'I Want Muscles': House Music, Homosexuality and Masculine Signification

Author(s): Stephen Amico

Source: Popular Music, Vol. 20, No. 3, Gender and Sexuality (Oct., 2001), pp. 359-378
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/853627
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Popular Music (2001) Volume 20/3. Copyright (C) 2001 Cambridge University Press, pp. 359-378.

Printed in the United Kingdom

'I Want Muscles': house music,

homosexuality and masculine
. . - . . .

slgnlucatlon

STEPHEN AMICO

The examination of 'subcultures' and their concomitant musical practices has pro-
duced a large and varied body of work, a recent (and notable) portion of which has
been concerned with what might be referred to generally as 'dance music' scenes
(Thornton 1996; Reynolds 1998; Fikentscher 2000). Concurrent with this focus (and
sometimes enmeshed with it) has been a burgeoning interest in gender/sexuality
and music (Ortega 1994; Whiteley 1997, 2000; Barkin and Hamessly 1999). While
recent reassessments of 'subcultural' formations situated within the postmodern era
have suggested inherent complexities, contradictions and a fluidity of self-definition
(Lipsitz 1994; Manuel 1995; Young and Craig 1997; Bennett 1999), thus problematis-
ing a strict conflation of 'subcultural' with 'subversive' (or 'refusal'; cf. Hebdige
19791), this second term often appears as a de facto correlate when discussing 'sub-
cultures' defined by homosexuality. This may be due, in part, either to the unfortu-
nate collapsing of the terms 'queer', 'gay' and 'homosexual' - the first of which,
despite its rather protean status, may indeed count 'subversiveness' as a sedimented
component of its meaning - into one, undifferentiated pool of generic descriptives,
and/or to the role of the researcher (the ethnographer, for example) in constructing
the 'object of study' as somehow 'other' (Fabian 1983; Abu-Lughod 1991).
While the concepts of subversion and queerness are not only useful, but
entirely necessary, it is important to recognise that non-heterosexual subcultures
need not be defined by such dynamics. Accordingly, the focus of this article is an
examination of the ways in which various symbols of stereotypical masculinity
operate to inform the musical discourse (together with concurrent visual and social
discourses) at the New York City dance club Aurora,2 for one temporally, socially
and geographically situated group of homosexual men.3 This reconceptualisation
will, additionally, engender a reassessment of underlying subcultural theories.
Koskoff (1987) describes four ways in which music may function vis-a-vis
gender structures:

(1) performance that confirms and maintains the established social/sexual arrangement;

(2) performance the appears to maintain established norms in order to protect other, more
relevant values;

(3) performance that protests, yet maintains, the order (often through symbolic behaviour);

(4) performance that challenges and threatens established order (p. 10).

359

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360 Stephen Amico

An automatic conflation of any musical activities involving homosexual men with

Koskoff's fourth proposition would lead to an entirely skewed reading of the music
played and consumed at Aurora;4 conversely, accepting portions of the musical
corpus as designed to uphold stereotypical notions of masculinity, in keeping with
Koskoff's first proposition, allows us to make sense of the 'masculine' component
so salient in the various discourses there.
This study is based, in part, on fieldwork conducted over ten months from
mid-1998 to early 1999, making use of both participant observation (primarily at
Aurora) as well as informants' views and perceptions. During this period, lengthy,
formal interviews (ranging from one to four hours) were conducted with twelve
gay men who were patrons of Aurora, and/or DJs or other music professionals;
additionally, I am drawing upon numerous (upwards of fifty), 'informal' (yet often
no less lengthy or informative) conversations held with lesbians and gay men
during this same time frame, as well as my own personal experiences and obser-
vations as a long-time homosexual 'insider'.

Paul's comments regarding the connection of masculinity to dance music

were, perhaps, the most overt:

I remember when I was at the White Party in South Beach [Miami], and we were all dancing,
there were all these men there, all sweaty and dancing, and, I don't know, it was sort of like
a big African war dance, like a gay tribe. It was all men, totally masculine.

While his remarks were the most specific regarding this linkage, it is also remark-
able that in the overwhelming majority of interviews, the subject of the body-
viz. one perfectly symmetrical and well-muscled - was raised by the respondents:
specifically, the vast majority of men evinced the attainment of physical 'perfection'
as something highly important to them, noting, conversely, what they saw as their
own physical imperfections. Adam's comments were typical:

I know I look good, and I work out and all that, and I try to resist the whole electrolysis
imperative. But when I go [to Aurora], or a circuit party, I still feel like my body's not good
enough to take my shirt off. I'm too self-conscious - my stomach's not flat enough, whatever.
I know it's ridiculous, but I still get caught up in the whole thing sometimes.

Additionally, the popularity of specific tracks with the audience indicated a

resonance with such dynamics. For example, on several occasions at Aurora, one
track in particular had the effect of filling the dance floor to capacity. In a
typical scenario, an abrupt halting of the 'kick' drum was followed by the oozing
forth of effect-laden synth lines, and the appearance of an almost imperceptible
repeating two-note riff. As the loop was foregrounded, the gender (female) and
the text - 'muscles' - of the vocal became clear. Other loops of the same voice
were introduced, mixed to various 'sides' or 'positions' through panning, and
likewise electronically manipulated, while a sample of the words 'I want'
repeated in the background. As it became clear which track was about to be
played, more men streamed to the dance floor, until it eventually became packed.
The 'tease' continued until, finally, the kick drum returned with a vengeance,
and the track played, the chorus of which went:

I want muscles
Oooh, all over his body
(Club 69 featuring Suzanne Palmer, 'Muscles')

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 'I Want Muscles' 361

Muscles are, in fact, abundant at Aurora, perpetually and conspicuously on display.

