Thurnell-Read, Thomas. (2011) Off the leash and out of control : masculinities and embodiment in eastern European stag tourism. Sociology, Vol.45 (No.6). pp. 977-991. ISSN 0038-0385

Abstract

Entrenched conceptions of masculinity have constructed the male body as bounded and controlled. This article discusses the centrality of a particular construction of the male body to the phenomenon of British premarital stag party tourism to Eastern European cities. Drawing on data from participant-observation in Kraków, Poland, it is shown that the tour participants enact an embodied masculinity which is unruly and unrestrained. The stag tour experience is embodied through the use of clothing and incidences of nudity, public urination and vomiting, and the detrimental physical effects of heavy alcohol consumption. This embodiment is self-destructive and frequently self-parodic. The failures of participants to sustain a controlled and contained body are celebrated as part of the enactment of a boisterous masculinity. This represents a release from normative pressures concerning the male body but, with transgression being only temporary, also acts to support the ritualistic reinscription of a wider hegemonic masculinity.

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