Love, sex, gender, and superheroes / Jeffrey A. Brown.

"Unpacking the complicated ways superheroes reproduce cultural beliefs about gender, sexuality, and romance, Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes delves into the underlying and erotic implications of caped crusaders. Superheroes are more popular than ever, with a seemingly endless run of record-breaking Hollywood movies, hit television and streaming series, the mainstreaming of comic books as a literary form, and superhero themed merchandising available almost everywhere. The genre has always been about good vs. evil, larger-than-life heroes vs. stylish villains, and a never-ending fight for "Truth, Justice and the American way." But, in a less obvious way, the genre has also been about gender ideals: how men and women are supposed to look, act, and interact with each other. Under the guise of being merely childish fantasies, superheroes have consistently provided fantastic adventures that make abstract ideas about gender and sexuality seem natural. Superheroes deal with topics as diverse as: fetishism, phallic symbolism, bodies, love, marriage, eroticized violence, queer identities, homosociality, transexuality, orgasms, and robot/human sexual relations. This spicier underside of superheroes reveals and reinforces attitudes about gender and sex, and how some of those ideas are changing in a modern world"-- Provided by publisher.