Eric Anderson

The University of Winchester · Department of Sport, Health and Exercise

North American attitudes are liberalizing toward sexual minorities. This is even found within traditionally conservative, masculine institutions, like fraternities, religion, and the military. However, evidence for Liberalization Theory is mostly derived from attitudinal change of sexual and gender majorities alongside policy changes, with less evi...

Using data from an online survey of 211 heterosexual and 148 sexual and gender minority-identifying cyclists, this article examines the attitudes of both sexual and gender majorities towards sexual and gender minorities as well as the experiences of sexual and gender minorities in relation to each other, within the sport of cycling. The results sho...

The purpose of this study was to explore the understandings and perceptions of risk related to brain trauma amongst parents of children that play contact rugby. A qualitative approach was taken, using semi-structured interviews with 7 mothers and 27 fathers of children that participate in contact rugby. A thematic analysis of data suggests that par...

This article examines how ‘framing’ is used to resist a proposal to remove rugby tackling from UK schools. It focuses on rugby tackling for UK school children, which is often a compulsory part of many schools’ curricula. Specifically, we explore the importance of framing in how the problem is described in various academic publications, how ideas ab...

Since its foundation in the late 19th century, sport has traditionally been charged with socializing boys and men into an environment in which they are expected to exhibit physical toughness, emotional stoicism, and the rejection of anything deemed to be feminine—including homosexuality. In the 21st century, however, attitudes toward homosexuality...

Objective To establish the extent to which Rugby Union was a compulsory physical education activity in state-funded secondary schools in England and to understand the views of Subject Leaders for Physical Education with respect to injury risk.MethodA cross-sectional research study using data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) from...

The purpose of this study was to explore the cycling community’s online interactions with sports-related concussion within competitive cycling. Through an analysis of twitter data (n=196), this study examined the limited discourse related to the problem of concussion in cycling. The results found overall engagement and awareness of concussion in cy...

Debates surrounding youth participation in governance have permeated a range of fields in the last two decades. This commentary is predominately situated in education and civic participation domains, with sporting domains remaining largely under researched. Indeed, this research becomes sparser when considered in school physical education and sport...

This article examines the responses by users of the social media platform, Twitter, to the English Premier League’s (EPL) support, via four tweets from their official Twitter account, for the annual Rainbow Laces anti-homophobia in football campaign. Locating our analysis within the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda of the EPL, the four...

This qualitative study involved in-depth interviews with 15 family members (mainly partners and children) of deceased athletes who experienced deterioration in their neurological health towards the end of their life. The purpose of this study was to examine the stressors these family members experienced with the ailed players, their emotional respo...

Although there is abundant research regarding group sex between men, much of the current literature constructs group sex as homogenous and overlooks the nuance of how and why men engage in particular sexual behaviors. Accordingly, this research expands our understanding of group sex by focusing on a specific type of sex: the threesome. The results...

While sport has traditionally been a hostile environment for gay men, attitudes toward homosexuality among youth in the West have changed significantly in recent years. This research uses Herek's Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Scale, Revised Version (ATLG-R) to investigate attitudes toward homosexuality among 243 undergraduate male students...

Until recently, there has been a lack of significance placed on concussion in association football, particularly in mainstream media coverage. Contemporary incidents and research show that traumatic brain injuries, which may result in neurodegenerative disease, are common in football, but remain poorly understood. However, following the deaths of s...

Rugby has traditionally existed as a leading definer of masculinity in British culture, which has included overt homophobia. However, cultural attitudes toward homosexuality have improved rapidly in the 21st century. To assess the impact of wider societal change on gay rugby teams, we employed a multiple methods investigation across five gay rugby...

Rugby has traditionally existed as a leading definer of masculinity in British culture, which has included overt homophobia. However, cultural attitudes toward homosexuality have improved rapidly in the 21st century. To assess the impact of wider societal change on gay rugby teams, we employed a multiple methods investigation across five gay rugby...

This article examines the influence of ethnicity on sporting men's attitudes towards homosexuality. We employed Herek's Attitudes Towards Lesbians and Gay Men, Revised Version (ATLG-R) scale to collect data with British undergraduate sports students, as well as interview data with the players of an English Premier League (EPL) football academy, to...

