[Negotiating knowledge and power: the National Policy for Comprehensive Men's Healthcare and the Brazilian Society of Urology]

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the negotiations and disputes between different kinds of knowledge and power in the history of the Brazilian National Policy for Comprehensive Men's Healthcare based on the creation in 2008 of the Technical Area for Men's Health within the Ministry of Health's Department of Strategic Programs. We observed the Brazilian Society of Urology's position as the policy was being drawn up, including the discourse adopted, based on interviews held with managers from the Ministry of Health and the assistant representative of the United Nations Population Fund in Brazil. We analyzed the visibility of the male body in signs of resistance to the interventions of biopower in the expression of the right to health.

A historical perspective on the male sexual case history

The contemporary sexual medicine case history is grounded in the Biopsychosocial Model and its recognition that the past influences one's current interpretation of symptoms. However, the thread of this model can be found throughout the case studies of the early pioneers of sexology. These early investigators began with examinations of homosexual men, slowly moving toward awareness that male sexuality comprises a continuum, while striving to place sexual behavior in a biologic context. Their perspectives served to establish the groundwork for the emerging construct of sexuality and helped shape current methods for identification of sexual function concerns.

Historical revolutions in sex therapy: a critical examination of men's sexual dysfunctions and their treatment

History, recent and ancient, presents innumerable methods intended to ensure or restore male sexual performance. Although these methods have regularly claimed to be "revolutionary," they have often been remarkably similar, and of questionably efficacy. This article provides a critical account of key historical trends in the treatment of male sexual dysfunctions in order to contextualize and critique the current treatment field. The author uses historical analysis to contextualize contemporary sex therapy techniques, arguing that even clinically verified contemporary revolutions, such as the advent of Viagra and similar drugs, may not present broadly efficacious standalone cures. Using critical historical analysis to illustrate the limitations of single-method treatments, the article argues for the value of comprehensive, biopsychosocial therapy methods. A common tendency--to seek a 'magic bullet' solution to sexual dysfunctions--is apparent throughout history, the author argues. While Viagra differs biomedically from historical treatments, it may appeal to the same logic, raising the question of whether it constitutes a truly revolutionary development in treatment. The article concludes with a set of recommendations regarding the implementation of biopsychosocial practice in sex therapy.

American cinema and the construction of masculinity in film in the Federal Republic after 1945

Since 1945, film in the Federal Republic has maintained an ambivalent relationship to American cinema and its embedded ideologies and nowhere is this more evident than in (West) German film's representations of masculinity. This article focuses on three historical moments when political and social shifts resulted in a problematising of male identities in the Federal Republic: the mid-1950s, the early 1970s and the late 1990s. Cinema responded to a perceived destabilisation of gender norms by exploring constructions of German masculinity in relation to the ambivalently received models of male identity offered by American cinema. With a detailed analysis of three specific examples – Georg Tressler's Die Halbstarken (1956), Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Der amerikanische Soldat (1970) and Fatih Akin's Kurz und schmerzlos (1998) – this article investigates the manner in which German cinema engages with these competing conceptions of masculinity and demonstrates the ways in which divergent understandings of gender identity can impact on representations of national and ethnic identity.

Outdoor brothel culture: the un/making of a transsexual stroll in Vancouver's West End, 1975–1984

In the mid-1970s, following a series of police raids on prostitution inside downtown nightclubs, a community of approximately 200 sex workers moved into Vancouver's West End neighborhood, where a small stroll had operated since the early 1970s. This paper examines the contributions made by three male-to-female (MTF) transsexuals of color to the culture of on-street prostitution in the West End. The trans women's stories address themes of fashion, working conditions, money, community formation, violence, and resistance to well-organized anti-prostitution forces. These recollections enable me to bridge and enrich trans history and prostitution history – two fields of inquiry that have under-represented the participation of trans women in the sex industry across the urban West. Acutely familiar with the hazards inherent in a criminalized, stigmatized trade, trans sex workers in the West End manufactured efficacious strategies of harm reduction, income generation, safety planning, and community building. Eschewing the label of “victim”, they leveraged their physical size and style, charisma, contempt towards pimps, earning capacity, and seniority as the first workers on the stroll to assume leadership within the broader constituency of “hookers on Davie Street”. I discover that their short-lived outdoor brothel culture offered only a temporary bulwark against the inevitability of eviction via legal injunction in July 1984, and the subsequent rise in lethal violence against all prostitutes in Vancouver, including MTF transsexuals.

