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Frank Ocean: Challenging Hip-Hop’s Hyper-Masculinity

A snapshot of Frank Ocean in a crowd.

Christopher Breaux, better known by his stage name, Frank Ocean, is coming off a month of success after releasing his fourth single of the year, “Provider,” on August 24. The track opens with the line, “Memo finna start acting out if I don’t see him soon,” potentially referring to Ocean’s rumored boyfriend, Memo Guzman. While the interpretation of this lyric is based off mere speculation, openly referencing his sexuality in his music is nothing new to Ocean.

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Masculinity Across Sports

When conjuring up the perfect image of masculinity in your mind, most people imagine the typical high school jock. He plays football, basketball, ice hockey, or a similar hypermasculine activity. Rarely does a runner, swimmer, or this sort of “second tier” of masculinity in sports arise. By assigning masculinized predispositions to certain sports, could the conversation surrounding masculinity become skewed from a young age? If so, this would certainly create a problematic discourse around certain sports and limit a conversation for LGBTQ+ communities to have a voice within this realm.

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Fraternity Culture at DePauw, Revisited

My first year on campus, I wrote a column that took a critical look at misogyny in Interfraternity Council (IFC) recruitment. At the time, I had also just joined a house. I was confident that, despite the attitudes displayed by some during recruitment, the system was sound as a whole. I thought, or perhaps hoped, that it was the case of a few bad apples with too much liquor and too little common decency. Continue reading “Fraternity Culture at DePauw, Revisited”