Uncovering gay class tourism
In a forthcoming article in the prestigious journal Sociology, La Trobe Graduate School of Management academic Professor Gavin Jack and colleague Professor Joanna Brewis, University of Leicester, have mapped the emerging fascination with all things ‘chav’ among middle-class homosexuals in Britain.
Best translated as an Australian bogan, ‘chav’ is the latest term for the underclass, or those from a low socio-economic environment whose putative “identity revolves around ‘tasteless’ consumer goods, unemployment, violence, heavy drinking and drug taking, and hypersexuality”. Interestingly, the chav is an astute and highly brand-aware consumer.
Professors Jack and Brewis detail the complex consumer patterns that emerge when middle-class homosexual men seemingly go ‘slumming’ for chavs either dressed in particular kinds of sportswear accessorized with ostentatious bling, manifest in oversized diamond and gold jewellery, or through a variety of other arenas.
This type of gay class tourism undermines the stereotype of the gay man as a cultured, bourgeois consumer par excellence by identifying an increase in the number of pornographic material, sex lines and club nights dedicated to the traditionally lower class values of the chav. At club nights, for example, middle-class men will dress down in tracksuits, baseball caps and the ubiquitous bling, turning an increasingly popular sexual fantasy into a distinct commodity.
The research pair identify a range of interesting, contradictory elements arising from this middle-class gay tourism; including the question of whether the fascination with chavs opens up the gay space for working class homosexual men or whether this fascination simply reinforces the all too familiar construct of the unselective male libido.
As often is the case, this groundbreaking piece of research paves the way for a multitude of possible projects that connect the under-researched dynamics of social class and sexuality.
Professor Gavin Jack joined the La Trobe Graduate School of Management as a Professor of Management in March 2009. His research interests include international management issues, consumption and postcolonial organizational analysis.
Contact
Professor Gavin Jack
Email: g.jack@latrobe.edu.au
Phone: +61 3 9479 3137