The economics of faking ecstasy

In this paper, we develop a signaling model of rational lovemaking. In the act of lovemaking, a man and a woman send each other possibly deceptive signals about their true state of ecstasy. For example, if one of the partners is not in ecstasy, then he or she may decide to fake it. The model predicts that (1) a higher cost of faking lowers the probability of faking; (2) middle-aged and old men are more likely to fake than young men; (3) young and old women are more likely to fake than middle-aged women; and (4) love, formally defined as a mixture of altruism and demand for togetherness, increases the likelihood of faking. The predictions are tested with data from the 2000 Orgasm Survey. Besides supporting the model's predictions, the data also reveal an interesting positive relationship between education and the tendency to fake in both men and women.

The acceleration of the masculine in early-twentieth-century Berlin

In early-twentieth-century Berlin, agents of speed and industrialisation, such as the railway, contributed to the seemingly unbridled velocity of urban life. Doctors and cultural critics took an ambivalent stance toward the impact of speed and technology on the human body. Critics argued that these factors, in conjunction with sexual excess and prostitution, accelerated the sexual maturation of young men, thereby endangering ‘healthy’ male sexuality. This comparison of Hans Ostwald's socio-literary study Dunkle Winkel in Berlin (1904) with Georg Buschan's sexual education primer Vom Jüngling zum Mann (1911) queries the extent to which speed shaped the understanding of ‘the masculine’ in pre-World-War-I Germany. The essay thus examines Ostwald's and Buschan's arguments and postulates that speed in the city (Berlin) can be seen as a feminised, sexualised force that determined sex in the city. According to this reading, the homosexual urban dandy resisted the accelerated modernist urban tempo, whereas the heterosexual man and hegemonic, heteronormative masculinity yielded to speed. ‘“Das Verhältnis”’ became a fleeting, momentary alternative to stable marital relationships, which in turn contributed to the general ‘crisis’ of – and in– masculinity in early-twentieth-century Berlin.

Social mobility and reproduction among nineteenth-century Colorado silver prospectors

Popular cultural convention holds that, for those with enough gumption, the American frontier was a land of unparalleled opportunity. However, careful research throws doubt on the universality of this convention. Thus, the authors explore factors that increase or decrease opportunities for upward mobility in frontier towns. The authors' longitudinal study of late nineteenth century silver prospectors in Gothic, Colorado, demonstrates that while enthusiastic prospecting in Gothic did not lead to upward social mobility, it did provide enhanced reproductive opportunities.

Modern pentathlon and the First World War: when athletes and soldiers met to practise martial manliness

In the nationalistic atmosphere of the early twentieth century, a nurturing medium for sports practising martial manliness abounded throughout Europe. This framework supported the invention of a new multi-disciplinary sport, aided by Baron Pierre de Coubertin himself: modern pentathlon. Though the idea of a new form of pentathlon was already born in 1894, it took 30 years, until Paris 1924, to establish modern pentathlon within the Olympic Games. This study is concerned with the reasons for that delay. It will be assessed whether the active military preparations around the First World War and the contemporary image of masculinity had a decisive influence on the early history of modern pentathlon. By including historical documents from the IOC archives in Lausanne, Switzerland, the research office for military history in Potsdam, Germany, and the LA84 Foundation in Los Angeles, USA, as well as literature on gender, military sport and Olympic history, this study offers an entirely new view on the early history of a sport that was born in an atmosphere of glorifying manliness and apparent militarism. The history of modern pentathlon thereby provides a particularly appropriate area for the analysis of connections between sport, militarism and masculinity. It was not by chance that the implementation of a combined sport, which included besides swimming and running the three military disciplines of shooting, fencing and horse riding, arose in a pre-war context. Though in 1912 the Great War had not yet begun, the awareness of an upcoming battle was rising and led to a higher attention to Coubertin's almost forgotten assumption of a new sport. In 1924 the advantages were finally admitted on two sides: the army recruited modern pentathletes as future military officers; the sports community appointed skilled officers as successful competitors. Thus the lobby for an Olympic recognition of modern pentathlon was found.

