Dude You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School (review)

Dude You're a Fag is, despite its title, a very traditional piece of sociological fieldwork. I say this as a form of praise. What Professor Pascoe has done is enter a field site full of native others: working class high school boys who are at times hostile, potentially dangerous even. Pascoe did this as a small, 20-something white woman who is also a lesbian and therefore potentially even more out of place in the hyper-heteronormative space of high school. In her appendix, Pascoe takes the reader through the difficulties of her own position in this field site by describing how she dressed (baggy cargo pants, black T-shirts); how she walked (with confidence) and how she dealt with her sexuality (by performing as "a soft-butch lesbian… I stood strong legged instead of shifting my weight from one leg to another… I smiled less. I also sat with my legs wide apart and crossed ankle over knee rather than knee over knee."181). Pascoe considers every aspect of her presentation of self in order to gain access to the young men she's studying, "if not as an honorary guy, at least as some sort of neutered observer who wouldn't be offended."

And gain access she does. Pascoe is able to witness the quotidian rituals of heterosexual masculinity, its precariousness, its fragility and ultimately, its dangerous lashing out at all that can undermine it, particularly the feminine and the "fag." Not being a "fag" is central to establishing oneself as "masculine" in the working-class California high school that is Pascoe's field site. According to Pascoe, "fag" is not a stable identity, but a potential if momentary labeling that haunts all of the boys, gay and straight alike. "Fag discourse is central to boys' joking relationships. Boys invoked the specter of the fag in two ways: through humorous imitation and through lobbing the epithet at one another."(60) Masculinity was ritualized, both formally and informally, in a variety of performances. Informal performances included everything from public bragging about acts of sexual dominance over girls to threatening the safety of the few students who openly identified as queer. Formal performances of masculinity included the highly ritualized dances and contests set up by school administrators that demanded not just heterosexuality, but a stable and binary presentation of gender (e.g. even fairly butch lesbians felt they had to wear dresses to the dances) to classrooms where heterosexuality was always presumed.

Perhaps one of Pascoe's most interesting, if not surprising, findings is how masculinity is negotiated differently by race. What Pascoe found is that young black men were far less likely to engage in the "fag" discourse than whites. Indeed, young black men felt secure enough in their (straight) masculinity to engage in stereotypically feminine or "fag" concerns such as fashion. Young white men were so insecure in their masculinity, however, that they could not even touch in classroom situations when told to do so by a teacher. Because black men are so hyper-sexualized in American culture and history, they can engage in behaviors that would mark white men as "fags." Yet it is this very hyper-sexualized position that also made the young black men at Pascoe's field site far more subject to administrative punishments for even the slightest display of sexuality – even normative sexuality. "While expressions of sexuality were often encouraged or at least tolerated from white boys, for certain groups of students, especially African American boys, they were especially discouraged."(46).

Not only is the term fag gendered (used by men to shore up masculinity) and racialized (used primarily by white men to shore up insecure masculinity), it is also, sadly, part of the institutional culture of Pascoe's field site and, I imagine, high schools across the United States. The way that queer students negotiate this hostile space is courageous, but also depressing...