Men are often shirtless, or perhaps in 'muscle' tanks from the waist up, with jeans,
Adidas warm-up pants, combat fatigues or shorts from the waist down. Many sport
tattoos, especially the angular, abstract sort which have become known as 'tribals',
accentuating, by their placement and design, the muscularity of the body: rings
around large biceps, figures circling the navel on taut and chiselled abdomens,
V-shaped designs on V-shaped backs. Bodies are uniformly hair free - the results
of waxing, depilatories, shaving or electrolysis, thus making the muscles even more
visible. The heightened physical activity has most men sweating, their bodies per-
petually moving in a throng of more bodies. Of course, not all have reached this
'pinnacle' of physical development; there are many whose shirts stay on (probably
around fifty per cent) and whose clothes are less revealing.
Fetishisation of the 'ideal' or 'perfect' male body is widespread in certain gay
communities, such as that in New York City's Chelsea district, and is manifest in
advertising and visual materials.5 The gratis publications ('bar rags') HX and Next,
for example, which generally feature not only a scantily clad, well muscled (and
handsome) man on their covers each week, are also filled with advertisements por-
traying like images for everything from restaurants to substance abuse clinics.6 CDs
targeted for gay male consumers - such as compilations of 'gay [house] anthems',
or Out Classics (a collection of 'classical' music by supposedly 'gay' composers) -
also make use of such images.
It is not simply a generic type of pulchritude on display here, however. The
cover of the Club 69's sophomore release Style, for example, featured an almost
preternaturally attractive young man astride a large motorcycle, clad in nothing but
leather boots and air-force type sunglasses. The pose is arranged to avoid full fron-
tal nudity, and his shirtless torso is finely chiselled, exceptionally muscular and
vaguely sweaty. The image here is not one of the 'dandy'; it is, rather, one of a
stereotypical masculine visage, one which dispenses with 'foppishness' in favour
of the symbols of 'masculinity' - the musculature, the motorcycle, the boots, the
military-type eyewear.
Conceptually, such symbols are arbitrary in that they hold no inherent
'maleness' in and of themselves; rather, certain signs or symbols have been invested,
culturally, with gender-specific connotations. Hence, a motorcycle qua motorcycle
is not a gendered (or gender appropriate) object; likewise, neither are musculature
or leather boots. Rather, they are symbolic in the truest sense of the word: having
an arbitrary but socially agreed upon meaning, within a specific social milieu.
Accordingly, 'masculinity' need not be seen as 'essential,' but as contingent and, as
Cornwall and Lindisfarne (1994) point out, socially negotiated, 'constantly created
and transformed in everyday interactions' (p. 10).7
The relationships of cultural products to subcultural groups has been an area
of special interest within the British Cultural Studies school. In their seminal work,
Hall and Jefferson (1976) propose that a homologous relationship obtains between
cultural products such as music and the overriding group ethos. This is not merely
a case of fetishisation, but, rather, 'an active organisation' of cultural objects and
activities (p. 53); objects thus assembled would 'reflect, express and resonate'
important aspects of group life, in a '... reciprocal effect, between the things a
group uses and the outlooks and activities which structure and define their use . . .'
(p. 56). Subcultural styles are the outcome of this 'generative principle of stylistic
creation' (p. 56). In the case of Aurora, the dialectic between the DJ and the audience

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362 Stephen Amico

is one way in which the members of a group can actively form a cultural (musical)
'style'.

68 Beats's 'Music to My Ears': masculine signification in beat, tonal dis-

sonance and technology

The very idea of putative gender attributes in music is, perhaps, a delicate area.
Susan McClary, for example, has imputed 'masculine' attributes and signification
to structures in Western art music (McClary 1991; 1994), an undertaking that has
not been without its critics.8 I believe, however, that by examining an extant genre,
and by basing any hermeneutic exercise upon the observations of the participants
themselves (as well as observation of the participants themselves), and by attending
to the various discourses of, and surrounding, the actual producers and consumers
of the music, we are in a better position to undertake such an analysis. I am not
implying that McClary's analyses are without merit, and may not, in fact, be
'correct'. Nor am I suggesting that historical inquiry needs to be devoid of critical
analysis simply because of the temporal situation of the object of study; in fact, by
investigating genres and contexts in contemporary society, we may be able to glean
insights and materials which give a more complete picture of such historical genres.
Bearing in mind the fact that all interpretive enterprises walk a fine line between
empiricism and speculation, I now turn to examination of 68 Beats's 'Music to My
Ears', a track that was often played at Aurora, and the analysis of which demon-
strates the nature of the relationship of music to cultural ethos. The Example is a
transcription of a section of the track: the three areas I will be exploring as loci for
homologous relationships are: beat, tonal dissonance and music technology.
As is clear from the example provided, the piece is characterised by a steady
4/4 beat of a synthesised bass or 'kick' drum, against which syncopated rhythms
play. What is not manifest in the transcription is the amplitude at which the piece
is played at Aurora. Massive speakers surround the dance area and hang from the
ceiling, something which must be taken into consideration in imagining the decibel
level of the aural stream; indeed, the magnitude of the bass drum sound is often so
thunderous as to cause a secondary beat through the decay of the sound. The beat
is thus foregrounded rhythmically (as the 'backbone' of the piece), sonically (though
production and re-dissemination), and as an almost tangible, physical presence.
Furthermore, the significance of the drum or drum kit as 'masculine' instruments
may be at play in this foregrounding of rhythm, drummers and percussionists in
popular music genres being overwhelmingly male.
I would thus suggest that, in the context of this discussion, the beat is rep-
resentative of masculinity in its potency; that the beat is positioned as paramount,
that it is unremitting, and 'dominant' in a visceral form unmediated by thought -
pure power as opposed to a lyric representation of such. This masculinised rep-
resentation is more than aural signification, however. By impelling the participants
to physical action - dancing which can go on for hours - the beat also engenders a
performance of the construction of masculinity through a physical response.
Although dance is often associated with the 'feminine' in Western (especially
American) culture (see, for example Hanna 1988), there is a decidedly, almost
purely physical (as opposed to aesthetic) component to this dancing, making it
almost like a 'workout'. The connection with 'working out' may also be seen in the
presence of a 'Power Bar' (located in an alcove at the far side of the floor), where

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 'I Want Muscles' 363

;=128
ug 3 . 3 . 3 . 3 . j3_ r 3 w r 3 w . 3_

Voice
I t X Er #: : : r X r : Rr "< r X r q
Mu - si. Mu-si. Mu-si. Mu-si. Mu - si. Mu-si. Mu-si. Mu-si.

1i o I
Synth. 1

Synth. 2
wr3n j | z | rnn r
X SH t

Toms 1Xt C q p C S p C q p C q fi I

1v2a n $ g t n $ gI
"BIush"
"Sticks"
7XX::::L 77X-X=U |

Hi Hat
a X $ S t S D 7
Snare 1 o$q nq Dq nq Dq rq Sq S1

Snare 2 O l q tDq q Xq q tffiq S Xq I

iCick iz j J 2 J S J l l
Example

men can buy various energy-supplying quaffs made of fruits, vegetables and/or
protein powders, similar to those one might find at the gym. It is apparent that the
majority of men here (probably upwards of eighty per cent) do, in fact, go to the
gym on a regular basis; there is, accordingly, an air of 'sport', of pure physicality
that imbues the dancing at Aurora. As already noted, many have bare torsos, some
wearing very brief and/or tight shorts as well, exhibiting the aforementioned mus-
culature;9 many are sweating heavily (water bottles in pocket or hand),10 and the
stance of the body is (generally) erect and almost militarised (chest out, legs
together, arms at sides or at waist level). On some occasions, men would dance en
masse in a formation that can only be called a huddle, arms about each other's
shoulders, slightly bent at the waist, all shirtless and, of course, muscled. Although
not all men subscribe to this 'masculinised' dancing style1l or style of dress, it is
conspicuous, perhaps most visibly in the actions of the go-go 'boys'l2 stationed on
several platforms around and in the centre of the dance floor, at various times

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364 Stephen Amico

during the night/morning. In this context, then, dance can be seen as a performing
adjunct to the music, a place for a gendered corporealisation of the auditory.
It is also relevant to note that the sheer volume of the beat and the music -
along with dim lighting, flashing laser and strobe lights, smoke and drugs - make
verbal communication virtually impossible; visual signs and symbols are thus fore-
grounded. The (hyperbolic) male body is seen as the communicator of the sexual
and gendered message, one which might read (according to the advertising slogan
of one New York gym popular with many gay men), 'no pecs, no sex'. Fox (1997)
finds that music may be a locus for engendering verbal communication in social
settings; at Aurora, however, it is a way of obliterating such, thus making the visual
paramount. In fact, Joseph noted that this sort of objectification is actually desired
by the men at Aurora and, according to him, by many gay men in general. In his
view,

. . . women hate to be objectified, but gay men love it. I mean, who doesn't love to walk into
a club and have a guy look at you and say 'wow, he's hot'? Anyone who says that isn't true
. .

