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Not So Straight Shooters: Queering the Cyborg Body in Masculinized Gaming

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Masculinities in Play

Part of the book series: Palgrave Games in Context ((PAGCON))

Abstract

Piqued by instances of homoerotic aggression in both online and physical contexts of play, this chapter explores the potentially queering aspects of gaming between straight white men. In contradiction to hegemonic masculine ideal of an impermeable and agential male body, players’ bodies are played upon by pulses of affect originating from the game and/or from the bodily/machinic exertions of other players’ button mashing.

Read thusly, instances of sexualized aggression allow straight male gamers to assert their heteronormativity, while also enjoying the erotic intimacy of male-on-male gaming and the queering pleasures of digital play. By illuminating the fraught paradox between homoeroticism and homophobia that characterizes these play spaces, this chapter contributes to growing body of research that illustrates the fraught associations between heteronormativity, masculinity, and gaming.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We are also curious as to whether and how gamified porn consumption by straight males, such as Jerk Off Challenges and “Cock Hero,” might be incorporated into this theorization, since these practices seem to heavily involve homoerotic elements (Stadler 2015). But this is beyond the scope of this chapter.

  2. 2.

    Katherine Hayles (2010), among others, insists on the materiality of digital media; data is always embodied in and by something. Following this, the forms of contact we describe here may not be physical, but they are always material.

  3. 3.

    Following Jeremy Packer and Stephen Wiley, we use the term “materialist ” in regard to communication and media studies, to signal an attempt to move beyond “textualist” paradigms and instead theorize communication in terms of “infrastructure, space, technology, and the body” (Packer and Wiley 2012, 3).

  4. 4.

    It is interesting to note that many of the paradigmatic representations of hypermasculinity in digital games involve rugged outlaws, militaristic super-soldiers, and sports athletes—paragons of the very domains where we most often find instances of ritualized homosexual contact between straight white men.

  5. 5.

    Although Susanna Paasonen (2011) suggests moving beyond that irony, perhaps there is still some usefulness within it.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Nicholas Taylor

  2. University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Shira Chess

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  1. Nicholas Taylor
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Nicholas Taylor

  2. Department of Communication Arts, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Gerald Voorhees

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Taylor, N., Chess, S. (2018). Not So Straight Shooters: Queering the Cyborg Body in Masculinized Gaming. In: Taylor, N., Voorhees, G. (eds) Masculinities in Play. Palgrave Games in Context. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90581-5_15

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