An Ethnography of Breastaurant Masculinity: Themes of Objectification, Sexual Conquest, Male Control, and Masculine Toughness in a Sexually Objectifying Restaurant
A SCHOLARLY PAPER FROM THE GRIEVANCE STUDIES PROJECT
Summary
Published in Sex Roles, a leading interdisciplinary journal dedicated largely to gender theory
In the name of Richard Baldwin, Ph.D., professor emeritus of history at Gulf Coast State College (and professional bodybuilder) by Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose.
NB: Dr. Baldwin let us use his name and identity with his permission, but we invented an email address for him for this project which we control.
Discipline/subdiscipline: men and masculinities studies
Summary: That men frequent “breasturants” like Hooters because they are nostalgic for patriarchal dominance and enjoy being able to order attractive women around. The environment that breastaurants provide for facilitating this encourages men to identify sexual objectification and sexual conquest, along with masculine toughness and male dominance, with “authentic masculinity.” The data are clearly nonsense and conclusions drawn from it are unwarranted.
Of note, this paper cites the Dildos paper. This demonstrates a point that the canon of literature builds upon itself, so that once a ridiculous paper gets published, it can become the basis for other ridiculous papers. This process has gone on in grievance studies fields for long enough now—more than fifty years—that we were able to get a rewrite of part of Mein Kampf published in a feminist social work journal, among others.
Purpose: This paper ridicules men for being themselves by caricaturing them and assuming bad motivations for their attitudes. It seeks to demonstrate that journals will publish papers that seek to problematize heterosexual men’s attraction to women and will accept very shoddy qualitative methodology and ideologically-motivated interpretations which support this. To insert a great deal of crass language and disturbing themes as though they are indicative of what men secretly view as “authentic masculinity.”
Notes on Status:
Peer reviewed and rejected by Men and Masculinities
Accepted by Sex Roles
Accepted: September 6, 2018
Published online: September 19, 2018
Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-018-0962-0
Selected Reviewer Comments:
“I agree that the breastaurant is an important site for critical masculinities research that has been neglected in the extant literature and this study has the potential to make a significant contribution.” –Reviewer 2, Sex Roles
“I thank the authors for addressing an important and interesting issue in gender research viewed through a masculine perspective.” -Reviewer 3, Sex Roles
“This article is certainly interesting to read and to think about, and I can imagine this article being valuable in an undergraduate or graduate class on masculinities.” -Reviewer 1, Men & Masculinities
Contents:
Abstract
Introduction
Male Preserves
The Breastaurant as a Sexually Objectifying Environment
The Breastaurant as a Purveyor of Ersatz Sexual Availability
The Present Study
Method
Overview
Participants
Procedure
Data Analytic Strategy
Results
Why Breastaurants? Rationalization—a Minor Theme
Sexual Objectification
Table 1
Sexual Conquest
Male Dominance and Control over Women
Masculine Toughness
Discussion
Limitations and Future Research Directions
Practice Implications
Conclusions
Compliance with Ethical Standards
References
Reviewer Comments
Abstract
The present study is based on a 2-year participant-observer ethnography of a group of men in a “breastaurant” to characterize the unique masculinity features that environment evokes. Currently, whereas some research examines sexually objectifying restaurant environments regarding their impacts upon women in those spaces, no known scholarly attention has been given to men and masculinities in these environments. Through thematic analysis of table dialogue supplemented by brief unstructured interviews, I identify four major and one minor theme of “breastaurant masculinity” as distinctive to that environment. These include sexual objectification, sexual conquest, male control of women, masculine toughness, and (as a minor theme) rationalizations for why men frequent breastaurants. Following recent trends in masculinities research, my study interprets the breastaurant as a type of male preserve that erects a local pastiche hegemony in which these themes gain protected status. It also theorizes that the unique interactive environment of the breastaurant between (mostly) male patrons and attractive female servers who provide heterosexual aesthetic labor to the patrons, primarily in the form of ersatz sexual availability, produces these masculinity features. Given their current rapid expansion and popularity within masculine subcultures, the breastaurant therefore becomes an important site for critical masculinities research. Practice implications are discussed for management and counseling professionals who aim to improve outcomes in social and professional situations for both women and men.
Introduction
For critical masculinities researchers, the ways in which masculinity arises uniquely within certain spaces and under varying social circumstances is a matter of enduring interest. Particularly, researchers examining the question through social constructivism recognize the power that certain discourses can have in defining masculinity and interpreting it as natural or authentic. Masculinities scholar Matthews (2014, 2015, 2016), for example, by drawing on Sheard and Dunning (1973) and Dunning and Maguire (1996), has paid particular interest to the ways in which these processes have led to the establishment of sporting enclaves as a kind of male preserve. Male preserves are gendered spaces which men regard as “crucial elements in the re-articulation, reiteration, and reification of social power” (Matthews 2016, p. 313). Their establishment and use are seen as a reaction against:
a broader process in which movements toward equality have challenged patterns of gender that ideologically frame certain men as powerful, whereby changes in the institutional organization of politics, education, the workplace, governance, religion, media, and the family have eroded assumptions about the legitimacy of the traditional patriarchal order. (Matthews 2016, p. 314)
As documented by Matthews (2016) and confirmed by his own insider’s ethnographies (2014, 2016), for more than 40 years, sporting enclaves have been recognized as offering avenues for men to create a “pastiche hegemony” (Matthews 2014, p. 99; cf. Connell and Messerschmidt 2005) in which discourses that naturalize male power as masculine face minimal criticism. Within these spaces, it has been thoroughly documented that masculine themes and discourses of sexual conquest and routine manifestations of male dominance and supremacy under a broader patriarchal system are common (as cited in Matthews 2014, 2016).
These themes are also common within other male preserves. My paper therefore departs from previous studies of male preserves by leaving aside discussions of all-male sporting environments in favor of the breastaurant, which is a label I use for sexually objectifying (casual dining) restaurant environments where scantily-clad, attractive female servers are a defining feature/gimmick. By extending Matthews’ (2016) concept into an environment in which (conventionally hetero-sexually attractive, heterosexualized, performatively flirtatious) women are seen as foils who enable certain performances of masculinity, the ways in which the objectification and commodification of women as “heterosexual aesthetic labor” (Barber 2016a, p. 618) are central to these masculine gender performances become clear.
Although some insightful work has been done to investigate the breastaurant environment, these studies have focused primarily upon the women employed within them. From this perspective, breastaurant environments have been of significant concern for feminist thought due to their foregrounding of women’s bodies to appeal to men’s desires (Moffitt and Szymanski 2011; Rasmusson 2011; Szymanski and Feltman 2014, 2015; Szymanski and Mikorski 2017; Szymanski et al. 2011). Consequently, no known studies have used methods common to masculinities research to investigate men who frequent breastaurants. This gap leaves open many questions about the masculinities that arise in and, perhaps, characterize the breastaurant environment as a unique type of male preserve. To address this conspicuous lack in the existing literature, following Matthews (2014), I engaged in a two-year in situ participant-observer ethnographic study of one group of men who regularly frequent a popular local breastaurant in Panama City, Florida. Of central interest were ways in which breastaurant environments produce and facilitate certain themes within masculinity and how these interact with and depend upon breastaurants’ unique microcultural environment. To this end, the data acquisition methodology paralleled one common in a constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmaz 2008), although my ethnography ultimately relied upon thematic analysis of participants’ recorded conversations produced over the course of the study (Braun and Clarke 2006; Gibbs 2007; Nowell et al. 2017).
Of note, gender-situated as I am, as a man conducting such an investigation within a male preserve—which already privileges men’s need to bolster a faltering masculinity at the expense of focusing upon the complex range of social influences, pressures, and options which underlie women’s decision to play the role of breastaurant server (Barber 2016a, b; Rasmusson 2011)—considerable care needed to be given to avoiding the uncritical reproduction of this imbalance. Ultimately, the decision to focus on men’s thoughts, feelings, and desires within the breastaurant environment is an attempt to both expand the work of Matthews (2016) and to incorporate and complement the already extensive work of feminist scholars looking at objectification, sexual empowerment, organizational structure, discrimination, and sexual exploitation of women in such environments, particularly including Szymanski et al. (Moffitt and Szymanski 2011; Szymanski and Feltman 2014; Szymanski and Mikorski 2017) and Barber (2016a, b). Results indicate breastaurants represent unique public spaces that generate a socially complex local pastiche hegemony in which themes of sexual objectification, sexual conquest, male/patriarchal dominance, and masculine toughness are foregrounded and interact with performances of (role-specific, feigned) sexual availability by the servers.
Male Preserves
In his effort to deconstruct men and masculinities in the contemporary late-modern era, by drawing upon Connell and Messerschmidt’s (2005, pp. 849–851) exploration of a “geography of masculinities,” Michael Atkinson (2011, p. 63) offered the concept of “local pastiche hegemonies” as localized environments in which men are free to produce, develop, and engage with particular masculinity performances. These performances are at least partly a response to some men’s perception that existing masculinity themes are faltering, which leads to them being revived in pastiche form (Matthews 2014, 2015, 2016). Under the constraints of late-modern life, traditional themes of masculinity accessible to men—greater physical size, strength, capability, aggression, violence, and physical domination—have eroded as the evolving social milieu has been challenged (Matthews 2016, pp. 313–316). In short, these recent evolutions of masculinity have disrupted and continue to disrupt the viability of and male access to the hegemonic man as a mythic normative symbol of (hegemonic) masculinity to which they might aspire (Anderson 2009; Atkinson 2011; Connell 1995; cf. Cornwall et al. 2016; Matthews 2014). This leaves late-modern men to grapple, often aware and frustrated (Pease 2000), with a loss of apparently “authentic” masculinity. Atkinson (2011, p. 41) explains that, as a result, male power must now be framed in a “chameleon-like way, and to embrace, incorporate, and reorder all identities that are struggling for cultural legitimacy.” This pressure, in turn, leads men to seek out, create, and reinforce spaces that become a kind of male preserve (Matthews 2014, p. 104; Matthews 2015; cf. Sheard and Dunning 1973) in which some masculine themes can be reproduced without challenge. Thus, they represent fruitful sites for studying gender and gender roles in general and masculinity in particular.
The concept of local pastiche hegemonies as sites in which men can gain uncontested access to otherwise threatened themes of masculinity has been developed considerably by Matthews (2014, 2015, 2016) within the context of male sporting enclaves (indeed, he is concerned with “the tyranny of the male preserve” [2015, p. 312]). Matthews (2014) offers a thorough summary of a boxing gym as a male preserve that provides a local pastiche hegemony in which men can produce and perpetuate discourses about male biological identity, particularly discourses associating masculinity with testosterone under a rubric of “hormonal folklore” (2014, p. 102) (i.e., those quasi-scientific myths that grow up around essentialist ideals of natural masculine and feminine bodies and their hormonal causes). Matthews documents, in considerable theoretical and qualitative empirical detail, ways in which men utilize the pastiche hegemony within the boxing gym to promote beliefs about a masculine biological identity and link them to various long-running narratives about masculinity. In total, these form a “biology as ideology” (cf. Lorber 1993, p. 568) that appear scientific, which reinforces them from within as supposed true facts about masculinity. In this way, masculinity themes and discourses are often naturalized or authenticated by the men engaging in and connecting them to their masculine identities.
In the present study, I investigate the ways certain combinations of views about masculinity arise specifically and peculiarly to breastaurants by considering them as male preserves that maintain pastiche hegemonies within a normative part of broader contemporary culture. Furthermore, although my study’s focus is on expressions of what might be called breastaurant masculinity (cf. Allison 1994), I will also examine the ways in which the contextually and organizationally scripted performances of the female servers interact with that masculinity and are given meaning by it (cf. Barber 2016a, b). Thus, because my study focuses upon men and masculinities within breastaurants, it must be remembered that this meaning-making occurs through masculinist themes and does not represent the women’s perceptions and experiences.
The Breastaurant as a Sexually Objectifying Environment
To date, there is relatively little scholarly literature that directly studies breastaurants (outside the legal/discrimination context). A notable exception exists in Rasmusson’s (2011, p. 574) investigation of “why we cringe at Hooters.” Rasmusson’s study offers an embodied, generational postethnographic account of the iconic Hooters Girl, featuring extensive interviews with servers at Hooters who find theirs to be an interpretive community in which the performance of the Hooters Girl ideal is produced and routinely reproduced both for cause and effect (cf. Newton-Francis and Young 2015). Thus, Rasmusson (2011, p. 584) notes:
Going to Hooters, talking to Hooters girls, and leaving them big tips supports, albeit problematically, savvy young women who understand the many contradictions of their job, their local participation in the global service industry and what research is doing for (and to) young women today.