1S a lar.

The second aspect of the musical example that is of relevance is the abundance
of dissonance, a dissonance which figures in the majority of the music played at
Aurora, and much of which is related to the process of musical deconstruction.
Through sampling, looping and multi-tracking, disparate tonal elements are
brought together, and the resultant sonorities are decidedly different from many
earlier house 'standards' such as Black Box's 'Everybody, Everybody', or Gwen
Guthrie's 'Ain't Nothin' Going On but the Rent'. This type of dissonance is, in fact,
contrasted with the house music which is currently played at other gay discos,
much of which features tonally altered (e.g. a reconfigured chordal accompaniment,
such as occurs in remixing) but tonally centred tracks by well-known pop or dance
music singers such as Mariah Carey, Lisa Stansfield or Cher. Of this change, one of
my informants, Kyle, told me that '[the DJ, Franz] is playing for the Razor & Guido13
set now, he's playing straight music'. When asked what he meant by 'straight
music', this informant (an ex-DJ) elaborated:

. . . you know, no vocals, and it's not all puffy. When gay men are on 'E' [Ecstasy], they want
their music shaped like their men - puffy. It's like, when I was spinning to a straight crowd
at Limelight back in 1993, the music was faster, like 150 bpm, like jungle, drum and bass.
That's not the kind of music you generally find in a gay place, and it goes back to the whole
puffy thing. Fags want to be in a happy environment. Puffy music is about getting laid,
looking for a hook-up. This other stuff is about dancing.

By 'puffy', Kyle was referring to the sometimes hyperbolic or lush instrumentations

and arrangements of certain house tracks which feature gospel inflected vocals,
syncopated organ sounds, and synthesised horn and/or string riffs (i.e. Junior Vas-
quez's remix of Cher's 'One By One', or Funky Green Dog's 'Body'). It should be
noted that tracks such as these, as well as those by the aforementioned pop singers
are, indeed, played at Aurora; they are, however, often manipulated and further
deconstructed by Franz from the booth, so that the overall effect is consonant with
Aurora's aesthetic.
What Kyle dubbed 'straight music' - i.e. drum and bass, big beat or techno -
is, indeed, stylistically similar to the music that is played at Aurora. The dissonance,
deconstruction and abstraction- this last characterised by a lack of (or, rupturing
of) narrative, and foregrounding of instrumental riffs and complex beat structures -

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 'I Want Muscles' 365

can be found in such pieces as The Prodigy's 'Everybody in the Place (155 and
Rising)', or Deep Red's 'Live + Direct'. These pieces can be stylistically linked with
such Aurora-typical tracks as Future Primitive's 'The Future', Hans's 'Meet Her at
the Love Parade' or Razor & Guido and Go Man's 'Men Beat Their Men'. Such
congruencies link the corpus of music at Aurora with one that is predominantly
presented in and associated with heterosexual social structures.
A specific type of music may thus be seen as marker of a specific sexual orien-
tation. This does not mean, however, that such a style may not be 'imported' into
another social sphere, whereupon it will continue to symbolise its prior connections
while concurrently engendering new associations. I think it is important to note
here that many of the gay men with whom I have spoken also voiced a preference
for 'straight acting' men, e.g. men who are not 'effeminate', who can (supposedly)
'pass' for heterosexual, who are palpably 'masculine';14 the importance, in fact, of
both an attractive physique and adherence to a stereotypical 'masculinity' may be
evidenced by one of the most common phrases in personal ads placed by gay men -
'no fats, no fems'. I offer this not only as a means of drawing a parallel with the
concept of 'straight music', showing that it is, perhaps, not just a random or mean-
ingless assessment, but additionally to highlight the fact that dominant ideas about
what constitutes 'masculine' or 'feminine' behaviour- including the apposite signs
or symbols - do indeed have some currency within certain groups of gay men.
The last area of masculine signification inherent in 'Music to My Ears' is one
which is not immediately apparent from the transcription, but which is certainly
prominent in the recording, namely, the stylistic appurtenances of technology.
Much of the deconstruction of this music is a result of digital and computer technol-
ogy, not only from the position of creation (MIDI keyboards and samplers, multi-
track computer programs, etc.), but from the place of promulgation as well (the DJ
booth, often replete - as is the case at Aurora - with numerous turntables, reel to
reel tape players, mixing boards and computers). These have all typically been the
socially constructed instruments (and domains) of men.15 I must stress that I am
not suggesting that 'technology' is a specifically (or appropriately, or exclusively)
male realm. However, by giving prominence to a postmodern aesthetic based upon
a style mediated and engendered by technology, signs of 'masculinity', as they are
or may be perceived contextually and synchronically, are presented. Even the voice
of the singer is mediated, manipulated and re-presented through the filter of the
'masculine' pursuit.

'Feminine' and 'masculine' voices: emotion vs stoicism

This last observation leads me away from the example of 'Music to My Ears',
toward the question of the voice in house music vis-a-vis the conception of mascu-
linity. In her illuminating article on gender and dance music, Bradby (1993),
eschewing the idea of a utopian, gender-neutral dance culture, notes an apparent
division of (vocal) labour within the music, the effect of which 'is to establish an
alignment between the male voice, language, and technology, and the female voice
and the expression of emotion' (p. 167).16 As suggested above, the role of technology
may in fact be seen to be to signify the masculine. It is the conjoining of the emotive
with the feminine to which I will now turn.
There is a long tradition of vocals delivered by black, female singers in house
music, from the early days of disco and such artists as Thelma Houston ('Don't

