The politics of male identity and intimacy in Mexico
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THE POLITICS OF MALE IDENTITY AND INTIMACY IN MEXICO
by
Guillermo Nunez Noriega
Copyright © Guillermo Nunez Noriega 2004
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement For the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
2004 UMI Number: 3158132
Copyright 2004 by Nunez Noriega, Guillermo
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SIGNED, 4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis owes a debt to different people and institutions. The Consejo Nacional de
Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACYT) of Mexico paid the tuitions and gave me a grant for the three years of my doctoral studies at the University of Arizona (1994-1997). The
Department of Anthropology of the University of Arizona awarded me The Haury
Fellowship and supported the long writing of this dissertation. Thanks for their confidence. The Centro de Investigacion en Alimentacion y Desarrollo, A.C., my work place at Hermosillo, Mexico, allowed me to dedicate all my time to do research and writing since 1997. From 1997 to 2003,1 received two grants to do research in the
Serrano region of Sonora as part of my duties as researcher in CIAD, A.C. These research projects provided substantial information for the dissertation. In 1998 I received a grant from the Ford Foundation and the John D. and MacArthur Foundation through the
Trans-border Consortium for Research and Action on Gender and Reproductive Health, and in 19991 received the support of the MacArthur Foundation through the program
Prodir II of the Carlos Chagas Foundation of Brasil. I want to thanks all these foundations and institutions for their decisive support.
Antonio Noriega, Ana Luz Rascon, Francisca Duarte, Rocio Monia, and Hugo Rivas provided emotional company and technical assistance during those years. Eloy Rivas
Sanchez and Gilda Salazar have been important interlocutors of this work, as well as all those students of the Diplomado de la Diversidad Sexual of the Programa Universitario 5
de Estudios de Genero de la UNAM and the students of the Seminario de Estudios de las
Masculinidades of CIESAS-Golfo. I want to thanks to Gloria Careaga and Patricia
Ponce, respectively, for their continuous invitations to share with them my work, and for their friendship. The English version of the dissertation owes to the great work of
Maribel Alvarez, Elea Aguirre, Jorge Descamps, and to Catherine Jagoe. Dr. Maria
Teresa Velez, from the Graduate College provided a generous economic support for the translation. The members of my Doctoral Committee provided important insights and support in different moments: Jane H. Hill, Miranda Joseph and Norma Mendoza-
Denton, thank to all of them.
My brother Luis Nunez Noriega was my major companion during those years of strenuous discipline at the University of Arizona. Lately he has provided material and technical support to finish this dissertation. Thanks for your infinite generosity.
There is a person whom this dissertation owes the most; Maribel Alvarez. She gave me the energy and hope necessary to re-start the writing. Beside, she has given me administrative, material and emotional support to get through the dissertation process.
Without her help, I would not have obtained the PhD. I am lucky to be your friend. 6
DEDICATION
To my parents, my thanks and love are infinite.
To my brothers and sisters, for the joys and pains we have shared. Your intelligence, solidarity and caring have made all the difference in my life.
To the "weird" and "strange" friends I have. Your presence and love have sustained me in the exploration of my infinite possibilities.
To all those anonymous men who have shared with me their stories and their lives: this dissertation only intends to broaden my and your possibilities for freedom and pleasures. 7
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT 10 PREFACE 12 I The questions around a photographic image 12 II The theoretical discussions: sexual categories and meanings 25 a) The homosexual identity: From Foucault to Eribon 28 b) The quest for a homosexual subjectivity and culture 32 c) Multiple homoerotic experiences, multiple homophobic experiences 37 d) Men's different subjectivities, and different resistances 40 e) Polimorphous and Perverse; Sexuality, desire, Male Intimacy and Homosociality 47 III The context: the Traveled Path 55 IV The Methodology 57 V Reasons and Uncertantities 63 VI A note about the presentation of data 70 CHAPTER 1. THE SOCIAL REGULATION OF MALE IDENTITY AND INTIMACY 72 I A photograph and a context: The voice of Jose Pedro 72 II The politics of male identity and intimacy: the relational character of signification... 85 III Bodies: proximities, distances, and contacts 97 IV The kiss and the saint: the social ritual for expressing affection 106 V Ventura: the ambiguity and difficulty of love between two men 112 VI When he held my hand: experiences in the field 121 VII Sharing the bed. Experiences of male intimacy 125 CHAPTER 2. DISPUTES OVER THE MEANING OF "BEING A MAN" IN MEXICO: APPLICATIONS OF QUEER THEORY 141 I Masculinity as Challenge 141 II To be a "man" or to be "macho:" disputes over meaning 146 III Diversity and Disputes over "being a man" in Mexico: a post-structuralist analysisl 52 rV Manhood and the "male" body: a problematic relationship 156 V "A Man" and "A Real Man": Internal Distinctions in a Cultural Fiction 163 VI Masculinity as unfinished and anxious performance 170 VII Styles of "manhood" 174 CHAPTER 3. ACA ENTRENOS (BETWEEN YOU AND ME): CULTURAL NOTIONS ABOUT RAJARSE, THE BODY, AND THE NEGOTIATION OF MALE INTIMACY. 184 I Introduction 184 II The politics of'>ajarse" and of "being a man" 190 III Masculinity and the indexicality of "rajarse" 203 IV Homophobia, misoginy and masculinity in "rajarse" 206 V The politics of control and excess. "Rajarse," body, and sex 212 VI Acd entre nos and the negotiation of intimacy 219 VII Acd entre nos: intimate confessions and the production of knowledge 222 8
VIII Acd entre nos: researching masculinity and the regulation of the ethnographer's manhood 232 CHAPTER 4. MALE INTIMACY AND HOMOPHOBIA; DIFFERENT SUBJECTIVITIES, POWERS, AND RESISTANCES 236 I The multiple forms of subjectivity in male intimacy; fieldwork experiences 236 II What is homophobia? Different powers, different resistances 249 III The discourse of "homophobia" 276 IV Getting to the bowels of the "monster" 281 V The terms of stigma: a complex field of regulation 297 VI Homophobic violence as a regulator of masculine subjectivity; a theoretical synthesis 302 VII Respect: the social regulation of the public "homophobic" insult 313 VIII "Everyone is owner of its body"; body, autonomy and resistance to homophobia 320 IX "It is his thing"; respect, sexual ambiguity and the performance of masculinity 326 PART II (INTERLUDE) 331 CHAPTER 5. "MEN" AND KNOWLEDGE: EPISTEMOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE STUDY OF "MEN" AS GENDERED SUBJECTS 331 I Introduction. "Masculinities" in Studies of "Masculinities." 331 II Feminism, Women and Knowledge 334 III Epistemology of the "Point of View" and Constructivist Epistemology: Two Feminist Approaches to the Study of "Men" and Knowledge 337 IV The Study of Social Reality; A Constructivist Epistemological Framework for the Study of Males as Gendered Subjects 345 1) The Objectification of Social Reality 346 2) The Referential Nature of Language 349 3) The Separation Between Subject and Reality 350 4) The Centrality of The Subject in Reason 352 V The Ontological Condition of "Men": A Constructivist Vision of Gender Identities 354 CHAPTER 6. ACKNOWLEDGING PLEASURES, DECONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES; ANTHROPOLOGY, PATRIARCHY AND HOMOEROTICISM IN MEXICO 363 I Introduction 363 II From "Homosexual" Ethnocentrism to a Cultural Geography of Homoeroticisms .. 364 III The Anthropology of Homoeroticism in Mexico 367 IV Phallocentrism, Patriarchy and the "Other Homoeroticisms" 372 1) Homoerotic relations are structured based on "penetrator-receiver" roles 373 2) Erotic differences imply "gender stratification": the "active role" is performed by a "masculine subject" and the "passive role" by a feminine or less masculine subject"... 377 3) The "active" partner receives no special label; he is simply a "man", although the "passive" partner may call him a mayate (trade). The "passive" partner is referred to by derogatory terms such as joto, maricon or puto (fairy, pansy, faggot) 382 V Conclusions 393 9
CHAPTER 7. WHO ARE THE "MSM"? SEXUAL IDENTITIES, SOCIAL CLASS AND THE STRATEGIES IN THE FIGHT AGAINST AIDS 397 I Introduction 397 II The Literature on MSM: How Public Health Invented a Group 400 III Men Who Have Sex with Men" And The Dominant Model for Understanding Homoeroticism 406 IV Escaping, Resignifying and Resistiting the DMUH 410 V Jokes: a Field of Signification that is Symptomatic of the Complexity of Homoerotic Reality 421 VI Understanding Homoerotic Reality 426 VII AIDS Statistics in Sonora: Social Class and Sexual Practice 428 VIII Social Class, Cultural Capital and Gayness 431 " Well then, you 're not gay, Pepito. You 're a 'puto'!" [faggot] 433 IX Social Class and the Other Homoerotic Experience: the Case of the Migrant Farm Workers 437 X "We Could All Become MSM": Resignification and Consequences for Public Health and Activism 451 EPILOGUE 458 I History and a photograph 458 II The heterogeneous homoerotic present 463 III "Homoerotic" colonialism 467 IV The political dimension of the homoerotic heterogeneity 469 REFERENCES 473 10
ABSTRACT
The point of departure of this dissertation is the identification of the existence of a
(historic) realm of affection and eroticism among men in Mexico that have not been accounted for neither by dominant discourses on Mexican men or Mexican homoerotic practices and identities, nor by Anthropological and epidemiological studies of the homoerotic experience: affective and/or erotic relations that take place outside dominant categories like gay, homosexual,yoto or mayate (or other terms used for sexual deviants) and contesting the heterosexual ideal of manhood. Beyond explaining and identifying this realm of intimacy, the dissertation makes an ethnographically and theoretically informed criticism on how these dominant discourses, and their sexual and gender categories, work to sustain the sex/gender system by rendering them invisible.
The dissertation explores masculinity identity as a heterogeneous space of power and resistance. Masculine identity is considered to be a contradictory space where intimate relations may take place and even where homophobia can be resisted. At the same time, the dissertation shows the heterogeneous character of the homoerotic experience in
Mexico; a heterogeneity that contest the theoretical effort to construct a single narrative as pretended by the terms "homosexual subjectivity" or "gay world". The critical ontology of ourselves [...] has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical [and anthropological] analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them... I continue to think that this task requires work on our limits, that is, a patient labour giving form to our impatience for liberty.
-Michel Foucault, "What is Enlightenment? 12
PREFACE
There is something I am very much interested nowadays, it is the issue of friendship. Through the centuries that followed Antiquity, friendship was a very important relationship: a relationship where individuals had a certain freedom [...] which allowed them to have very intense affective relations [...] One of my hypothesis [...] is that homosexuality (by which I understand the existence of sexual relations among men) became a problem since the 18th century. [...] As much as friendship was considered something important, as much as it was socially accepted, nobody was aware that men had sexual relations them [...] that they made love or kissed each other had no importance. [...] the disappearance of friendship as a social relation and the fact that homosexuality was declared a social, political, and medical problem, are part of the same process.' (Foucualt, 2001: 1563-4).
I The questions around a photographic image
According to a popular saying, "an image speaks louder than a thousand words."
How convenient everything would be if that were true. If that were the case, then the scholarly need to "know things" and the anthropologist's anguish over the desire to
' My English version from the original in French : « S'il y a une chose qui m'interesse aujourd'hui, c'est le probleme de I'amitie. Au cours des siecles qui ont suivi I'Antiquite, I'amitie a constitue un rapport social tres important: un rapport social a I'interieur duquel les individus disposaient d'une certaine liberte [...] qui leur permettai aussi de vivre des rapports affectifs tres intenses [...] Et I'une de mes hypotheses [...] est que I'homosexualite (par quoi j'entends I'existence de rapports sexuels entre les hommes) est devenue un probleme a partir du XVlIIe siecle. [...] Tant que I'amitie a represente quelque chose d'important, tant qu'elle a ete socialement acceptee, personne ne s'est aperfu que les hommes avaient, entre eux, des rapports sexuels [...] Qu'ils fassent I'amour ou qu'ils s'embrassent n'avait aucune importance. [...] la disparition de I'amitie en tant que rapport social et le fait que rhomosexualite ait ete declaree probleme social, politique et medical font partie du meme processus ». 13
express in words the ethnographic experience (those details that Malinowski called "the imponderables of everyday life"), would be so much easier to resolve. If images could
"speak," then by exhibiting or introducing the "right" image, presumably one could summarize into simple powerful arguments those aspects of "another's" life that are otherwise obscure to us.
Unfortunately, this is not how it works. Images do not speak by themselves. It is true that images are ubiquitous, but most of the time they function as registers of actions performed in very specific moments and framed by specific contexts. Images derive their meanings from the cultural and historical realities in which they are embedded and frame their production and interpretation. Those cultural and temporal specificities can in some instances become barriers for interpretation for those coming from other time and cultural context; they can represent hard-to-bridge gaps between the image and its observers.
