‘It’s Called Being Her Dog’: Young Men Talk About Being Boyfriends,Homosociality and the Expelling of Femininity in Aotearoa/New Zealand

This article showcases how young men, from a high school in Aotearoa/New Zealand, made sense of the rules of homosociality, with specific reference to how boyfriends and girlfriends should act in their relationships with one another. Young men talked about the importance of being a ‘good’ homosocial mate, which led them to also talk about the importance of expelling femininity as a way for them to manage their masculine identities and avoid being shamed, and therefore feminized. This article will argue that these reactions to femininity were embedded in a homosocial habitus, influencing how young men made sense of the various overlapping fields of action. Young men’s talk, however, also presented a range of ambivalences that contradicted these endorsements of homosociality. These contradictions are meaningful because of the opportunities they present in disrupting the hegemonic sense-makings of homosociality and gendered roles in (hetero) romantic interactions.