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366 Stephen Amico

Leave Me This Way'), Bonnie Pointer ('Heaven Must Have Sent You') and Gloria
Gaynor ('I Will Survive'), to the present roster of house divas including Deborah
Cox ('Nobody's Supposed to Be Here', 'Who Do U Love'), and Vanessa Mitchell
('Reap [What You Sow]', 'This Joy'). Although all of the aforementioned singers
possess formidable vocal talents, enabling them to sing in powerful and expressive
manners (often characterised by a gospel-style declamation), there are numerous
black, female singers in house of more limited vocal range and delivery (e.g. Crystal
Waters, Lydia Rhodes).
What is of interest is not only the seeming preference for these singers when
vocal tracks are used but, additionally, the content of the lyrics, many of which deal
specifically with intense emotions and situations such as love, abandonment,
betrayal and the like. In the lyrics to Deborah Cox's 'Who Do U Love', for example,
the narrator tells of a profound love for a man, and laments its loss, categorising it
as 'the greatest pain I've ever known'; she is thus revealed as an 'emotional being'.
In the tradition of such tracks as 'I Will Survive' and Lisa Stansfield's 'I'm Leaving',
however, the narrator does not merely capitulate to this loss; she interrogates the
man for answers, and ultimately gains psychological closure not from the man, but
from self-awareness ('I painted a picture as clear as reality/Now I know, yes I
know, that you're not the one for me'). The denouement of acceptance is not predi-
cated upon the male object's 'explanations' (presumably, as she does not enumerate
them), but upon self-examination. The narrator is thus placed in a position of
agency, of self-determination. The idea of agency and power may also be effectu-
ated through sampling and remixing. For example, in another Deborah Cox song,
'Nobody's Supposed to Be Here', the idea of capitulation in the face of a love the
narrator has vowed to avoid, is changed to defiance through the incessant looping
of the word 'no' (in, for example, Hex Hector's club mix). On more than one
occasion when this mix was played at Aurora, several people took up the implied
dynamic of defiance, singing (or lip-synching) along with each 'no', adding physical
gestures of volition.
It is not only the lyrics that evince emotional power, however, but the vocal
delivery as well. Deborah Cox is an unusually gifted singer, technically adept and
capable of great affective range; as such, the timbre and the force of the vocal tone
itself is imbued with exceptional emotional energy. This aesthetic is inherent in
many of the female vocals heard at Aurora, and serves to augment the content of
the lyrics.
This quality of voice and accompanying lyrical content stands in high relief to
the male vocals featured in many of the tracks played at Aurora. House Heroes's
'Magic Orgasm', for example, features a repetition of the title spoken by a deep,
male voice (one which is apparently slowed down in the production process so as
to render it even deeper and more sonorous), as does Razor & Guido and GoMan's
'Men Beat Their Men', in which the original line presented at the outset ('Men beat
their drums') is transformed (through looping and reconfiguration) to that which
becomes the title. As is the case in much drum and bass and techno, both genres
previously noted as having 'masculine' audiences and connotations, the male vocals
are often spoken rather than sung, and are delivered with a certain amount of
detachment, even ennui, and/or irony. A 'non-masculine' vocal is often met with
disdain; Sylvio, for example, commenting upon a certain gender-bending (male)
East Village singer in the dance music genre stated that he 'hated' what he con-
sidered to be the singer's 'whiny, faggy' voice.

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 'I Want Muscles' 367

The woman is thus overwhelmingly the choice for interlocutor of emotional

sentiment; additionally, she may be seen as the locus for implied 'sexual-ness'.
'Burning Up', by Angel Morales and Sally Cortes, for example, features a vocal
representation of female sexual arousal (much the same as Donna Summer's 'Love
to Love You, Baby' or, more recently, Mita in Armand Van Helden's 'Entra Mi
Casa'), which builds to a faux-orgasmic peak. Corbett and Kapsalis (1996) interpret
the use of the aural approximations of the female orgasm in music as predicated
upon the idea that '[a]s the female counterpart to the visually ecstatic male, evi-
dence of female sexual pleasure is usually deferred to the aural sphere' (p.103).
For example, the authors note, the female orgasm (especially in the medium of
pornography) is primarily heard, the male seen (e.g. the 'money shot').
Pepstar's 'To the Rhythm' also makes use of the aforementioned type of male
vocal, detached and somewhat mechanical (the effect bolstered by the use of studio
effects through which the vocal is processed), speaking, 'rise to the rhythm . . . bow
to the rhythm . . . now move to the rhythm'. This is juxtaposed against a sample of
a female vocal exclaiming merely 'ah', in an erotic manner. And in Johnny Hanson's
'Mr. Fantasy', the female sings, in a pentatonic scale:
Come to me Mr. Fantasy
You know you make me scream
followed by the man's interjection
. . . I wanna feel your body next to mine
. . . I wanna feel your sweat all over me . . .

Next, partially overlapping this, the female continues to sing a reprise of the afore-
mentioned sentiments, ending on a high, 'wailing' note. In these examples, the man
speaks, uses language; the woman exhales, vocalises the body, often unmediated
by text. The man's pronouncements of sexual attraction are also, by the addition of
the female voice, placed, dialogically, in a context of heterosexuality.l7

Ambiguous sexuality and polysemy

This last example leads to another aspect of lyrical analysis. The texts of certain
tracks are often rife with double entendre, implying male-to-male sexuality in an
elliptical way, but never quite 'admitting' to it.l8 The concept of polysemy is
especially relevant here: in discourse and communication, the message is often con-
tingent upon the position of the speaker rather than the structure of the language.
The repetition of the phrases 'magic orgasm' or 'rise to the rhythm', or the lyrics of
No Mercy's remake of Exile's 'Kiss You All Over' ('I wanna kiss you all over/And
over again', 'Lay with me, lay with me, lay with me, lay with me, baby') or even
Hypertrophy's 'Beautiful Day' ('I like it when it feels this way', sampled repeatedly)
all may be seen as either manifestly or tacitly sexual, but as expressed in a generic
fashion which does not point to a specified sexuality. It is the position of the 'speak-
er' (singer) in the specific environment (e.g. an arena where gay men gather), as
well as within a genre (house) with historical association with many gay audiences,
which allows the possible reading of the sexual sentiment as pertaining to homosex-
ual activity.

The female interlocutor and solidification of gender typography

How can we make sense of these related phenomena, the female as the spokesperson
of deep emotional sentiment, the male as the 'detached', empirical stoic (and the

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368 Stephen Amico

master of the technology through which text is presented), and certain gay men's pref-
erence for vocals of the former aesthetic? Hughes (1994) portrays the black 'diva' as a
figure with whom the gay man, as both social subordinate (that is, subordinate in a
heterocentric society) and sexual 'other', may identify, while Koestenbaum, in his
insightful, almost rhapsodic discussion of the relationship of gay men to the operatic
diva, elaborates on this possible identification, relating it to agency:

No single gesture, gown, or haughty glissando of self-promotion will change one's actual
social position: one is fixed in a class, a race, a gender. But against such absolutes there arises
a fervent belief in retaliatory self-invention: gay culture has perfected the art of mimicking a
diva - of pretending, inside, to be divine - to help the stigmatised self imagine it is received,
believed, and adored. (Koestenbaum 1993, p. 133)

Both Hughes and Koestenbaum add significantly to the understanding of this

intriguing phenomenon of an identification which seemingly traverses the bound-
ary of gender. The nuanced analyses and the subsequent connection of gender and
social power differentials allows us to move past the facile reading that 'gay men
are like women', psycho-emotional structures of the 'feminine' operating from
within male corporealisation (e.g. Karl Heinrich Ulrich's concept of the homosexual
as 'Urning', a 'feminine soul enclosed in a male body' [cf. Hekma 1993]). It appears,
however, that the crevasse that separates the male/masculine and female/feminine
(or which bisects the line of an imagined continuum) is in many ways upheld and
highlighted through performance by the music and musical choices at Aurora.
When queried as to why there appeared to be a predilection for female vocal-
ists in house music, Dean, a poet and author, offered:

.. . the female is generally the more emotional voice in both senses. Not only is the actual
voice, the physical voice, emotional in the way it sounds . . . or capable of presenting emo-
tion, but the kinds of songs women sing are usually more emotional. So the voice is both the
sound and the content.

