Queering surfing from its heteronormative malaise: public visual pedagogy of circa 2014

Surfing’s inter-relationship with sex, sexuality and gender has been established as strong, in earlier seminal research and contemporary social research, both mentioned in Chapter 1. As noted in the ancient chants and oral histories (see Clark, 2011, Masterton, Chapter 2 this volume) sexuality practices, or more accurately heterosexuality practices, are well documented in relation to surfing. In a study of Surfer Magazine in 1963-1976, Tocki (2016) notes: Surfers often wrote in the magazine to describe the act of riding the wave as a type of sex act. This association reinforced heteronormativity and contributed to the normalization of the masculine. In some accounts, the surfboard acted as a larger, surrogate phallus for male surfers who described the ocean and waves using sexual language. Male surfers highlighted the fact that the ride within waves and barrels on their surfboards was like '‘a sexual orgasm’'.