It is necessarily, then, in the light of Rasmusson’s (2011) observations about the organizational and situational pressures upon women working as servers in breastaurants (many of which can be understood in terms of the patriarchal and neoliberal commodification of women as sexualized objects who produce heterosexual aesthetic labor for entitled male patrons; Barber 2016a) and their “savvy” application of personal agency that the interactions in my study must be understood.
Comporting with Rasmusson (2011), Szymanski has conducted perhaps the most thorough study of breastaurants as sexually objectifying environments (SOEs; Moffitt and Szymanski 2011; Szymanski and Feltman 2014, 2015; cf. Szymanski et al. 2011) and sexually objectifying restaurant environments (SOREs; Szymanski and Mikorski 2017). For Szymanski, many restaurants, and all breastaurants, are spaces directly constructed around sexual objectification in that they place “women’s bodies and sexuality on display” such that “women’s appearance and wardrobe may be regulated in a manner that does not allow them to easily avoid sexual objectification or the male gaze,” which qualifies them as “environments that promote and reinforce sexual objectification” and “tacitly acknowledge and approve the male gaze” (Szymanski and Feltman 2015, pp. 390–391). Sexual objectification in turn leads to a number of issues not just for women—such as insidious trauma (Miles-McLean et al. 2015) and the harms of the objectifying gaze (Gervais et al. 2011)—but it is also connected to masculinity and its roles in relationships. These include lower relationship satisfaction (Ramsey et al. 2017), rape blame reinforced by decreased perception of victim suffering (Loughnan et al. 2013), perpetuation of discourses supporting rape culture, and increased rates of verbal sexual harassment (Davidson et al. 2015). Thus, a specific focus on the construction of pastiche masculinities within the breastaurant environment has the potential to be valuable for addressing these issues. This is because it may be most accurate, in fact, to say that as restaurants, breastaurants sell sexual objectification first and food and beer second.
Given male entitlement to women’s bodies as an enduring feature of heteromasculinity (Barber 2016a, b), it is little surprise that much of the appeal of breastaurants among their straight male patrons rests in their capability to provide Barber’s (2016a) heterosexual aesthetic labor, which straight male patrons utilize as identity resources (González and Seidler 2008; Pascoe 2007). That is, following Barber, men in breastaurants are likely to utilize their interactions with pretty, sexually appealing women (who are thereby providing heterosexual aesthetic labor) as a means to define themselves as masculine in identity. Indeed, what appeals to many men about breastaurants is specifically their status as environments in which sexual objectification is not merely tolerated, but rather is routinely encouraged by other men in the space, the establishment, and, ostensibly, by women working as servers. (This last assumption, regarding the servers, must be problematized in terms of the expectations establishments have in pressuring female employees to conform to this role; readers are directed to Barber (2016a, b) for a parallel treatment.) As noted by DeWitt, owner of the Twin Peaks breastaurant, these are obvious features that appeal to (hetero)masculinity: “Twin Peaks is about you, ‘cause you’re the man!” (Associated Press 2012; cf. The Week 2012).
The Breastaurant as a Purveyor of Ersatz Sexual Availability
Ultimately, this complexity arises specifically because breastaurants sell sexual objectification and heterosexual aesthetic labor as an intrinsic part of the experience and because women serving in breastaurants are rewarded through sizable tips (Daily Mail 2014; Lutz 2012). In such, breastaurants represent unique social environments due to enforcing specific performances by the servers, which can be called scripted in the sense that they reflect a gendered performance specific to the context of the role of server in such an establishment. These roles, in turn, ultimately draw much of breastaurants’ peculiar patronage, and they explicitly construct the dominant masculine themes among them. Because the characters played by the servers in breastaurants are an—arguably, the—indispensable part of the breastaurant environment, they necessarily play an integral role in producing, perpetuating, and maintaining the unique circumstances defining these environments (cf. Rasmusson 2011). Breastaurants are thus unique sites in which masculine themes emerge through (largely, and occasionally only at times) pastiche interaction of men with specific gendered performances by women. This, ultimately, is an interaction rooted in gender performativity (Butler 1990; West and Zimmerman 1987) that is, at least in part, scripted as a part of the breastaurant’s defining gimmick.
This, I posit, results in the construction of a pastiche hegemony within the breastaurant around the exploitation of ersatz sexual availability on the part of the servers and their scripted performances, which foreground sexual objectification. That is, ersatz sexual availability—synthetic performances of sexual availability for purposes other than signaling veridical sexual interest, particularly when this arrangement is understood by both performer and recipient—plays a central role in the specific form of heterosexual aesthetic labor produced for consumption within breastaurants. Put another way, heterosexual male clients do not go to breastaurants merely to ogle servers, nor just to be waited upon by them (cf. Barber 2016a), but rather to interact with them in particularly flirtatious ways. This (largely synthetic) interaction thereby becomes a site through which certain masculinity performances can be reenacted in a pastiche form and is among the primary draws of the breastaurant.
Ersatz sexual availability, a form of feigning sexual availability in order to produce a desired result, has been thoroughly studied. Much of the scholarly literature on marketing feigned sexual availability (as a heterosexual aesthetic labor resource) focuses upon sexually explicit, conspicuous examples such as exotic dancers, strippers, and performers in pornographic films (e.g., Griffith et al. 2012). Among these, one significant study investigating the relationships between masculinity and masculine themes and spaces that commodify ersatz sexual availability was conducted by Erickson and Tewksbury (2000). They delineated a six-category typology of men who frequent strip clubs (lonely, socially impotent, bold lookers, detached lookers, players, and sugar daddies) and the social commodities and relative power structures they interact within those spaces (see also Joseph and Black’s 2012, exposition on two types of masculinities that solicit prostitutes).
Nevertheless, there is a strong point of departure between strip-club and breastaurant environments; one that sees breastaurants roughly as stripping lite even while they remain restaurants that, at least nominally, put food service ahead of entertainment objectives. Thus, where Frank (2003, p. 61) sees frequenting strip clubs as being “related to existing power structures and inequalities” in ways that “are not necessarily experienced as exercises in acquiring or wielding power,” breastaurants explicitly require patrons to interact with some of those power structures and inequalities.
It should not escape notice, for instance, that within strip clubs the primary targets of male gaze and objectification are called performers or dancers, which categorizes them explicitly as entertainers who enjoy a certain power dynamic over and subjective removal from their audiences (cf. Erickson and Tewksbury 2000). Yet in breastaurants these entertainers are servers (as a rule: waitresses) who must take patrons’ orders, comply while navigating various sexual boundaries (even) more germane to these contexts than in other restaurants, and, as part of their contract and in order to generate effective income through tips (Lutz 2012; cf. Lynn and McCall 2016), to do so cheerfully, even flirtatiously, in all but the most egregious cases of customer misconduct (cf. Barber 2016a; Barton 2007; Rasmusson 2011; Szymanski and Feltman 2014). In this way, not only are breastaurants natural sites in which sexual objectification is maintained, they may also be environments that reproduce themes of male dominance over women.
The Present Study
In summary, existing masculinities research indicates that within certain environments (male preserves), men will often erect local cultural hegemonies in which they can engage in masculinities in pastiche form and identify these with supposed real or authentic masculinity. Breastaurants, as SO(R)Es, potentially cater to this male interest along axes relevant to sexual objectification. Particularly, the breastaurant uniquely encourages performances of ersatz sexual availability among its female waitstaff, and this interactive dynamic plays an apparently intrinsic role to the development of breastaurant masculinity. As a form of (local, pastiche) masculinity within a unique male preserve, breastaurant masculinity has not yet been researched empirically or subsequently theorized. My study seeks to close that conspicuous gap in the research with a 2-year ethnographic consideration of a group of men who routinely visit a popular local breastaurant in Panama City, Florida.
Method
Overview
The empirical methodology for my study is ultimately ethnographic because data were collected in situ by personally attending a sexually objectifying restaurant in northern Florida approximately weekly over a roughly 2-year span (July 2015–September 2017) in the company of other men with whom I had personal relationships. The context of these visits was as an after-class bonding endeavor among a social core of members of a Brazilian jiu jitsu (BJJ) school in which I had become a member. (This elicits certain overlaps with Matthews’ 2014, investigation of boxing gyms as generative of local pastiche hegemonies.) This core group of BJJ participants maintained a social ritual of going out for “meat, heat, and beer” after Thursday evening classes, and more than 90% of our visits to the breastaurant occurred in 90–120-min increments beginning at roughly 20:00 on (most) Thursday evenings, although we occasionally met in smaller groups for lunch on other days of the week.
I was invited to join these outings after 5 months. Despite my reservations about breastaurants in general, I accepted, both for the social opportunity and, eventually, as a chance to engage in the present study, which occurred to me as potentially interesting soon after joining the outings. As with Matthews (2014), certainly my (declared) status as an athletic cisgendered heterosexual man who is well-established in the local area played a key role in my invitation to join this group and, usefully, likely enabled other heterosexual male masculinities to emerge naturally in my presence, despite the group’s awareness that I was conducting my study. As such, throughout the study, I endeavored to interact with my companions and servers authentically as a participant, rather than as a deliberate researcher, to obtain data as true to the circumstances as possible. This approach limited my data collection primarily to on-site observations of a social milieu that I sought not to perturb, although these data were supplemented occasionally with brief unstructured interviews of participants and servers.
At first, my participation in this weekly visit was merely social. However, after approximately 2 months (beginning October 8, 2015), I began to formulate hypotheses about the breastaurant as a unique type of male preserve. Upon recognizing this research potential, I decided to approach my companions with a proposal for a study that would parallel methods used in a constructivist grounded theory approach. Ultimately, masculinity in the breastaurant became the focus of my study, but, because no comprehensive theory was sought to explain this masculinity, I chose a data analysis methodology that diverged from the grounded theory approach and instead relied upon thematic analysis of the discussions held in the breastaurant to produce descriptive results interwoven with some theoretical suggestions (cf. Braun and Clarke 2006; Nowell et al. 2017).
More specifically, once my companions agreed to be studied in this context and the restaurant management approved, I began compiling detailed digital field notes (including initial coding by colored text highlighting and memoing by adding commentary in a word processor) after leaving the restaurant. I documented these interactions and payed particular attention to themes typical, if not defining, of the breastaurant environment and the ways both men in my group and serving staff thematically construct and perform masculinity within that space (cf. West and Zimmerman 1987). I then developed these themes through memoing and routinely reconsidering the raw data and my field notes (cf. Charmaz 2008), occasionally supplementing with direct brief unstructured interviews to clarify points around them. Of note, although my field notes were composed after-the-fact because I participated socially with the group and often found myself getting swept up in the masculinity themes that emerged within it, their fidelity to the mood, tone, and timbre of breastaurant masculinity is likely to be high.
Participants
Regarding the core group,” although it was nearly always the same size (6–7), it did not always consist of the same individuals (a total of 15 different men and seven servers consented to participate, to whom pseudonyms have been applied)—some eventually stopped coming (either to class or to the outings, or both) due to lack of time, loss of interest, or falling out with the gym. All men in the group self-identify as heterosexual and, because I in a sense had my research participants chosen for me, all are White, which excluded the possibility in this study of investigating diverse racial dynamics. Most of the men are working class in local factory or delivery jobs, although two are self-employed and four are support-level professionals. Their levels of education varied from no postsecondary education (n = 4), some college (n = 5), bachelor’s degree (n = 4), and master’s degree (n = 2). All fall onto a socioeconomic spectrum best described as ranging from upper-lower class to lower-middle class, although this was discerned from getting to know the men and without asking their income or wealth statuses (see Barber 2016a, for a treatment of high-status upper-middle class and upper class men in a related environment). Ages of the men ranged from 19 to 62 years-old (excluding myself, age 71), and marital status included married/in committed relationship (n = 6), divorced (n = 4), and single (n =5).
Procedure
Data were collected by means of an approach that paralleled constructivist grounded theory to investigate a social process, as indicated by Charmaz (2006, 2008), although the study itself did not proceed by grounded theory because it seeks only to characterize breastaurant masculinity rather than to address with a comprehensive theory why breastaurant masculinity occurs as it does. Specifically, my study began in earnest after I amassed nearly 3 months of in situ observations and interactions with the group I came to study and, as such, it began after I noticed certain themes common within the conversations the group had in the breastaurant. In particular, I noticed these themes differed in certain ways from those typical in the gym where we trained together. This gave me certain initial themes (sexual objectification and male control of women) that seemed prevalent and identified with masculinity in breastaurant environments, which inspired my study. These themes therefore served as a starting place for analyzing the data I was collecting and reflexively informed subsequent data collection and analysis, as described in the following, linking the methodology to inquiry into the research questions in my study.
