The rapture of the ride: Hearing (dis)abled masculinities in motorcycling

Abstract

This article explores motorcycling as an arena for the choreography and performance of body practices of pleasure for young men with hearing disabilities. The article advances the argument that the discursive multiplicity of identities experienced in motorcycling destabilises precepts that privilege paid work and institutionalised competitive team sports as absolute bastions of masculine existence. Drawing on data collected from an interview with one young man with a severe hearing disability, it will be shown that his experience of both finding a stable occupation, and participating in institutionalised team sports, is marked by ongoing difficulties. By contrast, participation in motorcycling is an occasion by which he (re)constructs and enhances his masculine identity. The embodied experience of motorcycling invokes possibilities for an interconnection with the masculine, and dialogic exchange with the identity of hearing disability. This demonstrates an uncertainty of settlements regarding what constitutes ‘masculinity’ and ‘disability’ in different sites and contexts.