Gay Men's Body Presentation And Masculinity Construction On Social Media

The spread of concept of masculinity in China makes externalized masculinity imitated and respected by Chinese men.With the rapid development of social media,men have more ways and opportunities to present and construct their masculinity.In this process,body has become an important carrier for men to show their masculinity in social media,thus the close relationship between the body and masculinity has been widely studied.However,as the male,marginalized gay men were not taken seriously,and the studies for gay men's body presentation and masculinity were relatively blank.Therefore,based on Cornell's four categories of masculinity,this thesis conducted in-depth interviews with 15 gay men to study the body presentation conditions and characteristics of gay men in social media,and analyzed various factors and reasons affecting their body presentation and construction of gender temperament.This thesis is mainly divided into four parts.The first chapter is the introduction,which introduces the research background,sorts out the domestic and foreign scholars' research on masculinity and body,as well as the self-presentation of social media,proposes the research problems,and shows the research objects and methods of this thesis.The second chapter demonstrats the status and characteristics of the body and ideal image of gay men on social media through interviews.The third chapter analyzes the internal and external factors that influence the masculinity of gay men on social media.The fourth chapter is the conclusion,which was drawn that gay men can not onlu gain more potential benefits in the aspects of dating,economic,awareness and psychological by revealing the body to render the dominant male temperament on social media,but also alleviate gender temperament anxiety and physical anxiety,and acquire social identity.Therefore,the dominant male temperament is popularized by this group.