, who have been shown to find it relatively easy to break with traditional gender expectations and be open about their sexuality ( Denison & Kitchen, 2015 ; Elling & Janssens, 2009 ; Litchfield, 2011 ; Skogvang & Fasting, 2013 ). In team sports, lesbian athletes have sometimes described the team
Shannon S.C. Herrick and Lindsay R. Duncan
number of experiences, expressions, and identities that are not classified as cisgender ( Davidson, 2007 ). LGBTQ+ encompasses a range of identities and expressions that span across gender and sexuality. Heterosexuality simultaneously perpetuates and is predicated on the gender binary ( Jackson, 2006
Katherine M. Jamieson
As though it were unfolding today, the Lopez story provides a fertile field for analyzing the varied consequences of interlocking inequalities of race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality. Lopez is constructed through the print media as a symbol of assimilation, as well as a body coopted in the project of Latino-Latina pride and social justice. The selected “Lopez texts,” which include Sports Illustrated, Nuestro, and Hispanic magazines, offer powerful and complex examples of the authority of the media to construct and reconstruct the events surrounding Lopez’s career. The purpose of the paper is to apply feminist insights regarding racialized, classed, and sexualized forms of gender to examine the complexity and salience of Nancy Lopez’s presence on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour.
Kayoung Kim, Michael Sagas, and Nefertiti A. Walker
This study was intended to provide analysis of print-media portrayals of athletes in Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues from 1997 through 2009. Drawing on the theoretical framework from Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity (2005), the authors performed a content analysis of photographic images (N = 141) and associated captions in athlete-related content in Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues. Two major issues emerged from the content analysis: gender differences and sexualized images in athlete content. Findings of this study indicated that Sports Illustrated alternates athleticism with sexuality by continuously placing athlete models in positions that are unrelated to sport. In addition, the female athletes were extremely sexualized. These findings support the concept of hegemonic masculinity at work in Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues.
Shaun E. Edmonds and Susan G. Zieff
In recent years, individuals who do not conform to healthist body shape and weight norms are the target of an increasingly fervent moral panic about “obesity” (Gard & Wright, 2005). As a subculture within the gay male community (Wright, 1997a), the “Bear” community offers a site for examining biopolitical resistance to the pervasive body ideals (and associated fat stigma) embedded within, and perpetuated by, mainstream gay values. Utilizing in-depth interviews and participant observation, this study explores the ways in which Bears negotiate physical activity and body image within the ostensibly fat-positive Bear community. In analyzing the stories and spaces of the Bear community, I find diverse experiences that reveal a complex relationship between sexuality, body image, and engagement in physical activity.
Jason Laurendeau
This article undertakes a qualitative exploration of women’s and men’s songs in the skydiving community in order to explore the intersection of gender and sexuality in this context. Analyses reveal that men’s songs constrain the transformative potential of women in skydiving by trivializing, marginalizing, and sexualizing them. Further, they reinforce male hegemony in skydiving through the construction of a hyperheterosexual masculinity. Meanwhile, women’s songs resist male hegemony in the sport, laying claim to discursive and physical space. One central strategy in this resistance is the construction of a strong heterosexual femininity, thereby asserting a sexual subjectivity neither defined nor controlled by men. This resistance, however, shores up a particular version of heterosexual femininity that contributes to women’s trivialization and sexualization in this setting.
