"What we're engaged in is trying to distill whatever aspect of the human condition is appropriate for the story, and present it. I've always thought of acting as a kind of extra-dimensional anthropology. By which I mean we're in the business of people. People interest me: what motivates them; what inspires them and what makes them happy, what makes them sad. And we're all united by it, we're all united by it. We're all united by these feelings that we all feel at different times. The reason I became an actor is that I sat in the audience - in the cinema audience and also in audiences at the theatre, and I love it when you go to see something, and you enter as an individual and you leave as a group. Because you've all been bound together by the same experience."
Tom Hiddleston, on creating art
(Nerd HQ, SDCC 2013)
If you’re at all familiar with me and my personal thoughts on comicverse Tony Stark, you probably already know that I believe Tony is at least semi-canonically bisexual. There are a lot of reasons for this, most of which I plan to address at some point in the future, but this post is only tangentially related to that viewpoint. This post is mainly about how Tony Stark is sexualized/has his virility or manhood mocked or questioned by villains and antagonists in the comics. At the end, I vaguely describe why I feel this adds fuel to the fire of my theory about his sexual orientation, but in this context that’s more for my personal justification than anything else. In the 1998 Iron Man and Captain America Annual, upon first meeting Tony psychically, Metallo immediately calls into question Tony’s playboy status.
This innuendo, while obviously intended to be a throwaway insult to Tony, is interesting because it presents Tony’s sexual promiscuity as something which weakens Tony, thus questioning his power and subverting the typical societal view of a promiscuous male (one that equates male power with sexuality). According to Metallo, because he is suddenly able to resist Metallo psychologically (he intends to mentally stop him from using mind control), his sexual strength must be diminished through his own will, making power and sexuality mutually exclusive. This then calls into question to power of Iron Man, whose identity is still a secret to everyone at this point. Iron Man’s power is clearly non-sexual in nature, but Tony’s reputation has allowed for questioning of his agency and virility on the part of Metallo, subverting traditional views of male sexual prowess.
I’m skipping over the Tiberius Stone stuff, simply because it doesn’t quite fit into the overall argument I’m making, but if you’re curious about the way Stone used sexual temptation towards Tony (of both genders), there’s a lovely write-up of the issue with the panels here.
In Invincible Iron Man #503, we get the now infamous Doc Ock scene, which shows Tony literally on his knees worshipping Doc Ock in a desperate bid to stop a bomb (which in the end, doesn’t exist, and Ock knew this the whole time).
This entire situation obviously has extremely strong sexual overtones, and this level of begging, etc, is something that I, at least, haven’t seen happen with any other major superhero, and certainly not to this degree.
Doc Ock has clearly determined to put Tony in a seemingly sexual and very submissive position, and I really question whether this is something that would have occurred if Tony’s reputation for being a playboy wasn’t so well known. Unlike Metallo, who simply calls into question the legitimacy of Tony’s agency through his promiscuity, here we see Doc Ock making use of that quality for his own pleasure and amusement. The oddest thing about this entire scene is that it ends up being completely moot on Tony’s part, considering the bomb never existed in the first place. That’s right, Tony literally made out with Doc Ock’s tentacle claw thing, and it ended up being completely unnecessary. Very kinky, Doc.
In this next scene, from Invincible Iron Man #30, we see Sasha Hammer, a female business rival, attempt to seduce Tony in a moving car.
Once again, we see sex mentioned as a “Tony Stark thing,” as the antagonist puts Tony is a potentially sexual position. In the next panel, Tony tells her that she’s “not his type,” making it clear that he’s acknowledging and refusing the sex being offered, despite the fact that according to Sasha, this is his routine (and of course, the reader knows it is as well). It’s interesting that only when it is a female character does Tony acknowledge and refuse these references to his sex life; I don’t read this as a sign that Tony is gay, though it’s certainly possible, but more that to him, having a female say something about it makes the advance more legitimate, and allows him to assert his own desires (or lack thereof).
The final instance I’m going to discuss is a clear threat to Tony’s sexuality and virility, this time in an issue of The Avengers, #12.
The Hood is verbally threatening Tony as a last resort, and he loses the battle literally two panels later. The interesting thing about this panel, and the reason I’m even discussing it, is because of the very specific wording. He didn’t just threaten to get rid of Tony’s penis, he specifically says “a guy like you.” He is, like everyone at this point, extremely aware of Tony’s reputation, and for him, threatening Tony’s virility is equal to threatening to destroy Tony’s way of life, in effect destroying Tony himself. Tony is yet again being seen as a sexual object, but this time, it is not an object of desire, but of weakness. By threatening to remove Tony from a frequent pleasure, his power is yet again seen by an antagonist, the Hood, as being connected to his sexual ability. The Hood easily could have said that he wanted to create a reality where Tony hadn’t built the armor, wasn’t rich, wasn’t an Avenger, but instead he goes right for what he thinks gives Tony some semblance of power: his dick.
