The Way We Play: Male Bodies on a Gay Cruise Website

Abstract

The aim is to examine how male bodies are represented on a gay cruise website. The article focus on photographs in which such bodies appear on the official Atlantis Events website in ads for cruises organized by the company for the 2018 season. The central argument points out that the bodies are predominantly masculine and athletic and reproduce aesthetic patterns connected to strength and healthy physical condition, moving away from disparaging stigmas associated with gays and their negative connection to the female condition. The clothes and accessories used by these men and the portrayed situations and places point to a pattern of consumption allowed only to middle and upper class individuals, which ends up marginalizing, in the company’s communication, other members of the LGBT population who do not fit into such aesthetic and financial standards.