Abstract:
The paper focuses on bodily harm, committed by men and directed at men, and its function for constructing masculinity. Two types of violent relations are distinguished: a reciprocal relation where all actors commit violent acts and have the power to hurt the others, and a one-sided relation between an offender with the power to hurt and a victim open to vulnerability. In both types violent acts serve to confirm the offender 's masculinity, but in different ways: in the first case by a mutual acknowledgement within a union of men, in the second through establishing a relation of dominance.