"We share a sacred secret": gender, domesticity, and containment in Transvestia's histories and letters from crossdressers and their wives

After WWII in the United States, gender and sexual minorities began to construct social identities in a cold war climate hostile to gender and sexual transgression. The coming of the sexual revolution in the mid-1960s and 1970s unleashed forces that provided opportunities for these groups to demarcate their differences from one another, achieve visibility, and court public favor in a more permissive and tolerant society. In this article, I examine how a cohort of white, heterosexual crossdressers and their wives forged a redeeming social script in ways that seem counterintuitive to the "spirit of the times." The presence of transvestism within the sacred, idealized space of the American home produced tremendous anxiety on the part of these transvestite husbands and especially their wives. To deflect the stigma of sexual deviancy and sooth feelings of insecurity, these couples utilized strategies of containment and embraced the domestic ideal, even well into the sexualized and swinging seventies. Their strategic yet curious retreat into domesticity compels a second look at the consensus, conformity, and containment narratives that once dominated our scholarly imagination of intimate matters during the postwar years. Might current revisionist histories have gone too far in discrediting these potent forces? How do gender and sexual populations beholden to whiteness and notions of respectability fit within the sexual revolutions of postwar America?

Limited access: gender, occupational composition, and flexible work scheduling

The current study draws on national data to explore differences in access to flexible work scheduling by the gender composition of women's and men's occupations. Results show that those who work in integrated occupations are more likely to have access to flexible scheduling. Women and men do not take jobs with lower pay in return for greater access to flexibility. Instead, jobs with higher pay offer greater flexibility. Integrated occupations tend to offer the greatest access to flexible scheduling because of their structural locations. Part-time work is negatively associated with men's access to flexible scheduling but positively associated with women's access. Women have greater flexibility when they work for large establishments, whereas men have greater flexibility when they work for small establishments.

Boccioni's coin

The Ardito was a fighter as well as a competitor whose status as a 'warrior' was based on courage and superior physical performance: a superior man. In addition, his exuberant conduct, both on and off the battlefield, introduced a significant new sub-culture into post-war Italian society, contributing to the attachment of notable value to virility and Mussolini's cult of the 'strong man'. The purpose of this research is to analyse the impact of this 'arditismo' (spirit of daring) on the early post-war period in particular, including the different 'male image' of the Italian citizen, and to study the sense of virility in the transition from the liberal, easy-going 'Little Italy' of Giovanni Giolitti (1842-1928) to a manly, combative, and ambitious nation. Together with some of the vitalistic tendencies in the Futurist movement, the main characteristics and mentality of the ex-Ardito (former Special Forces) would thus be significantly influential in the ideology of nascent Fascism. Indeed, the 'arditismo' influence, together with the article and social movement known as Futurism would constitute the two most highly structured foundations of early Fascist culture, bringing a political and social revolution necessary to create a 'new man'. It was as if the Arditi and the new method of military training had transferred their experience from the military into civilian life, contributing to a renewal of the image of the Italian male in the collective imagination. Indirectly, the image of women would also begin to absorb and adapt to new sports models imported from abroad, which would create for the Italian Ardito, a grudgingly tolerated rival. The main sources for this paper are the archives of the Historical Office of the Army, advertising and manuals from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, placards and graphic publicity from books and journals or private collections, and exhibition catalogues.

Bengali masculinity and the national-masculine: some conjectures for interpretation

This article examines how Bengali masculinity has been negotiated between national and ethnic/local notions of identity and suggests a new way of understanding this issue. Within the specific historiography of Bengali masculinity, concerns regarding physical strength, courage and virility of the Bengali male have been central tropes, challenged by the colonially constructed stereotype of the effeminate Bengali. The present article maps mainly nineteenth century discourses regarding Bengali masculinity and focuses on one particular strategy of three, namely, construction of a mode of mythic-historical discourse to reclaim a supposedly more masculine past for Bengali men. This suggests the notion of national-masculine as a gendered materialisation of the compensatory agency of Bengali masculinity. Shown to occur through the articulation of buddhibal in contrast with bahubal that negotiates with the hegemonic national-masculine, this throws new light on the emerging prominence of the bhadralok concept of a sophisticated Bengali gentleman.

