Men Who Surf

Abstract

As a surfer, I experience and participate with countless rituals, myths, legends, laws, body modifications, feelings and ideas. Riding a wave is more than an act. To ‘become-surfer’ is to undergo a complex lived experience of surging relations. My analysis of surfing in this article shows how male bodies surf with tidal flows of relations. That is, how they reckon with varying, confusing, and moving experiences. I want to provide a mapping of male surfing bodies whereby fibreglass meshes with flesh, wax, fear, excitement, economics, sweat, politics, erotica and representations. I map masculinity fuelled by feelings of moving, relational and paddling bodies.