Concerns about concussion in contact sport have permeated debate within sports medicine. Considerable scientific attention has been focussed on the short-term and long-term outcomes of concussions, as well as the strategies to reduce the risk of traumatic brain injury. The practicalities and impact of altering rules (laws) in sport—including the ev...

Over the past two decades there has been a rapid transformation of masculinities in the West, largely facilitated by a decline in cultural homophobia. The significant changes in the expression of masculinity, particularly among younger generations of men, have been particularly evident in men’s team sports, which have become an increasingly diverse...

In this chapter, we introduce the Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Sport, outlining the historical relationship between the two. We begin by discussing the early study of masculinity and sport, and how this evolved over the 20th century. Next, we discuss the emergence of a significant body of research documenting how sport's relationship betwee...

This study examines the practice of and attitudes toward anal sexual stimulation among 30 heterosexual undergraduate men attending a UK university. While scientific and popular belief throughout the twentieth century has considered anal pleasure to be only for gay or gender non-conforming men, we find participants discuss such pleasure openly, and...

Diversity and representation in sport governing bodies has become an issue for both public discussion and academic debate in recent times. Previous work has primarily centered on gender inequalities within the forever changing masculine terrain of sport. However, no work has yet examined the representation and participation of young people in the d...

This is the first research to assess the prevalence of same-sex kissing among college-attending, heterosexual men in the United States. We utilized a mixed-method study of 442 quantitative surveys and 75 in-depth interviews with participants from 11 universities in order to understand the frequency, context and meanings of same-sex kissing. We foun...

This study examined the complex relationship between homophobia, heteronormativity, and an openly gay lecturer in a British university setting. First, heterosexual undergraduate sports students’ levels of homophobia were recorded. Then, after taught sessions, participants were asked to estimate the frequency of homosexual-heterosexual examples and...

Drawing on findings from interviews with 28 men and women, this study explores experiences related to communication and jealousy in mixed-sex threesomes. Findings suggest that those in relationships often experience feelings of exclusion when engaging in threesomes, although open communication is a method by which the negative effects may be mitiga...

This major new textbook uses lively prose and a series of carefully-crafted pedagogical features to both introduce Sociology as a discipline and to help students realize how deeply sociological issues impact on their own lives. Over the book’s ten chapters, students discover what Sociology is, alongside its historical development and emergent new c...

The present study provides the first known qualitative examination of heterosexual undergraduate men’s conceptualization and experiences of the bromance, outside research on cinematic representations. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 30 undergraduate men enrolled in one of four undergraduate sport-degree programs at one university in the...

While a number of investigations have examined how gay Muslim men view homosexuality in relation to religious Western homophobia, this research constitutes the first account of the experiences of self-identified gay men living in an African, Muslim nation, where same-sex sex is both illegal and actively persecuted. We interviewed 28 gay men living...

In this article, we conduct a generational study of measuring progress towards the inclusion of homosexuality in professional sport. We accomplish this by interviewing an openly gay football player, Anton Hysén, in the year 2017, using the precise same questions about the relationship between his homosexuality and sport that were asked of the first...

There is limited research about homosociality and physical tactility between men in the early to middle decades of the twentieth century. This research utilizes 27 in-depth interviews with heterosexual British men aged between 65 and 91 in order to explore their masculinity and homosociality, then and today. Participants were interviewed about (1)...

In this research, utilizing data from thirty semistructured interviews, we examine how heterosexual undergraduate men compare their experiences of bromances to that of their romantic relationships (romances). We find that the increasingly intimate, emotive, and trusting nature of bromances offers young men a new social space for emotional disclosur...

In December 2013, British Olympic diver Tom Daley announced that he had begun dating a man but was still attracted to women. In doing so he became the highest profile male athlete to disclose that he has bisexual attractions. This article provides a textual analysis of the British print media's reaction in the week after Daley's ‘coming out’ announ...

In this qualitative research, conducted on 30 gay-friendly, heterosexual, undergraduate men, we examine actual and hypothetical experiences of sexual threesomes, both with two women and one man (FFM), and two men and one woman (MMF). We show a cultural willingness for heterosexual men to engage in not only FFM threesomes, but also MMF threesomes. A...