Empowerment or endurance? War wives' experiences of independence during and after the Second World War in Germany, 1939-1948

As German men were conscripted into the armed forces during the Second World War, more and more wives were left to manage their families alone. At the same time more women than ever entered paid employment to fill the gaps in the market left by their soldier husbands. Scholars working in the field have made much of the dislocation to gender roles prompted by the Second World War. This article questions whether women's wartime experiences changed their views on being confined to the home. Ultimately, this article argues, women wanted to return to a sense of normality at the end of the war. In the aftermath of defeat, in which mere survival rather than speculation about potentially improved models of the family set-up were paramount, "normality" was most obviously represented by prewar gender roles. Women were hoping for normalization, not only in the public sphere in the sense of a flourishing economy, but also in the private sphere with the return of the men and a resumption of the old role divisions. It was therefore not only conservative politicians who wished to preserve prewar structures within the home - so too did women themselves. The re-emergence of the traditional family model in the wake of the Second World War was thus as much the result of popular aspirations "from below" as of government policies imposed "from above".

Writing sex and sexuality: archives of colonial North India

This article focuses on disparate sites and subjects to reflect on and problematize the relationship between sexuality and the archives in colonial north India. I dwell on how ‘recalcitrant’ and hidden histories of sexuality can be gleaned by not only expanding our arenas of archives, but also by decentering and recasting colonial archives. I do so by specifically investigating some of the “indigenous” writings in Hindi, through texts concerning homosexuality, sex manuals, the writings of a woman ayurvedic practitioner, didactic literature and its relationship to Dalit (outcaste) sexuality, and current popular Dalit literature and its representations of the past. The debate for me here is not about the flaws of archival uses but rather of playing one archive against another, of appropriating many parallel, alternative, official, and popular archives simultaneously to shape a more nuanced and layered understanding of sexuality.

Backstage discourse and the reproduction of white masculinities

This article documents the shared patterns of private white male discourse. Drawing from comparative ethnographic research in a white nationalist and a white antiracist organization, I analyze how white men engage in private discourse to reproduce coherent and valorized understandings of white masculinity. These private speech acts reinforce prevailing narratives about race and gender, reproduce understandings of segregation and paternalism as natural, and rationalize the expression of overt racism. This analysis illustrates how antagonistic forms of “frontstage” white male activism may distract from white male identity management in the “backstage.”

Yearning, learning, and conceding: reasons men and women change their childbearing intentions

People's childbearing intentions change over the course of their reproductive lives. These changes have been conceptualized as occurring in response to the realization that an individual is unlikely to achieve his or her intended fertility, because of constraints such as the "biological clock" or lack of a partner. In this article, we find that changes to child-bearing plans are influenced by a much wider range of factors than this. People change their plans in response to the wishes of their partners, in response to social norms, as the result of repartnering, and as the result of learning about the costs and benefits of parenthood; there are also differences between the factors that influence men's and women's decision-making. In a departure from existing studies in this area, we use a flexible analytical framework that enables us to analyze increases in planned fertility separately from decreases. This allows us to uncover several complexities of the decision-making process that would otherwise be hidden, and leads us to conclude that the determinants of increases in planned fertility are not simply equal and opposite to the determinants of decreases.

Wartime rugby and football: sports elites, French military teams and international meets during the First World War

The First World War is traditionally considered in history as a temporary halt for cultural and sporting activities. If the Olympic Games and the Tour de France were actually cancelled, football and rugby were in fact stimulated by the circumstances of war. Indeed, the gathering of allied nations behind the Western Front emerged as the main factor in the development of these two sports. Reading the sporting press and military archives shows that international sporting exchanges were stimulated during the Great War. To be specific, France benefited from the golden opportunity provided by the presence of the masters of the game to strengthen its practices and affirm its status as a sporting nation. Inter-allied sporting exchanges were primarily characterised by informal encounters between military selections. Then, following the recognition of these sports by the military authorities, the number of exchanges increased. At the end of 1917, the official status acquired by sport within the military forces created the conditions for the structuring of the French sporting elite. From that point, we can witness the birth of the first French military rugby and football teams, as they demonstrate, through their good performances during the demobilisation period, the progressive build-up of the international dimension of French sport during the war years.