Sometimes, these gaps can even lead to deception: induce us to see only what "seems" obvious. However, as another common proverb admonishes, we carmot forget that "not all that shines is gold."
The image of Jose Pedro and Francisco tenderly holding hands seems to "speak louder than words." After all, one could argue, it is "evident" that they are holding hands.
Why should there be any difficulty involved in simply naming that which is plain to the eye? This naive belief in the capacity to name "reality" and to represent it truthfully is precisely what the philosopher and linguist Derrida (1976) calls, cryptically and critically, "the metaphysics of presence." But as Derrida himself points out, the meaning of an action is hardly ever as transparent as it seems and finding the right words to name 14
what is happening can often be quite difficult. For instance, are we sure that we can know
why these two men are holding hands? What is the meaning of this gesture to them? What
was the social significance at the time this photo was taken of two men holding hands? Is
it possible to attribute a "sexual" meaning to the gesture captured in this photograph?
And if that were the case, what do we mean by "sexual" in this instance? What cultural
contexts made possible the production of this image? What personal, familial, or social
consequences followed from the circulation of this image at the time of its production?
More than "speak a thousand words" the image seems to provoke a thousand questions.
In fact, assaulted by these interrogations, the image seems quite silent —incapable of
providing answers by itself.
Nonetheless, a belief in the transparency of the meaning of that which is "seen" is
very common. For many, it is taken for granted. A brief exercise I conducted during
fieldwork demonstrates this point. The exercise consisted in presenting the above photo
to a random group of young people not familiar with anthropological methods or theories
in the cities of Hermosillo, Sonora, and Tucson, Arizona. Most respondents expressed
surprise at the fact that "old photographs of gay people," or, of "two lovers" existed. The
responses were uniform, regardless of the US/Mexico border side on which they were
collected. Some gay^ men in Hermosillo to whom I showed the image commented in jest,
"I wonder who is the fairy ijoto) and who is the trade {mayate)"^ "Maybe they both
^ The term "gay" and others like joto or mayate are going to be analyzed extensively in this text as involved in a politics of meaning in the Mexican sexual/gender field. The term "gay" is used in this case and through this work to name people who call themselves with this category, mostly urban, middle-class and young. ' Joto is the most common Mexican term to call, in the dominant sexual discourse, a "passive and effeminate" partner in a homosexual encounter. In the same discourse, the active and masculine partner is 15
enjoyed having fun {cotorreo)T Others commented on what they perceived to be a
"contrast" between the men's "masculine appearance" represented by the hats, boots, clothing, muscled bodies, big hands, and their countryside origin and the "homosexual appearance" symbolized by the action of holding hands discreetly. A young transvestite remarked in emphatic camp style "look at that, and they seem so manly, that's the way it is sometimes, you fmd guys that strut their manhood but that in the end are more feminine than me." Non-gay men'^ tended to remark on the age or antiquity of the photograph. Others asked, "Who are they?" Upon noticing that the men were holding hands lightly, one man said "geez, what is up with that?" and another man said, "how curious, no? Was that common back then?"
A quick analysis of the responses suggests that for these young men the meaning of the image can be interpreted in relation to the play of various signifiers: gay, homosexual, mayatejoto, lovers, woman, etc. These words are presumed to carry transparent meanings that are in turn applied transparently or "obviously" to the image.
Even though the men interviewed varied in their reading of these signifiers, their comments reveal some points in common: first, the image of two men dressed in cowboy attire and holding hands seems "strange" almost to everyone. Secondly, this sense of the strange in almost all cases is understood furthermore as an "oddity" (in Spanish a
"rareza" that can be related to the English word "queer"), hi this context, the term
"queer" {raro) is intended to communicate sexual and gender dissidence. called mayate. The political character of this discourse is widely studied in chapter 6. The English terms "fairy" and "trade", as described by Chauncey (1994) seem to better fit the Spanish terms. " The term "non-gay" is used here to refer to males that do not take on gay identity and whose sexual practices or orientation are unknown to the author. I remark on the distinction between gay and non-gay only to enhance the understanding of the commentary. 16
Common sense interpretations of the transparency of these signifiers begins to crumble when we learn that this photo of Jose Pedro and Francisco was framed and hung on the living room wall of a family home in a small countryside town in Sonora, visibly to the wife, children, relatives, neighbors and visitors for decades. Common sense interpretations shatter even further when we leam, after more than three years of anthropological fieldwork deep in the sierra of Sonora, that Jose Pedro and Francisco's image is not unique, that similar photographs can be found in select homes in the region.
As a matter of fact, one of the men interviewed in this short exercise commented that his own mother kept a similar photo in their family home depicting his grandfather "in that way, holding the hand of his friend, his compadre."
Hence, the more or less "familiar" or everyday character of this type of image during a historical period renders as inadequate the current common sense interpretations that tend to point towards the "homosexual" or "gay" nature of the holding of hands between the men in the photo, or of the men themselves as "homosexuals". Yet, understandably so, this "sexual" reading of the image fits somehow the contemporary social milieu in Mexico. In today's Mexican society, especially in rural communities, the concept of "homosexuality" hardly offers the range of permissive possibilities represented by the public display of the image in question. What to make then of the incompatibility of these two readings? Would it be correct to say that in Mexico, and in the Northern Mexico in particular, "homosexuality" was more amply permitted and socially sanctioned scarcely two generations ago than it is today in urban centers like
Hermosillo and Mexico City? Such a conclusion is unlikely. An explanation about the 17
discrepancy of meanings over "homosexuality" must be explored through other means.
What should be clear at this juncture, however, is that applying common sense notions of
the present to the historical reality represented in a photo "of the past" is tricky and
makes for inadequate social analysis. We are left to inquire: what happened in Mexican
(or in Sonoran) society in the last few decades that makes coming to terms with an image
like that of Jose Pedro and Francisco difficult and equivocal?
We thus come face to face with one of those quintessential paradoxes of
anthropology: an action that is so obvious, so transparent by virtue of the fact that is
publicly enacted, so "plain to the eye" of common sense, appears at the same time to have
a "meaning" so elusive that it actually results in being something strange and foreign to
our experience. The only thing that is "plain to the eye" is that our conceptual resources
come short to account for what we see. The paradox becomes yet more disorienting when
I inform the young respondents to my survey that the men in the photo were inhabitants
of the same region in which "we" live; in other words, the men in the photo could have
been one of my informant's grandparents. How is it possible that something could be so
foreign in its meaning to "us" when it is at the same time so familiar in terms of time and geography?
Fortunately, anthropology has the disciplinary habit of bringing forth paradoxes in order to subject them to a kind of analysis -a systematic way of asking questions and engendering knowledge—that can come very close to "explaining" things and hence to assuage our anxieties over not-knowing. In doing so, and also quite fortunately, anthropological methods shed light into the cultural and historical nature -and therefore 18
the relative or artificial character—of the ways in which meanings about things and the world are formulated by human beings. I find that it is precisely in this affinity for the paradoxical that anthropology offers us its most revealing and liberating potential as a social science. By putting into evidence the constructed or "invented" character of our human ways of investing meaning into our realities -and acting accordingly— anthropology also points to the realization that it may be possible to find "other" ways of signifying or investing with meaning and value our so-called realities. This gesture towards reflexivity opens doors for possible new ways of being, acting, and relating to the world around us. Or, as it has become customary to say in Mexico after the Zapatista uprising through the words of sub-comandante Marcos: anthropological analysis admonishes us to remember that "another world is possible."
This is not a novel realization in the anthropological tradition. The early works of
Whorf and Sapir established that words are more than "just words", but that in fact they imply conceptions of the world or "worldviews." Clifford Geertz (1973) stated that we could think of culture as a "web of meanings" through which we make sense of the world. Anthropology has also benefited from the linguistic and psychoanalytic contributions of Benveniste and Lacan (see Sylverman 1983), which speak of language as a kind of space or medium through and in which human beings apprehend themselves as subjects. More recent theoretical lines of inquiry in the post-structuralist school have usefully pointed out the historical character of everything we call "reality" and the power struggles over social representations that fight to fix the meanings of what is considered real or natural. It is through those representations and the struggles around them that 19
social distinctions are configured and legitimized, as Bourdieu aptly points out (1990).
Foucault explored the linkage between knowledge and power through the concept of
"subjectification."^ In this light, we come to see the construction of the subject as a process that entails the use of both material and discursive devices that are at the same time part of a process of subjection to regimes of power. Thus, from its beginnings, cultural anthropology has been interested in the central role played by words and discourses on the ways people name and conceives the world and themselves. That is, on the way people reckon with the "social" dimension of their lives.
When I presented the image of Jose Pedro and Francisco to friends and acquaintances, the photo did not only confuse the obvious signifiers described above, it also revealed even more entangled paradoxes. In a tone of voice resembling that of a complaint (queja), a 19-year old gay man from Hermosillo expressed: "So you mean to tell me that back then men could hold hands and not be homosexuals? And how come it is not like that now? Ahh, that's funny, today things should be as they were then." His friend adds: "Does that mean that things were better before? Today, the police would come after you if you hold hands with someone. Can you imagine my mother finding out a photo like that? Ahh, I do not want to even think about it." These comments would seem to put in question the common sense notions about modernity and urban life prevalent in Mexico and other countries. Under such terms, the "past" (as rurality) is a marker of "tradition" and hence of the pre-modem -of backwardness (atraso), secrecy
{oscurantismo), and lack of personal freedom—whereas the present is a time-space above
' In French the word is subjectivation. For a wide discussion of the concept, see the chapter "The Subject and Power" in the book by Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982: 208-226). 20
those limitations, a "forward" time in the ascendant path towards reason and liberty.
Aided by theoretical insights gained from postmodernism, anthropology has demonstrated the artificial character of the binary "tradition/modernity," revealing quite effectively that these terms invoke conceptions of time and society deeply rooted in particular social and political motivations of the "present."
Various authors have argued (Anderson, 1983; Corrigan and Sayer, 1993; Alonso
1995) that nationalist and regionalist movements of different sorts attach themselves to discourses about "the past" to reconfigure a sense of "tradition" that supports their political projects. However, we must also recognize that in their efforts to suggest that
"everything was better in the past" cultural resistance efforts against processes of modernization can similarly mobilize visions about the past that are no less artificial than the hegemonic ones. Hence, both what is thought of as "traditional" and what is considered "the past" could serve as justification for diverse political agendas. The notion of "the traditional" in Sonoran regionalist discourse is no exemption (Nunez, 1995). And such a discourse, inflected as it is with sexist and racist ideologies, does not include in any sense of the word a greater sense of freedom and intimacy in the past, as the comment by the young man above suggests.
How to explain, then, a field of personal freedom^ in the past that does not exist in the present? I find that to answer this question, the work of the philosopher and historian
Michel Foucault on the "history of sexuality" (Foucault, 1976) offers the best theoretical
' I am assuming here Foucault's theoretical definitions on power and fi-eedom. Power is a social relation that works to structure the possibility of action. Freedom involves therefore, the possibility for choice. Power is only possible when choice is possible in human action. If human actions were the product of "natural necessity" or "instincts", it would be unnecessary to talk about power or fi-eedom. 21
grounds. Foucault demonstrates that the history of sex, far from being the history of a desire that advances historically from repression to liberation, can be better understood as the history of a "mode of speaking" about "sex", of understanding it socially and politically, and of the ways in which the erotic desire is defined socially. The very notion of "sexuality" as an inner "true of the self (like when one speak of "my sexuality" or of
"women's sexuality") that permeates the whole being is a cultxiral and political modem invention. Each one of those "modes of speaking" exists also as "discursive regimes" that incite or limit certain actions; in other words, as regimes of power and freedom.
This dissertation takes off precisely from that rich body of theoretical discussions in anthropology and other disciplines described above. The present work seeks to insert itself within those theoretical lines of inquiry -with the help of the paradoxical effect of an image-to demonstrate the existence in contemporary Mexico of an invisible regime of power that constructs and regulates the field of possibilities for the social actions of men, especially those acts of friendship, affection and eroticism with other men. This work is therefore an investigation on "modes of speaking" about "being a man," "being gay",
"homosexual", "masculine", "trade", "fairy", or having "sexual relations with another man," etc. that construct possibilities for intimacy in general, but affective and erotic intimacy among men in particular.
The image of Jose Pedro and Francisco thus stands as a mirror -as a heuristic element that invites and provokes reflection to make us aware of the fact that we have, in the present, particular ways of understanding and signifying people's conception on their bodies and sex differences, their sexual and reproductive practices, their femininity and 22
masculinity, their affective and erotic behaviours, and the social distinctions and power relations that crosses all these dimensions; that is, that we inhabit in a particular, historically and socially constructed sexual/gender regime.^
The concepts expressed by the young men who commented on the photograph are elements of the discourses^ that construct the sex/gender regime, and as we will try to show through this thesis, these understandings and significations mark the possible range of actions in which men can engage in or participate of, the liberties and relations of power that shape our lives, and even -taking a cue from Foucault— the possible ways in which we construct our sense of pleasure. Their words are something more than just labels: they are also modes of understanding that bring with them assumptions, ideas, value judgments about sexual practices, romance, love, gender, identities, and power.