Data were collected primarily from conversations at our table during outings, although they were occasionally supplemented by brief unstructured interviews. All members of the groups comprising the outings were made aware of the research I was conducting and consented to their role in it. I provided information by email, and we had a short meeting at the school in addition to informing new additions to our group before observing them. I met with the female servers (and two managers) with whom we routinely interacted to provide information and also left them with a summary of my intentions. Management did not permit me to walk around the restaurant as a researcher, so all observations were confined to my table and occasional brief follow-up questions with group members or servers. With the consent of all group members, servers, and restaurant management, conversations at the table were recorded at each outing, and relevant portions (quotations, remarks, or exchanges between participants pertinent to masculinity) were transcribed verbatim into my field notes and annotated after each outing, alongside notes about observed behaviors. Portions of my recordings were deemed relevant for transcription when they met the following criteria: they were (a) clear enough for verbatim transcription, (b) recognizably relevant to the masculinity of one or more participants speaking, or (b) directly relevant to identified themes already being coded in the data. Quotations were selected for transcription and incorporation into this report for being typical of the themes in question, with some preference being given to those obtained while interacting with or commenting directly upon the servers because these are most likely to have been evoked by the breastaurant’s unique environment. The total body of data therefore includes slightly fewer than 10,000 min of recorded conversation at the breastaurant (and interviews) and over 600 pages of field notes (including partial transcriptions, initial coding, and memoing), which span the 99 group visits made to the breastaurant during the observational phase.
Because my study became a re-emerging theme of discussion throughout the observational period and the small digital recording device was conspicuously placed near the center of the table, there was no need for me to periodically remind the group that they were being observed—and recorded—for my study. In that sense, it was at times certain that the masculinities being performed were in some cases muted or exaggerated in response to an awareness of being recorded as a part of my study (for instance, speaking directly to the recording device or myself about the study, often in conjunction with exaggerated comments, or normally gregarious people being abnormally shy until becoming accustomed to the presence of the recorder). This, then, is where my closeness to the participants became useful because it was relatively easy to tell when they were being more themselves and when they were intentionally performing a false masculinity for presumably humorous effect. Nevertheless, no claims will be made here to know the true identities/masculinities of the men under observation. This point is also applicable to the female servers who were regarded as participants as well and about whom I carefully avoid drawing conclusions.
Further, all such participants were instructed that if they wished to opt out or be in any other way excluded from the study (which did not occur)—or to have any of their remarks taken as strictly off-record (which occurred twice)—that request would be honored. Finally, my status as a participant in the group, which I attempted to keep as contextually natural as possible, and customer of the establishment therefore limited my engagement with the breastaurant’s wait staff, managers, and other customers. As such the present account is restricted to a small group of men and not to be taken as necessarily representative of all patrons or the whole restaurant/franchise/genre of eatery.
As an ethnographer for my study, I therefore enjoyed and yet was limited by my closeness to its participants. Similarly to Matthews (2014, 105–106), my closeness and camaraderie with these men provided access and insights that they may not have displayed in a more formal, detached study, and in coming to know the participants of my study intimately, other relevant features of their masculinity may have become emphasized, deemphasized, or even blurred by subjectivity. As Matthews (2014, pp. 105–106) explains, drawing upon Woodward (2008, p. 547), Mansfield (2007, p. 124), and Maguire and Young (2002, p. 16), intrinsic subjectivity is unavoidable in effective ethnography because it demands an “interrogation of situatedness” (Woodward 2008, p. 547). Due to the inductive nature of the research and my full participation in it, it was particularly important that critical detachment play an integral role in the integrity of the data, which I achieved by engaging the data at varying levels of distance from its acquisition. As did Matthews (2014, p. 106), however, I found the act of compiling field notes—in my case, alone, after the fact, and more than once per group outing—as a useful means for maintaining a degree of critical detachment and thus a proportion of etic objectivity.
Data Analytic Strategy
I analyzed data by thematic analysis of the recorded conversations (Braun and Clarke 2006; Nowell et al. 2017), which were selectively (due to their volume) transcribed and situated against relevant field notes according to their apparent relevance to breastaurant masculinity, as guided by the themes I developed over the course of my study. This process involved six nonlinear steps, as outlined first by Braun and Clarke (2006) and later Nowell et al. (2017), for performing rigorous thematic analysis: familiarization with the data (by listening and note-taking), generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and finally writing the report.
Data were coded accordingly with tags for themes and subthemes as they were transcribed and again later, and they subsequently were transferred to a spreadsheet and critically analyzed for fitness with those themes. Coding followed methodological recommendations in Gibbs (2007) and Saldaña (2016) (cf. Chatfield 2018). Particularly, data were selectively (concept-driven) coded for themes I had already identified and wished to develop, and data-driven (open) coding was utilized to identify new themes in the data until I felt all significant themes identifiable in the data had been found. To achieve this, I listened to each recording in full at least three times throughout the study and data analysis phase. First, I listened to them as soon as possible (usually immediately) following each outing, and I used them to create detailed field notes that documented other aspects of the scenes in which the conversations played out. This decision reflected my desire to maintain maximum fidelity to the scenes as they had occurred as well as to record my first impressions about those scenes as soon as possible. Portions that were extracted into transcript upon this listening were also either at this point tentatively (selectively) coded according to those themes and subthemes already identified or recorded when they were directly pertinent to the masculinities of the participants (or, in fact, when they were overtly sexualized in any capacity, given that sexual objectification was the first theme I clearly identified before data collection began in earnest). Then, after a period of no less than 2 weeks but no more than one month following an outing, during which time the field notes were further analyzed and memoed, I listened to the recording for that visit in full again, and my field notes for that visit were developed and coded further. Finally, I listened to each recording a third time after all relevant themes became clear (in June 2017) from ongoing analysis of the data, and on this third listen, detail and nuance were added to the relevant field notes and thematic coding.
In the meantime, between episodes of listening to a re-corded outing, I analyzed my field notes in an ongoing fashion through which themes were coded by this blended open coding and selective coding approach. As themes took shape, I sought to develop them by consulting the extant literature, especially on sexual objectification in SO(R)Es, to add depth, nuance, and clarity of sub-theming. I recorded this in my field notes in the form of memoing and further thematic coding. Of note, at times during this process, I would listen again to certain recordings to pursue insights into themes as they became more clearly relevant (this was done particularly intensively, for example, concerning the male gaze subtheme of the sexual objectification theme when I realized its importance by consulting Szymanski and Feltman 2015). I revisited all coding upon subsequent analyses of the relevant recordings and field notes as the study proceeded. Because the coding was intrinsic to the transcription process as well as informing it, post-coding transformation to themes was an intrinsic part of the data-handling and analysis process as it occurred (cf. Charmaz 2008; Gibbs 2007; Nowell et al. 2017; Saldaña 2016). Throughout this process, I grouped subthemes into major and minor themes, which I then analyzed for relevance to the breastaurant environment by comparing against extant literature in other SO(R)Es to identify which might be intrinsic to breastaurant masculinity (e.g., sexual conquest) versus masculinity in general (e.g., enjoyment of sports/competition).
Results
Within the breastaurant environment, various themes appeared frequently, repeatedly, and consistently in the conversation data, most of these occurring at nearly every breastaurant outing. Four significantly overlapping and interrelated major themes—sexual objectification, sexual conquest, male dominance and control over women, and masculine toughness—were regular features of breastaurant discussions. In addition, one minor theme of research interest, which is how breastaurant patronage itself is rationalized by men within it, was of sufficient prominence to merit attention. Simultaneously, following Matthews (2014), a running thread of how these masculinity themes were being naturalized or authenticated as “masculine” by the men in the group was a central matter of interest. Indeed, all of these themes were routinely tied to perceptions of presumed authentic masculinity by group members. These arose in a number of subthemes, as documented in the Table 1.
As a benefit of knowing and training with these men in an alternative environment (the BJJ gym), it was apparent these themes, although not unique to discussions in the breastaurant, were both more prominent while in the breastaurant and apparently evoked by being there, thus lending credence to the suggestion that the breastaurant environment evokes a unique masculinity in pastiche form and that the interactive dynamics within the breastaurant are integral to establishing these gendered performances (cf. Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; West and Zimmerman 1987). As a crucial note, these themes overlap and interact so significantly that even with careful coding, they are not fully separable, despite the orderly presentation in Table 1 and the section immediately following.
Why Breastaurants? Rationalization—a Minor Theme
For many of the men in our group, the opportunity to “check out” and flirt with the servers was the expressed purpose of choosing a breastaurant over other venues. (Note how this theme immediately interacts with the sexual objectification theme.) “It’s got to be [the breastaurant] because of the babes” (Matt, Field notes, December 3, 2015) was a characteristic reply to suggesting the group change to a venue with better food and drink, for instance. Indeed, Carl frequently commented, following a heavy sigh, with “God, I love this place,” after seeing or interacting with servers he found particularly attractive. Likewise, directly indicating a preference for the breastaurant as a male preserve that also acts as a purveyor of ersatz sexual availability as a heterosexual aesthetic labor resource was: “Where else can you hang out, just guys being guys after a hard workout, and flirt with hot girls who have to bring you food and beer all night?” (Paul, Field notes, August 4, 2016). (Here, note the overlaps with Male Control over Women, particularly the female servility subtheme.) Though many variations on this theme arose, emblematic among comments on why the group chose a breastaurant was the comment, “I don’t come here for these crappy wings and cheap beer; I come here for the girls. I mean, look at them—look at that [a server’s buttocks], just look at it and tell me the chicken is a better reason to come here” (Pete, Field notes, December 3, 2015). The group heartily agreed: “this place exists for the breasts and buns, and I’m not talking about the chicken or the sandwiches” (Jim, Field Notes, May 25, 2017). Of central importance, this (minor) theme reveals that men in breastaurants realize they are enacting a breastaurant-specific masculine performance while in that environment and rationalize this (uncomfortable) fact by attempting to connect it to an alleged natural and authentic masculine identity.
Sexual Objectification
Immediately, and consistent with Szymanski’s suite of papers on SO(R)Es, especially Szymanski and Feltman (2015) and Barber (2016a), my observations noted men regularly subjecting servers to the male gaze, making no secret of staring at women’s breasts and buttocks as well as making sexualized, even rapacious, comments about them behind their backs. As may be expected, sexually objectifying themes within breastaurants are ubiquitous and thus lie largely beneath specific mention; however, those that involve dynamic interplay with or encouragement by the servers bear relevance. For example:
Scott: [clearly looking at server’s chest while she takes Carl’s order, then looking up obviously after being caught doing so by the server] You know, Valentina, I couldn’t help noticing just how nice your… eyes are tonight.
Valentina: Oh, you guys; [pushing up her breasts a little with her arms] you know how much I love it when you notice my… eyes.
Scott: They’re just so… big and bright… you know? Beautiful!
Valentina: [smiling] Well, thank you! This is why yours is always my favorite table. (Field notes, May 26, 2016)
Interactions such as this one, which were common in my data (Scott often referred to Valentina’s “nice eyes” while looking at her large breasts, for instance), involve a performative dynamic interplay of masculine and feminine in the sense of male objectifier and female sexual object (cf. Butler 1990), which often carried a layer of being ersatz (or in pastiche form) because both customer and server knowingly recognized the interaction to be job-contextual and synthetic. “We just play around, you know. Have fun. It works with cool guys, and they tip us more, but we don’t really do it with the creeps,” Valentina told me when I asked her about this dynamic (Field notes, June 2, 2016).
Relevantly, such interactions were routinely connected to masculine prowess by socializing forces of the (usually) all-male group. In the present case, even if all in ersatz/pastiche form (“It’s just bullshitting with the server, man,” Scott said about it when asked directly [Field notes, May 26, 2016]), Scott readily connected his masculinity to his ability to objectify Valentina. She, in turn, employed flirtatious approval and praise to amplify the dynamic in order to keep up positive, sexually charged banter with her customers (cf. Almog and Kaplan 2017). Subsequently, the group confirmed Scott’s masculinity (Matt: “You stud, Scott. Damn you! So smooth, every time!”) after Valentina’s departure from the table, during which time Scott, Matt, and several of the other men in our group conspicuously stared at Valentina’s barely covered buttocks as she walked away (and she, in turn, apparently knew this to be happening and exaggerated the sway in her hips, yet again to amplify the effect). Carl: “Ahhh… God, I love this place.” Of note, not only were such performances coded as intrinsically masculine, they were often rationalized as being naturally masculine: “It’s natural for men to want to see sexy young women in short shorts and showing their cleavage. It’s just part of being a man to like hot young girls showing off their bodies” (Carl, Field notes, August 18, 2016, emphasis added). Notice how this theme is therefore intrinsically connected to the theme of masculine toughness.