Matthew mirrored this sentiment, noting that women are more likely to be the
purveyors of 'emotion' in popular music. His comments, however, went further,
suggesting a possible explanation for this particular phenomenon:

I think that basically male singers tend to sing one type of song, and female singers tend to
sing another. Women just tend to sing the kind of songs that you find with house music. I
don't know if I've really ever thought about the 'why' aspect of it - maybe it has something
to do with gay men identifying with women and the stuff they sing, but I'm not sure if I
buy that whole thing. But also, most of these songs are about love and things like that, and
in our society men just don't go around screaming about those kinds of things. It's just not the same
if a man does it. (Emphasis added)

I believe Matthew is representative of an overriding sentiment which is still

internalised by many, his comments alluding to a compartmentalisation of gender-
specific and gender appropriate behaviours. By setting up a sort of dyad wherein
the female is positioned as the symbol and purveyor of the emotional and, concomi-
tantly, the male as that of restraint and impassivity (as well as the manipulator of
technology, through which both male and female discourses are filtered and
formed), dual paradigms of 'male' and 'female' which concord with stereotypical
notions of both, are upheld. The comments by many of my informants that divas
were 'fierce' (the adjective used most often) and 'powerful' may seem to gainsay
the assertion of adherence to 'stereotypical' notions of gender. I would argue, how-
ever, that these categorisations actually bolster the argument, if we consider the

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 'I Want Muscles' 369

arena in which the diva/woman is seen to be effectual and have power - that is, in
matters of emotion and 'feeling'.
This is not to imply that a stereotypical masculine/feminine dichotomy is
upheld, unquestioned. The initial (spoken) male voice in Club 69's 'Drama', for
example, defines drama as 'an endless stream of pretty boys and luscious men,
wrapped around in sexual beauty and sweat'. The voice, however, is then sped up,
effectuating a higher pitch, thus indicating a speaker that might be either male
or female. It continues, repeatedly emphasising 'drama', ('The drama starts here',
'Throwing drama all over the room'), ultimately contextualised within a club set-
ting, the narrator positioned in the company of 'the most beautiful man' (of whom
the others are, apparently, jealous).
The initially unambiguous voice is thus re-contextualised in a narrative of
indeterminate sexuality. Is the second voice male or female? The argot ('drama',
'honey', 'darling'), as well as the inflections and sibilant 's' sounds are undeniably
(stereotypically) gay; the voice, however, is mechanised (through pitch manipu-
lation and heavy reverb) and indeterminate regarding gender. This gender ambi-
guity may also be seen in Kevin Aviance's re-make of 'Da Din Din', the vocal of
which is characterised by a rough, forceful, 'masculine' delivery in the 'baritone'
register. This can, however, be juxtaposed against his on-stage persona (familiar to
many gay men); a tall, muscular and handsome black man who will often appear
with large wigs, large earrings and flowing caftans, stripping down to reveal the
aforementioned idealised musculature clad, ultimately, in a spandex mini-skirt or
other revealing (and gender-bending) attire. The idea of masculinity is certainly one
that is both dynamic and elastic; my observation that, in general, the musical con-
tent upholds social stereotypes of gender does not deny that this aesthetic may be
in a supple process of transition or re-negotiation, as are all social constructions.l9
It might be argued that because an openly 'gay' singer would be untenable in
the musical marketplace, there is an extreme paucity of such material. As a result,
gay men are forced to resort to re-appropriation, bricolage, in their attempts to mine
'straight' society for musical material which resonates with their group ethos (or at
least create, in a circumscribed fashion, such material so that it is in accordance
with heterocentric discourse). However, there is a substantial consumer base of
gay men who purchase house music (witness the plethora of house mixes aimed
unambiguously toward a 'gay' audience - e.g., 'Gay Anthems', Genre's 'Ultimate
Pride Mix' and 'Free To Be'), to say nothing of the millions of dollars generated in
nightclubs which present this music. The 'market' of gay men exists, yet the lacuna
remains: men singing, without artifice or artfulness, about love and/or sex with
and/or for other men.20 My analysis suggests that there is a choice in this matter,
and that this choice is predicated upon perceived ideas of what a 'real man' does,
both stylistically and socially.

Re-assessing homology and 'subcultural' theories: musical production,

agency and differance

This concept of choice, of agency, brings me to a discussion of homology theories

and subcultural style and, indeed, the study of 'popular' music vernaculars in gen-
eral, a discussion wherein many a priori notions must be problematised. I have
already referenced the work of Hall and Jefferson (1976) and wish to return to it
here. For them, subcultures are 'differentiated' outgrowths of 'parent' cultures, both

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370 Stephen Amico

of which struggle against a Gramscian 'hegemony' of the 'dominant' cu

which both are (perhaps) subservient. Hall and Jefferson see this as an
cess of 'negotiation, resistance, struggle' (p. 44), wherein elements of the
culture is appropriated by the subcultural progeny. Relatedly, Fiske's (1
sis defines 'excorporation' as 'the process by which the subordinate make
culture out of the resources and commodities provided by the dominan
(italics mine: p. 15).
While I find such arguments compelling, and have no doubt that the process
of creation of such cultural space is, to some degree, related to extant social struc-
tures in the universe in which 'subcultures' are formed, I want to stress two points
for (re-)consideration. First, related to differs, both dynamically and aesthetically,
from dependent upon, and it is this former interpretation which may, in fact, prove
more germane to the area of musical production. And second, music (as opposed
to verbal discourse, written language, sartorial styles, group activities) expresses,
connotes, reinforces, dismantles, affects and coheres in a manner related to but,
concurrently, different from other modes of communication. Thus, for the current
discussion it is better to examine music as a specific artistic and aesthetic pro-
duction. In doing so, the question arises: what, if anything, is this creation predicated
or dependent upon? If we are to follow the reasoning of Fiske and/or Hall and
Jefferson, if we are to look for both the origin or the meta-narrative of hegemony,
where is the 'parent' of house located in the 'dominant' culture? What, in fact, is
house mining and recreating (as the bricoleur) from the 'dominant' culture?
If, instead, we view house music as the creation of autonomous agents, a
different perspective arises, and a reading based upon assumed subservience is
further problematised. The fact is, house music (and other electronic/dance genres)
are often at the vanguard of artistic creation, and frequently disseminated into and
further commodified by, the 'dominant' culture ex post facto.21 Perhaps the most
salient example of this would be the music of Madonna, which has made use of
numerous 'subcultural' styles. If we examine the 'evolution' of the single 'Ray of
Light', what can we trace? From the original source of 'subcultural' style
(contributed by the producer, William Orbit), the aesthetic is transferred to a widel
promulgated piece of music, one which eventually winds up in millions of homes
not only via radio, CD and (M)TV, but, ultimately, as the soundtrack for an AT&T
wireless services television commercial. But what or who, in this scenario, is influ-
encing or is dependent upon what or whom?
Clarke (1976) would view this dynamic as one of 'defusion', whereby the 'sub-
cultural' products are robbed of their power by incorporation into the dominant dis-
course. Indeed, some informants spoke of Madonna with disdain; Brian, for example,
called her a 'whore', termed her music 'crap' and 'shit', saying he was 'sick and tired
of her raping our [black and gay] culture for her material and then trying to pass it off
as original'. Adam referenced what he saw as the inherent 'diluting' dynamic in her
musical output by referring to her as 'McDonna'.22 Still, such a reading, standing as
the reading, denies agency and original creation: it places 'dominant' culture in the
cardinal position, as does the very term 'subcultural' style (the reason for my use of
quotation marks in conjunction with this term throughout). If dominance is viewed
only in terms of financial remuneration (AT&T's profits via Madonna's, via
'subculture'), then capital is positioned over cultural;23 wealth is allowed to maintain,
at least conceptually, dominion over creativity. This is not to posit a utopian vision of
complete social equality (and equal access to capital) engendered by the ineffable

