This chapter explores Sanhe gods’ hybridized masculinity across rural–urban and class boundaries. It also discusses their online and offline sexual discourses, desires, and involvement in paid sex.

Chapter 4 uses chronicles, hagiographies, ekphraseis and polemical treatises to discuss clerical hunting in Romanía. Prohibitions against clerical hunting had existed for Western men since Late Antiquity, but there is not enough evidence to suggest that Romanía followed the same pattern. In the Eastern Roman context, narratives of clerical hunting did not put the emphasis on differences between secular and religious men, and non-participation did not entail the loss of masculine capital. Rather, the focus was on human/animal interactions and the need to avoid overindulgence, and the emphasis was the same whether the person involved was an emperor or a cleric. The animals themselves also had an important role to play: they were not simply seen as prey to be dominated by the manly man but could act as co-creators of the skills necessary for the hunt, leaving their traces on their co-hunters’ subjectivity. At the same time, the malleability of Eastern Roman ideas about which animal lives were worth preserving allowed authors to strategically unify all men against the animal Other or to distinguish between different types of men, creating in the process hierarchies of masculinities.

The conclusion brings together the themes that have emerged throughout the book, provides comparative perspectives, teases out some of the wider implications for the study of gender and suggests directions for future research. It also comes back to the multitude of animals that have appeared sporadically throughout the different chapters, discussing the role they played in gender construction and the potential of human/animal connections to decentre the man in the process of creating male subjectivities.

A gap divides modern ideas of genius from the sentimental conceptions of the 1760s and 1770s. Though talent was a common feature, musical genius for Rousseau and Diderot was integrally related to expression, affective identification with a community, and an orientation towards ‘the people’. Also important was ‘enthusiasm’, originally a type of religious inspiration fostered after 1700 within radical Protestant groups such as Count Zinzendorf’s Moravians, who radically challenged contemporary ideas of masculinity, sexuality and religious faith. Enthusiasm’s secularization with Goethe and Herder initiated the countercultural ‘period of genius’ (Genieperiode) later known as the Sturm und Drang. Its composers, such as J. M. Kraus, Neefe and Reichardt, lavished attention on popular, commercial forms such as German comic opera and ‘popular song’ (Volkslied) – priorities only challenged when the movement’s opponents such as J. N. Forkel tactically redefined ‘genius’ to centre it on technical mastery rather than inspiration and expression.

Chapter 2 focuses on Ioannes Tzetzes’ letters and his Chiliades to explore the role that animals could play in the construction of the scholar’s gender. It begins with a discussion of Tzetzes’ preference for mules and the role they played in networks of patronage. It continues to show how Tzetzes challenged hegemonic masculinity by expressing solidarity with animals: not only did he not hunt or kill them, but he also often refused to eat them. In his collection of ancient stories, Tzetzes described animals as capable of friendship, affection, loyalty and grief, and praised their understanding of the world as in some ways superior to that of humans. In his letters, he used his affective connections with animals to justify his open expression of emotions and did not hesitate to grieve for humans, animals and plants. Tzetzes’ writings, through their blurring of human/non-human boundaries, invite us to think differently about animals, past and present, spurring us to develop greater empathy with our natural environment.

In Elegy 4.9, Propertius provides an aetiology for a detail of the cult of Hercules at the Ara Maxima: the prohibition on women attending the ceremony. He presents this particularity as a retaliatory measure taken by the hero himself, who reacted to the banning of any male from the space in which the cult of Bona Dea is celebrated. Propertius describes the priestess of Bona Dea as trying to prevent Hercules from entering the sacred space by arguing that female chastity must be respected. After having argued that there is no insurmountable difference between the sexes since there may be role reversal between men and women, Hercules forces the door. Propertius uses this episode located in ancient Latium to put forward some reflections on a (modern) topic, specific to the elegiac genre: sexual identity and gender relations. He presents an alternative point of view that includes both facets of what Augustus seeks to impose in his politics of promoting ancient social practices, essentially concerned with control over morality and sexuality: a strict conception of female morality, and a crucial questioning of gender conceptions: what makes the difference between the sexes? It is dress, behaviour or the body?

As we’ve seen, bitch has been used against men for almost as long as it’s been used against women. Bitch is still thrown at men and women alike, but it’s used somewhat differently. Bitch can have positive connotations when a woman reclaims it, but when aimed at a man, bitch is rarely a compliment. While a bitch can be a strong woman, it usually means a weak man. But unlike powerful women who are hit with the word, men are targeted with bitch when they are considered to be powerless. Bitch likens a woman to a man, while it likens a man to a woman. It’s an emasculating insult that suggests he’s lacking in courage and strength. Bitch might also accuse him of being effeminate or gay. There are many different versions of the slur for a man – he’s a little bitch, someone’s bitch, a prison bitch, or he’s a son of a bitch.

