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“Everyone here has two faces”: publicity, privacy, and Turkish migrants’ sexual identities in Duisburg-Marxloh, Germany
| This paper examines masculinities and femininities of young migrants from Turkey in relation to publicity and privacy. I examine the ways that young men enact their masculinities at home, and in public neighborhood space. Young Turks’ discrepant constructions of masculinities within and outside the homes reveal the tensions between being ‘good sons’ and ‘respectable men’ that often create pressures for young men not to not enter (public) relationships with women. Their masculinities are enacted in relation to members of older generations and to other young men, but it is important to note that public and private spaces allow for specific masculinities to emerge. Public displays of masculinities are self-policed by groups of young men, and undermine young men’s desire for relationships with young women. Prescriptions for femininities that young Turkish men seek to impose on young Turkish women further complicate gender and sexual identities, especially as these young women, in turn, challenge the norms for modesty and virginity Turkish men ascribe by becoming ‘bad girls’ in public. Gender and sexual norms thus need to be understood in relation to public and private spaces.
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