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 'I Want Muscles' 371

beauty of music; obviously, the asymmetrical nature of power structures in the society
in which the music is produced, insofar as they impinge upon basic freedoms (the
creation of homophobia via the rhetoric of the heterosexual majority, for example), is
a lived reality. Still, cultural capital, capital not measured in the final analysis solely
by financial profit (or by numbers of listeners/purchasers) also has a strength which
must not only be considered but, in fact, often foregrounded; as Manuel (1988) notes,
musics of many 'marginalised' classes 'are often destined later to become national
expressions' (p. 18). Additionally, social actors, however they are vertically categor-
ised by the 'dominant' culture, do not always view themselves as subjugated. For
example, the vast majority of the men whom I interviewed, while highly cognisant of
the heterocentric discourses surrounding them, did not see themselves or their social
spaces (such as Aurora) as sites of 'marginalisation'.
It is perhaps better to eschew notions of (vertical) 'position' in favour of 'differ-
ence'; yet this concept itself may be in need of problematisation. Accordingly, rather
than 'difference', it may be useful to make use of Derrida's (1986) destabilising
neologism differance, one which functions as a means of questioning both 'foun-
dational' binarisms, as well as the idea of a sedimented relationship between signi-
fied and signifier. Starting from the Latin root, differre, Derrida ascribes two mean-
ings to the idea of differance, one alluding to the aspect of temporalisation
(deferring), the other to the spatial aspect (differing). I will return to the former
shortly; the latter, however, has implications for the current discussion. For Derrida,
differance suggests neither an a priori whole, nor an analytical centre; by denying the
mutability of signification, by positing 'an organic, original, and homogeneous
unity that eventually would come to be divided, to receive difference as an event'
(p. 127), we arrest the dynamic play of differance and, in so doing, set up heuristic
categories which frame ensuing analyses, categories which may or may not be
appropriate to specific cultural products in specific contexts. Certainly, social actors
may be cognisant of surrounding discourses, and may, in fact, wish to differentiate
themselves (as individuals or groups) therefrom; Joseph, for example, stated that in
the 1980s, he and many of his friends in Brooklyn stopped listening to dance music
(after the demise of disco), and became fans of New Wave. He noted:

It was weird, because you would think that we would like that dance stuff like Lisa Lisa
and the Cult Jam, which had a lot more to do with disco than New Wave did. But that whole
dance thing just got totally hetero, and we didn't want to be like those [. . .] straight people.

Obviously, differentiation was a distinct component in making a choice to follow

another genre of music apart from the one which might have appeared stylistically
(linearly) obvious. It does not imply, however, that it was the sine qua non. While
deliberate differentiation is a choice in and of itself, and thus indicative of agency,
it does not fully explain the reasons behind a specific choice.
I would now like to return to the other function of differance, that of 'deferring',
and, in doing so, return specifically to the idea of masculine representations. The
'deferral' posited by Derrida may be seen as referring to signification; that is, a
deferral of the 'actual' object through the intermediary of the sign. In the previous
discussion, I noted that significations of 'masculinity' appear to be operative in the
musical (and visual) discourse(s) at Aurora. What is being signified is not, however,
self-evident; again, Derrida's insistence upon the contextual nature of the discursive
production of signifier/signified relationships is important. In his essay on 'macho
drag', Murray Healey (1994) finds that the very act of presenting the male body (in

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372 Stephen Amico

advertisement, in 'real life') as a 'sexual' body, the act of objectifying it, invests it
with a concupiscence which, until the past two decades or so, was restricted to
female corporeality. Thus, by eroticising the male body, we concomitantly 'feminise'
it (see endnote 12, infra). Additionally, the adoption by certain gay men of 'hyper-
masculine' corporeal aesthetics further blurs the distinctions set up by the dichot-
omies of both masculine/feminine and homosexual/heterosexual. Healy notes:

. . . as mainstream awareness grows about [sub-cultural codes], macho dress codes, and the
'natural' male body, can only continue to be queered ... straight men who work out and
wear tight clothes are in trouble: once macho drag is revealed, it shifts the whole terrain of
masculine identities and it is the straight man who then has to worry about passing as gay.
(Healy 1994, p. 91)

Several of my informants stated that it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the

'straight boys' from the 'fags' at Aurora; indeed, Keith, an employee, told me:

We used to call Friday nights ['straight' nights] 'ugly nights' - all these straight guys from
the boroughs with no style, wearing gold chains and bad shoes. But over the last year or so,
you can see that some of these guys have started to work out, they take their shirts off when
they dance, and they're dressing like all the gay boys. I'm sure some of them are just pre-
tending they're straight to their friends, but it's become hard to tell them all apart.

And Kyle noted:

Sometimes it's hard to tell who's straight and who's gay there. I remember this one night,
this friend of mine was after this one guy and he finally made a pass at him. It was a mess,
'cause the guy turned out to be straight, and it totally ruined his high and my friend's high.

Butler, who sees (gender) identity as highly performative, 'a signifying prac-
tice', tells us:

The subject is not determined by the rules through which it is generated because signification
is not a founding act, but rather a regulated process of repetition that both conceals itself and
enforces its rules precisely though the production of substantialising effects. In a sense, all
signification takes place within the orbit of the compulsion to repeat; 'agency', then, is to be
located within the possiblity of a variation on that repetition. (Butler 1990, p. 145)

Furthermore,

There is no self that is prior to the convergence [of discursive injunctions] or who maintains
'integrity' prior to its entrance into this conflicted cultural field. There is only a taking up of
the tools where they lie, where the very 'taking up' is enabled by the tool lying there. (Butler
1990, p. 145)

The social component of the production of the self seems, to me, to be rather
evident, and in this respect Butler's argument is persuasive. And while the possible
bases of such constructions can only be adumbrated within the space of a short
article, it is nonetheless instructive to examine some hypotheses. Silverman (1992),
for example, highlights the constructedness of gender conceptualisations (and
performances), stating, '[i]f ideology is central to the maintenance of classic mascu-
linity, the affirmation of classic masculinity is equally central to the maintenance of
our governing "reality"' (p. 16).24 Additionally, Jeffords (1989) examines a dynamic
of 'remasculinisation' in late twentieth century American society, one which she
sees as instrumental in bolstering a besieged patriarchal hegemony, while Tolson
(1977) finds a similar process within the gay worlds of both America and Britain in
the 1970s. Such observations might lead one to ask what, exactly, if not the trap-
pings of ideological (and actual, 'physical') power, is so seductive about 'mascu-
linity' as to render it the ideal to be both emulated and possessed?25