Men in my group were also routinely directly flirtatious with the servers, who openly flirted back while maintaining clear professionalizing boundaries that simultaneously jokingly deflected (rather than confronting) the male heterosexist entitlement on display (cf. Barber 2016a; Rasmusson 2011). For instance,
Carl: I’ve got hot sauce all over my fingers, but I have to pee. Would you mind coming along and holding it for me?
Kellye: Now, you know this isn’t that kind of place…
Carl: But this stuff is really hot.
Kellye: Well, I guess you’ll have to hold it yourself and feel the burn! (Field notes, March 10, 2016)
Thus, insofar as breastaurants are clearly SO(R)Es, male patrons objectify the servers, who are in turn contractually clad and otherwise encouraged to amplify this objectification through uniform, personal presentation and open flirtation as a form of ersatz sexual availability (Lutz 2012). This willingness on the part of customers to flirt and even openly solicit servers illustrates profound connections between the sexual objectification theme and the sexual conquest theme in the following, so much so that any boundaries between them are blurry.
Table 1:
Sexual Conquest
Instances of natural male objectification of female sex objects such as these are indicative of a more profound connection of masculinity to virility, particularly to view as naturally masculine a capacity to effect sexual conquests (Potts 2000). For instance, after a flirtatious exchange with a server, the conversation at the table proceeded thusly:
Matt: The things I’d do to her [Valentina] if I can get the chance—
Pete: I think she likes you, man. You should go for it. Eric: Yeah, man up!
Matt: Should I? I don’t want to blow it!
Scott: That’s because you want her to blow [perform oral sex upon] you!
Matt: That’s right, I do. And not just that. I’d absolutely wreck her tight little body. She’d walk funny for days when I get done with her.
Scott: [quietly] Heads up, bro; she’s coming.
[Valentina returns with food.]Matt: Oh! You’re back! I was just talking about you and hoping you’d come back to see me soon.
Valentina: You know I always come back to see you, babe. You’re one of my favorites.
[Flirtatious banter continues for a few moments, then Valentina leaves.]Scott: She’s in to you, dude. You’ve gotta go for it.
Eric: Seriously, dude. It’s obvious. Just man up. Matt: You’re so right. She wants the D [short for dick/penis]. She’s so hot! I’ve got to have her!
Jim: Think she has a boyfriend, though?
Matt: Don’t worry. If she has a boyfriend, I’ll steal his girlfriend. That’s not a problem. (Field notes, June 9, 2016)
As this dialogue demonstrates, for some men the dynamic interplay between server and customer in breastaurants easily leads from objectification to themes and fantasies of sexual conquest. Among all themes in my study, therefore, these two factors are the most deeply and fluidly linked. This even includes the alarmingly problematic insinuation of sexual violence inherent in “I’d absolutely wreck her tight little body,” which was reinforced and considered masculine among male peers around the table. In fact, this theme often took shape in expressing themes of male possession of “his” female conquest, as Matt also displayed in a revealing way with regard to Valentina in the week prior.
Scott: Dude, check it out. Valentina is over there with that total Chad [pejorative slang term for a stereotypical male archetype] doing her thing.
Eric: Yeah, she’s all up on that dude, and he’s not a Chad; he’s a total Micki [pejorative uncommon slang term for an effeminate man, as an abbreviation of Native American musician Micki Free]. But just look at how she’s leaning on the table and pressing her tits up at him. She’s absolutely working him.
Matt: Yeah, she is. She knows what to do; that’s why I love her. But he won’t have her. He’s not her type. She likes alphas, not Mickis.
Scott: I don’t know… she’s looking pretty sweet on him. Matt: It’s an act. Look at her face and compare that to how she looks at and smiles at us. She’s totally faking it for him. Hopefully he falls for it and tips the shit out of her.
Eric: Probably right, but still. Look at her go.
[Group conspicuously watches Valentina flirting at the other table.]Scott: So, what do you think, dude?
Matt: It’s a total act. But you know, a fundamental part of being a man means seeing at least one person you want to kill and at least one person you want to fuck every day of your life, and right now I see them both at the same time. [Group laughter]Eric: That’s too true! Too true! I totally hear you, man! That’s exactly what being a man is about! (Field notes, June 2, 2016)
It is important to analyze this scene carefully. In it, Matt had already contextually established a theme of male possessiveness over Valentina that he deemed to be reasonably consistent with his budding potential relationship with her. Valentina, meanwhile, in the performance of her job duties—the very duties that helped attract Matt to her in the first place—displayed what was (almost certainly ersatz, as she confirmed shortly thereafter) sexual availability to a man at another table. Although this display of sexual availability was clearly read by both Matt and the other men at the table to be feigned as part of the duties of her job (Scott was plainly teasing Matt in this scene), it triggered Matt to express a desire for violence against the other man. Furthermore, he connected his urges both to sexual conquest (of Valentina) and to violence (toward the other customer) with his masculinity. Another member of the group then validated this expression and its connection to presumably authentic masculinity. When challenged (by George) about this point, in fact, Eric held his ground (“It definitely is [part of masculinity], yeah”) and most of the rest of the group agreed in varying degrees (Carl: “It’s a bit extreme, but it gets close to the point”; Randy: “It used to be for me, but the older I get the less I care about either [having sex with women or killing other men].”)(cf. Eck 2014). Reinforcing that this theme may be evoked by the breastaurant environment, Pete reported relating the “fuck-and-kill” discussion with another (heterosexual male) member of the BJJ gym who was not a part of the breastaurant-attending group, and in that context both Pete and the other man agreed it was largely untrue and “cavemanish” (Field notes, June 9, 2016). This indicates that the breastaurant social environment was somehow integral to producing, legitimating, and treating as authentic this alarming expression of masculinity.
Male Dominance and Control over Women
Although it is nearly impossible to determine the precise factors within the patron-server dynamic that mediate a direct engagement with themes of objectification and sexual conquest, it is possible that the intrinsic (again, in ersatz form and as a scripted performance) power dynamic between patron and server plays a role. Particularly, intrinsic to the server-customer (quasi)-social dynamic is the giving and taking of orders—and although the customer-server relationship is in many ways veridically inverted from its scripted appearance and female servers navigate the complex boundaries of their jobs with their agency largely intact—this job-required dynamic of power always flows from customer to server. “Yeah, you have to take their [food and drink] orders and pretty much do whatever [customers] say on that, but, no, we don’t have to put up with anyone’s crap and usually don’t … And management supports us on that every time” (Valentina, Field notes, February 16, 2017). That is, because it is scripted by the social impositions of the restaurant environment, compliance with service-relevant orders is not optional, which creates a dynamic in which men in the breastaurant environment are fully aware that, from their perspectives, attractive women must compliantly take their orders within these spaces.
This theme bore significant relevance in my data. As one man in our group noted: “I love this place. I get to come in here, see hot chicks, give them my orders, and then they have to smile and flirt with me—if they want a good tip, anyway—and do exactly what I say, which always ends up with them bringing me a sandwich [an allusion to a slang metaphorical proxy for male dominance in a sexual relationship].” (Paul, Field notes, July 20, 2017)
The ensuing dialogue led to several members of the group agreeing that the ability to “tell hot young girls what to do and have them do it for you with a smile” (Randy, Field notes, July, 20, 2017) is integral to the breastaurant experience. (Carl, for his part, openly challenged this view by calling the discussion “fucked up,” which most of the men at the table agreed with, although this led to them continuing to joke about both the allure of this aspect of male dominance and how disturbing it is that they enjoy it.) That is, central to the nature of the breastaurant is casting attractive female servers into a scripted performance of servant to (mostly male) patrons, and in that role, they are contractually expected to take men’s orders while displaying ersatz sexual availability as a specific form of heterosexual aesthetic labor. This dynamic is not just routine but paradigmatic of the breastaurant and its business model.
Masculine Toughness
Among common themes of lesser importance were those connecting alleged real masculinity to sports, real and symbolic violence, motorcycles (especially on “Bike Night”), and allowable strength versus acceptable weakness. Among these, however, only the last is clearly identifiable within the breastaurant environment (cf. Dunning and Maguire 1996; Matthews 2014, 2016)—particularly the one we frequented, which is known for serving very spicy hot chicken wings as its signature dish. In this context, it comes up frequently in connection with the previous major themes and in the context of being able to handle hot sauce “like a man,” both orally and (later) intestinally/anally, which at times (e.g., September 15, 2016, and May 22, 2017) led to heartfelt discussions about when it is and is not appropriate for a man to cry. Expressions of being able to “handle the heat” but “hating the twice-burn” (“twice-burn” refers to the effect undigested capsaicin, the active oil in hot peppers, can have in irritating the anus during defecation after ingesting food containing too much of it) are, in fact, so common that they occurred at our table in nearly every visit to the breastaurant in the course of the 2-year span of my study.
This repeated topic tangentially raises important questions about how (hetero)masculinity is often measured orally and anally, particularly with regard to themes related to strength and weakness (cf. Anderson 2009; Pascoe 2007; Smith 2018), although these discussions lie outside the scope of the present paper. Also, far from being incidental, this topic comports with a vein of critical literature examining how food is used to produce, construct, maintain, and exploit an authentically masculine identity (Buerkle 2009; Deutsche 2005; Julier and Lindenfeld 2005; Lapiņa and Leer 2016; Rogers 2008) in line with heteronormative hegemonic norms (cf. Connell 1995). Citing Connell and Messerschmidt (2005), Contois (2018, p. 770) recently explained this problematic connection: “Culturally coded as a masculine food, chicken wings (spicy or not) are situated within ‘bro’ media and spaces … Being the type of dude who loves hot sauce is part of performing conventional masculinity, however, through actions like disregarding risk and facing danger fearlessly.” For example,
Eric: Carl’s a real man, though. Look at that. He just put down twenty of those [hottest] wings, no problem.
Matt: Yeah, but his mustache isn’t white anymore, it’s red! [Group laughter]Eric: Nevertheless, I only had two, and it feels like I kissed Satan’s butthole!
Jim: You’ll feel like he kissed yours tomorrow morning. [Group laughter]Eric: Too true, too true! I’m pretty manly, I guess, but I’m not [hottest]-wings manly.
Scott: Not many of us are… (Field notes, November 10, 2016)
Not only do masculine themes about toughness arise within the breastaurant environment, so too do themes of competitiveness (e.g., hot-wing-eating and beer-drinking contests), and these themes are then projected onto the servers as a means of male peacocking. “I was just wondering, Kellye; would you be more or less likely to go out with me if I ordered the [hottest] wings instead of the [second hottest] ones? What about if I eat more of them than Pete can?” (Paul, Field notes, April 20, 2017). In this way, (hot-sauce-centric) attention to male toughness and competitiveness in the breastaurant can interact with the servers in ways that amplify the three other major themes that dominate within the general breastaurant pastiche hegemony.
Discussion
I aimed to approach the breastaurant environment in a way that documents and characterizes patterns of masculinity I recognized as largely typical within the breastaurant, although atypical to the participants outside that context. I sought to address the interrelated questions of what features of the breastaurant environment lead men to enact certain masculine performances in pastiche, how men then interpret these performances as relevant to some presumably authentic masculinity, and what this tells us about a breastaurant masculinity that arises in dynamic interplay in some men within breastaurants. As such, it identifies that men in breastaurants often have discussions that, under thematic analysis, can be summarized by major themes of sexual objectification, sexual conquest, control over women, and masculine toughness, in addition to persistent meta-level themes of how the emerging breastaurant masculinity can be rationalized as a part of being authentically masculine. In addition, it appears that the breastaurant environment itself is directly involved in the generation of this breastaurant masculinity. This echoes one way Barber (2016a) highlights that the auspices of the job in a SO(R)E force women to comply with becoming masculine-identity resources and to tacitly accept, reproduce, and reinforce heteromasculine domination with limited capacity to push back against it, even despite the expressly high levels of agency in this regard afforded to breastaurant servers (per Rasmusson 2011).
