Masculinity In Mark Behr's Boy '

Masculinity is the most prevalent theme in the article “Boy” by Mark Behr, which depicts a father-son relationship. Undoubtedly a father will teach their child certain rules of life, but what is unique about this relationship is that the constant demands the father urges the son to do revolve around what may be considered “manly” work. These constant demands for the child to emphasize his manliness are a result of the father’s worry about his child’s sexuality.
Although Present day families are more accepting about children questioning their sexual preferences, it is clear that Behr’s father was against such acts as he warns him to “watch for queers, fudge-packers, homos, shirt-flap-lifters, sodomites, [and] gays” (Behr). The father’s stance …show more content…
In the beginning of the passage the father warns him to “keep away from the kitchen so no one wonders if [he is] tied to [his] mother 's apron strings” (Behr). This seems to be a simple warning in which the dad presents his dislike towards his son being too childlike and in need of his mother. With further reading, he states that he is concerned that the child is becoming a mommy’s boy; at this stage the father may be seeing signs of his son not being masculine, so he is worried and addresses the worry to the child in a candid manner. Later in the passage, he frankly states that people already suspect that the child is a “poofter”. During this phase the father does not include himself to be one of the people who suspects. He seems to be in denial but still wants to accuse the child without taking part in the criticism, so he states that other people are suspecting the child to be a homosexual. In the last sentence of the article the father is very straightforward and bluntly states that he knows the boy is gay, but that he should at least be a “straight -acting queer”. After all the comments of disapproval by the father, in the last sentence he seems to be aware of his child 's sexuality but still opposed to it. Overall the way the essay was written presented a sort of timeline of how the dad discovered the child’s sexual preference; he seemed worried about what others thought, he states his concerns, then he informed the boy about what other people thought of him, and lastly he demanded the child at least act like a heterosexual male.
The dynamic of a father-son relation is a complex structure, it gets even more challenging to deal with when there are disagreements between the two; in this article “Boy”, Behr expresses his bumpy journey with his father as his dad finds out his child’s sexual