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 'I Want Muscles' 373

Such a vaunting of the masculine may be seen as having the necess

corollary of a devaluing of the feminine, an ideological operation whic
ently spanned centuries (cf. Ringrose 1993); as such, is it possible that
(['straight-acting'] gay) men's 'refusal' of the feminine signifies the repudiation
(perceived) lower social status? While a preliminary study by McCreary (1994) s
gests that transgression of stereotypical gender roles by men are viewed more n
tively than those of women not because of the lower status of the 'feminine' b
rather, the association of feminine behaviour with homosexuality, such a concl
seems not to take into account the basis for such 'homophobia'; that is, if femin
has been seen, until recent decades, as the marker of male homosexuality and t
sexual 'invert' (cf. Marshall 1981; Forrest 1994), is anti-gay sentiment a reaction
against specific physical acts, or, again, a reaction against the wilful appropriation
of 'subordinate' status? Realisation that homosexual (physical) acts must be situated
both temporally and geographically in order to ascertain their social meaning, how-
ever, seems to make the former argument untenable. Almaguer (1993), for example,
finds that among certain Chicano men, it is only the 'passive' homosexual acts
which are vilified, by dint of their association with 'femininity', while Boswell (1989)
and Chauncey (1989) both note that in certain times and places only the 'passive'
partner was seen as 'homosexual' or 'feminine'.26
Yet is the social the only valence to which we must attend? Butler offers the
image of 'tools where they lie', tools which not only aid us in the production of ident-
ity but which, perhaps more importantly (in her scenario), dictate, via their form, the
form which that identity will ultimately take. However, the question arises: if we
accept the existence of multifarious tools at our disposal, what is the locus for the
decision-making process whereby we decide which tool or tools to utilise; is it, in fact
singular? Is this process entirely culturally mediated and, if so, how to explain the
divergences between the ultimate, myriad forms which manifest themselves as ident-
ity? While an absolute recourse to the biologically essential seems entirely myopic, I
cannot countenance a complete denial of the role of embodied, corporeal existence as
implicated in such choice; which implements attract me, which best, through my vari-
ous rehearsals with them, 'fit my grip', which mesh most naturally with whichever
body part has taken them up in order to extend my body's efficacy, which effectuate
into salubrious, lived experience (and, ultimately, interaction) those imaginings,
desires, fantasies, which, though not manifest as flesh, come about through an exist-
ence which is, in some way, inextricably bound to a (specific) human body? In the
same way that the house tune cannot be reduced to any one of its dimensions (if it's
all just dancing to the 'thump-thump-thump' of the kick, then why sully the whole
business up with all those other 'extraneous' sounds?), the production of identity
(cultural/biological?) or of social formations (subcultural/'super'-cultural?) or cul-
tural products (subversive/supportive?) are best not thought of as 'either/or' prop-
ositions but, rather, 'both (or all)/and'.
A foregrounding of 'masculinity', such as appears at Aurora must, accord-
ingly, be seen as a constituent part of a polyphonic whole. Savin-Williams (1998),
through extensive interviews with young gay men, found that the vast majority
had experienced an 'intuitive obsession with masculinity' (p. 27), further noting 'an
overwhelming desire to be in the company of men. They wanted to touch, smell,
see, and hear masculinity' (p. 43). This obsession, desire, is obviously the result of
numerous influences, and the production of cultural spaces and products (such as
music) may be enlisted in the enterprise of bolstering, validating or feeding such

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374 Stephen Amico

desires. Depending upon the positions of the 'insider' and 'outsider' viewpoints,
such productions may appear as both subversive and normative. Additionally, the
various guises which 'masculinity' might take in society are perhaps limitless.
Examination of cultural productions such as music, attending to the encoding of
symbolic language within an opus, enables us to better discern not only what these
guises are, but what they might imply.

Acknowledgements

For their generosity, assistance and keen insights (without which this article would
not have been possible), I offer my sincere thanks to the following: Barbara L.
Hampton, Ellie Hisama, Wayne Koestenbaum, Dave Laing and Peter Manuel; Tom
Dennison and all my informants; Joe Rogers; Laurent Odde; and my incomparable
parents.

Copyright acknowledgement

'Music to My Ears', music and lyrics by 68 Beats (C) 1998 by Deeper Rekords, 148
West 24th Street, New York, NY, USA, 10011. International copyright secured. Used
. .

Dy permlsslon.

Endnotes

1. Although Hebdige's analysis highlights con- severe hierachicalisation according to body

tradictions within society, such contradictions
are located between the 'subculture' and the
'dominant' culture, rather than within the 'sub-
culture' itself.
2. The names of the establishment ('Aurora') and
its DJ ('Franz'), as well as its location and times
of operation have been changed. Additionally,
all my informants were guaranteed complete
anonymity. Although most were not con-
cerned with this, I have still chosen to quote
them using pseudonyms.
3. For a discussion of the ways dominant dis-
courses of the 'dominant' culture are both
reproduced and resisted by those in the 'gay
world', see Blachford (1981).
4. While 'house' would serve as a general cate-
gory for the music at Aurora, several of my
informants added additional descriptive 'pre-
fixes' to this generic, including 'epic', 'coke',
'progressive' and 'dark'.
5. For a more detailed discussion of gay men and
body images, see Signorile (1997). Addition-
ally, Harris (1997) discusses the change in gay
men's ideals of the 'beautiful' male body, relat-
ing it to dynamics of self-acceptance and com-
mercialism.
6. Conversely, one nightclub used a photograph
of a rotund, unkempt man with the text
'Access Denied' emblazoned beneath him,
noting an unmistakable contempt for those not
found to be physically 'attractive'. This sort of
types has led to the term 'body fascism' in cer-
tain segments of the gay community. As inter-
esting correlates, see Bollen [1996], who notes
the problematic use of 'fascistic' imagery at the
Sydney gay and lesbian 'Sleaze Ball', and
Blake (1995) regarding the work of illustrator
Tom of Finland, which has also made use of
such imagery.
7. See also Sedgwick (1995).
8. See, for example, Treitler (1993), as well as
Sweeney-Turner's (1995) response.
9. Even the men who do not exhibit this hyper-
muscularity and are not so clad, are often
wearing 'street' attire (Adidas warm-up pants,
tank tops, trainers, etc.), these linking to con-
cepts of urban (often non-white) masculinity,
or, additionally, to the attires often worn by
'club kids' or 'ravers', a community not
specifically delineated as gay.
10. The ubiquity of water bottles not only related
to dehydration, however, but to the wide-
spread use of Ecstasy which counts 'dry
mouth' as one of its side effects.
11. The style of dance exhibited by the 'muscle
queens' contrasts with that of the 'club kids' -
spastic, hunched, flailing, glow sticks in hands
producing a kind of semaphore - and the
occasional group of mainly African-American
or Latino 'voguers'. While this last group exhi-
bits dancing styles which may be seen as more
sterotypically 'feminine', they are, in terms of

