'Boys will be boys?': Submissive masculinity and sexual harassment in the gay tourism industry.

This article examines the intersection of sexual harassment and internal hegemonic masculinity among men working in Spain's gay tourism industry, based on 36 interviews with managers and employees in gay-oriented hospitality venues in Gran Canaria and Sitges. It introduces the concept of "submissive masculinity" to describe how male workers, often gay themselves, normalize and tolerate unwanted sexual advances from male customers due to the hyper-sexualized culture of gay tourism and the power imbalance favoring customers. The study highlights that sexual harassment—verbal, physical, and coercive—is pervasive and largely accepted as part of the job, reflecting broader gendered power dynamics within the service industry and challenging traditional understandings of hegemonic masculinity. The findings call for a nuanced understanding of masculinity that accounts for internal hierarchies among men and the structural inequalities shaping experiences of sexual harassment in gay tourism contexts.