Bringing masculinity into the picture: understanding the gendered dimensions of (hetero)sexuality in Italy

A gendered perspective, with considerations on male sexuality in particular, is fundamental when it comes to understanding the long-term and recent changes in the meanings and experiences of sexuality in Italy. In support of this argument, the article points to the limited attention devoted to intersections between sexuality and gender in the construction of heterosexuality in Italian research, looks at the specific features of these intersections in the Italian context, and discusses data on sexual behaviour and attitudes from a recent national survey. The crucial issue that emerges from the discussion is the enduring power of the social processes that naturalise male sexuality, despite the challenges from women’s emerging aspirations to more egalitarian relations, and their growing resources for negotiating them. The strength of recent biologising tendencies - as a global trend but also in their specific local version (building in Italy upon the well-rooted script of the predatory male) - shows that looking at constructions of masculinity can help us find the global - and local - reasons why the linear progression towards greater gender symmetry that the notion of plastic sexuality seemed to promise has failed to materialise.