Although many thematically consistent remarks repeatedly arose among the men I observed in this single breastaurant environment, those centered upon viewing masculinity in terms of sexual objectification, sexual conquest, male control over women, and masculine toughness dominated sufficiently so as to define them. (Of note, insights from Eck’s 2014, analysis of two-phase masculinity generally applied—older, married men in the group tended to be more moderated in their masculine performances than were younger, single men.) These themes are evocative of a locally protected masculinity that, although prevalent in central ways in our everyday practices in all environments, thrive uniquely within the local pastiche hegemony set up by the breastaurant. Because these themes are certainly not central in Matthews’ (2014) analysis of the boxing gym or other analyses of sporting enclaves as local pastiche hegemonies (Maguire and Young 2002; Matthews 2015, 2016; Messner 1992), it is likely that they dominate within breastaurants for reasons reaching beyond these environments’ status as a male preserve. More surprisingly, they also probably have little to do directly with the breastaurant’s status as a SO(R)E (Moffitt and Szymanski 2011; Rasmusson 2011; Szymanski and Feltman 2015; Szymanski and Mikorski 2017; Szymanski et al. 2011), as is indicated by the typologies and motivations of male strip-club patrons (Egan and Frank 2005; Erickson and Tewksbury 2000; Frank 2003). Instead, the breastaurant apparently maintains a unique local pastiche hegemony that supports this particular masculinity primarily due to the enforced and scripted interactive relationships that are encouraged between the servers and the (mostly male) patrons.
Although my study does not seek to explain the varying motivations breastaurant servers hold for filling the role of feigning sexual interest (and does not have the data necessary to attempt it), a few points bear noting to remind ourselves of Rasmusson’s (2011) observation about the contradictions of the work. Most importantly, as Rasmusson tells us and as breastaurant servers tend to be well aware, these job-relevant, socially imposed, scripted performances on the parts of the servers are themselves reinforced by the economic and cultural architecture of breastaurants and the cultures that support them. Ultimately, this problematic milieu enables an avenue by which women can trade aspects of their sexuality for rewards both material, such as money through employment and generous tips (cf. Brewster 2003), and immaterial, such as male approval, a share of the patriarchal dividend, and dating or sexual opportunities (cf. Erickson and Tewksbury 2000, on “sugar daddy” patrons, in particular) (Griffith et al. 2012; Rasmusson 2011). In short, breastaurants and the culture that supports them remain in need of further study and critique, both for reasons central to feminism and, as my study hopes to elucidate, for their impact upon worrisome and increasingly vestigial masculinities.
Limitations and Future Research Directions
A serious limitation of this ethnography is that I was only able to elicit data from one relatively small but (mostly) stable group of racially homogeneous men in one breastaurant franchise in one location. Future research into breastaurant masculinities, therefore, would benefit from investigating more men in more breastaurants in more geographic locations. This research might also benefit from focused semi-structured interviews with breastaurant patrons, management, hostesses, and servers to obtain more information about their perspectives on breastaurant masculinity and its unique interactions with the breastaurant environment. In keeping with Barber (2016a, b), a more thorough racial and class analysis of men who frequent breastaurants and for whom breastaurant masculinities are viewed as natural may also be useful, as would be ethnographic insights from gay men and lesbians.
Further limiting my study is that it is a participant-observer ethnographic study conducted by a single researcher. Despite efforts to minimize bias, including drawing my data collecting and summarizing methodologies from an approach that is standard in grounded theory (Charmaz 2008), utilizing critical detachment in the composition of field notes (Matthews 2014), and engaging in thematic analysis that examined and re-examined data in light of themes as they became apparent (Braun and Clarke 2006; Nowell et al. 2017), bias in such a setting is unavoidable. Although it provided certain insider-perspective benefits, closeness to my participants inevitably also colored my data analysis in ways that are potentially biasing. This necessarily suggests that future studies of this kind would benefit from the involvement of more researchers to improve the trustworthiness of the data collection and analysis.
The specific findings in my study raise questions of why some men seek to identify themes of sexual objectification, sexual conquest, male control of women, and masculine toughness as naturally masculine. These are presently both under-theorized and suffer a lack of empirical investigation. They could therefore be explored both within and beyond the breastaurant environment. This may reveal potential for remediation of problematic themes in masculinity, and those aspects of what I have here termed “breastaurant masculinity” that are unique to the breastaurant environment could be better identified. As a result, the specific dynamics within the breastaurant that produce its pastiche masculinity and drive to identify it as presumably naturally masculine could be clarified.
Practice Implications
Insights into breastaurant masculinity have a number of useful practice implications, particularly for men, professionals who work in settings to improve social and professional outcomes for men, and professionals who work with or counsel women who work in SO(R)Es. Particularly, the identification of breastaurant masculinity with a tendency to view sexual objectification, sexual conquest, male control of women, and masculine toughness as authentically and naturally masculine can be useful in each of these settings. For instance, men and professionals who work with men and masculinities in social and professional contexts, such as managers and counselors, can use these findings to raise important questions about what circumstances lead men to engage in these masculine performances in pastiche and to identify them as authentically masculine. Men (or those interrogating themes in their masculine performances) for example, might be curious to know what within their mythology of authentic masculinity leads them to an impulse to tell beautiful young women what to do and to enjoy seeing it carried out. This could be further enriched by drawing upon Erickson and Tewksbury’s (2000) six-point typology of male strip-club patrons.
Particularly, as substantial evidence indicates, connecting themes of sexual objectification (and, by extension, conquest) to perceived authentic masculinity can reduce relationship satisfaction (Ramsey et al. 2017), reinforce rape blame (Loughnan et al. 2013), perpetuate rape culture, and increase rates of verbal sexual harassment (Davidson et al. 2015). Understanding the thematic elements of breastaurant masculinity can therefore have practice implications for counselors working with men, women, or couples for whom these issues are pertinent. For instance, counselors could interrogate men (or their partners) about whether they frequent breastaurants and contextualize these issues in terms of breastaurant masculinity as a possible avenue toward remediation. Furthermore, professionals, including management in breastaurants and in therapeutic contexts, can make use of these findings for crafting strategies to aid servers in breastaurants and other SO(R)Es to better navigate the well-documented challenges and problematics associated with those spaces for women (cf. Moffitt and Szymanski 2011; Rasmusson 2011; Szymanski and Feltman 2015; Szymanski and Mikorski 2017; Szymanski et al. 2011).
Conclusions
In concurrence with Matthews (2014, pp.115–116; 2015) and although my participants are unlikely to be representative of all men who frequent SO(R)Es and breastaurants, my observations are consistent with those that “certainly resonate with experiences in other ‘male preserves.'” Where I differ is in departing from the environment of the sporting enclave as a male preserve. Instead, my study focuses upon the complex setting of a paradigmatically sexually objectifying (restaurant) environment and uses it not to spotlight the impacts these particular contexts have upon the women objectified in them, but rather on the gender performances enacted by the men who frequent them (Butler 1990; West and Zimmerman 1987). In being so constructed, the breastaurant becomes a complex site where the studies of feminism, feminist psychology, masculinity, food, organizational management, and sexual roles collide and one in which men simultaneously produce and react to an environment that encourages sexual objectification and male dominance through scripted performances of ersatz sexual availability as a peculiar form of heterosexual aesthetic labor.
In conclusion, although breastaurants continue to flourish (Szymanski and Mikorski 2017), there is considerable need to examine them as local pastiche hegemonies that produce and reinforce sexual and routine forms of male domination over women. Breastaurants form a unique male preserve in which many masculine themes gain protected status. Thus, their appeal lies largely within their capacity to provide an environment in which these themes not only go uncontested but also are actively encouraged through organizational commodification of ersatz (hetero)sexual availability as a neoliberal marketing strategy (cf. Barber 2016a, b; cf. Cornwall et al. 2016). Although many forms of masculine expression shared in common with other male-oriented spaces arise within the breastaurant, themes that connect masculinity to sexual objectification, sexual conquest, masculine toughness, and the routine domination of women are especially prominent and paradigmatically significant. Identifying these masculine performances with the breastaurant not only identifies a common and important pastiche masculinity performance, but also provides an avenue by which outcomes, especially for women, can be improved by understanding it as such.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest: The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval: All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments, including standard IRB approval which was obtained for this study.
Human and Animal Rights: This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by the author.
Informed Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Reviewer Comments
Note: This paper was reviewed by two journals: Sex Roles, which eventually accepted it, and Men & Masculinities, which didn’t. The document below provides the reviews from Sex Roles first, up through acceptance, then adds the review from Men & Masculinities.
First decision from Sex Roles: July 7, 2018
Dear Dr, Baldwin:
I have now received three very helpful reviews of your manuscript SERS-D-18-00244 titled, “The “Breastaurant” as a Pastiche Hegemony: Masculine Discourses of Objectification, Sexual Conquest, and Male Control at Hooters Restaurants,” that you submitted to Sex Roles: A Journal of Research. The reviewers are experts in the field. On the basis of the reviewers’ helpful comments and my own reading of the manuscript, I must regretfully reject it in its present form, but I do want to encourage you to submit a revision.
The reviewers and I were positive about many aspects of the manuscript, and we believe that it could make an important contribution to the field. As editor, I always have the advantage of reading a paper along with the reviewers’ comments. So, although I ask you to consider and respond to all of the comments from the reviewers, let me highlight some points from their reviews in light of my own thoughts and add a few requests of my own.
Let me step back and tell you a bit about each reviewer. Reviewer 1 is an expert on qualitative methodologies and masculinity research. Reviewer 2 is an expert who had done work on women in objectifying work environments, the more commonly studied side of the relationships you observed. Reviewer 3 is one of our in-house experts on qualitative methodologies.
The first two of these reviewers expressed support for the potential in your work but they also agreed that the paper itself will take substantial development to bring it up to the (1) methodological and (2) formatting standards we expect at this journal. Thus I want to be clear upfront that we are looking at a rigorous revision process here that is likely to draw on both your resources and ours at the journal.
Regarding the journal’s resources, I am willing to take the next step (i.e., a major revision) because (1) I would like to have a high quality ethnography (I can find none in Sex Roles) because I do think it is an increasingly sophisticated methodology; (2) I agree with Reviewer 2 who notes that we usually see this research in terms of women’s objectification, not men’s masculinity; and (3) I do think we give masculinity short shrift in Sex Roles compared to feminist issues focused on women. I believe that the comments from Reviewers 2 and 1 will be especially helpful toward the second and third of these points, respectively.
The one exception is a concern raised by Reviewer 2 about adding a second coder. I asked Reviewer 3 specifically about this point and here is her response: “Ethnography in my experience tends to be a sole researcher type of approach. Campbell (Donald, of Campbell and Stanley) argued for dual ethnographers reflecting both insider/outsider views. But I do not see this as an attempt to present a sweeping cultural (or subcultural) assessment, rather an application of a participant-observer driven design (ethnography lite, perhaps) to gender behavior in a context, so for me ethnography works as a framing design. That said, I share concerns with trustworthiness of the report.” In sum, although interrater reliability in coding is often a key concern, I do think requiring this addition in an ethnography using a participant-observation approach is not needed.
This then takes me to a core challenge in moving forward with your paper at Sex Roles: trustworthiness. All three reviewers share my concern about the lack of demonstrated methodological integrity in the present paper. This is where Reviewer 3 comes in. I recruited Reviewer 3 after the other reviewers, and because she is a member of our in-house staff, I shared both reviewers’ (masked) comments with her. I asked her first if she felt there was enough evidence of rigor to pursue a revision. Because we (at this point) have incomplete methodological information, I cannot commit to making a positive judgment here, but I am committing to giving it a try.
Thus my second challenge to Reviewer 3 was to outline what next steps you will need to take (in addition to addressing the other reviewers’ comments) to fill in these methodological gaps. As you can see from Reviewer 3’s comments, this starts by laying out your procedural details and analytic strategy. My guess is that you will need to focus more specifically on theme development and justification (e.g., thematic analysis) rather than taking this aspect from grounded theory (in that your goal is not to develop theory). I have attached a recently published paper in Sex Roles by Sheryl Chatfield that lays out various approaches to qualitative methodologies and outlines our standards here at Sex Roles. My expectation is that Reviewer 3’s comments and this paper will help you address this critical point, as well as to move one from there to fully flesh out your methods, analyses, and findings.
One approach that I find very helpful in clarifying themes that an author uncovers, and that also supports the definitional and coding rigor of reported themes, is the inclusion of a “themes table.” A themes table includes (a) each named theme (and, if applicable, subtheme), (b) its description used to code it, (c) a prototypical example (not repeated in the text), (d) the frequency of its occurrence across participants/materials (optional), and (e) its interrater reliability (optional, but required for content analyses). This table becomes a handy reference for readers, demonstrates the methodological rigor of your coding scheme, and organizes your Results section (which should parallel the flow of this table; hence this table should be first mentioned at the start of your Results section). Please give the inclusion of this table your full consideration.
