Hegemonic masculinity at work in the gay adult film industry

Abstract

This article discusses how staff at a gay adult film studio produce a local form of hegemonic masculinity to which adult film performers are held accountable, requiring performers to orient their gender strategies in specific ways to obtain employment. These findings contribute to understandings of how hegemonic masculinity is embodied, racialized, and sexualized at work in ways that subordinate femininity while affording privileges to those who meet these criteria. I conclude with a discussion of how this local form relates to regional hegemonic forms, implications for the workplace experiences of marginalized men, and how gay adult film studios may be complicit in the domination of gay and effeminate men.