In this general theoretical framework, several questions emerge prominently:
What exactly makes up the "power regime" of which I speak? What are the conceptions and "modes of speaking" about being a "man", about "men's sexuality" and diverse forms of intimacy between males, that are invisibly constructing the possibilities of acting, understanding, being, and relating sexually and affectively? How are meanings attributed to bodies, sexual experiences, demonstrations of affection, attractions, masculinity and femininity, conditioning the relations of power and pleasure exerted over
' The term sex/gender regime is understood as a system, that is, a structure of relations, of social distinctions and power that has two major characteristics, it is androcentrist and heterosexist. The sex/gender regime produces different effects on people's bodies, desires, subjectivities and relations. The term patriarchy is sometimes used here and by some authors as a synonymous, even though we know that it originally referred to a particular configuration of the sex/gender system, one in which the father exerted the economic, political and symbolic power over an extended agro-pastoral family (see Lamas 1996). ' I use the term following Foucault's definition as a regularity of enunciations containing different objects of discourse in L 'Archeologie du savoir (1969). 23
and between male subjects? How do sexual and gender categories and meanings take part in this sexual/gender regime that frame the possibilities of men intimacy with other men?
On the other hand, I believe that the image of Jose Pedro and Francisco can do more than simply help us become aware of the present dominant discourse in which we are living. It can also stand as a sui-generis mirror that assumes a surrealist character and makes a proposal for what is not present. This proposal is a call for exploration and awareness of a subsumed reality; "another" reality that remains occult and denied within the sex-gender regime and its taxonomy of identity categories.
The ethnographic work I conducted, as well as my own practices of gender and sexual dissidence, have brought me face to face with a "reality" more ambiguous and contradictory than that which is contained in the dominant discourses of what currently counts as "being a man," "heterosexual," "gay," or joto (fairy). I am referring to behaviors, relationships, forms of signification enacted by subjects that are constantly subverting the borders of identities as prescribed by the dominant gender and sexual discourses and through which the same subjects sustain complex relations of subversion, resistance, and/or accommodation.
The contributions of postmodern feminism Butler, 1990, 1993) have put into evidence the unstable, incoherent, and heterogeneous character of sexual and gender identities. As such, they have countered the patriarchal pretensions that hold up various systems of dominant homologies (for instance, the formula man=masculine=heterosexual). The present work stirs the theoretical grounds tilled by those contributions in order to show a "reality" of affective/erotic expressions, of intimacy among males, that escapes the discipUnary and regulatory discourses we may be accustomed to and to answer a series of questions that have intrigued me:
1) Are there "other" loving and erotic realities among men today that escape the
conventional conceptions evoked by the terms gay, homosexual, trade, fairy
ijoto, mayate), etc? Of what do those other realities consist? And what
relationship do those alternative erotics reatites have with the dominant
categories of the discursive regime that frames the possibilities for intimacy
among males?
2) How is it that this discursive regime, this system of dominant representations
about men —their gender identities and their sexualities—^becomes incapable
of understanding "different" realities that do not conform to its preponderant
meanings, both in the past, as in the image of Jose Pedro and Francisco, and in
the present?
3) What is the nature of the relationship between the possibilities for affective
and/or erotic intimacy between males and the dominant discourses and
categories about homoerotic practices and notions of "being a man?"
The questions have figured prominently among my research interests for a long time. They have structured and guided my ethnographic investigations in the sierra of
Sonora as well as in Hermosillo, capital city of the same state, from 1997 to 2002.
Through the different chapters of this thesis I try to answer all these questions. 25
II The theoretical discussions: sexual categories and meanings
The title of this thesis "The Politics of Male Intimacy and Identity in Mexico" in each of its concepts expresses a set of theoretical and analytical perspectives that I have used to construct the object of study and signals a particular intervention in a field of study and its debates, as I understand them. In order to help in the evaluation and judgement of this work's contributions to the academic field, in this preface I intend to clarify my understanding of those debates and how I see this work positioned within such analytical projects.
Sexual meanings and the categories that designate them are of central importance to my arguments in this work. In this regard, I should say first of all, that the choice of the terms "male intimacy" are deemed to mark a particular theoretical position in a debate concerning the use of the modem sexual categories "homosexuality" or "gay" to refer to erotic and/or affectionate practices and relationships among human males in a given culture or through time. In this debate, my argument is that sexual categories are inextricably embedded in sexual and gender systems and convey meanings, ways of understanding actions and people, and ways of creating social distinctions and power relations. Sexual categories and their meanings are not universal or neutral descriptors, but cultural ways of understanding and acting. They reflect the way a society has constructed its sexual values and distinctions in a particular moment. They change historically and from culture to culture, along with many other social, political, economic and cultural changes. They take part of colonial and globalization processes too. Insofar 26
as sexual meaning and categories are relevant for people in their day lives in every society, they should be relevant for researchers and their accounts.
For those reasons, instead of using the modem sexual categories of "gay" or
"homosexual" to name and understand all erotic relationships among males, we use the concept of "male intimacy" to function as a methodological device to open some analytical possibilities to get to know the complex array of meanings and categories that frame the understanding of male homoerotic practices and relations in a given society.
As we shall see in the following chapters, the Mexican sexual and gender system contains multiples ways of understanding and multiples categories related to male to male erotic relations, including, but not limited to, modem discourses and identities like
"homosexual", "gay", and even "queer". In as much as we are trying to understand the relationship of those meanings, categories and practices to gender identities, power relations and resistances, I believe it is preferable to take those categories as objects of study instead of deploying them as analytical tools in and of themselves.
Secondly, it is fair to say that in academia today; many previous of the ethnocentric approaches used in the study of sexuality have given way to more culturally sensitive accounts of "other sexual cultures". Nevertheless, scholars and activists continue to use "homosexual" and "gay" identity labels to characterize all kinds of same- sex relations in "modem westem societies" (a loosely defined cultural and geographical region),^ as if "westem modem societies" were really that homogeneous in their systems of sexual meanings of same sex practices and identities. Some literature on same sex
' Some authors like David Halperin, gets to mention that there are still some efforts in classical studies to "reassert the authority of modem conceptual categories [...] in the studies of classical antiquity" (2002:5). 27
relations across cultures'" has tended to make assertions in their descriptions of "gay"
(therefore "modem", "egalitarian" and "developed") "westem sexual cultures", and
"others" ("pre-modera", "underdeveloped", "unequal") sexual cultures which tended to privilege gender or age distinctions (active/passive, masculine/effeminate or older/younger). A number of academic and gay militant literatures takes as a matter of fact that in our current "westem modem" sex/gender regime, "homosexuality and heterosexuality" are the unique organizing categories of thought, behaviour, identity or erotic subjectivity. Colonialism, lack of further analysis, and a certain longing for
"community" (Joseph, 2002) present in gay militant circles may come to explain the need for these characterizations.
Finally, I believe that the debate over sexual meanings and categories is far form settled. On the contrary, as I will try to show, this discussions continues to be of great relevance as it involves theoretical discussions over subjectivity and subjectivation, power relations and cultural politics, gender identities and meanings (in this case particularly, concepts of manhood and masculinity), and what we understand by resistance and what Foucault call discourse en retour. Categories work as filters of intelligibility of the sexual and in this case homoerotic experience, and therefore take part in the visibility and invisibility of people's sexual existence and lives, and therefore in the legitimating or illegitimating of them.
See for example Gilbert Herdt's book Same Sex among Different Cultures. Exploring Gay and Lesbian Lives, 1997.1 will discuss the implications of this characterization for the case of Mexico in extension in chapter 6. 28
This thesis insists on making visible the existence of a part of homoerotic reality
(practices, subjectivities, power relations and resistance) that has been rendered invisible by those "representational filters" that are dominant sexual categories and meanings: like
"man", "homosexuality", "gay" or, for Mexico, those dominant categories reproduced inadvertently by scholars: active/passive, mayate/joto, etc. Li resisting the use of those dominant categories the homoerotic experience gets revealed as a complex, heterogeneous, and resilient. a) The homosexual identity: From Foucault to Eribon
One can hold Michel Foucault accountable for some generalized uses of
"homosexual" identity in present "modem western societies". As many people know, in the famous first volume of his essays on The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault marked the last third of 19"^ century and the specific discipline of medicine as the time and the setting wherein the modem discourse on sexuality, homosexuality and the homosexual personage itself were given birth. The "homosexual personage" as a medical and, later on, social category came about to substitute the "sodomite" in a radical way: contrary to the sodomite of "ancient times", a man who performed certain sinful or unlawful acts that made him "a relapse", the "homosexual" of modem times, of medical and psychiatric discourses was suspected of having a different nature, with an androgynous interior, a hermaphrodite soul, a person suffering from an inverted desire, "a different species" (Foucault, 1976). In Foucault's account, the birth in medical discourses of the "homosexual" is portrayed in such a sharp way, that it seems to override 29
for the future any other possible way of understanding and classifying same sex eroticism, at least in "modem westem societies".
In the last decade, numerous authors have started to challenge this and other related assumptions. Below I explain some of the key points raised in these arguments:
1) One major focus of criticism is the Foucaultian's historical approach to the relationship between "modem homosexuality" and earlier sexual categories. For Eve
Kosofsky Sedgwick, Michel Foucault' notion of homosexuality was treated as a
"coherent definitional field rather than a space of overlapping, contradictory and conflictual definitional forces" (Sedgwick, 1990: 45)." Sedgwick argues that it is wrong to suppose that earlier sexual categories are superseded or replaced by later ones. Rather, they continue to reappear within later ones, producing an ineradicable instability in those later categories" (Halperin, 2002: 11). This criticism of the sharp contrast between earlier sexual categories and modem ones, and the assertion of their reappearance in later definitions and categories, has been an important inspiration in this thesis, for it opens a cognitive space to think not only at the coexistence of conceptions under the same identity umbrella, let say "gay identity", as Sedgwick points out, but at the coexistence of other conceptions and terms to understand same sex affective and erotic relations.
2) The placing in time and space of these intricate relationships of the homosexual identity and previous categories, subjectivities, and meanings commended renewed interest in gay and lesbian studies. The birth of heterosexuality and modem masculinity received a parallel attention too. Foucault's timing and context of the birth of the
'' Sedgwick makes the same charge against David Halperin too. 30
"homosexual" has been the object of important criticisms as well as clarifications. The
French intellectual and Foucault's biographer, Didier Eribon (2004) points to Foucault's own different timing and origins of the homosexual identity. According to Eribon, in a previous book, The Birth of the Clinic, Foucault set the 17th century and the imprisoning process of undesired subjects: poor people, vagrants, mental ills, and sodomites, as the time and setting of the birth of the modem conception of homosexuality as a "trouble of reason", that will be later systematized and elaborated in psychiatric and medical discourses.
On the other hand, some historians have shown how the medical discourse on
"homosexuality" and the homosexual identity itself followed a much more complex trajectory than that sketched by Foucault, and coexisted with more ancient, but still in use, conceptions, subjectivities, and identity categories. Thus, Jonathan Katz (2001) has shown us how the social conceptions of love, sex, masculinity, and friendship shaped same-sex desire and framed same-sex erotic and affective relations among men throughout nineteentli century United States. The "love of comrades" was (and if we believe in Sedgwick's "coexistence" still is) a particular framework to imagine and live same-sex love. George Chauncey is (1994) depictions of popular "trades" (masculine men) and "queer" (effeminate men), "wolves" (adult men) and "punks" (young men) along side the increasing presence of middle class discourses on "inverts", "perverts" and
"homosexuals", showed us the complex coexistence during the first half of the twentieth century New York of gender and age based conceptions of same-sex relations, with modem conceptions of male "homosexuality" as an "inner true" of desire, and an 31
increasing heterosexualization of masculine identity'^. Other recent studies have shown the hmited character of the modem "heterosexual-homosexual" polarity to account for same-sex relations among sailors and military in the US nowadays. Working class conceptions of manhood and masculine sexuality, as well as military corporate culture seem to account for these sexual transgressions of binary identities, as depicted by Steven
Zeeland(1993, 1995).
3) Recent attention to popular cultures has been the source of another criticism to Michel
Foucault's analysis; fundamentally, the importance given to "medical discourses" in the invention of "homosexuality" and the shaping of modem conceptions in detriment of popular conceptions and the underground "homosexual subculture" (like those taking place in the famous "Molly Houses" in London [Trumbach, 1989]) of seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth centuries along Europe. According to some scholars (like Eribon and Chauncey), doctors and psychiatrists drew on popular conceptions and categories already existing, and in particular traits of the homosexual scene, in the construction of their sexual discourses and characterizations. Prominent "inverted", "uranist" and
"homosexuals" themselves took part in the shaping of those modem sexual discourses.