As you can see from the above, we are drawing heavily on Reviewer 3 as one of the journal’s resources. Another part of these resources comes from me as editor and focuses on the formatting requirements for this journal. As this point, I don’t want to burden you too much with formatting requests because they will prove moot if your paper does not move beyond this next phase, and I don’t want to unnecessarily waste your time and energies (nor mine). It will be important though that your revision conform to the general sections we expect in an APA style paper: an Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. These are detailed in the Instructions to Authors on the journal’s website, but they become clearer with a model. I am attached a published paper by Legerski, but in its manuscript form, to serve as a model. Note that it also includes a themes table.
I also want to chime in on a point raised by all reviewers: Please avoid jargon-y language, starting with your obtuse title. As I note below, it is in both the journal’s interests and yours to make your paper accessible to a wide audience. The rigor of your research rests in sound methods, not in obscure language.
In sum, these are some initial steps toward formatting I do need to ask you to take (in the above) because these revisions will help us determine how well you have address all three reviewers’ comments (as well as allow for follow-up review). By having your paper conform to the general format we expect, we will also be better able to detail any further changes that you may need to address. Note that given my interests in your paper, I am committed to helping further with formatting as needed later in the editorial process.
Every editor has some quirks, and I am no exception. When you revise your paper, please review it with an eye to the following requests. Although I will try to be sensitive to disciplinary variations and the needs of individual papers, please do try to comply with the following as much as possible. They are offered in the spirit of making your paper accessible to a wide range of readers.
Your goals as an author and mine as an editor converge in that we both want your paper to be widely read and cited. Toward those ends, please take another look at your title, abstract, and keywords. Your title and Abstract can attract or put off readers; try to frame your title (about 25 words maximum) and Abstract (about 200 words) to appeal to a wide range of potential readers including practice professionals (such as therapists/counselors, activists/social policy makers, instructors, organizational administrators, etc.) and/or students and general readers. Avoid unnecessary jargon and spell out some specific implications of your work in your Abstract (probably in the final sentence). Please use the “Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms” to suggest keywords that will be readily searchable online so that your paper is not overlooked by researchers; feel free to add extra common search terms that might work best in your discipline and with this line of research.
I would like your Discussion section to conform as closely as possible with a standard framework that I use across papers. Please open your Discussion with a brief (1-2 paragraph) summary of your central findings, followed then by a fuller discussion of those findings. Include the following subsections (with the specific subheadings specified here):
(a) Limitations and Future Research Directions (either combined or separate), (b) Practice Implications, and (c) Conclusion(s).
The Practice Implications subsection should present your thoughtful answer to the question “So what?,” that is, address what about your findings may be useful to practice professionals (e.g., therapists/counselors, instructors, activists, policymakers, administrators), students, and/or everyday readers. Your Conclusion should bring your paper to a clear ending (so that it does not just trail off) as well as tie your ideas back to those with which you opened your paper.
Both APA style and Springer (our publisher) require DOIs (digital object identifier) for every journal article that you cite in your References. All DOIs begin with the number 10 and contain a prefix and suffix separated by a slash. They typically are reported on the first page of the electronic journal article or a helpful resource for finding them may be found at [REDACTED]. Their purpose is to allow a reader to link to the articles you cite when they read the electronic, online version of your paper. They are added to each citation in your reference section at the end of the usual citation as follows:
[REDACTED]. (Note that this is our publisher’s format, not APA style.) Please include these for each journal article in your Reference list in your revised paper. (If none is available, include a url that will take an online reader to a public, not individual, site at which the cited article may be found.)When submitting your revised manuscript, include your revision notes in which you explain the changes you made keyed to the comments of the reviewers and the editor. If you choose not to follow a suggestion, explain your rationale for retaining your original text. Your list of responses should be uploaded as a separate file in addition to your revised manuscript.
I have had far too many instances when the possibility of piecemeal or duplicate publication has been raised. Springer now routinely checks all submissions for plagiarism, including self-plagiarism. At Sex
Roles, we comply with the guidelines of the 6th edition Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (see pp. 13-15, which I also attached). When you prepare your revision notes, please begin these notes with a statement that verifies that you have read and are in compliance with these guidelines, including the provisions under the heading “alerting the editor.” If you have questions or concerns about your compliance, please contact me before beginning your revision.
At this point, I expect to send your revision out for further review to at least one of the original reviewers with whom your revision notes will be shared (and I reserve the right to solicit new reviewers should I find I need further input). This process will be helpful to me in making an editorial decision.
In order to submit your revised manuscript and revision notes electronically, please access the following web site: [REDACTED]
Please click “Author Login” to submit your revision. Please be sure to submit your revised manuscript, including any tables and figures, in an editable form (e.g., Word).
In order to retain your publication position, your revision should reach this office within 60 days following the receipt of this message, that is, by 05 Sep 2018. If you cannot meet this deadline, please contact the editorial office so that we can negotiate additional time for your resubmission. If you happen to miss this deadline and your file is closed, please contact the editorial office ([REDACTED]). As you prepare your revision, please be sure your paper conforms to the guidelines in the 6th Edition of the APA Publication Manual.
Thank you for considering Sex Roles as an outlet for your work. I look forward to working with you.
Best wishes,
[REDACTED]Editor
Sex Roles
Reviewer #1:
There is additional documentation related to this decision letter. To access the file(s), please click the link below. You may also login to the system and click the ‘View Attachments’ link in the Action column.[REDACTED]
GENERAL COMMENT
This paper seeks to explore men’s masculinity practices as contributing toward local pastiche hegemony within the context of the ‘breastaurant’. Whilst and interesting an engaging topic, it is unclear at the outset what novel insight or contribution this paper will be making. Much work will be required before it is of publishable standard. In particular, the paper’s analysis needs to be developed much further so as to adhere to standards of reporting and link findings more clearly to research questions. Further detailed comments appear below.
DETAILED COMMENT
Title:
The title could be more informative. It should ideally include all key research concepts whilst remaining succinct. The concept of ‘discourse’ is not central to the theoretical and methodological framework of the paper and should be substituted by, for example, the term ‘themes’.
Abstract:
The abstract should provide a succinct summary of the paper. This is only partially achieved. The research aims and/or question(s) are underspecified. The method and analysis are also not described.
‘Introduction’:
The paper’s opening paragraph(s) should detail its aims and clearly underline what novel empirical, practical and/or theoretical insight it might offer. In short: why should we be interested in reading this paper? This is not sufficiently achieved.
The author(s) might think it worthwhile, albeit briefly, to consider the extent to which the concept of “Local pastiche hegemonies” articulate with Connell and Messerschmidt’s (2005) concepts of ‘local hegemonic masculinities’ and a ‘geography of masculinities’?
The author(s) variably draw on concepts of ‘discourses” (p. 2) and “narratives” (p. 4). These are, both theoretically and methodologically, conceptually different. Greater consistency in their use would be serve to frame the paper theoretically.
The paragraph beginning with the words “Though essentializing…” (pp. 4-5, ll. 42- 13) might better be incorporated under the ‘concluding remarks’ (discussion) as some of the observations have yet to be evidenced?
Whilst interesting and engagingly written, some of the information included under ‘The Breastaurant as a Sexually Objectifying Environment’ (pp. 5-11) and ‘The Breastaurant as a Purveyor of Ersatz Sexual Availability’ (pp. 11-14) is unnecessary. For example, there is no need to cite Rasmusson (2011) in such depth beginning the lines Male customers) (p. 7, ll. 42-59). The author(s) should critically consider what information is strictly required throughout the ‘introduction’ to adequately frame their research question(s).
When the author(s) reflect on the situated (re)production of gender, such as, “Put another way…” (pp. 11-12, ll. 59-8), they are pointing to ‘gender performativity’ (Butler, 1990) or the “doing (of) gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987). These are well established notions that should be adequately cited.
Method:
The author(s) assert that “this study is mostly theoretical in its approach, but it is bolstered by comparison against my own empirical data” (p. 14, ll. 57-59). This is an unnecessary assertion. This paper may be defined as empirical by conventional standards. As such, it’s current method and analysis (findings) sections will require further development.
Far more attention should be paid to developing a more cogent description of the methodology. The author(s) appear to have undertaken an ethnography in which grounded theory appears to have served a central role. As such, a more detail description of how grounded theory has framed this exercise, and in particular, how its assumptions have guide analysis, should be presented. As a methodology, grounded theory suggested very particular theoretical assumptions that need to be adequately linked to research questions, analysis and the interpretation of findings. Charmaz (2006), as the chosen grounded theory perspective, needs to be described in further detail.
The sentence beginning with the words “Of note, insights…” (p. 18, ll. 15-20) might better be incorporated under the ‘concluding remarks’ (discussion).
‘Findings’:
As noted above, there is inconsistent sue of conceptually different terms such as “discourses” and “themes” (p. 19). Given the choice of grounded theory, I suggest that the latter term is used consistently throughout.
It is unclear, at the outset, what themes emerged through inductive analysis. The author do not define (identify) these at the outset, and then, somewhat confusingly, list a number of different themes at different times [e.g., “three primary themes stand out. Among common discourses of lesser importance are those connecting “real” masculinity to sports, real and symbolic violence, motorcycles (especially on “Bike Night”), and allowable strength versus acceptable weakness (p. 19, ll. 37-42) AND “three primary masculinity discourses that dominate within the general breastaurant pastiche hegemony. These are sexual objectification, sexual conquest, and male control over women” (p. 20, ll. 49-54) AND “themes of male possession” (p. 24, l. 47)].
Presentation of findings does not adhere to conventional standards of reporting. I would encourage the author(s) to consult existing recent published thematic analysis (i.e., as guided by Braun & Clarke, 2006) or grounded theory (i.e., as guided by Charmaz, 2006).
Data are often interesting. Yet findings are largely descriptive. Although appropriate data extracts are provided in support of emerging themes, these are for the most part, under analysed. That is to say, the author(s) could do more to draw out subtleties in meaning within and between these. The reporting of data by themes and subthemes may be helpful in this respect.
The author(s) appear to be implying, in their analysis that themes such as “sexual objectification, sexual conquest, and male control over women” are indicative of “local pastiche hegemon(ies)” (p. 21, 3-5). To what extent does such a characterisation risk de-emphasising the extent to which such discourses inhabit a central space in our everyday practices and are not hidden with the “locally ‘protected'” (p. 21, l. 3)?
‘Discussion’:
The author(s) should ideally summarise key findings at the outset to this section. Their empirical, practical and theoretical implications might then be considered more systematically.
In systematically considering the various implications of findings, the author(s) need to demonstrate much more clearly what new or novel insight their findings are offering. In particular, it is not yet clear to me that they have convincingly responded the questions posed: “How does this environment reproduce certain hegemonic themes in masculinity for patrons in pastiche form? And what can this tell us about men and masculinities in the present liminal epoch more generally” (p. 14, ll. 47-52)?
In doing so, findings much more clearly evidence, as noted above, how emerging themes are indicative of local pastiche hegemon(ies) rather than more general normative masculine practice.
Reviewer #2:
Reviewer #2: The purpose of this ethnographic study was to examine one group of men’s attitudes and interactions in one breastaurant over a two-year period. Strengths of the manuscript include an interesting and important area of inquiry. As the author notes, much of the research on breastaurants has focused on female servers experiences and there is a need to examine men’s interactions and experiences in these environments. I agree that the breastaurant is an important site for critical masculinities research that has been neglected in the extant literature and this study has the potential to make a significant contribution. Although the focus on only one group of men is a limitation of the study, it does have strength in an “insiders” view of this group that can provide a more in-depth examination over a relatively long time period. In addition, I thought many of the quotes used in the results section were rich and illuminating. However, my enthusiasm for the manuscript was dampened by the overall writing quality and concerns about the rigor of the data analysis.
While the author clearly has a solid grasp of the relevant research and scholarly works related to breastaurants and male subcultures where traditional forms of masculinity are embraced and promoted, it is not presented in a way that is easy to follow and understand. The use of jargon and words which are rarely used in conversational English makes it difficult to read, decreases accessibility to a larger scientific and lay readership, and ultimately reduces the potential impact that study may have. Some examples of this are “a unique form of local pastiche hegemony,” “a wholly homosocial male persevere”, “who provide heterosexual aesthetic labor to the patrons, primarily in the form of ersatz sexual availability,” “these form a biology ideology that enjoy a quasi-scientific veneer,” “as mere breast-bearing cogs in a neoliberal-patriarcho-capitalist machined,” and “obviating the need for a robust development of the concept here.” I literally had to have my dictionary to help me get through this piece. Relatedly, terms are used but not defined. For example, what are “identity resources’? What are “neo-liberal agendas”?
