om Australia, and the opposite to Adam in terms of athletic interest.The Adam, or non-athletic sideFor the interview in Connells book The Men and the Boys (2000) Adam was asked many questions that went in chronological order from his childhood to adulthood. Adam stated that he had a feminine childhood never had an interest in sports and throughout his early childhood he felt inferior to his father and older brother. While in secondary school, and beginning puberty, Adam had sexual explorations with both male and female classmates, and during this time of physical and hormonal changes he began to become more self-conscious about his feminine build, which he described himself as having big hips, a small chest, and jelly-like thighs. He also noticed himself becoming attracted to the larger more developed males and masculine-acting males in his class, and while around them he felt inhibited and was ashamed to let the feminine parts of his personality to show (Connell 2000). Though Adam did say he felt a strong attraction to males he did have sexual explorations with females during his pubertal years, though he never mentioned one as being enjoyable. He described several such as one time being caught kissing a girl and being seriously reprimanded and punished by his parents, and another time he talked about kissing and intimate petting with a larger frame girl and that he felt he was being smothered during this encounter. Adam also talked about his brother and father being athletic and watching sports together on television, an activity that he seldom took part in. He describes many instances where he would watch his brother and father through a ball in the yard and play basketball and he would feel too ashamed to play with them. He reasoning for this was justified; he talks about being embarrassed to throw a ball in front of his father because Adam felt that he threw like a girl. This fear and feeling was confirmed when one day he th...