"It is caused of the womans part or of the mans part": the role of gender in the diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunction in early modern England

Philip Barrough wrote in 1590 that barrenness 'is caused of the womans part or of the mans part'. By the eighteenth century, however, barrenness was perceived as a female disorder distinguished from male impotence. Few historians have addressed the uncertainty surrounding early modern definitions of infertility, choosing instead to adopt set terms that fit comfortably with modern ideas. This article will highlight the difficulties surrounding the gender distinction of the terms 'barrenness' and 'impotence' during this period. Moreover, the discussion will examine the role of gender in diagnosing these disorders to sufferers. The article will argue that ideas of gender were more central to diagnosis of poor sexual health than to effectual treatment. Although it appears that barrenness and impotence were treated with separate remedies, many treatments were described as effectual for both sexes. Additionally, the ingredients used in such recipes were often sexual stimulants explained without reference to gender.

Miners, masculinity and the "Bataille du Charbon" in France, 1944-1948

In 1944, the French provisional government, backed by the Parti communiste français and the Confédération générale du travail, undertook an aggressive propaganda campaign to persuade miners to embark upon a 'battle for coal' which raised their efforts in extracting coal to that of a national endeavour. At the same time, miners had great hopes that nationalisation of the coal industry, under discussion at this time, would bring significant improvement to their working lives. In identifying the ways in which publicists posited miners as an ideal of working-class manhood, this article will argue that "la bataille du charbon" marks a crucial moment in the celebration of working-class masculinity and that the "statut des mineurs" which was passed in 1946 as a part of nationalisation enshrined many of the existing gender assumptions about mining life. What does an incorporation of gender to an analysis of the treatment of miners in the years 1944-1948 add to our understandings of the various economic, political and social dynamics around "la bataille du charbon"? How do these insights inform our perceptions of French coalfield societies in the mid-twentieth century?

Parting Shots: eighteenth-century displacements of the male body at war

"Parting Shots" views eighteenth-century literature from across the body-strewn battlefields of the English Civil Wars, and analyzes the transformation of shattered men into cultural embodiments of meaning. The essay analyzes the processes of indirection and displacement through which texts, over several generations, negotiate conflicts and problems too difficult to be confronted whole and entire. In order to develop an argument about lingering anxiety over civil conflict, the essay draws on Defoe's Memoirs of a Cavalier and Robinson Crusoe, soldier's manuals and examples from works by Swift, Manley, Sterne, Pope, and Smollett.

“Hating the sin but not the sinner”: a study about heterosexism and religious experiences among black men

This article explored the religious experiences of nine Black men who are married (to a woman) and have sex with men (BMMSM). These men do not refer to themselves as men on the down low but self-identify as heterosexual. Using data collected in 2005 in South Carolina, the authors examined the complex relationship of homosexuality and the Black Church. Specifically, they examined the notion of coping with same-sex behavior, concealment, and its impact on BMMSM. Findings from the thematic analysis suggest that men found ways to manage their religious traditions and same-sex behaviors. This research presents an opportunity to locate and access a hidden population. The authors found a pervasive experience of growing up in social and family environments that expose them to heterosexism.

Mustaches and masculine codes in early twentieth-century America

The purpose of this article is to deepen our understanding of twentieth-century masculinity by considering the social function of facial hair. The management of facial hair has always been a medium of gendered body language, and as such has elicited a nearly continuous private and public conversation about manliness. Careful attention to this conversation, and to trends in facial hairstyles, illuminates a distinct and consistent pattern of thought about masculinity in early twentieth-century America. The preeminent form of facial hair - mustaches - was used to distinguish between two elemental masculine types: sociable and autonomous. A man was neither wholly one nor the other, but the presence and size of a mustache - or its absence - served to move a man one way or another along the continuum that stretched from one extreme to the other. According to the twentieth-century gender code, a clean-shaven man's virtue was his commitment to his male peers and to local, national or corporate institutions. The mustached man, by contrast, was much more his own man: a patriarch, authority figure or free agent who was able to play by his own rules. Men and women alike read these signals in their evaluation of men.