This study examines the practice and perception of receptive anal eroticism among 170 heterosexual undergraduate men in a US university. We analyze the social stigmas on men’s anal pleasure through the concept of homohysteria, which describes a cultural myth that the wrongdoing of gender casts homosexual suspicion onto heterosexual men. For men’s a...

Following recent research evidencing that young men are redefining the essential components of what it is to be a man, this paper draws on qualitative interviews with 22 elite-level, English Premier League academy level football (soccer) players to investigate their performances and understandings of masculinity in relation to decreasing homohyster...

In 2010, this journal published an early exposition of inclusive masculinity theory. Since then, the theory has been widely adopted within both the sport and masculinities literature. Furthermore, a large number of other scholars not using the theory have also documented and labelled new masculinity types. There has also been refinement of Inclusiv...

The research uses content analysis and inclusive masculinity theory in order to explore and explain the construction of esteemed and subjugated masculinities within the context of Australia’s National Rugby League’s (NRL) Footy Show. Results suggest that despite previous research on NRL players, which finds inclusive masculinities dominate, this te...

An overview of our online survey on people who are engaging in sexual threesomes.

A recent BJSM editorial argued that ‘turning people into couch potatoes is not the cure for sports concussion’.1 Specifically, it was noted how heightened anxiety over sports concussion has caused participation levels to fall; that concussions are common in contact sports; and that there remains a need for the development of specific concussion man...

The principle topic of this chapter is to examine how men’s bisexuality is gendered. Using the concept of homohysteria, defined as the cultural aversion to being socially perceived as gay, it examines how homohysteria influences men’s gendered behaviors. Central to this process is the “one-time rule of homosexuality, where same-same sexual behavior...

Contrasting those who had their adolescence in the 21st century, this chapter shows that the collective experience of the youngest cohort is substantially more positive than those in the two older cohort groups studied. Many participants still felt that coming out was an important milestone in their social lives, but it was frequently experienced a...

We begin this chapter with a simple fact: bisexuality exists. Whatever the constellation of sexual and emotional desires and behaviors that constitutes it, scientifically and socially speaking, some people are bisexual (Rullo et al. 2014). Long before there was a cultural awareness that bisexuality exists as a non-pathological and stable orientatio...

Highlighting the unique social problems that bisexuals face in a monosexist culture, this chapter contends that homophobia is not sufficient as a term to understand sexual prejudice against bisexuals. It conceptualizes the forms of marginalization unique to bisexuals as bisexual burden, and documents eleven distinct forms. It examines sociological...

This chapter discusses the coming out experiences of participants who had their adolescence in the 20th century. It documents that they experienced significant elements of bisexual burden, often facing rejection from their friends and delaying coming out to their family for many years. It then discusses the problems of coming out in two key social...

This chapter examines the methods by which bisexuality can be studied. It discusses the methods by which sexual attraction can be measured (including physiological, implicit attitude tests, and viewing time), highlighting problems associated with each method. It then examines the history of surveying bisexuality, first analyzing the Kinsey Scale an...

This chapter provides a detailed description of the methods used in the research and the rationale for doing so. It provides a rationale for using interview research, and our hypothesis that decreasing homophobia would influence bisexuals’ lives in diverse ways. The chapter describes the generational cohort design for participant recruitment, and d...

Chapter seven examines the ways in which participants identified as bisexual, and how this changed according to the age of the men interviewed. Primarily, the chapter shows that early recognition of and identification with bisexual desire was harder for the older men (in their early 40s), compared to the younger (in their late teens). As with other...

This chapter examines bisexual men’s romantic relationships, showing increased personal acceptance by partners, compared to what is described in the literature. Most of the 90 men interviewed were open with their partners. However, younger men disclosed their bisexuality earlier in the relationship. There were also remnants of bisexual burden for s...

In an effort to pre-empt serious injury in field hockey, this editorial examines the penalty corner in the sport. Specifically, the potential risk of serious head injury is highlighted, with structural changes that could make the sport safer also discussed. A penalty corner is primarily awarded for a defensive infringement in the penalty circle, o...

In the Western world, organized sport largely originated as a product of the Industrial Revolution. It was used to produce brave, stoic, and self-sacrificing men; the type of men needed for both industry and war. Sport taught them to accept orders without question; to take risks; and to put their bodies in harm's way for the sake of team (and its p...