Thus, far from originating and spreading from medical discourses on "homosexuality",
"homosexual subculture" was knotted in the working class bar culture existing long before the medical sexual classifications (Chauncey, 1994).
George Chauncey explains that with the vindication of "manhood" and masculinity by a section of those who called themselves "queers", and the challenges posed by the first feminist movement and the economy (which made more difficult to fulfill the manly expectation of autonomy), men (especially middle class, but followed by working class) made of exclusive heterosexuality a central element of a new "normal manhood". The invention of heterosexuahty in the United States was widely explored by Katz (1995). 32
All these criticism of Foucault's accounts on modem homosexuality: 1) the coexistence with other categories and forms of understandings of the homoerotic experience, 2) the different rhythms, contexts and politics related to the construction of modem homosexual identity, and 3) the importance of popular cultures vis a vis the medical establishment, have been enriching and important contributions to the academic study of homoerotic relations. They are present, too, in the theoretical framework of this thesis as evidenced in the attention paid to three major aspects: 1) the diversity of homoerotic experience, the coexistence of a complex array of meanings and categories, beside the "homosexual or gay" identity, or the macho/joto binaries; 2) the way people manage in daily lives to give meanings and resist meanings to their same sex affective and/or erotic relationships, in spite of hegemonic sexual discourses, and the class dimensions behind those sexual and gender politics; and 3) the study of a particular political, social, and cultural context in which those transformations are taking place; namely a set of mral towns of northem Mexico and the late twentieth century, the time of trans-national labour and cultural globalization. b) The quest for a homosexual subjectivity and culture.
The scholarly criticism on Foucault's assertions has enriched our understanding of the homoerotic experience throughout history, and the complex technologies of power that have shaped it. Nevertheless, it has not precluded overriding uses of terms like
"homosexual" or "homosexuality" or even "gay" to characterize same-sex practices and relations or related cultural productions in "modem westem" societies. On the contrary, 33
it seems that the discovery in history of lively "homosexual subcultures"'^ in modem times, before the medical invention of "homosexuality", and the very fact of the presence of intellectuals pertaining to that culture in the medical establishment, has renewed in some authors the idea of a "homosexual subjectivity" through history, or at least through
"modem westem history", and a concomitant long lasting and linked parole homosexuelle, as Eribon puts it (1999).
Didier Eribon (a major promoter of Gay and Lesbian Studies in France), does not deny the importance of historical studies that prove the recent origin of the "homosexual" notion, and as he says, that "even for not so very far in the past, that notion is too massive, too unwieldly, too normative, to take into account all this multiple and heterogeneous experiences" (2004: 6). What I find objectionable in Eribon's argument is that he thinks that through the analysis of a literary tradition going back to Whitman, passing by the British's Pater, Symond, and Wilde, and ending with famous French writers Andre Gide and Proust, a kind of westem "homosexual canon", it is possible to find, in the middle of this "multiplicity and heterogeneity" of homoerotic experiences, a social and historical regularity and continuity in westem modem societies, that can be described by words like: "homosexual subjectivity", "homosexual discourse of resistance", and "gay world". Not surprisingly, the report that emerges from his
It is quite debatable to call these subcultures "homosexual", especially if the term wasn't even created, but also considering the tremendous ideological charge of this term nowadays. One questions if the "desire of community" does not override historical precision. Certainly, one may consider with a light heart that kind of linguistic uses, but it is important to ask, once liberated from their context, how many years or centuries before will the "homosexual" of "gay" categories will be taken away to account for same-sex erotic relations? Far from being an expression of "radical nominalism", as Didier Eribon (1998; 21) describes George Chauncey detailed analysis of native categories and meanings, I think it is the possibility of a relevant account of same sex loves and desires, as cultural, historical and politically meaningful. 34
sophisticated account is in the end far from including "multiplicity and heterogeneity".
On the contrary, a stable, homogeneous and generalizing narrative of the homoerotic experience is emphasized'"^ and in its turn a sense of a long lasting and stable gay
"cominunity" or "world" emerges.
To understand this tour de force in one of Foucault's collaborators and biographers, it is important to attend to the place of homophobia in Eribon analysis. To this author, homophobia, through the form of a daily and always possible injure^^, inform
"a homosexual subjectivity" and, in its turn, the possibility of a homosexual discours en retour, as well as many other cultural practices of resistances.
This conception of homophobia and this importance given to it is nothing new; it owes much to Eve Sedgwick's criticism of Michel Foucault. According to Sedgwick, as radical as the transformation of homosexual identity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could be, their evolution contrasts sharply with the stability and permanence of homophobia. Homophobia, says Sedgwick, has historically preceded the constitution of modem homosexual identity (Sedgwick, 1992). Thus, in contrast to the homoerotic experience and the "homosexual identity" notion itself, that she understands as one unstable, contradictory, conflictual, multiple; homophobia is rendered stable, homogeneous, coherent, a one-piece phenomenon.
Even if Eribon himself through various footnotes is apparently aware of the impact of these categorizations, it becomes unaware inadvertently of its effects in his overall account of the process of subjecitification and re-subjectivation, and his overall characterization of the homoerotic experience. " Injure is a French word conveying the meanings of "damage" and "insult" at the same time. During the final editing of this thesis an English version of Eribon's book was released (2004). The recent English version of his book has translated the term as "insult". 35
Didier Eribon draws on this conception of homophobia, as far as the discourse on the constitution of a "homosexual subjectivity" and discourse en retour through modem history, when he says that in spite of "heterogeneity and multiplicity" of the same-sex experience:
Yet it remains the case that there is a particular type of symbolic violence that is aimed at those who love members of the same sex and that the schemas of perception, the mental structures, that underlie this violence (doubtless largely based an an adnrocentric worldview) are more or less similar everin^fhere, at least in the Western world, and have been so far at least the past century and a half This explains the sense that gay men and lesbians might have of their relation to gay or lesbian experiences form another country or another ahistorical moment when they read works that reconstruct those experiences (2004; 6).
In Eribon's account, this power structure, this "symbolic violence" called homophobia, coalesces in a particular subjectification process, homogeneous enough to inform a "homosexual subjectivity" in modem western societies. A process of subjectivation that, as homophobia, seems to benefit from stability (and therefore homogeneity, one could say): "I have wanted to study the gay experience of
« subjectivation » today, and second, to study how, in many ways and despite many changes, it is not so different from what it was a century ago » (2004: 6)'^, says this author.
In no way, it is my purpose in the present work to deny the importance of homophobia in the constitution of a "subculture" and "subjectivity"'^ or a process of
" The first French edition reads : [J'ai voulu etudier ici] ce qu'est le processus d' « assujettissement » des gays aujourd'hui et en quoi, a bien des egards et malgre toutes les evolutions, il n'est pas si eloigne de ce qu'il etai il y a un siecle » (Eribon 1999 :18). " Actually that was the major subject of my book Sexo entre varones. Podery resistencia en el campo sexual (1994, and the second revised edition 1999) where I tried to show the link between structural homophobia, the feeling of difference installed in people, the construction of a subjectivity, the adoption of 36
assujettissement. Homophobia is in my research experience central to understanding the subject formation as well as the re-subjectivation process and the elaboration of a resisting discourse. It is an imdeniable statement. What has yet to be specified exactly in
Eribon account, is: 1) whether the process of subjectivation has the same importance and characteristics for all people engaged in same sex relations and therefore we can speak of a similar process of assujettissement, 2) whether the process has in fact not changed in the last one hundred years and if this continuity can account for all societies; and, most of all, 3) whether the process is homogeneous enough in its results in order to speak of a
"homosexual subjectivity", and a "gay world" for all peoples involved (the lack of precision in Eribon use of the term "gay" only brings about ambiguity and confusion to this later point).
The Foucaltian concept assujettissement designates a material and discursive power relation that involves two elements; a process of formation of somebody's subjectivity and her/his subjection to a regime of power. Subjectivity is, as power, an integral part of the process of subjectification. To consider that the process of assujettissement of "gays" nowadays are not so far form what it was a century ago, is to say that the very power relations and the subjectivities of those engaged in same sex relations nowadays are not so far form what they were a century ago. Theoretical positions on subjectivities, power relations, and therefore subjectification, resistance, and
a homosexual or gay identity, and the participation in a set of cultural practices and networks of sociability. In my research what I found at that time, was that just one part of those engaged in homoerotic relations get to develop what we called a "homosexual habitus" and adopt a "gay" or "homosexual" identity. 37
identities, are all implicated in these comments on homophobia, homosexual subjectivities and homosexual cultures. c) Multiple homoerotic experiences, multiple homophobic experiences.
Eribon's idea of the subjectification of "gay" people as constant or more or less similar throughout a century is frankly disconcerting and unsustainable if we attend to some important recent studies, like Florence Tamagne's Histoire de L 'Homosexualite en
Europe (2000) and her depiction of same-sex erotic and love relations (under the model of a strong masculine friendship) among military men serving in the trench of the First
World War'^, or George Chauncey's Gay New York. This last author shows how much the meaning (and not only the categories) of same sex relations and peoples own self- understanding and perceptions have changed in just half a century. For example, 1920's fairies, trades or wolves'?, subjectivities'^, and therefore subjectification and resubjectification processes cannot be more different from modem gays New Yorkers, if we attend to Chauncey's historical accounts.
As I try to demonstrate in the present study, Mexican homoerotic reality is not represented by Eribon's proposition. The ethnographic data in this work shows us that
Mexican homoerotic reality, cannot be characterized by any single narrative, be it one
Florence Tamagne even asserts the importance of this war experience in the development of a decisive and rich homosexual culture in the 20's and early 30's in Europe (2000: 32-45). " "Fairies" according to Chauncey were defined not on reason of "their same-sex desires or activities (their "sexuality"), but rather the gender persona and status they assumed [...] The fairies' sexual desire for men was not regarded as the singular characteristic that distinguished them form other men, as is generally the case for gay men today. That desire was seen as simply one aspect of a much more comprehensive gender role inversion (or reversal)" (1994: 47-48). "Trades", refers "to any "straight" man who responded to a gay man's advances" (1994: 70). "Wolves" on their turn, "occupied an ambiguous position, [...]. They abided by the conventions of masculinity and yet exhibited a decided preference for male partners" especially for "punks", much younger men. This type of relations was much more common among sailors, prisoners, and transient workers who, before the 1920, were quite abundant in American cities (1994: 88). 38
framed by dominant "traditional" sexual categories and meanings (like joto, maricon,
etc.) or modem ones (like homosexual and gay)^*^. Many men have sex and love relations
with other men at the margins of those typologies and meanings; they have them simply
as "men", as the ethnographic account in this thesis clearly demonstrates, and especially
in chapters 6 and 7. Most of these men do not conceive of themselves as having a
"sexuality" in the modem sense of the world, as an inner truth that gives meanings to all
of their being. Therefore, concepts like "homosexual subjectivity", "gay world" or
"homosexual discourse of resistance" can hardly account for all subjects or groups of
people engaged in same sex male erotic and affective relations, their subjectivities, their
subject positions in the sexual/gender field, or their cultural practices and life styles.
The subjectivities and the subject positions in the sexual/gender field of those
engaged in sexual and/or affective relations with people of the same sex are different, and
that is a reflection of their different processes of subjectification they have experienced,
in many cases since early childhood (as I intend to show in chapter 4), and the different
possibilities of resistance or resubjectification in order to survive or escape homophobic
violence.
The perspective on homophobia sustained in this thesis, differs form Sedgwick's
and Eribon's in two respects: 1)1 strive to understand homophobia as a cultural and
historical phenomenon. As a historical phenomenon, homophobia changes in relation to
many others social dimensions. As cultural phenomenon it is an integral part of sexual/gender systems, their ideologies, relations and identities. Thus, instead of
In chapter 6 we fully explore this dichotomous characterization of Mexican homoeroticism. 39
assuming a timeless and structural homophobia, I suggest the need to study how a particular sexual/gender system creates an array of violence in relation to the culturally defined sexual/gender "deviants". 2) The focus on the role of homophobia in the process of masculinization of all men, and the importance of gender identities (effeminacy and masculinity) in the construction of their vulnerabilities in the face of homophobia.
In Mexico and according to literature in many other countries as well, homophobia is not something that structures only "homosexual subjectivities", but
"men's subjectivities" and masculine identity dynamics, because all men are subject to homophobic violence as part of their masculinization process. At the same time, there is a specific and discretional violence toward those men (particularly when they are children and boys) who are "less masculine", "effeminate" or "not masculine enough" according to social standards, and not necessarily toward those men who happens to have affectionate or sexual bonds with other men. Gender comportment (manners, attitudes, and gestures), is of tremendous importance in the shaping of the homophobic experience, and those different homophobic experiences in their turns shape very differently the subjectivities and subject positions of those men having love or sexual relations with other men. At the same time, other aspects like age, class, marital status, and sexual preference and behaviour (be it non-exclusive homosexual preference or the specific sexual acts) as we shall see in chapter 4, shape in definitive ways men's experiences with homophobia as well as their ways of living their homoerotic relations. d) Men's different subjectivities, and different resistances.