Claims are made that are not backed up with evidence to support them. For example, “under the constraints of late-modern life, traditional metanarratives of masculinity accessible to men— greater physical size, strength, capability, aggression, violence, and physical domination—have eroded.” What is the evidence showing that traditional forms of masculinity are “lost”? As another example, Hooters Girls are referred to as “American’s working class sorority” and that they likely “feature a different masculine demographic” but no evidence is provided that the waitresses who work at breastaruants are largely working class and it is unclear what the masculine demographic at these restaurants are.
Too many direct quotes are used in the section entitled, “The Breastaurant as a Sexually Objectifying Environment”. These should be used sparingly.
The introduction needs to be streamlined, better organized, and more focused to the research question to make a stronger, clearer rationale for the current study. There is also redundant information that needs to be eliminated.
The manuscript does not conform to APA style. It needs to include page numbers and an introduction, method (participants, procedure, data analytic strategy), results, and discussion (limitations, directions for future research, practice implications) sections and subsections. Some of these sections need further development. For example, more information about participants is needed. What were their social class backgrounds? Were they professionals, working class, a mix? What were their educational levels? Job types? More information about the data analytic strategy is also needed.
I strongly suggest working with a professional editor and/or another scholar who is more familiar with the writing style of journal articles in Sex Roles.
I have questions about the rigor of the data analyses. More information is needed about the strategy and procedures used. For example, how were quotes chosen? were they the most typical? most sensational? Were they the ones most closely related to interactions with female servers? Given the study occurred over a two year period and all conversations were taped, the author clearly has a huge amount of data and I wanted more description of the procedures used in data analysis.
I also worry about the use of one analyst who knew all these men. While on one hand it can be a plus in giving an insiders view, it also increases the chance for potential biases. I suggest the use of an additional analyst or two to more fully analyze the data and keep potential biases in check. I also wonder if there were missed opportunities in the data analysis. For example, the manuscript reads “The ensuing dialogue led to several members of the group agreeing that the ability to “tell hot young girls what to do and have them do it for you with a smile” (Randy, Field notes, July, 20, 2017) is integral to the breastaurant experience. (Carl, for his part, called this discussion “fucked up.”)” Did Carl say this in front of the group or privately to you? How did the group respond to this comment if he said it to them? And what does it say about men’s interactions and responses to challenges about traditional masculinity? If he only said it privately to you, there also seems to be a message here about challenging or not challenging traditional masculinity.
I would reduce the amount of interpretations in the results section and save this for the discussion section.
Reviewer #3:
I thank the authors for addressing an important and interesting issue in gender research viewed through a masculine perspective. In part due to the depth of theoretical information presented, I believe that the ability of readers to engage with this paper would be enhanced by inclusion of additional information about the empirical research reported, and some improvements in organization and presentation of the information, in particular the reported findings from the research. Following I offer some recommendations including citations for two published ethnographic works that provide good models for the presentation of research methods and data analysis of participant-observer studies.
Abstract
There is a great deal of theoretical information and speculation presented early in the paper but it is not entirely clear early on that this paper includes a human subjects research report. It would be helpful for readers to see a little about the background/problem/concern, the specific purpose of the work, how this purpose was addressed, outcomes/findings and implications – in essence a map of the paper – in the abstract. In my view, this helps position the introductory information and it helps attract readers who have interest in various aspects of the work.
Design
If the questions on page 14 before methods are the research questions that motivated this study, I suggest the authors make this more clear. As written, the link between question or purpose and conduct of research is not obvious. Given the depth of the introductory material, readers would benefit from information prior to the methods that includes a plainly stated summary of prior findings accompanied by the authors’ assessment of either gaps in knowledge or the contribution that can be made through this study which includes the specific purpose and/or questions to be addressed. This will allow readers to more easily navigate the shift from theoretical considerations to presentation of empirical research.
If the study is partly ethnographic (this is the authors’ description), what was/were the other part or parts of empirical design? A quality citation for this specific design or blended approaches would improve credibility of the report. Readers are likely to know that ethnographic methods include participant observation of a culture. But there are no rules or standard conventions that mandate type of data, data processing, or data analysis strategies, so readers benefit from being provided with more detail about how authors implemented this general design to carry out this specific research. Although many of the seminal historical (or newer) ethnographic works, published in book form, do not speak to data gathering, management, and analysis, peer reviewed human subjects research reports should include ample detail to instill confidence in readers that a systematic process took place and reported findings are credible.
Data processing and analysis
Because this is a participant-observation study, I believe it is important that readers are given information to improve the credibility of the presented findings. The authors have described some internal processes (e.g., “critical detachment”); description of actual, physical data management processes also helps enhance credibility of the report.
Readers would benefit from a clear, perhaps stepwise description of data analysis, that might include the following:
A summary description of data collection – much time was spent in the site? Same day/time each week?
Approximate number of participants who provided consent to participate?
A description of the corpus of data, including approximate range/size/scope of field notes versus interview transcripts. The decision to selectively transcribe (versus transcribe all and only include relevant data in analysis) can undermine reader confidence in the work, and it would be helpful if the authors provided a little more detail about the criteria used to identify “relevant portions.”
Data analysis – why coding? Why open coding? The rationale given regarding presumed fidelity of field notes does not tell me why open coding was preferable to some version of theoretical coding. Charmez’s work on constructivist grounded theory – that includes open coding as just one stage toward building theory from data – contains some supportive information for general approaches to qualitative data but citing the work as a whole is less helpful since this is not a grounded theory study. I suggest the authors present specific information to rationalize open coding as might be found in Charmez and is also available in alternatives such as Saldaña (2016) or Gibbs (2007). Also, readers are often provided with information about what constituted a meaning unit or unit of data for coding purposes, and what tools (software, pencils) were used.
How were data fractured/transformed/aggregated/developed interpreted into presented outcomes? There is a suggestion that data were coded into themes although this is not detailed; citations for further aspects of post coding transformation would help improve credibility of the presented findings. While the word theme is used to suggest an outcome of data analysis “three primary themes stand out” it seems to also refer to general theoretical trends: “Though variations on the theme of heteromasculine identity” (p.20) “problematic hegemonic themes in masculinity emerge,” p. 27. This is confusing for readers, as is the phrase “those centered upon coding masculinity in terms of sexual objectification,” which does not appear to be related to “coding” of data. The word “discourse” occurs regularly; was a discourse analysis strategy also used? Data do not have to be presented as themes, if themes were not an outcome of analysis. Alternately if the trends within the data are being assessed against pre-identified themes, this is often (but not always) contained in a discussion section that follows the results, and it helps readers to know that this is the goal of the authors’ presentation.
For a thematic analysis, a theme table is very helpful for readers. If there are other outcomes of data analysis (theory, patterns of discourse), I suggest the authors consider use of a table and/or headings to help readers get a sense of the findings as an interrelated presentation of the essence of the data. Generally speaking, because of the variety of ways that qualitative researchers present results, I think readers also benefit when they are given some direction at the beginning of the results section that tells them what the presentation of results contains.
Below are citations for two ethnographic research studies that each involve participant observer data collection over a span of time but also include thorough information about data collection, processing, and analysis. Haenfler’s work is the provided example in Creswell’s qualitative research textbook “Five approaches to qualitative research” (Sage, 2013).
Haenfler, R. (2004). Rethinking subcultural resistance: Core values of the straight edge. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 33. 406-436 doi: 10.1177/0891241603259809
DiStephano, A.S. (2016) HIV’s syndemic links with mental health, substance use, and violence in an environment of stima and disparities in Japan. Qualitative Health Research, 26(7), doi: 10.1177/1049732315627644
Second decision, provisional acceptance from Sex Roles: September 5, 2018
Dear Dr, Baldwin:
I have received the latest draft of your manuscript SERS-D-18-00244R1 titled, “An Ethnography of
“Breastaurant Masculinity”: Themes of Objectification, Sexual Conquest, Male Control, and Masculine Toughness in a Hooters Restaurant,” and I am delighted to accept it for publication in Sex Roles pending some further editorial changes.
I asked one of the original reviewers to take a follow-up look at your paper, and I join that reviewer (see those comments below) in thanking you for your careful revisions. Given the minor nature of those comments, I completed my on close reading and editing of your paper, and our assistant editor has conducted her routine check of your references. We are down to a few nits that need to be addressed in order to finalize your manuscript. To help expedite this process, I have tracked changes and added comment boxes as needed directly into your paper. Please address each of these points.
To find this marked document, please access the following web site: [REDACTED]
Please click “Author Login” to find my attached edited manuscript and to submit your revision. Under “Action Links,” you will be able to “View Attachments,” where you will find the Word document I edited.
Please download and USE THIS COMPLETE FILE as the basis for your remaining revisions. Please track ALL CHANGES that you make to this document, which should include all parts of your paper from title page and abstract through references, tables/figures, and any online supplements. My plan is to simply review these changes, officially accept your paper so that it is formally “in press,” and send your paper on to Springer for final copyediting and processing. Please be aware that this is your last opportunity to make any changes to your paper beyond routine copyediting.
If you do want to communicate directly with me, either email me ([REDACTED]) or do so by adding comment boxes directly in your revised manuscript. Do not include separate revision notes with this revision.
To send your complete, revised, marked paper back to me, please go through the online system at [REDACTED]. I’m sorry that I have to ask you to go through the submission process another time, but the system is very rigid with respect to sending attachments. Thanks for your patience and persistence.
I am delighted to have your paper published in Sex Roles. I have enjoyed working with you, and I look forward to doing so again in the future.
Best,
[REDACTED]EditorSex Roles: A Journal of Research
COMMENTS FOR THE AUTHOR:
There is additional documentation related to this decision letter. To access the file(s), please click the link below. You may also login to the system and click the ‘View Attachments’ link in the Action column.
[REDACTED]Reviewer #3: I thank the author for a great deal of effort to acknowledge, consider, and make revisions to this research report in response to multiple comments from multiple reviewers. I found this version greatly improved and am pleased to say I also found the paper engaging and informative. In my view, the provision of additional information regarding design, data collection, processing, and analysis improved credibility of findings. Excerpts/exchanges provided good support for themes and also contributed to what felt to me like a realistic re-creation of the setting.
On page 4, under the heading male preserves, there are many phrases set apart in double quotation marks. Some are presented as direct quotes and others are not, although there are author attributions accompanying these. It would be helpful to readers if the difference between direct quotes and emphasis/key terms was made clearer – the APA style guide suggests use of italic font for emphasis (only when the term is introduced for the first time). If certain phrases originated with authors, it might be more appropriate to present as a direct quote (with page number). In some instances I believe a phrase can be incorporated as plain text. It might help to refer to pgs 91 and 104-105 in the APA manual for their guidance on use of quotation marks and italics.
Full acceptance from Sex Roles: September 6, 2018
Dear Dr, Baldwin:
I have received the final version of your manuscript SERS-D-18-00244R2 titled, “An Ethnography of
Breastaurant Masculinity: Themes of Objectification, Sexual Conquest, Male Control, and Masculine
Toughness in a Sexually Objectifying Restaurant,” and I am delighted to accept it for publication in Sex Roles: A Journal of Research. The final version of your edited manuscript can be found in your Author Center at:
[REDACTED]
If you have any questions about your accepted manuscript, please contact me at [REDACTED]. Please remember to always include your manuscript number, SERS-D-18-00244R2, whenever inquiring about your manuscript.
If you have any concerns about this final version, please contact me immediately so we can resolve these prior to production of your paper (when changes may not be possible). Please keep this final version to check the page proofs you will receive from Springer.
Your manuscript is now formally “in press,” and it has been sent to the publisher, Springer, for final processing toward electronic and print publication. Congratulations! It has been a pleasure to work with you, and I look forward to doing so again in the future.
Best wishes,
[REDACTED]EditorSex Roles
P.S. I must confide that I am quite excited to have your paper. So far as I can tell, it is the first ethnography to be published in Sex Roles and likely by the only (or at least among a small handful) of authors who are historians. I think of Sex Roles as multidisciplinary so I am especially pleased on both counts. Thanks for making this so.