Although a considerable degree of research has examined the intersection of masculinities, sexualities and sport in the West, this is the first article to address male homosexuality in sport within a Muslim context. To analyze the intersection of sport, masculinities and homosexuality we interview Ghazi, 20, a competitive male bodybuilder in Tunisi...

‘Contemporary Issues in Sport Management presents an extensive array of absorbing contemporary issues relevant to managing sport. Internationally recognised scholars have contributed thought-provoking chapters on current global and local issues that are challenging traditional ways of thinking about and delivering sport. This exciting new book is r...

This important book provides unique new knowledge on the lived experience of openly bisexual men without medicalizing or pathologizing them. Presenting research from sexology, sociology, and psychology, it features extensive findings on the sexual, social, romantic, and emotional behaviors of the 90 men interviewed in the U.S. and U.K. Issues and c...

High levels of cultural homophobia meant that early research on homophobia in sport did not collect data with sexual minority athletes who were public about their sexuality. However, as homophobia has decreased in Western cultures, there has been a proliferation in research on openly gay athletes. Accordingly, this article investigates the experien...

Sport within the Muslim context, and including the location of this study, Tunisia, remains an institution designed for the promotion of a heterosexual form of masculinity and the degradation of both femininity and women's athleticism. Unlike recent advancements in the West, however, homosexuality remains viewed almost entirely negatively by the po...

This research uses 30 interviews with sport-based employers in the United Kingdom to examine how men’s teamsport participation reproduces men’s advantage in sport-related occupations during hiring for sport employment positions. Not only does formalized gender segregation in sport provide men with vital social networks less attainable to women, but...

This article examines the prevalence of homosocial tactility and the contemporary status and meaning of heteromasculinity among British male youth. Drawing on in-depth interviews with forty student-athletes at a British university, we find that thirty-seven participants have cuddled with another male. In addition to this cuddling, participants also...

A textual analysis examined US media framing of National Basketball Association (NBA) player Jason Collins’ coming out as the first ‘active’ gay athlete in one of the four most popular US professional men’s team sport leagues. We analyzed all articles on Collins published over a four-day period in the five most circulated US newspapers and five mos...

Drawing on 90 interviews with openly bisexual men from three metropolitan cities, this research explores experiences related to relationships. In using a comparative cohort research design, the authors demonstrate the presence of a generational effect, with members of the youngest cohort finding that their partners grant the greatest legitimacy to...

Drawing on 90 interviews with men who identify as bisexual from Los Angeles, London, and New York, this article examines how bisexual men from three different age cohorts remember first experiencing bisexuality, how they identify today, and how this is changing with younger groups of men. Using an innovative recruitment strategy, the majority of pa...

On the world’s most utilised video-sharing social networking site, YouTube, Charlie McDonnell (Charlieissocoollike), Dan Howell (Danisnotonfire) and Jack and Finn Harries (JacksGap) are Britain’s most popular video-bloggers (vloggers). With more than two million regular subscribers to each of their channels, along with millions of casual viewers, t...

Much of the literature concerning sexual minorities describes various forms of social mistreatment, alongside the psychological ill effects of minority stress. However, bisexual individuals are often described as having additional burdens compared with other sexual minorities. We conceptualise the collective of these social problems as ‘bisexual bu...

This article examines bisexual men’s experiences of coming out across three age cohorts, and documents generational differences in the reception from friends and family regarding this disclosure. Drawing on in-depth interviews with an ethnically diverse sample of 60 openly bisexual men from the United States, we find that the oldest cohort encounte...

This chapter examines two key issues about masculinities in contemporary Britain. First, we examine what the evidence says about the extent to which British masculinities are changing, and how this is manifest in contemporary society. Second, we explore how theoretical understandings of masculinities both shape one's findings, and evolve in relatio...

In this article, we engage with the commentaries of our Feminist Forum article (McCormack and Anderson 2014) by Parent et al. (2014), Plummer (2014), Worthen (2014) and Negy (2014) to enhance understanding of the concept homohysteria and to explore its application to a range of demographic groups. Developing a stage model of homohysteria that accou...

Generations of scholars have examined the variety of correlates of attitudes and behaviors of heterosexual men toward gay men. There has also been substantial exploration of the impact of homophobia on gay men and its gendering of heterosexual men. However, less research exists into the effects of the liberalization of sexual attitudes on these gro...