“Gay or not?!”: Gay men, straight masculinities, and the construction of the Details audience

Abstract

This article examines representations of gayness in Details since the magazine's transformation from a gay-associated style publication to a men's lifestyle magazine targeting straight men. Whereas queer communication scholars have shown gayness is often used to demarcate differences between gay and straight masculinities to make domestic consumption a “masculine” practice for straight men, I argue Details also utilized gayness to construct differences between *straight* masculinities. These differences allowed Details to distinguish itself from competitors, using gayness to construct new male audiences around masculinities previously ignored in the men's magazine market and legitimize them as “authentic” straight identities. This case is significant for the study of consumer masculinities and male-targeted media, asserting the relationship between gay men and straight consumption must be theorized as a dynamic and discursive pattern of gender relations.

Keywords:

• Gay
• Men
• Masculinities
• Magazines
• Gender

Acknowledgements

An early version of this research was presented at the ICA Conference, Montreal (May 2008). The author would like to thank the journal's editor, the anonymous reviewers, and his adviser, Amanda Lotz, for their extremely helpful suggestions.

Notes

1. Data are unavailable on the sexual orientation of Details’ actual, rather than intended, readership at any point.

2. Due to lack of availability, the following 11 issues were not analyzed: October and November 1990; March through May 1991; February 1992; March through June 1996; and April 1997.

3. As of September 2008, Dolce remains Details’ only gay editor-in-chief. The editorial incorporation of gayness was not significantly different, in quality or quantity, under the direction of Dolce than Truman and Leland.

4. England's lad culture revolved around a particular coding of masculinity, the new lad, which drew men into consumer culture through sexualized images of women and a more “assertive articulation of the post-permissive masculine heterosexual scripts” (Nixon, 1996, p. 203). Men's lifestyle magazines were a primary site in which these codings appeared.

5. As of September 2008, Peres remains the editor of Details. Although September 2008 marks the end of this study's time frame, it does not necessarily mark the end of this particular editorial era.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jimmy Draper

Jimmy Draper is a doctoral candidate in Communication Studies at the University of Michigan