"Jocks Gone Wild": Masculinity, Sexual Bullying, and the Legal Normalization of Boys' Victimization.

This article examines the legal construction of teenaged boys' sexual victimization through a case study of sexual bullying—referred to as "pumping"—on a high school wrestling team in a small American city pseudonymously called Fort James. Drawing on police interviews, attorney interviews, and media reports, the study reveals how criminal justice actors and the boys themselves normalized sexually aggressive behaviors by framing them as jokes and acts of friendship, thereby minimizing their sexual and violent nature. The case highlights the tension between enforcing hetero-masculine norms and the stigma associated with male-male sexual contact, showing how homophobic anxieties shaped the investigation and prosecution. Ultimately, the felony charges were reduced to misdemeanors, illustrating how legal processes can obscure male sexual victimization and reinforce racialized and gendered hierarchies in the criminal justice system. This research contributes to scholarship on masculinity, law, and sexual violence by uncovering the cultural and legal logics that differentiate ordinary adolescent male interactions from criminal sexual violence.