In the theoretical perspective we assumed in the present work and 1 would like to think also corroborated by ethnographic data, the process of assujettissement is different among men having sex with other men; and, therefore, their own resulting subjectivities and subject positions and identities in the sexual/gender field are different too. There are multiple and heterogeneous ways of living homoerotic relations among men in Mexico, as different are their own perceptions, values, meanings, contexts, gender identities, and sexual practices. Some of these differences have been captured and described by literature on "gay or homosexual" identities. Some others by literature focused on the
"traditional Mexican sexual system" that stresses gender differences: macho/joto dichotomy. But even these classifications are far away from covering all the homoerotic realities, and even, most of the times, those typologies are in fact subverted and resignified, as I discuss though chapter 6. There is a homoerotic reality that takes place in the complexities of masculine identity politics. The recent epidemiological term in the fight against AIDS: "Men who Have Sex with other Men" (MSM or HSH in Spanish), it is an academic intent to account for this reality of "men having sex with other men as men", as discussed in chapter 7.
The issue of masculine identity, it is fair to say, is of great importance to understand men's capabilities to engage not only in homoerotic relations, but also in expressing and creating intimate relationships. In this terrain, differences, and ambiguities over the meanings of manhood play an important role in men's possibilities 41
for engaging in same sex love or erotic relations, and resisting dominant ideologies of masculinity.
The social process of "making men" out of biological males, or
"masculinization", is not homogeneous, as I try to show in chapters 1 and 2. One important pedagogical element, homophobia, which seems integral in this process takes many different forms. Discourses on manhood or masculinity are historical and social forces. They change; they are diverse, relational, contradictory, and contested in daily lives. Men are socialized in those contradictory discursive spaces, and therefore, the subjectivation process, and the subjectivities and subjections which result of those processes are far form homogeneous, unitary, and stable. As shown in chapters 2 and 3, men negotiate those unstable and contradictory meanings and those unstable and contradictory politics and subjectivities (owns and others) to negotiate their own subject positions and identities as "men", "true men", etc., and very important to our subject of study, to negotiate their own "intimate relationships": emotional communications, love confessions, friendships, and erotic relationships, which could be considered unacceptable by dominant discourses of manhood. The expressions, rajarse and acd entre nos, that we explore in chapter 3, are Mexican expressions that most often are used to engage in a complex re/subjectification process, a complex process of resistance of dominant ideological process of masculinity that would lead to silence, self-restraint, emotional distance and homoerotic repression.
In the theoretical perspective advocated here and in the ethnographic experience,
"masculinity" or "manhood" is not, therefore, the stable and homogeneous subject position and identity of patriarchal power. As feminist studies on men and masculinities have shown, men are not all equal, and even if in androcentric culture they share a gain of symbolic power (that in its turns get translated to other powers: economic, political, social, etc.), there are deep internal differences and power relations by class, ethnicity, sexual preferences, gender identities (more or less masculine, more or less effeminate), educational status, occupation, rural/urban origins, among other elements. Many men get oppressed, discriminated against, by other men and women, and deprived of their share not only of privilege, but even of human dignity. Classist, racist, homophobic, and gender discourses function to classify men according to the share of the symbols of power. Dominant discourses on manhood sometimes deny the identity of "man" to some human males.
Men who experience special affective or erotic bonds with other men have to deal with this power machinery. For many men, there is no alternative but to resist in multiple ways. These resistances do not take necessarily the allready described known path of gay or fairy (joto) identity formation and strategies of resistances, but instead, other complex, ambiguous, and contradictory paths, but effective in many ways, for instance: 1) enlarging the very concept of what counts as being a "man", resignifying their affective and homoerotic relations in gender terms (as a "masculine" issue) and resisting other dominant categories, 2) framing those relationships in terms of friendship, comradeship, or just having fun together, thus enlarging the meanings and practices of homosociality,
3) engaging in silence, and 4) pretending or living them in the uncounsciousness of drunkenness so as to enable them to manage their feelings and pleasures. 43
This issue takes us to the enlarging and disputing dominant discourses of masculinity and its homophobic consequences, as acts of "resistance", and therefore, to the issue of how do we conceptualize resistance and power. To us, power is a social relation, not a thing that one can have or not. However, it is not an external relation between pre-constituted subjects, but the very process (material and discursive at the same time) through which their subjectivities get constituted and they get subjected (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985).
This process is never totally achieved as it is always unstable and contradictory.
Resistance, in consequence, is a social relation that involves a subject already implicated in a power relation at the level of their subjectivity, by the dominant discourse that structures his/her perceptions, thoughts, and feelings, and therefore structures their possibilities for action Resisting the dominant discourses it is a major element of all kind of resistances. Resistance is always in some way, therefore, a process of re- subjectification, or re-inventing oneself through the meaning one gives to one's identity and practices.
The practices of resistance acquire a variety of modalities, but all of them involve in some way or another, in a greater or lesser degree, a resignification process of dominant representation of subjects, acts, and beings, of "what he/she is", and "what he/she does". This fight over meaning is complex, contradictory, unstable, multiple, non systematic, nevertheless regular as a social phenomenon, as our interviews witness. To account for this complex, contradictory and unstable process through which men resist the dominant gender and sexual discourses, and their values and conceptions over men's homoerotic bonds, we may use another theoretical concept from Foucault to understand 44
this struggle over meaning and power: "the tactic polyvalence character of discourses' rule". The aim of resistance is to resist the effects of power, and by definition, to open the possibilities for action. In the present study, I go even further in the understanding of resistance as involving not only those struggles over meanings or a "counter-discourse" that have a level of verbal articulation, to include transgressive practices themselves. The
Mexican scholar Ana Amuchastegui (1998, 2001) call this "the subjugated discourse of practice" {el discurso subyugado de la prdctica) after witnessing how young girls in rural communities of the state of Michoacan had sexual transgressive practices of dominant sexual discourses over women, that did not have a verbally articulated discourse to express them.^' Many homoerotic experiences among men, as we show through these chapters, express very well these theoretical categories.
The issue of men resisting homophobic power through silenced transgressive practices or through the tactical uses of masculine enunciations22 disputes a dominant ideological concept of gay liberation, but equally appropriated by the heterosexist power, as Sedgwick already has demonstrated: "the closet". As there are some people (scholars and activist) who consider that studying homoerotic relations of those who suspend or resist for themselves the terms of "gay" or "homosexual" are not "Gay Studies" but "Men studies", there may be some others too, who consider that what I describe as "resistances" are in fact examples of "the closet".
Amuchastegui considers too those transgressive practices that get to enter in contradiction with the dominant discourses that people continue to give to the interviewer. An enunciation is according to Foucault the smallest unit of discourse containing an object of discourse. The expression "One has to be a real man and to have muchos guevos (big testicles) to do it", of an interviewee is an example of what I am trying to say. 45
I do not intend to write an apology of "masculinity" or of "silence". This is not a moral project. However, I think the category "closet" should be revised in light of contemporary theories of power, subjectivity and resistance. As we know, the metaphor of the "closet" is a metaphor integrated to modem notion of "sexuality" as a "true desire" living inside oneself, and giving sense to all our being and acts. As Foucault says, one of the characterisitcs of this modem technology of "sexuality" is not only the system of
"prohibitions", but the obligation to speak, to say the truth about oneself Confessing oneself as indicated in the "out of the closet" metaphor can be conceived too as a type of governence. In this regard Foucault says: "How did a type of government of men take shape, one in which they are not simply required to obey, but to express, by telling that what one is?" (1996: 35)^^.
Thus, the "closet" is a metaphor implicated in a particular way of understanding and resisting (although paradoxically) heterosexist technologies that emerged in certain societies: "gay politics".Therefore, "the closet" is a culturally, historically and politically bounded category. As many scholars have shown there are other ways of
The Spanish version from which I paraphrase into English reads: "^Como se formo un tipo de gobiemo de los hombres en el que no se exige simplemente obedecer, sino manifestar, comunicandolo, eso que uno es?" and it has been taken from Michel Foucault. Tecnologias delyo y otros textos afines. Introduccion de Miguel Morey (1990). This quotation comes from archival documents existing in the Centre Michel Focualt and that are quoted by Miguel Morey. Gay politics made their appearance in Mexico since 1971 when the Homosexual Liberation Front was formed by theater director and cultural critic Nancy Cardenas and a group of intellectuals and artists. Since then it has made its in-roads in Mexican society slowly and unevenly in different regions and classes. There is nevertheless, a commonality of international language and symbols with international gay culture among modem urban middle-class young gays. The term "closet" and its meanings aforementioned are used too in the representational struggle of the homoerotic experience that has always taken part inside and outside the ambiente or "scene". Many people do not even know the term. For an interesting study of the history of the Mexican homosexual movement and its implications in the particular gay identity politics of a group of young gay males in Mexico City see the thesis of Miguel Porfirio Hernandez Cabrera (2002): No nacimos ni nos hicimos, solo lo decidimos. La construccidn de la identidad gay en el grupo unigayy su relacion con el movimiento lesbico, gay, bisexualy transgenerico de la ciudad de Mexico. understanding desire, attraction, erotic or love feelings, beyond modem notion of sexuality or sexual orientation, so that people do not feel confronted or urged with the need, culturally and politically installed, to "be honest" and "tell the truth", under the cultural boundaries of "gay identity" (which by the way, happens to have a least in
Mexico, a strong, although somehow invisible for gay dominant militant discourses, class and ethnic connotation, as we argue in chapter 7).
As I have previously stated, people live their sexual interest in people of their same sex from different subjective and identity positions, even if dominant sexual discourses tend to position peoples and their feeling and acts, under certain categories and meanings. The process of re-subjectiflcation is conditioned by the previous subjectification process, which we think it is diverse. As Eribon himself says: "the acts through which one reinvents one's identity are always dependent on the identity that was imposed by the sexual order. Nothing is created out of nothing, certainly not subjectivities" (Eribon, 2004 : 7).
For many men who have sex with other men, the "assigned identity » from where resubjectivation takes place, is not "homosexual" or "gay", or "fairy" (joto) but "man", and from that identity starts their process of "reinventing themselves" to allow their homoerotic and/or love relations take place. These forms of resubjectivation takes many forms, such as pictures, confessions, jokes, keywords, way of reasoning, conceptions, silences, and excuses, as it takes more or less time and effort. In as much as the identity and the subjectivity from where they start their resubjectification process is not the same 47
in all cases, and it is not the same to those who get to identify themselves as "gay" or
"fairies", the concept of the "closet" is not adequate.
The homoerotic experience is in any way inscribed in the privileges of the dominant ideological project of manhood (Herzfeld, 1985), and it is always somehow heterodox in the sexual/gender field. We are in the face of other paths for re- subjectivation for confronting homophobia, not in the face of "hypocresy" or way of
"masculine privilege". These men who engage on homoerotic relations, they do it by opposing dominant ideologies and resisting in a greater or lesser degree (depending on many social factors like class, cultural capital, rural/urban living). We are in the face of men struggling to become "subjects of their own" {sujet d'eux mimes as Eribon says
[1999: 116]) regarding their homoerotic experiences and desires, by engaging in a reflection over issue of "manhood" and "masculinity" and their emotional and erotic capabilities. As I show all along this thesis, many times these reflections involves an awareness of masculine identity as an artifice, a construction, a performance, a masquerade, that ends up in the strategic use of its instabilities, ambiguities, contradictions, in order to resist or to create a discourse en retour. e) Polimorphous and Perverse: Sexuality, desire, Male Intimacy and Homosociality.
Once confronted with the heterosexist question of the "origin of homosexuality",
Foucault refused to give any explanation about it. I agree with this refusal and its political dimension. Foucault rejected too, as Eribon does later, the militant, and
Freudian based conception of original bisexuality as a political statement intending to get acceptance. My conception regarding this issue is similar to Foucault and Eribon; I also 48
reject the vindication of "bisexuality" as an ideological subterfuge in favour of a political purpose. Nevertheless, I accept Freudian conception of Eros as polymorphous and perverse. To my understanding it is necessary to recuperate this theoretical position in its radicalism to account for the diversity of homoerotic experience and the oppressive character of dominant sexual and gender discourses. To say that "sexuality" or "sex" are cultural inventions, object of discourse, does not mean that there is not a a reality related to those categories that should be accounted for.
According to Foucault, "sexuality" does not pre-exist the scientific modem discourses. It is an object of discourse strongly linked to a knowledge-power technology.