As for how I personally believe this fits in with my theory of Tony’s sexual orientation, I think it’s interesting that the writers continuously use mentions of Tony’s sexuality and virility in order to insult or threaten him. Yes, it could just be that he’s a massive playboy, and I won’t argue with you if that’s the limit of what you interpret that choice as. I, however, view it on a certain level as veiled references to, at the very least, sexual fluidity, and possibly bisexuality. Queerness has historically been connected very directly with sex, despite the fact it is no more overtly sexual than heterosexuality. When uninformed people discuss homosexuality, they almost immediately think about sexual habits, etc. After all, where would the basis for homophobia be if not in the action of the sex itself? It would certainly not be based on purely the theory of homosexuality. Anyway, I view the constant mentions of Tony’s very active sexuality as a reference to the openness and possible queerness of his own orientation, which writers have falsely connected with sexual promiscuity. That connection of queerness with promiscuity is not something I agree with, because I think it’s absurd that someone’s orientation has to do with the amount of activity in their sex life, but I personally feel that there is a connection for the development of Tony’s character, at least on some level.
I know this got a bit long, but I find this entire phenomenon very fascinating, and I just wanted to share my thoughts.
This is an interesting post, and it brought to mind lots of thoughts that had been floating around in my mind about the same kind of thing, especially regarding the Iron Man title (and the character’s appearances elsewhere, though I’m not talking about the movie universe here, because that’s a whole different kettle of fish).
Under a cut here, because wow, this got long.
I agree with the OP about Tony Stark’s sexuality/promiscuity being presented in a somewhat subversive way in that rather than being used to “prove” or enhance his manliness as one might expect (especially for a character so obviously in the Howard Hughes and Mad Men-esque business/inventor/genius mold), it is instead regularly used to call his masculinity into question (which is indeed something that you would expect more of queer sexuality than heterosexuality in the typical heterosexist narrative). It actually has often struck me when reading Iron Man that Tony’s sexuality is almost treated in more of a feminine way rather than is typical for a male character—he gets a lot of shit talked about it, people demean him to his face about it, villains give him a hard time and disrespect him because of it, and he is often cast in a more passive role in his romantic relationships (Rumiko, Bethany Cabe, don’t even get me started on Kathy Dare, but I’ll come back to this point later). People don’t talk to him about his reputation like “ooh, Tony, you hound-dog, you’ve always got a woman on your arm, don’t you?” they’re more like “Ahaha, you pathetic whore, I know getting rid of your dick will really hit you where you live because you only think about sex, don’t you?” You can almost hear them calling him a slut. Which is actually really strange and interesting, considering that most of said villains don’t seem to have anything against sex and sexuality per se. But apparently Tony’s masculinity is demeaned somehow in their eyes because of his sexual reputation.
This seems to stem at least partly from the way Tony’s masculinity seems to be handled in the comic overall. He is portrayed as superficially extremely stereotypically masculine (he has lots of money, he’s good at business and technology, he’s an engineer and an inventor, he has lots of sex with beautiful women, he used to make weapons, of all things, he is strong and tough, the “Invincible Iron Man,” he’s arrogant and egocentric, flirtatious and charming, yadda yadda), but from the very first days of his character he has also been portrayed as emotionally vulnerable in a way not particularly compatible with traditional stereotypical masculinity, emotional in his reactions to things, sensitive to his own faults and failings, extremely focused on the well-being of others despite his egocentrism, which seems to stem at least partly from insecurity, and all in all not particularly interested in the sorts of things one might expect a Rich Masculine Engineer Businessman TM to be interested in. This is further borne out by the few interactions with his father that we get to see, especially interesting because of the way Howard Stark seems to be in doubt of Tony’s masculinity (telling Maria that she doesn’t want to see Tony become a sissy-boy, does she? and so on) and the way he appears to want to mold Tony into his view of what a “man” should be (rather than being content with the way he is, implying that the way he is is very much not what Howard would prefer in terms of masculinity and strength). This seems to have led to the way Tony presents himself in a big way—his father’s influence not just leading in part to his alcoholism, but the way he presents himself in his public and business persona. This tension between one side of Tony and his exterior persona might imply a lack of confidence in his own masculinity that his villains are picking up on and going after. And I think it’s worth noting that the way his father talks about him is very reminiscent of slurs used toward gay men, and is a fairly common way to express doubts about a man’s sexuality by implying that he is feminine in some way. In a way, even his womanizing and flirtatiousness seems to be a way of enacting this performative masculinity, and he seems to flirt more because he feels he should and it’s the way he’s accustomed to behaving than out of any particular interest in the expected results, whatever happens.
