Masculinity and desire in the works of J. R. Ackerley

Although homosexuality was still identified as a sign of effeminacy in the West at the beginning of the twentieth century, the work of George Chauncey suggests that working-class men in the West were able to maintain a masculine identity by playing the active, or insertive, role in sexual encounters. The experiences of one middle-class English homosexual, J. R. Ackerley (1896-1967), reveals that maintaining one's masculinity was more difficult for men of the middle class who desired same-sex contact. After a period in which his identity vacillated between the poles of male and female, he conceived a masculine homosexual identity by consciously rejecting effeminacy in himself and others, by dressing as a "normal" middle-class male, and, most importantly, by seeking relationships with younger, working-class men.