It is 19th century psychiatric discursive explosion which gave birth to the scientia sexualis with its confessing technologies and its hermeneutics. In his Volonte de Savoir,
Foucault says: "Depuis cent cinquante ans bientot, un dispositif complex est en place pour produire sur le sex des discourse vrais (...) Et c'est a travers de ce dispositif qu'a pu apparaitre comme verite du sex et de ses plaisirs quelque chose comme la "sexualite"
(Foucault, 1976: 91). To Foucault, "sex" in its turn is an artificial unity of an ensemble of anatomical elements, biological functions, pleasures, sensations, behaviours. This flctive unity is naturalized by modem discourse on human sexuality and made a "causal principle". The relationship between power and sex is therefore, an intemal one, given by the very organization of this artificial unity, not only a relation of prohibition or
Since one hundreds fifty years a complex dispositif is in place to produce over sex the true discourses [...] And it is through this dispositif that could come into existence as a truth of sex and its pleasures something like "sexuality". 49
repression (1976:187). But "sex" plays in Foucault analysis another role. It is a productive instance too, not only a fatality.
I believe it is important to have a definition and a theoretical position regarding
"sex". To me, and following Foucault, "sex" is a cultural construction, a way of understanding and the product of a set of disciplinary technologies operating over the body and our libidinal energy, or Eros, and therefore setting limits and possibilities to our pleasures. Culture has to do with the particular reading of the body and anatomical and reproductive differences (as Judith Butler has stressed), but also, it has to do with a particular shaping of a corporeal and psychic libidinal energy or Eros through the rituals of body socializations, family organization, social norms, social experiences, categories, values and meanings, and thus create our "sex".
"Homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" as well as "bisexuality" (as a social category of sex) are social products. Eros or libidinal energy is polymorphous and perverse, it may be addressed to any object and it is moved by a pleasurable relief
Certainly, heterosexist society with its norms, institutions, and values tend to foster and accept within people an exclusive "heterosexual desire". The homosexual desire, in its tum, emerges in a dialogical relation to heterosexist society, as despicable. It becomes therefore the repressed or the productive force for the reinvention of the self in the margin, but in relation, to heterosexist society.
It is my theoretical position here that the homoerotic desire is therefore always present, even is absent from consciousness. The trajectory of desire is heterogeneous enough in subject's history as to include always a homosexual (and heterosexual) object 50
choice, as Freud said (1962). A binary ideology around sexual preference tends to polarize our understanding of a personal desire that happens to be much more complex, ambiguous and multiple that dominant sexual discourse make us to believe.
To acknowledge or propose this intrinsic polymorphous and perverse character of
Eros, or this intrinsic instability and multiple character of desire, is not to say that all people are "bisexual" and that in an "open society" and respectful of sexual diversity, heterosexual and gay people will become "bisexual" or even that "bisexuality" is what is desirable politically. My theoretical argument in debt with Freud, does not deny erotic preferences (including of course bisexual preferences), but it affirms that in an "open society", that is, in a non androcentric, heterosexist (with is identity binaries) and homophobic society, we may get to have a much more fluent, and heterogeneous sexual existence, than we tend to think, and that even hetero and homo desires will have different shapes and meanings.
At the political level, on the other hand, gay people are not the ones who tend to reject this theoretical approach, but mostly those defined as heterosexuals, as much as that involves the acknowledgment of a desire (as secondary or minimum as it may be) socially despised. The political implication of such a theoretical approach is not the creation of a bisexual world, as we have said, but the creation of a symbolic space to think or re-think the homoerotic desire as something that is not foreign to anybody and crosses cultural formations and social relations. It makes possible too, to think of a wide spectrum of homoerotic practices that we group here under the category "male intimacy". 51
The concept of "male intimacy" should be understood within this conception of desire. It refers to a space of affective and/or erotic intimacy, or proximity, which can be created among males that covers a wide spectrum of possible social configurations of desires and identities. "Intimacy" goes beyond sexual contact, but involves a closeness of souls and/or bodies in the framework of a special relationship of revelation (Bawin and
Dandurand, 2003). Male intimacy is not the result of a specific "homosexual preference" in the theoretical perspective elaborated here, but it is an expression of a desiring dynamics that is multiple in its object choices, and get its way under certain cultural forms. I am not referring here, therefore, to something that paraphrasing Adrienne Rich we may call "homosexual continuum" that would involve friendship and gay erotic, but to a kind of proximity and revelation that takes place by subverting somehow dominant ideologies of masculinity or sexuality.
I understand "friendship" as a social relation that may involve intimacy, but this is not always the case, even if it has as its principle a homoerotic desire, although previously Oedipicized, as Guy Hocquenghem once said (1972), that is, sublimated by patriarchal institutions. According to some scholars like Katz (2001), Dulac (2003), and others, it seems that with the increasing heterosexualization of society, and homophobia, historically, friendship has tended to "crystallizes more around social relations than on intimate relations" (Dulac, 2003: 27). As a cultural formation, intimacy has changed over time and in relation to many other social dimensions. Dulac expresses the profound transformation of intimacy in modem times in this way:
Since 19'*^ century, masculine intimacy, especially as a feature of friendship between men, has been radically transformed. One has assisted not only to a 52
passage from masculine friendship to heterosexual marriage (...) but also to a decline and a reduction of appropriate places for its expression. At the end of 19"^ century marriage became the place par excellence of intimacy, at the same time that the ideal of masculine friendship was deprived of its characteristic of intimacy and associated with suspected behaviours. Very soon, physical and affective intimacy with another man stopped to be part of acceptable social behaviours, and they went go along with fear and discredit of homosexuality (Dulac, 2003: 11).
Contrary to this fear of discredit, male virility was not considered in danger by male intimacy before the modem idea of homosexuality, and the binary distinction heterosexual -homosexual were present in peoples spirits and vocabulary says Dulac, who explains by quoting Foucault:
The continuum of intimacy which goes from word to sexuality was applied to people's relations more than to discrete categories (men-women) which could, for instance, to apply today to bisexuals, queer, behaviours. If masculine intimacy is further confined to the heterosexual relations framework within the nuclear family, comradeship and links between men are launched into the public sphere, there where they may be subjected to a visibility and to a cluster of mora] dispositifs. (Dulac, 2003: 11).^^
It is important to mention that this transformation of social expectation around intimacy, although it has not eliminated male intimacy, it has shaped it in such a way, as making of it a relationship that demands from men a "set of paradoxical traits regarding traditional (hegemonic) masculinity" (Trobst et al., 1994) for example: sustaining affective expression, the "opening" or revelation of the self (rajarse), the sharing of emotions and body contacts, including erotic ones, and in many cases its confinements to hidden or marginal places in personal and social life.
These are my translations from French. As I try to show through the ethnographic data, many men share intimate relations, some of them more lasting than others, some of them more affectionate than others, some of them more satisfying than others, but all of them involve a certain degree of revelation of their owns bodies, their own nudity, their own desires, and needs to other men, as to in practice, if not verbally, elaborate a subjugated discourse of resistance and transgression of dominant ideologies of masculinity. In this thesis I try to show the persistence of this type of male intimate relationships, especially among certain social classes and groups, and the gender politics (specially those policing masculinities) and sexual politics (particularly those policing homosexual identity categories) that tend to render them invisible or despicable.
Homosociality, as friendship, is not necessarily a space of male intimacy, on the contrary, most of the times; it tends to become a space of masculinization or of enactment of masculine tests. As a witness group of a masculine performance, the homosocial group works often contrary to any kind of revelation or proximity more typical of our definition of intimacy. Nevertheless, homosociality is something more than a simple instrument of patriarchal oppression or totalitarian regimes.
The idea that men's homosociality is necessary linked to the homophobic or sexist system or even to totalitarism is wrong. There is a long tradition of democratic homosociality among men and among women. Whitman vindication of "love of comrades" allowed us to discover the existence of a subculture of intimacy among men that does not reproduce and even oppose the puritanical and patriarchal demands of his times, making at the same time a strong defence of democracy. According to Eribon, 54
Edward Carpenter, the famous British sexologist and social reformer inspired by
Whitman (and I would add more contemporary intellectuals like Paolo Passolini) have made into existence a culture of friendship among men (of different classes or ethnic backgrounds) that is coextensive to the idea of socialism and democracy (Eribon, 2004;
197). It is worth to remember that many of these men were also important and enthusiastic supporter of feminist movements.
In this thesis I propose that we should understand men's homosociality as a social organization that, as any social organization, it is not already fixed and forever, but it unstable, contradictory and contested as it is masculine identity itself. As it is true that homosocial spaces may become and have historically worked for the reproduction of sexist violence against women and men, it is true, that homosociality has been a space of resistance for many men, fleeing from heterosexism and homophobia too, as gay friendship and male intimate bonds in peace movements have shown.^'
There is no essence in men's homosociality, and even a quintessential homosocial space of patriarchal and capitalist power as war and the military, has not been exempted at a personal and social level, of ambiguity and contradiction regarding heterodoxal gender and sexual subjects as Florence Tamagne, Friederich Katz or Steven Zeeland have proved in their respective research, and as I here show through the revelations of some
Mexican military young men. Homosociality for these men is at the same time a challenge to their masculine identities, but also an opportunity for exploring in the
Of course we oppose as false by evidence, that masculine homosexual bonds are the final expression of homosociality of men and therefore the final embodiment of women's oppression, and particularly of lesbian oppression, as Adrienne Rich (1979) once suggested. 55
framework of comradeship, an affective and erotic bond, and in consequence, to enter in a process of resistence through a resubjectification and elaboration of a discours en retour, unsettling the very dominant conception of masculinity and homosexuality.
Ill The context: the Traveled Path
The Sierra of Sonora is a semiarid and mountainous zone, traversed by three main rivers from north to south that have facilitated the development of small agricultural valleys on their banks. It was originally inhabited by Opatas Tribes, an indigenous group that was the main source of local mestizaje along with the Spaniards. Jesuit missionaries organized small mission pueblos starting in the 1?"^ century until their expulsion in 1765.
The dissolution of the mission system yielded the formation of small agro-pastoral communities, largely dedicated to subsistence agriculture. During the 19"^ century this economy coexisted along with waged labor at the local mines, and was complimented by artisans and merchants. The permanent war campaigns against the Apaches, in which both indigenous and non-indigenous groups participated, exerted a significant influence on the development of the region. In some areas of the sierra, those wars lasted all the way into the second decade of the 20'^ century. The wars against the Apaches, according to anthropologist Ana Alonso, conditioned the ethnic and gender ideologies of the human groups in the area, including their conceptions of honor, virtue, respect, dignity, and autonomy (Alonso, 1995). It also engendered an egalitarian ethic among the settlers, partly as a result of the need to join efforts to defend their communities. 56
In the case of men, the wars represented a strong incentive for the display of
warrior attributes: courage, self-control, the capacity to kill, resistance to harsh
conditions. Similarly, the display and cultivation of attributes that distinguished men
from their "savage" enemies were promoted: Christian values, respectful treatment of
women, and the importance of work and family order, among others.
The post-revolutionary state brought with it a gradual expansion of its central
institutions, ideologies, and regulations throughout the course of the 20"^ century.
Nonetheless, subsistence agriculture continued to coexist throughout the century,
supplemented by temporary wage labor in the mines and by migrant laborers or braceros who moved back and forth to the United States. The decade of the 1960s brought access to domestic comforts and "modem" services such as electricity, potable water, roads, telephones, health clinics, as well as a full integration to a market economy through the cattle and forage industries. The decade of the 1980s brought to the sierra widespread access to television and most recently cable TV. All these changes have resulted in a kind of modernization process that has not always been efficient; such unevenness has resulted in what someone has called a "broken" or defective modernity (Simonelli, 1987). During the 1990s, the export assembly plants known as maquiladoras turned to the sierra as a means of reducing production costs. Maquiladoras can be described either as the "crown jewel" or the "last drop" of the transformation of sierra society, depending on one's point of view. Drug trafficking and the expanding presence of the military and the judicial police in the last few years have completed the full cycle of changes in this region.
Recently, maquiladoras have been the occasion of a set of discourses regarding its impact 57
on women's reproduction and sexuality, as well as on men and women gender identities, specially in the younger generation (Nunez, 1998)
These serrano communities, most of them with populations less than 3,000, have also served as the main source of migration to the Sonoran coastal and border cities since the 1950s. But the largest migration has been to the capital city of Hermosillo itself
Many of these immigrants have integrated themselves successfully into the local labor market, including the automotive and high tech manufacturing industries. Others find jobs in construction or service occupations. With a population nearing 650,000 according to the 2000 Census, the city of Hermosillo nonetheless retains an undeniable
"countryside" flavor in spite of the fact that its primary industries are commerce, services, and manufacturing. This distinguishing characteristic owes much to the fact that many first and second generation immigrants hold on to the modes of dress, talk, and behavior that they and others call cheras (from "vaqueras" or cowboy-like), "Je pueblo"
(small-town feel), or simply, serranas. My own family history in some way fits this profile.
IV The Methodology
The fieldwork for this investigation was realized as part of my duties as a researcher within an academic institution in Hermosillo (CIAD, A.C.) where I began working after completing graduate coursework at the University of Arizona. My responsibilities in this institution allowed me to engage in two primary research projects: the first one examined prevalent conceptions of gender in serrano communities; the second one investigated sexual and reproductive conceptualizations in three generations of men in the same communities. For purposes of the present work, I am also drawing on research that I conducted in the city of Hermosillo from 1988 to 1992 and from 1997 to
2002. It is also important to mention that the academic formation that I received while I was a student at the University of Arizona, particularly in the areas of cultural theory, language and culture, inquiries about power and identities, and gender studies including the study of masculinities, contributed in large measure to the intellectual frame that orients this investigation.
