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‘It’s a Mixed Up, Muddled Up, Shook Up World’

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Abstract

This chapter explores the concept of m/m sex as queer sex. Many women spoke of how m/m pornography or erotica offers an opportunity for expression of non-normative sexuality, and that their engagement with it allows them to push boundaries and explore other kinds of kink. Cante and Restivo (The cultural-aesthetic specificities of all-male moving-image pornography. In L. Williams (Ed.), Porn studies, Duke University Press, London, pp. 142–166, 2004) argue that m/m porn is always ‘non-normative, whether one conceives the non-normative as a violation of patriarchal law, or, more experientially, as the excess attached to feeling different and acting like an outsider’, adding that ‘all-male pornography at some point also becomes the field for the (utopian) reinvention of the world eternally promised by identity politics’. This chapter investigates how gay male porn can be seen as subverting the patriarchal order by challenging masculinist values, providing a protected space for non-conformist, non-reproductive and non-familial sexuality, and encouraging many sex-positive values.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Particularly when we consider the concept of mpreg, as discussed in Chap. 5.

  2. 2.

    For a further discussion and explanation of these tropes, see Chap. 8.

  3. 3.

    A Mary Sue (if female) or Gary Stu (if male) is an idealized and annoyingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfilment.

  4. 4.

    A derivative of OTP [one true pairing], OT3 means one true threesome, and involves three characters instead of two. OTPs may constitute three same sex characters, but often they involve m/m/f or m/f/f partnerships, for example Harry/Ron/Hermione in Harry Potter or Jack/Will/Elizabeth in Pirates of the Caribbean.

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    Lucy Neville

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Neville, L. (2018). ‘It’s a Mixed Up, Muddled Up, Shook Up World’. In: Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69134-3_7

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