“Disciplining the Body”: HIV-Positive Male Athletes, Media Surveillance, and the Policing of Sexuality

Abstract

This paper analyzes how mainstream print media polices sexuality through framings of HIV-positive male athletes. We analyze the HIV-positive announcements of Magic Johnson, Greg Louganis, and Tommy Morrison. Specifically, we discuss differences between the framing of gay men (Louganis) and self-identified heterosexual men (Johnson and Morrison). First, there is an extensive search for the ways Magic Johnson and Tommy Morrison contracted HIV/AIDS. Media coverage emphasizes that “straights can get it too” through promiscuity and a “fast lane” lifestyle. Consistent with the historically automatic conflation of HIV/AIDS with gay identity, the media pose no inquiries into the cause of Louganis’ HIV transmission. We close our discussion by focusing on the meaning of extending the signifier of HIV/AIDS beyond gay bodies to include working class and black male bodies. Media surveillance of sexual identity and the body reinforces hegemonic masculinity in sport while feeding into the current sexual hierarchy in U.S. culture.

Coming Out in the Heterosexist World of Sport: A Qualitative Analysis of Web Postings by Gay Athletes

“…A media analysis conducted by Dworkin and Wachs (1998) reinforces the policing of sexuality within sport. They review coverage of three HIV-positive athletes, two who are heterosexual and one homosexual (Greg Louganis).…”

Reframing Menstruation in India: Metamorphosis of the Menstrual Taboo With the Changing Media Coverage

“…Similarly, the U.S. media coverage of HIV/AIDS also stigmatized homosexuality along with HIV/AIDS by portraying affiliating lifestyle frames of homosexuals with the dominant frames for HIV/AIDS like deviant behavior, victimization, and abnormality (Albert, 1986;Alwood, 1996;Gross, 2001). Dworkin and Wachs (1998) argued how the media framed HIV/AIDS and homosexuality to an extent that the two became synonymous.…”

Chapter 30 - Thinking Through Power in Sport and Sport Media Scholarship

“…In their analysis of mainstream media framings of sexuality through representations of HIV-positive athletes, Dworkin and Wachs (1998) built upon Foucault's contention that the construction of deviance and normalcy demonstrates "how power is constitutive" (p. 4) as particular social formations and identifications are conceptualized while others remain unthinkable. Power is additionally infused through multiple sets of "hierarchicalized dualities," through identities fragmented in relationship to race, class, gender, and sexuality (p. 4).…”