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numbers, a distinct minority. C)n the rare
occasions when other men have exhibited a
decidedly more 'flamboyant' style of dancing -
hands gesticulating wildly in the air, legs
kicked high, heads whipped about with dra-
matic aplomb - such performances were often
met with looks of derision.
12. The latter part of the moniker (go-go 'boys') is
entirely at odds with the physiques they dis-
play. Hardly boys, they are, perhaps, apo-
theoses of muscular, male beauty, dancing
scantily clad - pelvises gyrating, hips thrusting,
hands behind the head to show off the torso,
legs spread and knees bent. These dancers will
often appear early in the morning, and perform
for approximately twenty minutes at a time.
Despite the intimations of sexuality, however,
there is generally a sense of detachment, ennui,
about them, the gyrating more mechanical than
sexual. Of course, the very presentation of the
male body as fetishised (sexual) object is prob-
lematic for the idea of stereotypical masculinity.
However, this dynamic is not confined to gay
dance clubs; it is, in fact, increasingly visible in
the broader culture. The increased
(homo)eroticism of the male body, for example,
explicit in the advertising of such retailers as
Calvin Klein, also places the male in the 'femini-
sed' position: viz. as an object to be (sexually)
desired, gazed upon, a body which does not
'do' anything aside from presenting itself (cf.
Sullivan, 1988; Bordo, 1999; on the idea of the
[feminising] 'gaze', see also Silverman 1992).
13. Razor & Guido are the DJ/producer team cur-
rently enjoying wide popularity in the club
scene, and who play for predominantly hetero-
sexual crowds, although they have also spun
at Aurora's gay night.
14. See also the Internet site straightacting.com,
where gay men can not only make contact
with other, 'like-minded persons', but may
also take an online test to measure their own
'straightness'.
15. Even the role of 'DJ' itself may have an
inherent 'masculine' bias. In the recent docu-
mentary 'Modulations' (Lee 1998), which dealt
with international rave and DJ cultures, the
lack of female DJs, producers, performers or
managers was glaring. The situation in the
New York City gay circuit is much the same,
with the notable exception of the success of,
for example, DJ Susan Morabito.
16. This dynamic is not limited to house music
and is, in fact, prevalent in numerous genres
within 'electronica'. The groups Lamb and
Portishead, for example, feature the 'boy
(musician[s])/girl (singer)' formation, and
other artists or groups (Moby, Massive Attack,
Air, The Chemical Brothers) may make use of
the 'girl singer' (Elizabeth Fraser, Beth Orton,
This content downloaded from 141.20.151.46 on Tue, 27 Nov 2018 11:26:04 UTC
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'I Want Muscles' 375
Dot Allison, among others) when a vocal is
desired.
17. Something similar can be seen in the Club 69
Future Mix of the song 'Muscles'. The initial
voice is that of the man repeating 'I want you'.
With the addition of the ensuing female voice
('I want muscles, I want muscles'), the two
voices become, perhaps, dialogic, and hetero-
sexually situated.
18. Smith (1995) notes that certain popular music
figures may allude to homo- or bi-sexuality
without 'acknowledging' it, something he
terms amb*exuality. The absence of an unam-
biguous admission, according to Smith, allows
the public to 'read' the texts of the performer
in a way which will comport with his or her
own sense of what is 'acceptable' sexuality. On
the issue of textual ambiguity regarding sexu-
ality, see also Hisama (1999) and Mockus
(1994) on the musics of Joan Armatrading and
kd. lang, respectively. See also Morris (1999)
on gay (male) subtexts in the music of the
Weather Girls.
19. Middleton (1990) notes that often the hom-
ology of music and culture may be based upon
ideal or desired cultural dynamics; thus a 'per-
fect' masculinity may be suggested by the
music at Aurora, one which need not be
realised in every instance to be symbolically
resonant.
20. There was one track played at Aurora during
the late months of 1998 which did, in fact, speak
unabashedly of homosexual activity. Including
a litany of sexual acts, as well as the catch phrase
'there are two words which describe homosex-
uals, lesbians and bisexuals: stimulating and
exciting' as parts of its text, Shine's 'Stimulating
and Exciting' appeared to have brought the
musical discourse 'out of the closet'. However,
it is notable that while both of the voices (one
male, the other female, provided by 'Phil Aseo'
and 'Connie Lingus') speak in a detached, clini-
cal monotone, the 'ecstatic' sounds of scream (a
sample of which provides one of the musical
hooks) and orgasm are both supplied by the
woman's voice.
21. During an interview with Max, the owner of a
dance music shop, I witnessed two gay men
purchasing enormous amounts of CDs and
vinyl discs. Upon their leaving, Max
remarked, 'that guy worked for Geffen,
another queer. See, queers are everywhere in
the music business, yet no one wants to admit
it. No one wants to admit how instrumental
we are in deciding the musical taste of the
public.'.
22. Musto's (1995) comments are indicative of the
ambivalence surrounding Madonna and her
relationship to the gay and non-white 'com-
munities'. He asserts, 'Madonna's gay images
376 Stephen Amico

exploit us, but it's an exploitation we enjoy.
We want to be visible in videos, milked for
eroticism, pandered to as an audience ...' (p.
430), while further on, discussing 'Vogue', he
notes, 'What Madonna does best is exploit
what she sees on the street, and since gay
blacks are at the forefront of so much of that,
it was probably inevitable that they'd end up
being the targets for her co-opting frenzy.
Whether they should feel grateful or raped is
another issue.' (p. 435).
23. To say nothing of the power of symbolic dis-
course. On this dynamic see Hebdige (1979)
and Kubik (1994).
24. This ideology may be seen as being normal-
ised on a daily basis by the very structure of
language, whereby neutral terms take on mas-
culine connotations (cf. Silveira 1980; Hamilton
1991).
25. And not only by men. See, for example, Grig-
gers's (1993) analysis of Thelma and Louise,
which suggests that social forces mandate a
Xbutch' identity: '[F]or more and more women,
who are discontented with the exchanges nor-
mative femininity offers them, becoming the
new butch-femme is ... often an adventure
many find themselves on . . . a refusal of unjust
or even unsatisfactory social exchanges . . .' (p.
140).
26. But see also Bristow (1995, pp. 127-65), whose
analysis finds that the hyper-valuation of the
hyper-masculine in some post-1885 homophile
authors' autobiographical writings stems not
from any sort of repudiation of the feminine
but, rather, from a need to portray male/male
sexuality as qualitatively different from male/
female.

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Discography/Videography

Black Box, Strike It Up: The Best of Black Box. BMG 44668 (CD). 1998
Club 69, Style. Twisted TWDM-11654 (CD). 1997
Club 69, Re-styled. TWDM-11923 (CD). 1999
Club 69 featuring Suzanne Palmer, Muscles. Twisted TWDM-55488 (CD). 1998
Cox, Deborah, Nobody's Supposed to Be Here: The Dance Mixes. Arista 07822-133551-2 (CD). 1998
Lee, Iara, dir., Modulations: Cinema for the Ear. Caipirinha CAI-6602-3. 1998
Madonna, Ray of Light. Maverick 9 46847-2 (CD). 1998
Mitchell, Vanessa, This Joy: Remixes by Junior Vasquez and Razor S Guido. Welcome Wax 6-72489-00011
(Vinyl). 1998
Shine featuring Phil Aseo and Connie Lingus, Stimulating and Exciting. Groovilicious/Strictly Rhythm
GM072 (Vinyl). 1999
68 Beats, Music to My Ears. Deeper Rekords 05017-00211-7 (Vinyl). 1998.
Summer, Donna, On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I S II. Casablanca NBLP-2-7191 (Vinyl). 1979
The Prodigy, Experience. Elektra 9 61365-2 (CD). 1992
Van Helden, Armand (featuring Mita), Entra Mi Casa. Armed ZARM07 (Vinyl)
Various, Increase the Beats. Thrive 90501-2 (CD). 1998
Vasquez, Junior, Junior Vasquez Live, Volume 1. Pagoda DE2-45300 (CD). 1997
Vasquez, Junior, Junior Vasquez, Volume 2. Pagoda DE-45303 (CD). 1998

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