The Faustian "Gretchen": overlooked aspects of a famous male fantasy

This essay takes issue, on the one hand, with the traditional interpretation of Goethe's Margarete as representing the Natural, the Naïve, and the selflessly loving feminine as well as, on the other hand, the feminist interpretation of Margarete as a male fantasy figure who props up the masculine self-perception of the male as a dominant and titanic "striver." Both interpretative tendencies overlook the close analogy with which Margarete's aspirations and behaviour mirror Faust's own regarding a shared readiness to rebel, break all the rules, and dare the ultimate, which gives Margarete her own independent agenda, makes her an individual in her own right. In this light the three key paradigms of femininity – Madonna, whore/witch, and nature – which shape the presentation of this character are investigated, as well as the relation of the "Gretchentragödie" to notions of the classical, the role of sexual fulfilment in Margarete's decision-making, and the significance of this character's two names. The essay concludes that, excepting the area of intellectualised self-consciousness, Margarete must be regarded as a striving individual who engages in autonomous activity, which much previous criticism has made the domain of the self-determined modern male subject.

From convicts to colonists: the health of prisoners and the voyage to Australia, 1823-53

From 1815, naval surgeons accompanied all convict voyages from Britain and Ireland to the Australian colonies. As their authority grew, naval surgeons on convict ships increasingly used their medical observations about the health of convicts to make pointed and sustained criticisms of British penal reforms. Beyond their authority at sea, surgeons' journals and correspondence brought debates about penal reform in Britain into direct conversation with debates about colonial transportation. In the 1830s, naval surgeons' claims brought them into conflict with their medical colleagues on land, as well as with the colonial governor, George Arthur. As the surgeons continued their attempts to combat scurvy, their rhetoric changed. By the late 1840s, as convicts' bodies betrayed the disturbing effects of separate confinement as they boarded the convict ships, surgeons could argue convincingly that the voyage itself was a space that could medically, physically and spiritually reform convicts. By the mid-1840s, surgeons took the role of key arbiters of convicts' potential contribution to the Australian colonies.

American Sammys and French Poilus in the Great War: sport, masculinities and vulnerability

The violence and duration of fighting throughout the Great War created an intense feeling of vulnerability among the men engaged in battle, which challenged their perception of manliness. When the Americans joined the war in 1917, the balance between the two opposing armies was modified and the psychological crises of French soldiers brought to an end. The confidence shown by the American soldiers and their first successes on the battlefield changed the way the French Poilus perceived their new allies. From scepticism to admiration, Frenchmen's feelings extended beyond the fighting. Indeed, by living with American soldiers in the trenches and camps behind the front, French soldiers discovered a new culture where games and sport played a major role and contributed to building manliness. The Foyers Franco-Americains du Soldat (Franco-American hostels for soldiers) provided an ideal place for the cultural transfer of a model of masculinity from Sammys to Poilus. The foyers were managed by the American YMCA and eventually reached the number of 1,500 in France during the war. These hostels afforded soldiers numerous opportunities to develop cultural and sports practices, by bringing together Americans and Frenchmen. Mainly based on the archives of the American Expeditionary Forces, the YMCA and the French Army, the paper argues that the Foyers du Soldat brought to light a new model of masculinity based on sport, which challenged the Frenchmen's vision. It aims to show the rapid transformation of masculine identity within a context of extreme vulnerability and confirms the changes in representations of men in French society at this time.

"A man's game": cricket, war and masculinity, South Africa, 1899-1902

As practitioners of the imperial sport of the Victorian age, cricketers rallied whenever war descended upon England and its colonies. The South African War of 1899-1902 was no different. Adding to existing work on cricket's imperial development within South Africa, this study marks a significant contribution to research on the link between masculinity, war and sport during the Victorian era. A concept emerging from the English public schools of the mid- to late nineteenth century, the masculine ethos of sport and military honour had reached colonial South Africa by the outbreak of war in 1899. In its analysis of cricket and masculinity, this essay examines the events surrounding the war in South Africa and provides an example of the distinct relationship that existed between the military and the masculinity of sport and its organisation during this era.

Sport in the trenches: the new deal for masculinity in France

During the First World War, the life of a soldier was not just reduced to the trenches. In daily military life behind the lines, soldiers had recreational activities, some of which were seen as a test of virility, such as visiting brothels, and also, as we want to show in this paper, sport practices. For most of the French citizen-soldiers, who were working class and mainly from the countryside, the contact with allied soldiers has to be understood as a significant step in the social construction of gender. Educated in gymnastics, shooting and military exercises, French infantrymen (Poilus) and civilians saw allied sports and soldier-sportsmen as models of a modern masculinity. In a descriptive study of the development of football in the French army, our article tries to demonstrate firstly, that football learnt in the army by workers and the French rural society extended the influence of sport and its part in the construction of masculinity in France. Secondly, we show that the official recognition of sport in 1917 by the French army led to the definition of a modern French masculinity and to the recognition of the sportsmen-soldier as the model of hegemonic masculinity.