Men & Masculinities
Nota bene: As the first reviewer at Men & Masculinities seems particularly warm to the paper, and the second reviewer is particularly harsh, it is reasonable to conclude that the paper was rejected on the review of the second reviewer. Upon our reading of this review, it seems that the second reviewer wanted us to write a completely different paper, focused more on themes of feminism than on those of masculinity, even though having done so would likely have taken the paper outside of the scope of the journal Men & Masculinities for which it was being reviewed.
Decision from Men & Masculinities: May 25, 2018
25-May-2018
Dear Dr. Baldwin:
I write you in regards to manuscript # JMMX-18-0036 entitled “The “Breastaurant” as a Pastiche Hegemony: Masculine Discourses of Objectification, Sexual Conquest, and Male Control at Hooters Restaurants” which you submitted to Men and Masculinities.
Following external review of the manuscript, we have decided not to publish it. However, the material you write about is certainly interesting and will doubtless find a receptive audience in another publication. You will find the reviewers’ comments below.
Thank you for considering Men and Masculinities for the publication of your research. I hope the outcome of this specific submission will not discourage you from the submission of future manuscripts.
Sincerely,
Dr. [REDACTED]Editor in Chief, Men and Masculinities
Reviewer #1
The “Breastaurant” as a Pastiche Hegemony: Masculine Discourses of Objectification, Sexual Conquest, and Male Control at Hooters Restaurants
This article is certainly interesting to read and to think about, and I can imagine this article being valuable in an undergraduate or graduate class on masculinities.
The breastaurant, the author explains, “is a neologism employed to label causing dining restaurants where female servers dress in sexually provocative outfits as a defining feature/gimmick” (3). Given this context, the author draws on Atkinson’s idea of “local pastiche hegemonies,” which is, “a localized environment in which men are free to produce, develop, and engage with particular masculinity discourses in pastiche form” (2) to explore and understand the breastaurant. Atkinson’s notion serves this study well, and might also work to remind readers of this notion, particularly when confronted by homosocial spaces, for instance, men’s clubs, gyms, locker rooms, etc.
Overall, this article is an interesting contribution that provides much to think about and through. It is written in clear and coherent prose.
For Consideration
In what follows, I provide a series of thoughts and observations that I think the author might take into consideration during the revision process.
The author writes that “to date, there is little scholarly research that directly studies Hooters restaurants, or breastaurants more broadly” (5). Is this the case? What about some of the legal research on Hooters, particularly with regards to harassment?
The author writes that there are three primary themes, and one of these is “strength versus weakness” and then provides the following discussion: “Among these, the last is particularly salient as it arises at Hooters, which is known for serving very spicy hot (chicken) wings as its signature dish. It comes up in the context of being able to handle hot sauce “like a man,” both orally and (later) intestinally/anally” and notes that these discussions “are, in fact, so common that they occurred at out table in nearly every visit to Hooters in the course of the two-year span of this study” (11). Why are men talking so much about anality? What might it mean that masculinity is measured “orally” and “anally”?
When the author speaks of Valentina’s “ersatz sexual availability” (14), how is this known? There is, perhaps, a need to think through Valentina’s agency here, rather than impose it upon her. I recognize that the author has addressed this in a parenthetical comment earlier in the paper, but in this instance, it is necessary to think through this scene more carefully. This becomes all the more important when the author admits, parenthetically, that “Matt and Valentina did subsequently begin dating” (15). It is important that studies of men and masculinities recognize women’s voices and experiences, one of the challenges with many theoretical perspectives in the field is the erasure of women. In this case, we never hear directly from Valentina, but assumptions are made about her, and interpretations made about her actions.
Required Revisions
In what follows, I provide “required revisions,” which I would consider essential to any revision.
In the methods section, there needs to be some discussion of Research Ethics. This concern becomes particularly important given how the researcher came to decide upon researching this group. Moreover, since these were not formal interviewers, were the research subjects aware that they were being researched?
In revisions, answer the following questions: Did the researcher seek and gain ethics approval for this research? How and when were participants informed about the research project? What processes were in place for informed and ongoing consent? Did participants have an option to withdraw? Were research subjects aware they were being researched? Did the research subjects understand the position of the researcher?
Additionally, include discussion around recruitment (or lack thereof) and the logic behind this method. Given much of this is about participant observation, how did the researcher interact with the research subjects throughout the research process? Did the researcher, for instance, only listen, or did the research contribute to the environment and the discourses of masculinity?
Given how much of the discussion revolves around Valentina, for instance, were the workers at Hooters informed that they were the subjects of research? How did the workers consent to the research? If they were not informed, how does this affect and influence the ethics of the research?
Smaller Issues and Suggestions
Are the names “fictionalized” or “anonymized” (4)? Fiction carries a different relation to the truth than anonymity.
Run-on sentence: 4-39-46.
Reviewer: 2
In this paper, the author considers men’s heterosexual objectification of women working at Hooters. He argues that men’s leering, sexual remarks, and general entitlement to women’s bodies and sexualities props up their masculinity in a “unique” (read “unassuming”?) space. These are not homosocial spaces, he argues, which are well documented for providing men what James Messerschmidt calls “masculinity resources.”
While overall well written, there are some big issues the author needs to address before it will be ready for resubmission. The first and foremost is the hook of the paper. I am left unconvinced of the theoretical and empirical contribution of the paper: So what if these are “unique” spaces for men’s projections of masculinity (which I don’t think they are – I discuss this below) and what is surprising about the findings? The paper needs reframing, moving away from the unsurprising observation that “women are objectified” (by the men? By the organization? Both? — passive voice throughout the paper) to a clear theoretical hook that perhaps builds on Barber’s (2016, Styling Masculinity book and Gender & Society article) “heterosexual aesthetic labor,” deploys Messerschmidt’s (2000, Nine Lives) “masculinity resources,” and identifies an extension of Loe’s (1996( research on “Bazooms” and Alisson’s (1994) research on hostess clubs.
The Case:
- Hooters, the author tries to convince the reader, is a “family” restaurant and so is an unexpected place for male dominance to emerge via expressions of heterosexual entitlement. Even if the author could convince me—perhaps through an empirical analysis of the restaurant’s branding efforts—that “family” is part of the Hooters image, he would still need evidence from customers that they too see the restaurant and were using it as a family place. In addition, the author asks the reader to assume “family” represents “friendly”—a place where we wouldn’t expect heteromasculine displays of power, dominance, entitlement to women’s work and bodies. But family is often exactly these things. And the presence of sons whom men might be attempting to initiate into heterosexual masculinity (an argument the author makes without data) and the presence of women do not make it a “family” place. I would also arguemost people understand any Hooters marketing that emphasize a “family” atmosphere or the hot wings is doing so in part so men don’t feel so sleazy sitting alone with a beer watching a sports game and ogling the servers. But again, this is an empirical question.
- The author also attempts to make the argument that Hooters is a surprising place for heteromasculine displays of entitlement because of the presence of women. Yes, a lot of research shows how homosocial spaces are breeding grounds for sexism, misogyny, and homophobia, as well as racism and classism. But, as the author mentions, strip clubs are not homosocial spaces but places where “men become men”. Neither are the hostess clubs in Allison’s research or the men’s salons in Barber’s work. Barber’s discussion of the “specter of homosociality” might be particularly helpful to the author, whereby she talks about the role of women in men’s conceptualization of the salons as places for men-only. Also, I can’t help but think of Nagel’s (2003 book, Race, Ethnicity and Sexuality) discussion of how women are used by men in war to negotiate relationships with each other.
Organization:
I would like to see the paper reorganized around a clear introduction (1-1.5 pages), literature review (57 pages), methods (1-1.5 pages), findings (~15 pages), and conclusion (1-2 pages). As it stands, the introduction is more of a literature review, too much new literature comes up in the findings (the literature frames the paper and should be drawn on in the findings to analyze the data), and the findings is thin on data.
The introduction should include the hook.
I suggest clear research questions at the end of the literature review, so it is organized as such: here are my questions and (transitioning into the methods section) here is how I answer them.
Taxonomy: The use of “pastiche hegemony” and “ersatz sexual availability” is unnecessary and relieves the author of having to be more specific. They sound smart but really stand in for more tangible identification and explanations of practices. Drop these concepts, or refer to them and then move on in favor of a clearer analysis of exact observed practices….
- “Ersatz sexual objectification” here refers to a sort of “artificial or imitation sexual objectification? I’m not sure what the author really means by this, and he gets away with not being specific by using the term. The term also suggests there is no “realness” to the objectification, as if women are unharmed by his friends’ comments, for example.
O I would also like to point outhere, that focusing on the customer sets the author up for a oversimplified analysis of power, ignoring the women’s meaning-making attempts, motivations for working at Hooters, moments they engage resistance, and how they interpret and reinterpret the work they are organizationally, culturally, and interpersonally compelled to do (emotional labor? Aesthetic labor? Where are these concepts in the author’s discussion of what is providing men opportunities to take advantage of Hooter’s promise to men?). Styling Masculinity has a nice discussion of the “labor of consumption.”
o Also, the author talks about “scripts” and “roles” without an organizational analysis of some kind. He should consider the formal and informal expectations women are engaging as they interact with customers—rather than simply stating they make themselves available to men.
O Finally, in thinking about the ways (over two years the author should have seen various sorts of interactions, more than the “one way” power dynamic he describes, here) the women workers interact with customers, the author should consider the lack of options women have to challenge men: i.e. as women reliant on men for tips, women reliant on the organization (and their responsibility for helping it uphold branding) for employment, backlash women receive for not going along with men’s expressions of entitlement, and other reasons they likely can’t say “my eyes are up here, jerk.”
- In other words, the author needs to do more of an analysis of structural and organizational power, how it shapes labor expectations that support heteromasculinizing branding for male customers, and how women might subvert this (that is, they aren’t just mindless cogs pushing their boobs up because they enjoy – what the author refers to as secondary reward – men’s sexual attention).
Methods:
- The author needs to elaborate on those steps he took to make sure the research was rigorous and methodical. How did he take fieldnotes? How did he approach the field? How did he code?
- Also, while the data is thin, that data that is in the findings is really interesting in terms of violent male heterosexuality (perhaps a new focus for the next draft?). But, all of the data comes only from interactions between the men at his table and between hisfriends and the servers. It is not clear that he did a rigorous ethnography beyond his table (did he ever go alone for observations? Move around the room? Conduct informal interviews with servers? Other customers? Managers?).
Findings:
There are a lot of assumptions in this paper, some of which the author uses to build a case for his work and analysis. Assumptions are a good indicator that data is thin, and this is certainly the case in this paper. I would like to see a more data driven paper.
Also:
- The author uses “discourses” when really he’s simply talking about men’s “remarks,” “conversations,” etc. These remarks can evoke discourses of violent heterosexism and masculine entitlement; and so I encourage the author to consider word choice and ask himself when he might be inappropriately applying jargon that actually obscures the specific practices at play. Throughout the paper, I wrote: “be specific” and “what does that really refer to?” in the margins.
I also don’t see how Eric Anderson’s work is helpful here. In fact, I would encourage the author to dig into debates around the use of “orthodox” masculinity before using.
- There is room for a more intersectional analysis here in terms of race, class, and heterosexual masculinity.
- This paper is a good example of why feminists have argued for a critical reflection of standpoint in terms of the questions we ask as researchers, our access to field sites and participants, what data we get, and how we conduct our analysis. I ask the author to consider how his analysis is filtered through his own gender location. Specifically, consider why you focus on men and not women as “subjects”, how you further objectify them in the analysis, and how your analysis holds women responsible for men’s expressions of violent heterosexual imaginations. Specifically:
- The author really ignores the women as research participants. There needs to be a better, empirical and theoretical explanation for why the author focuses solely on men when the women are clearly key to the interactional processes by which (a particular kind of masculinity – be clear) is supported through women’s work. Ignoring women as participants risks further objectifying them, which happens in this paper (see below).
- Ironically, the author brings women into his analysis only in terms of how they act as “identity resources” for men—that is, he seems to argue one of his main findings is that women are identity resources, but also reduces them to such by not conducting an analysis of women’s agency. Toward the end of the paper, he even suggests that the “power always flows from customer to server”—i.e., men have and exert power over women. This analysis is reductionist, objectifying the women.
- The author also victim-blames. This was really surprising to me, and quite alarming. On page 16, he says: “By displaying ersatz sexual availability in the construction of the breastaurant pastiche hegemony, then, the servers engage in scripted performances that encourage [men’s] identification with “real” or fully expressed masculinity to leap from objectification to a desire to effect sexual conquest, including co-constituted discourses of possessiveness and violence.” This is a troubling sentence in which the author argues that the servers “encourage” men’s expressions of “[hetero]sexual conquest” “including… “possessiveness and violence.”