The tasks involved in the collection of data for this investigation were consistent with the well-known and time-tested practices of the ethnographic method. They included the methodical registry of what is observed, heard, and felt in field notebooks, in the same day if possible. In some instances, when I was too tired at night to record in detail things that I heard or observed, I always made it a point to do so immediately upon rising the next day. The field notebooks contain analytical and methodological as well as descriptive entries. I also kept a personal journal along with the field notebooks. The joumal allowed me the freedom to explore in more extensive and subjective terms my own reactions to the research process. Through my joumal writing I was able to "track," so to speak, changes in mood that affected my desire to engage in some topics at different times and not others, or to explain why I tended to seek the company of some informants more than others, or why I occasionally suffered from nightmares.
The people around me, both in Hermosillo and in the communities in the sierra, were aware that I was a researcher. I described the investigation in simple and concise 59
terms: I was conducting a study about differences between being a man and being a
woman, changes about those ideas, machismo, and relationships among couples, etc.
Most people reacted positively to the study and commented that it was relevant to them
because the recent expansion of the maquiladora plants had brought about "many
changes" among families in those areas.
In my experience, conducting ethnographic research in the urban area of
Hermosillo has always been easier. The city affords many social opportunities not found
in the sierra, such as meeting places where men gather for relaxation or in search of
sexual encounters. The circulation of cosmopolitan values in social and work settings
makes bringing up the topic of sexuality much more comfortable. A general ethos of
urban anonymity facilitates exchanges of affection among males and I have always found
men eager and willing to discuss their lives and their personal histories, even to talk about
personal realms unrelated to homoerotic practices. My general rapport with informants
was one of friendship and camaraderie. A great deal of the knowledge I gained on the
materials in this study came about because of the trust engendered by many of those
relationships.
The kind of subjects that provide the main source of information for a study of
this kind can hardly be chosen according to statistical sampling. Sometimes the best
informants emerge out of a chance encounter or from a casual conversation in a setting specific to the kind of topic that is being investigated. Sometimes one informant leads
you to another and then to another until, as they say, the network and the topics of conversation "snowball." In these instances, the preferred research methods are a peculiar 60
combination of observation, in-depth interviews and informal conversations. However, trust, and hence frankness, is extremely important in all cases. It is what guarantees to the researcher the abundance of enunciation required to make a nuance and detailed analysis.
In this investigation, therefore, the primary objects of analysis are those enunciations that conform the discourse of masculinity -modes of talking about "being a man," being homosexual, having sexual relations with men, loving men, being "gay" or fairy (joto), etc, as well as the complex relationship of those verbal statements with the actions and identities of subjects. The elements of discourse that I am describing could not be determined prior to the investigation. Even though I had sketched some notions and lines of inquiries about the topic at hand, some of the critical discursive evidence in this study appeared gradually as spontaneous expressions uttered by informants. In other instances, I probed everyday forms of speech used by informants in order to clarify concepts and terms that up to then I had taken for granted.
Summarizing, through the research process that involves collecting data and analyzing it, I used the methodology called grounded theory and analytical induction^^.
The information provided by interviews, as it is being collected, is used to generate, to compare and confront hypothesis all along the ethnographic process. This process aims not to verify existing theories or a previous hypothesis, but to discover regularities and to develop concepts and interpretations. The analytical induction methodology implies, once certain regularity is revealed, a confrontation with new data, specially those "negative
On this subject: Charmaz, K. (2000), "Grounded Theory", en N.K. Denzin y Y. S. Lincoln, Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks; Glaser, B. G. y Strauss, A, (1967), The Discovery of Grounded Theory, Aldine, New-York; Strauss, A. y Corbin, J. (1990), Basics in Qualitative Research, Sage, Newbury Park; Turner, B.A. (1981), "Some Practical Aspects of Qualitative Data Analisis", Quality and Quantity, no. 15, Amsterdam. 61
cases" which seem to contradict the previous analysis. Authors coincide to point out that induction analysis complements grounded theory.
My native fluency in Spanish in general, as well as my extensive knowledge of the dialects and variations in Spanish use peculiar to Sonora helped me establish quick and fluid connections with the meanings implied in certain words and expressions. My prior experiences researching the sexual field in Sonora (Nunez 1994) and my own personal ventures into various aspects of gender and sexual dissidence, while not authoritative, gave me valuable insights that carried through in the present investigation.
Nonetheless, I want to make clear that I never engaged in sexual practices with my informants, men or women. This decision was not the result of a lack of desire, opportunity, or some abstract reverence to objectivity, but rather it was made out of the fear of altering the dynamics of communication between researcher and informants.
Neither I nor the discipline of anthropology itself has yet found a satisfying resolution to the ethical and scientific issues raised by crossing such boundaries.
Although my research practices elucidated very personal information from the subjects of study, they were not in any way similar or related to "psychoanalysis." I reached conclusions about male intimacy and identities through a cumulative process of analysis that surmised regularities in the discourse out of the accumulation of diverse enunciations by multiple subjects. The primary activities employed to accomplish this kind of analysis were listening and observation -my own "voice" appeared in these exchanges primarily as an interlocutor, never as an interrogator. My goal was to tease out of these conversational contexts those speech acts that constitute "objects of discourse" in the manner in which Foucauh (1967) described such processes. In other words, to appreciate those instances wherein repetition constituted regularity as well as those in which oppositional, alternative, and heterogeneous points of view were manifested vis-a vis the commonsense perspective. I found particularly interesting those instances in which observed practices seemed to contradict conceptualizations articulated in other moments by the same subjects, what the Mexican scholar Ana Amuchastegui has called
"practice's subjugated discourse." I found that it is precisely in the "irregularities" of speech and practice, in the contradictions of "non-official" histories, that the alleged normativity of the discursive regime becomes most apparent.
1 refer to certain histories as "non-official" because the picture of male intimacy and identity that emerges out of an analytical incursion into those stories is predominantly one that contradicts what I call in Chapter 6 "the dominant model of apprehension of homoerotic practices in Mexico." That model is in fact a regime of understanding that operates at the level of social discourse by representing itself as common sense or "conventional wisdom." It is in every sense of the word, a "regime" - deeply violent and patriarchal—yet likely to be reproduced as easily in the texts of anthropologists and social scientists as it is by social activists who claim to have unique access to the "true" representation of homosexuality in Mexico.
To the extent that I was primarily interested in the total set of expressions of the discursive regime I have described, I found in the messages crafted by gender and sexual activists in Mexico a very productive source of ethnographic information. I found particularly intriguing and fruitful several novel conceptualizations that began to circulate 63
in Mexico and Latin America during the first years of the 21®' century -namely, those related to notions of "homophobia," the appellation "men who have sex with other men"
{Hombres que tienen sexo con Hombres), and the movement on behalf of "Sexual
Diversity." These new terms have joined the older, existing lexical categories that designated male sexuality and have attempted to account for realities of intimacy and erotic practices that the dominant discursive regime has excluded or ignored. Albeit, these efforts have not always been carried out successfully, in the present work, 1 analyze these alternative formulations in light of the ethnographic data I collected and in dialogue with key theoretical points derived from feminist studies in order to elucidate both their
"explanatory power" and their political implications.
V Reasons and Uncertantities
The personal reflections that underscore the production of this text are deeply rooted in my own intellectual trajectory and in what I would like to describe as the
"civic" dimension of my life in Mexico (participacion ciudadana). These reflections emerge from a deeply rooted interest to understand the range of affective and sexual possibilities for men in Mexican society, as well as the range of these possibilities among and between men. I find that I am most capable of articulating this deep and restless personal interest through the practice of ethnography and through engagement with a variety of theoretical and methodological contributions in the social sciences, primarily those concerned with studies of masculinity, gender studies, and the field of queer theory.
As a result of this multivalent theoretical approach, I believe I am able to offer, so to speak, a kind of analytical immersion into men's subjectivities and into the power dynamics that regulate them, specially their intimacy with other men.
The "discovery" that emerges out of this process is nothing short of radical: in the struggle over the meaning of "being a man" one could also find "hidden" the possibilities for love, health, pleasure, peace of mind, dignity, happiness, even of life itself, that are so important to human beings. It is no wonder, then, that the meaning of "ser hombre" constitutes a site of social struggle over the power of signification. These meanings are translated into politics and policies also evident in the social or civic life of men. To peel apart the veil of commonsense of those policies -their taken-for-granted character and their ideological and material operations—is therefore to confront in large measure the powers themselves that inhibit, limit, shape, and deform the possibilities for love and intimacy that men posses, in general, but also among themselves.
This dissertation, throughout the next seven chapters, attempts to reveal or uncover the politics of meaning that regulates intimacy among men in Mexico. In
Chapter I, "The Social Regulation of Male Identity and Intimacy", I try to reveal through an interview with Jose Pedro and several other random field notes various elements that could help us understand in more contextual terms the origin and meaning of the photograph. Most importantly, however, I attempt to demonstrate something that has long been a benchmark of semiology -that is, the relational character of the meanings of words and concepts. By understanding this relational (and thus, relative) dynamic at play in verbal and visual representations, we are also able to understand something about the social struggle to represent, or better yet, over having the power to represent social reality, including representations of the lives of men and their intimate connections. In
this "reality" of men's lives we must also include realities about the use of the body,
about possibilities for human contact, dynamics of expression or repression of affection,
the lived experience of love and sex. All these dimensions thus must be understood as
"realities" fundamentally shaped by culture and politics.
The social struggle implicit in these human processes becomes even more evident
in the chapters that follow. In Chapter 2,1 examine a concept that gained particular
currency in the decades following the Mexican Revolution and that has played an
important role in the context of the country's aspirations towards modernization; I am
referring to notions about the "Mexican man" {el hombre Mexicano). In the chapter, this
concept is studied in great detail with the purpose of revealing a multitude of realities
under the surface of its apparent transparency -realities that hide diverse and competing
modes of representing "manhood" (hombria) and forms of resistance that challenge the
dominant interpretations of it. I argue that the ideas that frame "being a man" are not
simply historical constructions, but also social constructions continually contested in
everyday contexts.
Everyday expressions associated with the idea of "manhood," inflected by
regional and national common expressions such as "no rajarse" (not to rip oneself apart,
so to speak) can shed light on the exigencies and conventions implicated in constructing a
"masculine identity" in Mexico. At the same time, other popular expressions such as "aca
entre nos" (similar in function to the English idiom "between you and me"), are effective
in demonstrating the construction of alternative social spaces where it becomes possible 66
to contest and resist dominant ideas. Taken together, these two expressions point out two distinct but interrelated aspects of the dynamics through which men become "subjects" and therefore access possibihties for intimacy with other men in Mexico. In these dynamics, the metaphorical openness or closure of the body figures prominently. The metaphor functions to make objective (operational) the play of power through which male identity is thus configured, and through which the capacities for "achieving" intimacy are either realized or denied. Chapter 3 explores in detail these ideas.
The first part of the manuscript, entitled "Masculinity, Subjectivity, and
Intimacy," comes to a conclusion in Chapter 4. In this chapter I examine one of the foundational elements of the dominant form of male identity constructed under the influence of gender ideologies -the notion of homophobia. Far from being simply a mechanism that feeds the desire to overpower the "other," I argue that homophobia is primarily a kind of fear that reveals the incoherent, anxious, and fragmented character of the kind of male subjectivity constructed by the dominant discourse of manhood. In effect, once it has installed itself within an individual, homophobia is expressed as a mechanism of social power, but one that derives its strength from a fear of intimacy that impacts not only the so-called "homosexuals" but also all persons and all forms of romantic relationships. Homophobia in the context of this chapter is also introduced as a theoretical means of linking the various strands of masculinity studies, feminist theory, and queer studies. At the same time, we show the diversity of homophobic experience, the diversity of resistance and the diversity of its effects in men's subjectivities. 67
The second section of the manuscript is presented as an Interlude. It is an exercise in reflexivity in the spirit once suggested by Bourdieu (2001). As such, it becomes a necessary attempt at dissecting the epistemological and theoretical premises that inform my choice of study and the definitions that frame such choices in the academic field. The chapter seeks to expand, through a systematic personal reflection, the connections between the politics of "manhood" and "intimacy" and its importance for the production of knowledge about "being a man" and masculinity. It is also a way of tying together different reflexive remarks made all along the previous chapters.
