Strategic Silence: College Men and Hegemonic Masculinity in Contraceptive Decision Making

Abstract

Condom use among college men in the United States is notoriously erratic, yet we know little about these men’s approaches to other contraceptives. In this paper, accounts from 44 men attending a university in the western United States reveal men’s reliance on culturally situated ideas about gender, social class, race, and age in assessing the risk of pregnancy and STI acquisition in sexual encounters with women. Men reason that race- and class-privileged college women are STI-free, responsible for contraception, and will pursue abortion services if necessary. Since men expect women will take responsibility, they often stay silent about condoms and other contraceptives in sexual encounters—a process we term “strategic silence.” Men’s strategic silence helps uphold local constructions of hegemonic masculinity that prioritize men’s sexual desires and protects these constructions by subtly shifting contraceptive and sexual health responsibility onto women. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of men’s expectations of women for upholding constructions of hegemonic masculinity, which legitimate gender inequality in intimacy and are related to men’s underestimation of the risks associated with condom-free sex.

Gender Differences in Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Condoms and Birth Control Among Chicago Adolescents

“…Our results suggest that attitudes and behaviors related to safe sex differ between male and female adolescents, which supports the public health field's understanding of contraceptive and condom use among adolescents. These findings mirror previous studies that relate sexual health beliefs and behaviors to traditional gender norms and hegemonic masculinity (Dalessandro et al, 2019; Fennell, 2011). Below we discuss results based on the three Theory of Gender and Power constructs.…”

“…The most common reason for not using condoms was that sex is more pleasurable without the condom. As suggested by Dalessandro et al (2019), men stay silent about condom use in sexual encounters as a way to prioritize their sexual pleasure and push the responsibility of STI and pregnancy prevention onto women. This “strategic silence” is demonstrated in male adolescents’ explanations that they don't use condoms because “you can't really feel nothing when you got a condom on,” and that they don't take the time to think about putting on a condom while engaging in sexual activity.…”

“…The construction of this idealized masculinity varies based on the culture and context to which it is applied (Jewkes et al, 2015). In their article on hegemonic masculinity as it relates to condom use among college males, Dalessandro, James‐Hawkins, and Sennott (2019) describe how college males demonstrate hegemonic masculinity by remaining silent about contraception and condom use. This concept, which they name “strategic silence,” prioritizes men's sexual pleasure and shifts the responsibility of practicing protected sex to women.…”

Saving Sex for Marriage: An Analysis of Lay Attitudes Towards Virginity and its Perceived Benefit for Marriage

“…This form of masculinity functions within a topography of orthodox morality and legitimizes patriarchal, hierarchical gender structures via the subjugation of women and other types of masculinity in the social system (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005;Renold, 2010). The relationship between hegemonic masculinity and sexual behaviour has been studied extensively in the past (Currier, 2013;Dalessandro et al, 2019;Diefendorf, 2015;Duckworth & Trautner, 2019;Miller, 2016;Pascoe, 2013;Shakiba et al, 2021). Hegemonically masculine men are deemed to have an uncontrollable and unquenchable sexual desire.…”

On the enduring relationship between masculinity and homophobia: Reply to McCormack

“…1 Feminist scholarship on masculinities has a tradition of critically interrogating what discourses about “new men” or “good men” accomplish and for whom, regardless of the subjective motives of those involved (e.g. Aboim, 2010; Arxer, 2011; Barber and Kretschmer, 2013; Barber, 2016; Chen, 1999; Dalessandro, James-Hawkins, and Sennott, 2019; de Boise, 2017; Demetriou, 2001; Duckworth and Trautner, 2019; Duncanson, 2015; Eisen and Yamashita, 2017; Elliot, 2019; Groes-Green, 2012; Hearn, 2018; Heath, 2003, 2019; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner, 1994; Jóhannsdóttir and Gíslason, 2018; Kim and Pyke, 2015; Kolb, 2012; Lamont, 2014; Levesque, 2016; McDowell, 2017; Messner, 1993, 2007; Messserschmidt and Messner, 2018; Munsch and Gruys, 2018; Pascoe and Hollander, 2016; Pfaffendorf, 2017; Randles, 2019; Schmitz and Haltom, 2017; Silva, 2018; Stein, 2005; Trąbka and Wojnicka, 2017; Young, 2017). This tradition does not imply that change is not possible, but it proceeds from an understandably skeptical position, in acknowledgement of the momentum and durability of world historical systems and relations of gender and sexual inequality.…”