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Body & Society
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Big Handsome Men, Bears and Others: Virtual Constructions of ‘Fat Male Embodiment’

Lee F. Monaghan

University of Limerick, Ireland

Using embodied sociology, this article offers a virtual ethnography of ‘fat male embodiment’. Reporting and analysing qualitative data generated online, it includes a typology of big/fat male body-subjects and supportive/admiring others. These fat-friendly typifications are unpacked by referencing advocated codes of self–body relatedness, sexualities and the relevance of food. The virtual construction of acceptable, admirable or resistant masculinities is then explored under the following headings: (1) appeals to ‘real’ or ‘natural’ masculinity; (2) the admiration and eroticization of fat men’s bodies; (3) transgression, fun and the carnivalesque; and (4) the pragmatics and politics of fat male embodiment. While alternative (positive) understandings of fatness are presented online, discrepancies between virtual and actual identities render stigma an ever-present possibility for those with ‘real’ fat male bodies.

Key Words: embodiment • fatness • Internet • male bodies • masculinities • obesity • stigma

Body & Society, Vol. 11, No. 2, 81-111 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1357034X05052463
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L. F. Monaghan
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[Abstract] [PDF]