Round 5 - our first contender, Frank (chapter 3)

Frank’s narrative is the soteriological one of salvation through boxing, from identifying as a gang member to identifying as a boxer to the extent that he takes pleasure that people came use ‘Boxer’ as his name rather than Frank.

He is 31 and has boxed since he was 12. As a young black man he had little trust in people from the Feds to Deborah herself, initially. His first experience was of boxing with others, who like him, had been excluded from school. He knew that some of them couldn’t take the physical demands. Which reminds me of Cloward and Ohlin on illegitimate opportunities for crime/deviance not always presenting themselves. No boxing gym was available to me, nor would likely have succeeded, in my troubled teenage years. Becoming a discontented civil servant and then maverick academic has had mixed success in building my sense of self. Very much an ongoing project. Retirement requires a new narrative as we’ll see later in Eric’s story. Yes, I’ve peeked ahead.

Frank’s initial access to a gym was blocked by postcode rivalries. A gym in every ‘hood needed obviously. He is now settled in one gym where he trains others and earns his living as a bouncer. Shaw and Haysom (2016) found organised crime connections between bouncers and boxing in South Africa, a ‘bouncer mafia’. For a bouncer boxing also serves as the necessary bodywork (a recurring issue throughout book). An investment of, ‘physical capital’ (p51).

Prompted by Frank she notes, of all the men, ‘that their definition of respect meant the ability to intimidate and command fear’ (p52). In this search for respect Anderson’s Code of the Street is key. And supporting Cloward and Ohlin’s view Frank has this to say about his opportunities, ‘Prison, death or shit jobs’ (p56). Perhaps part of the code of the streets is to think that there are jobs that are not shit. But in good news for the social control theorists Frank felt he’d found a ‘new crew’ (p56).

On the way back to the gym after one long interview in a nearby cafe Deborah and Frank came across a group of drunken youths who Frank felt were ‘eyeballing’ them. The moment passed so  Frank refrained from, “‘fuckin’ them up”. It is not clear if this is just standard male paranoia or Frank’s own locally situated one but influenced by Mulvey I’d want to explore why, for many men, being looked at is like being screwed. His big body is meant to say don’t look at me as I am terrifying. But it also says I’m terrified that you’ll penetrate me and that’ll make me the punk. Perversely I have written more in this queer vein elsewhere.

In that work I said this:

Reiss likes to keep his animals in separate cages in the name of sociology. As he says: ‘From a sociological point of view, the peer–queer transaction occurs between two major types of deviators – ‘delinquent’ and ‘queers’(1968/61: 375)’. He sets out exceptions to the norms of the ‘peers’ and has this to say about their identity:

Boys are very averse to being thought of in a queer role or engaging in acts of fellation. The act of fellation is defined as a ‘queer’ act. [. . .] Boys who accept the female role in sexual transactions occupy the lowest status position amongst delinquents. They are ‘punks’. (1968/61: 377)

This despite such exceptions to these norms as Danny S., leader of the Black Aces ‘a fighting gang’ who tells Reiss: ‘we all get blowed by this queer . . . we don’t get any money then . . . it’s more a drinking party’ (1968: 376). Or this on their experiences with a boxing instructor from the State Training School:‘He’s got a cabin up there on the creek and he blows us. But mostly we just drink and have a real good time’ (1968: 376).

Which lead me to say over twenty years ago:

Today we might want to go beyond interaction to the ‘interpenetration’ of these worlds, to examine what such sexual activity meant for them and how their views of homosexuality might be challenged by a boxing gay.

And back to the homosocial Frank admits being a bouncer, working on the door, pays the bills but like the gym it’s where, ‘the boys hang out’ (p60).