There is also a certain tendency with Tony and his romantic interests for him to be in a more passive or receptive role. His relationships are typically with intelligent, self-made and self-possessed women, and he is often the person dumped by the woman in question when the relationship ends. In many of his relationships, he plays a role often played by women in traditional romance narratives—captured and rescued by his romantic interest! Used by the vile seducer! Captured and imprisoned by the possessive stalker! Saved from an emotional breakdown by the steadying presence of his significant other! With Fujikawa Rumiko, he often plays the pursued rather than the pursuer—it is she who persuades him to go out to clubs and go on dates with her, she who is by far the more active partner in the relationship. Interestingly, a major reason he and Pepper never worked in the comic was his inability and/or lack of willingness to give her a child (and then his guilt over her infertility, later on), another storyline that is often played with when it comes to women (though of course, has echoes of the old ‘man unwilling to settle down trope’—except that Tony is perfectly willing to settle down, it seems, for a given value of settling, considering he’s a busy industrialist and superhero, with a woman who would have him). He’s had at least three relationships that read to me as abusive, one that deliberately played on the expectation that the man would be the abuser (Kathy Dare, who shot him in the spine and then claimed at the instigation of her lawyer that it was self-defense because he had abused her), his relationship with Indries Moomji, who was hired by Obadiah Stane to emotionally destabilize him and drive him back to the bottle (and who compared his advances to a puppy panting over her), and Whitney Frost—who he did have a better relationship with (falling love with her despite her scarred face, mind) before she sort of went off her rocker and became obsessed with him. There was also Sunset Bain, who was only in a relationship with him because she wanted to use him to steal technology secrets (and who he is visibly physically uncomfortable around now). And then there’s also Tiberius Stone, mentioned in the post above, who despite not being an explicit romantic interest is oddly possessive of Tony in general (and the time his armor came to life and fell in love with him before dragging him off to a deserted island for the purpose of imprisoning him until he realized he and the armor were meant to be one). For a womanizing playboy, Tony is often portrayed as someone whose sexuality is used against him.
This brings me back to the point of his general sexualization vs. his villains, something that is generally much more common with female characters, especially in the way his male villains get in on the act and seem to feel like they have something to say about his sexuality and the expression of same. He also seems to frequently be put in poses more common for female characters (in battle, the artists have a truly inexplicable tendency to draw him in positions with his chest or ass pushed out even though he’s in the armor, I can think of at least three instances off the top of my head where he is somewhat gratuitously naked in front of enemies, he’s been princess carried several times at LEAST, memorably on several covers, etc.). James Bondage, to use the TV Tropes term, has always been fairly common in comics, and the nakedness might be explained by his armor (usually it’s been disappeared in these instances) except that if they wanted him to, he could totally be wearing clothes under it, and it doesn’t explain his positioning. Much has been made about the tendency of comics to portray female characters as objects of sexual desire (unpleasantly enough), and in some ways, Tony is similarly portrayed as a sexual object (the way his sexuality is brought up, mocked, and used against him by villains, his role in relationships, even the way he is occasionally drawn). Given the traditional attitudes toward masculinity and power (masculine heterosexuality being seen as powerful, femininity and homosexuality being seen as weak, whether or not this is an accurate or pleasant attitude to see in fiction), I can see how one could argue that this provides a linkage between Tony and a non-straight sexuality, at least in a thematic/narrative sense. The way his villains behave almost seems to imply that there’s one way that Tony could prove his power to them, and that way involves his dick. Thus, the way to undermine him is to remove that option, to somehow imply that he is not capable of performing heterosexual masculinity in some way, as that would be the crushing blow to his claims to power.
In other words, I think Tony Stark’s masculinity is in general portrayed as something that is a point of tension for him and that is examined in a way both by the meta narrative and also by the people around him. Given that his villains often sexualize him in a negative or derogatory way and, being villains, aren’t the best people in the world, it does seem like they perceive some of this and feel like it’s a weak point in his armor, if you’ll pardon the pun. Even if Tony himself is heterosexual, I could see how a person could make the case for his villains believing him not to be, or at least not feeling that he fulfills their perception of how dominant masculinity should appear, thus the way they specifically target his sexuality (the Dr. Octopus thing, being one of the most overtly sexual, especially comes to mind here, especially since Doc Ock seemed to be getting something out of it himself—watching it later and so on, so yeah, creepy?). Villains being homophobic dickwads isn’t a big surprise, after all. And I think that Tony also is conflicted about his own masculinity, trying to live up to an idea of it possibly based on his father (thus the flirting and so on), while also not feeling as if this mold of masculine behavior comes naturally for him. Whether all of this actually amounts to queering the narrative in a way (even if in a somewhat negative way), it’s certainly an interesting deconstruction and examination of traditional aggressive masculinity as it is linked with sexuality. There are plenty of examples of Tony acting/being portrayed in a more stereotypically masculine manner, of course, but there does seem to be a persistent trend of more complicated portrayals of his masculinity.
I also want to make clear that even though I discussed a lot of fairly stereotypical ideas and unfortunate gender and sexuality stereotypes above, that I do not personally subscribe to them—I’m just describing something that I think might be going on here, and part of that involves attitudes both writers and characters might have. I really have no idea what the writers might be intending with him, but I’m definitely getting a somewhat subversive reading from the text in front of me.
OKAY, THAT GOT REALLY LONG; I’M SORRY. If you read this whole thing, you are awesome and thank you. And of course, this is just my personal reading, and there are plenty of others you could get from the same texts.
For what it’s worth, Tony in Magical Tentacles on the Moon.