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42 Deviant Behav. 1 (2021)

handle is hein.journals/devbh42 and id is 1 raw text is: DEVIANT BEHAVIOR Dr Ilna 2021, VOL 42, NO. 1, 1-17 https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2019.1635862 Taylor & Francis Group Performing Deviance in Front Stage Spaces: Prince Roger Nelson and the Boundary Fluidity of Masculinity Tyler Gaya, Tina H. Deshotels', and Craig J. Forsythc aGeorgia State University Atlanta USA; Jacksonville State University Jacksonville USA; cUniversity of Louisiana, Lafayette, USA ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY The music entertainment industry is very influential in creating/extending con- Received 25 May 2019 versation around social issues and controversies. This paper examines the influ- Accepted 21 June 2019 ence that musicians have over the understanding of gender norms and queerness. Specifically, this paper will highlight the musician by the name of Prince. His reign of funk and sensuality challenged the view of gender and sexuality; the coupling of masculinity and queerness. Three areas of Prince will be examined for evidence of queerness: physical appearance, song, and perfor- mance. The fluid stage set for prince's masculinity boundary challenge will also be discussed. The social construction of masculinity/sexuality In all cultures, people spend lots of effort customizing the body for appearances. We change clothes, tattoo skin, get pierced, scarred, branded, adorn ourselves with jewelry and cosmetics, and dye our hair. Clearly, body altering and adornment is a way for individuals to present their desired self-image to others (Randall and Polhemus 1996). These images are, indeed, influenced by the style in which a particular social historical image is cast. Present images of masculine sexuality have inadvertently made the effigy of the feminine heterosexual male more permissible. Indeed, it blurs the boundaries of queerness while being attractive to heterosexual females. Deshotels and Forsyth (2007) contended that the same image allows the eunuch to resurface because this body modification found a good fit with the today's version of lean hairless Calvin Klein masculine sexuality. During the eighties, led by Calvin Klein, the advertising industry began to market male beauty with images drawn from America's gay subculture. Those images are, as often as not, languidly beautiful, silken, androgynous. Insofar as they define a new male ideal, they do so in terms that blur gender boundaries. This research examines this form of deviance and describes the array of sociological forces in the queer performance of the late artist Prince, which help mold/reinforce the heterosexual male as feminine. Masculinity is expressed and acquired in many contexts, at work (Martin 2001), in the family (Deutsch 1999), in fraternities (Boswell and Spade 1996), in sports (Curry 1991), and perhaps most importantly, masculinity is enacted through the body and sexuality (Deshotels and Forsyth 2007; Stoltenberg 2000). Research in the social construction of masculinity examines how the meaning of masculinity is neither trans-historical nor culturally universal, but rather varies from culture to culture and within any one culture (Kimmel and Messner 2004: xvi). For example, traditional images of masculinity have embraced men's body hair as a sign of masculinity and virility. However, new images of masculinity, referred to as the metro-sexual, are popularizing images of men with little to nobody hair. Straight mainstream men pierce their ears; some even wear nail polish ... jungle-thick chest hair has become unfashionable ... Increasingly, the male of the female erotic gaze resembles a eunuch: a beautiful hairless permanent boy. Lots of women prefer ... adolescent vulnerability ... to CONTACT Tina H. Deshotels 0 tdeshotels@jsu.edu © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

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