When Men Meet

This work proposes a novel interpretation of the nature of masculinity and its connections with homosexuality. Besides a critical discussion of existing theories in the area, the author also analyzes a rich variety of other materials, including novels, films and other literature. It represents both an analysis of the places in which encounters occur - the railway station, the park, the disco, the consulting room, the stadium - and is also a metaphor for key aspects of modernity. In analyzing the nature of the modern social world, Bech makes use of insights from Adorno and Benjamin as well as Sartre and Heidegger. Modernity and sexuality, Bech argues, are both intertwined and changing. He concludes by proposing that, having been created by modernity, "the homosexual" is now disappearing in conjunction with the changes transforming modernity itself.