Not only money crossed the ocean: letters between the French orphans and their benefactors went in each direction across the Atlantic. The correspondence between France’s orphans supported through the FCFS and their American benefactors revealed both the power of the connection and the power dynamic between the recipients and the “godparents.” Letters from the fatherless children of France told of the moral and psychological support that accompanied the financial assistance that sponsorships provided. And while it seems that the correspondence helped open an ocean of hope and fostered the conviction that France was not alone in its fight against Germany, the letters from France also reflected the power dynamic of the sponsorship: those in need had to keep the assistance coming. The letters also show the FCFS at work: the instructions to the recipients of aid as to how they were to communicate with donors; the typed transcription and translations of the letters, most likely carried out by women in the Paris and New York offices; and the messaging to the benefactors, who were reminded that mothers needed money, but children cared more for the attention from a far-away friend.

This chapter examines Harriet Martineau’s approach to gender politics through her understanding of ‘manliness’ as explored in a selection of her Illustrations of Political Economy (1832−4). It was a concept essential to her configuration of male leadership fit for the testing times of the early 1830s, and highly topical. Published when the pressures experienced by men of all classes were being highlighted in periodicals and novels, the tales address the differences between ‘personality’ and ‘character’ in crises faced by fathers and husbands, magistrates and petty criminals, trades union activists, landowners, and slave-owners, at home and in the colonies, as they debate the injustices of their living and working conditions. This chapter argues that Martineau’s interventions in contemporary debates about masculinity shift the focus to a new kind of conscientious working man whose values are tested in cross-class dialogues in public places. It explores the ways in which the Illustrations show how men collaborate and compete within their communities, and the ambiguous gender messages arising from patterns of reward and punishment that seem to devalue otherwise positive characteristics.

Shanghai is often seen as the exemplar of Chinese cosmopolitan modernity, including gender and sexual progressiveness under Western influence. This chapter argues that Shanghai’s cosmopolitanism is also rooted in migration, activism, and state policies. The early reforms of patrilineage coincided with influxes of migrants and refugees, who constituted the majority of Shanghai’s urban population. As the hotspot for China’s industrialization, women’s economic empowerment and social activism occurred almost simultaneously. The semi-colonial status of Shanghai before 1949 that protected groups such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in extra-territorialities also made possible the survival of sexual minorities. These historical and social conditions created an urban environment that has made negotiations of the most intimate aspects of human life both possible and difficult. Shanghai as the pioneer of gender equality and sexual modernity in China must be viewed through those intimate negotiations, in which people transform the definitions of freedom, belonging, and modernity.

This chapter describes the current scholarly view of the dominant ideologies surrounding sexuality in the Roman world of the late Republic and early Empire (c. 100 BCE to 100 CE) and also outlines the fragmentary glimpses we have of the lived experiences of people of the time, including those from marginalized or oppressed groups. It covers the normative expectations of sexual practice, the ‘penetrative’ model and its problems, labels, and terminology used at the time and by modern scholars including the debate around the use of ‘homosexuality’ and ‘heterosexuality’ to describe the ancient world, the place of sexuality in the private and public realms, the relation between sex and gender, legal, moral, and social constraints on sex and sexual violence, and the intersection of status and sexuality. The chapter draws on Latin poetry, legal and historical texts, art, and material remains to provide evidence and examples of Roman sexual practices and attitudes towards sex.

This book considers professional culture in relation to place and affect. All law students from across Britain and its empire had to train in London at four legal societies known as the Inns of Court. Unlike other professions that underwent systematic reforms, the Inns of Court remained guild-like associations that offered no systematic training. Instead of inculcating legal knowledge, the societies relied on affective rituals to create a sense of belonging among members—or, conversely, to marginalize those who did not fit the profession’s ideals. This book examines the societies’ active efforts to maintain an exclusive and masculine culture in the face of sweeping social, political, and demographic changes across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This chapter examines the Inns’ largest and most on-going source of concern regarding radical politics, Indian nationalists, whom the Inns sometimes conflated with Indian students more generally. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, men from throughout the empire, but in greatest number from India, came to London to study law. By the early twentieth century, burgeoning colonial nationalist movements gained visibility for their causes, sometimes through violent actions in the colonies or in London. Members of the Inns came to distrust the potentially radical politics of their overseas members, equating all imperial subjects with anti-British actions. The societies collaborated with the British government to consider quotas limiting the number of Indian students in London. They debated whether or not colonial students were capable of being trained to be self-regulating subjects who would willingly submit to and replicate existing structures of power.

This chapter examines how, particularly in response to their growing middle-class population, the Inns of Court relied on their architectural spaces and social practices to ensure that all members of the bar embodied the ideal of the gentlemanly professional. In the absence of required classes, the societies stressed fraternization with older generations to inculcate new members with legal knowledge and the values appropriate to British barristers. The societies emphasized affective bonds and tried to cultivate fraternal relationships between their members. Yet in the mid-nineteenth century, the category of gentlemanliness was itself in flux, subject to divergent ideas of who could be a gentleman and how a gentleman should behave. Competing ideas of who belonged at the societies or what counted as gentlemanly behavior could result in unanticipated affective registers, including anger, indignation, and shame.