Reintegrating young combatants: do child-centred approaches leave children—and adults—behind?

This article uses recent experience in Angola to demonstrate that young fighters were not adequately or effectively assisted after war ended in 2002. The government's framework excluded children from accessing formal disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes, and its subsequent attempts to target children have largely failed. More critically the case of Angola calls into question the broader effectiveness and appropriateness of child-centred DDR. First, such targeting is inappropriate to distinct post-conflict contexts and constructs a 'template child' asserted to be more vulnerable and deserving than adult ex-combatants, which does little to further the reintegration of either group, or the rights of the child in a conflict context. Second, child-centred reintegration efforts tend to deny children agency as actors in their own reintegration. Third, such efforts contribute to the normalisation of a much larger ideational and structural flaw of post-conflict peace building, wherein 'success' is construed as the reintegration of large numbers of beneficiaries back into the poverty and marginalisation that contributed to conflict in the first place.

Cultural patterns of trauma among 19th-century-born males in cadaver collections

Comprehending violence among bioarchaeological and historical groups is a topic of recent interest among biological anthropologists. This research examines trauma among African American and Euro-American males of low socioeconomic status born between 1825 and 1877. A total of 651 male skeletons from the Cobb, Terry, and Hamann-Todd anatomical collections were macroscopically evaluated for skeletal trauma, based on the presence of fractures and weapon-related wounds, and statistically analyzed according to ancestry, birth (Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction), combined ancestry - birth, and collection cohorts. Results indicated that African Americans and Euro-Americans expressed ethnic differences in regard to interpersonal violence. To interpret these disparities, documentary data were used to reconstruct the socioeconomic and cultural environment of these individuals. This research emphasizes the importance of evaluating skeletal data within the context of class, culture, and environment so that behavioral patterns observed in the skeleton can be better understood.

Queer(ed) risks: life insurance, HIV/AIDS, and the "gay question"

In 2004 the Association of British Insurers (ABI) issued its second Statement of Best Practice on HIV and Insurance. This prohibited use of the "gay question" (employed by some underwriters in application forms for life insurance to identify heightened risk of infection with HIV), in response to growing criticism that the practice was actuarially unreliable, unfair to gay men, and unnecessary, given the availability of alternative "behaviour-based" risk criteria. While the overhaul of this controversial practice is clearly a victory for gay (male) identity politics, this paper argues that the interests of gay men seem to have dominated at the expense of a more far-reaching critique of the industry's evaluation of infection risk. It contends that a more radical (or "queerer") challenge is needed which can better understand and address the injustices created by criteria for appraising risk of infection that still remain in place.

White Anglo-Saxon hopes and black Americans' Atlantic dreams: Jack Johnson and the British boxing colour bar

This article examines the controversy surrounding Jack Johnson's proposed world heavyweight title fight against the British champion Bombardier Billy Wells in London (1911). In juxtaposing African Americans' often glowing discussions of European tolerance with the actual white resistance the black champion faced in Britain, including the Home Office's eventual prohibition of the match, the article explores the period's transnational discourses of race and citizenship. Indeed, as white sportsmen on both sides of the Atlantic joined together in their search for a "White Hope" to unseat Johnson, the boxing ring became an important cultural arena for interracial debates over the political and social divisions between white citizens and nonwhite subjects. Although African Americans had high hopes for their hero's European sojourn, the British backlash against the Johnson-Wells match underscored the fact that their local experiences of racial oppression were just one facet of a much broader global problem. At the same time, the proposed prizefight also made the specter of interracial conflict in the colonies all the more tangible in the British capital, provoking public discussions about the merits of U.S. racial segregation, along with the need for white Anglo-Saxon solidarity around the world. Thus, this article not only exposes the underlying connections between American Jim Crow and the racialized fault lines of British imperialism, but it also traces the "tense and tender ties" linking U.S. and African American history with the new imperial history and postcolonial studies.