In Part III, entitled "Words, Pleasures, and Powers," I present an analysis in two acts, so to speak, of the vast field of sexual and affective responses that men display among themselves and of the sexual and gender ideologies that claim the right to define and represent what is appropriate and what is not. These representations are always inextricably linked to the power engendered by homophobia and to heterosexism. In
Chapter 6,1 discuss the characteristics as well as the fallacies of a phenomenon that I term the "Dominant Model for Understanding Homoerotism in Mexico." This model, insofar as it represents homoerotic experience as a phenomenon exclusively and predominantly sexual in nature (structured, that is, only in relation to anal penetration) and therefore only understandable in terms of dichotomies such as active-passive, macho- joto, masculine-feminine, is strongly complicit with the sexual and gender ideologies that sustain a system of patriarchy. The most effective and at the same time most perverse forms of social control over males rest precisely on the control of their affective and sexual possibilities -the possibilities of men reaching meaningful levels of intimacy. In characterizing male-to-male intimacy only in terms of prescribed notions of who is or what practices make someone a fairy (Joto) or a homosexual, these forms of social control pretend to speak "the truth" about the only possibilities for men to experience intimacy with each other.
The statistics concerning HIV and AIDS and the introduction of the term "HSH"
(Spanish acronym for the phrase "Hombres que tienen Sexo con Hombres" or Men who have Sex with Men) dealt a severe blow to the claims of truth of these dominant representations. In a rather sweeping and convincing way, the statistical insights brought about by the AIDS epidemic unmasked the ideologies that pretended to confine homoerotic relations between men to a contrived model of heterosexual masculinity in which desire for other men could only be apprehended through the "suspicious" or
"effeminate" body of the so-called joto. In Chapter 7,1 ask: who are the "HSH"? My objective is to examine the use of a term in epidemiology that could potentially have radical implications for how we think of male sexuality and that has become increasingly common in Mexican and Latin American health and sexual policy discussions. I am also interesting in exploring how this novel designation of sexual practices relates to categories of sexual identity and the social class of the subjects who engage in those practices.
I feel compelled to name here the workings of a certain "political unconscious"
(to borrow Frederic Jameson's phrase [1981]) in the present work. I am interested in engendering an open dialogue, or a heated discussion, whichever may be more effective, that may result in the opening of new academic paths to approach the study of 69
homoerotic relations or better of male intimacy. Ultimately, I wish that my work might support not only political changes in the way in which homoerotic relations is apprehended socially, but also new possibilities for personal ways of being "intimate" with someone, especially with and between men. I depart from the political and philosophical premise that overcoming homophobia and liberating the capacities for love among men could result, in the long run, in a more humane and less violent world.
Finally I would like to mention that I am not yet aware of the implications of this research or its applicability to the homoerotic relations into women. Although during my research I have interviewed many women on issues related to sexuality and reproduction, this was not an easy task. The gender and sexual politics of those communities was a great obstacle to create a more fluent interaction without raising all kind of mistrusts.
However I became aware of the existence in some women of certain knowledge around other women who liked women in the communities, and some categories like marimachas and lesbianas or just "she likes women" were applied. A similar study would have been easier to do in a city like Hermosillo, or by a women researcher working in these communities. I am committed to support women who want to engage in a study on women homoeroticism in this region. The absence of this knowledge continues to be a great failure of Mexican academia, an expression certainly of its sexual and gender constraints.^^
1 was a founder, as a social organizer, of the first formal lesbian and bisexual groups in Hermosillo and Sonera, Albures (Association of lesbian and bisexual women united for social equality) in 2002. 1 facilitated the first workshops and supported the capacitation of its leadership too. They have taken part in the last two out of three "Marches for Sexual and Love Diversity" organized since 2001. For the lesbian movement in Mexico see Mogrovejo (2000). VI A note about the presentation of data
In this manuscript, I have made an effort to maintain a fluid and dynamic interchange between the data that supports my analysis and the presentation of theoretical material. I have deliberated avoided making the text itself a false "performance" of scientific discoveries. The research process is dense and complex enough by itself without trying to add on any kind of faddish textual innovations. Nonetheless, I am deeply aware that in the final analysis anthropological knowledge is communicated essentially in textual form. For that reason, I have made it a point to insert throughout the academic text the voices, human frailties, personal twists and tums that made the process of research interesting and consequential. In the end, I am hoping to affirm through this mode of writing the importance of inter-textuality for the construction of knowledge. In fact, I have found that the most useful insights into the human condition are those that emerge out of a critical reflection of the binaries that order social reality; in other words, reflections that emerge out of the persistent contrast between "reality" as an abstract entity and the readings we are always attempting to make of the "real." In this task, it is convenient to remember that our own personal lens always colors our interpretations. The best the anthropologist can do is to lay out the richness of the field materials as clearly as possible, and then proceed to supplement that data with reflexive elements that could reveal to our readers the assumptions that we brought with us to the field in the first place.
Except for the city of Hermosillo and the community called Estacion Pesqueira (a site of constant migratory flux that was never a research post for this work), I have 71
changed all the names of all persons and all locations. All the names that appear in the manuscript are fictitious. I have also been particularly careful to avoid sharing details of personal histories that may have betrayed the anonymous identity of my informants.
Sometimes this was done at the expense of a better and more contextualized narrative in the manuscript; but it was an important decision given the fact that in many small communities of the sierra it is common for people to have access to many family and personal information about their neighbors, thus making it potentially easier for someone to trace the origins of particular details of my informant's lives. References to AIDS in one of the chapters made this ethical practice all the more important. Nonetheless, I am willing to offer my personal narratives and myself as an informant to anyone who might be interested in expanding research in this same topic in Sonora, as long as I am given the same ethical and professional considerations that I have afforded to my collaborators. 72
CHAPTER 1. THE SOCIAL REGULATION OF MALE IDENTITY AND
INTIMACY
I A photograph and a context: The voice of Jose Pedro
(Fieldnote ~ November 17, 1997)
I met Don Jose Pedro as a result of walking past his house everyday and exchanging the normal greetings. On many occasions, the greetings led to long conversations. Our talks have usually revolved around different aspects of his life and his family. I have noticed that Don Jose Pedro really enjoys our conversations, partly due to the fact he is spends most of the day alone. The other reason might be that he seems to derive a special pleasure out of sharing stories about his life; it is the pleasure of remembering a time in his life when he had many projects and was overcome by many emotions. Today, however, the conversation took a special turn. At last I was able to bring up the subject of the photograph that for so long has captured my attention. The conversation unfolded as follows:
— "Chico and I were partners [companeros] " -says Jose Pedro, holding in his hand the photograph. "We were always together, since we were kids. We were cut from the same cloth, you know what I mean? There was a slight age difference between us, only months really, but I always looked younger because I had a more happy disposition... [laughs] ...he was a little slow, or he pretended to be. I think mostly he pretended because he was also hard of hearing. That's why people started calling him
"the little deaf one"[(el sordito], because he seemed like he was innocent and naive, but, man, he fooled everyone! -says Don Jose Pedro in a jovial tone. 73
-"Don Jose Pedro, I ask, "Was he 'vaqueton^'^'? [a "tough guy"]
-[He laughs], "Well, I should not say this, but...yes, yes, yes, he was," he says while taking his strong and rough hands to his pale forehead. Don Jose Pedro is 84 years old.
But in spite of the wrinkles on his face and of the gray that invades not only his hair but also his eyebrows and the shadow of his beard, there is something in his expressions that reminds you of the handsome and debonair man that he once must have been. After wiping his forehead with a red handkerchief, he continues: "To tell you the truth, we were both 'vaquetones,' but not in the way it is today. We did not do anything really bad or ugly, like people do today ...drugs and robberies, none of that. There was no way; in those days there was a lot whole less to go around and people had to lead straight lives to get by. The things we did were kid's stuff, mischievous tricks so to speak, and nothing compared to what goes on today."
- "How was a man expected to be and act when you were young, Don Jose Pedro?"
- "Serious. Honorable, especially. A man of his word. A man had to be trustworthy in everything he said, not going around telling lies or engaging in idle talk, none of that. A man had to live by his word; whatever he said, promised or committed to, he had to carry through. He could not "break down " [rajarse^'] on his commitment. If you promised to do something, you had to fulfdl that promise no matter what it took. That's how things had to be, yes sir...a man had to be trustworthy. There was no chance that if you had a girlfriend you could just leave her hanging, no way; you had to marry her!
The term vaqueton define a particular way of being a man, and deploing a charismatic masculinity one that involves a certain flexibility and transgression of the strictest catholic morality. We analize this term lately in this essay. The meaning of this verb and its relation to masculine identity and men's intimacy is widely analyzed in chapter 3. 74
-"What is expected of a man who is "honorable" ["serious" or in Spanish "serio"^~]?
-"Just like I tell you, he is expected to be firm, hard-working, a good breadwinner for his family, responsible... " he pauses, and then I echo his last word: " ...responsible. "
- "That his wife and kids do not go lacking, and that he never embarrasses or dishonors his wife; she has her place and you have to respect her. You also have to be a good citizen, have civic consciousness, and civic courage ...that's what makes a man "serious "
[honorable].
Don Jose Pedro pronounces each word intensely, with moral strength — as if the very performance of his words and gestures were embodiments of what it means to be a man, in his opinion. Then he continues:
-"A man of honor, a respectable man, is someone who respects others and that commands respect for him. He is not wishy-washy, given easily to betray his principles.
As I told you, he faces the consequences. He is a good friend. He greets everyone pleasantly. That's how I have tried to be all my life, both because that's how they taught me and because that's the way a man shows his true value to others.
_ "What is the worse thing that a man can do? "
- "To be lazy [flojo], not a hard worker. Ask anyone and they 'II tell you the same thing. A lazy man is of no use to anyone. He cannot support a family; he does not command respect. What can he offer to his family? All he would bring upon them is suffering. They will go hungry, and they will feel shame for their condition. That is the lowest one can
The adjective "serio" can be translated as "serious", but in as much as it refers to a regulation of speech with a gender context ("women speak unnecessarily or too much") connote a whole range of values like sincerity, truthfulness, capacity to keep one's word, etc. This dyamic is further explored in chapter 3. stoop. Then, it would not be any wonder if his wife goes with another man; he brought it upon himself. He turns into a cuckold [lo hacen chivo], as they say. If he does not have means of supporting a family, why should anyone love him? Ahh, and another thing...a man who steals, who turns into a thief, that is also not well received by society...
-Which is worse? I ask.
-Being lazy is worse. At least a man who steals has something to take back to his family, but one who is lazy, he can't even boast of that. So not only does he hurt himself, but also his family.
-Hey, Don Jose....let me ask you this: if a man must be hard working, then a man who is lazy, is he less of a man or not-man-enough?
-He is a man in the sense that he has the organ [genitals]! He is a sorry excuse of a man.
[jEs un hombrecito a giievo!] He is man because he has "that", but nothing more than that. What is understood as being "a man" -a "real man" -no, he would not be.
-Don Jose, I ask, "do you remember a specific time when you felt that you had finally
"become a man "?
-Don Jose smiles and looks away pensively. I feel he enjoys my question.
-How can I tell you, I think that Ifirst felt that I was "a man " when my father took me with him to work in the fields, when he donned a sombrero on me, and said, "alright, let's go to the corn field, from now you will start helping me. At that moment Ifelt really proud. Proud to go along with my father; I felt as if I was like him in some way. Even the food my mother cooked tasted better to me, because now I was earning it, so to speak.
Because now I was also contributing. I did many different kinds of work. Shortly after working in the cornfields, I was put in charge of the cattle. I worked on the other side
[the United States] for a while to save enough for my marriage [helping with the wedding expenses]. I also worked in the mine, the one in Nacozari. Yes, sir, I worked at many different occupations. I was also very hard working; always busy doing something. Now I am older, and things have changed.
-"How did you meet Chico [Francisco]?
-Don Jose Pedro smiles. It shows that he enjoys talking about his old friend. Then he says: "my buddy Chico? Well, we should make some coffee. This fine conversation is just getting started...is that agreeable to you [the coffee]?
- "Great idea, Don Jose Pedro "
- "Let me boil some water...it will be done in just a short while." He gets up from his seat and lights the stove. We are in his house. Today he is alone, he tells me, because his wife is visiting one of their daughters. He continues:
- "Chico, may he rest in peace, was from around here. He was from my same circles.
Since we were young kids we always got along. We ran around with the same crowd; back then people used to call it the "cuadrilla " [crew or gang]. Like the same troop, if you will. We did the usual kid's things -idle, silly things (vagancias). We used to go to the river to collect figs. Always together! We remained that way for a long time. When he was sent to collect firewood, he used to come for me and we would do it together, keeping each other company. We also worked together a few times. One time when we were already in our teens my dad asked that I deliver a load of beans to the town of Nacozari and he went with me. During that trip we became really close and remained closer friends ever since...we even used to kid around that we were "compadres. "
-Just teasing?
- "Oh, yeah, just something sweet to say, you know? Because we really held each other in high esteem, that's the way it was until his death." Don Jose Pedro gets quiet for a few moments. He gets up to serve the coffee and resumes talking: "I tell you, a friendship is a beautiful thing. If you have a good friend sometimes you feel closer to him than to your own wife. There's just something different about it. But it makes sense, who else is going to understand you better than a man who is just like you, a man also?
- "You don't talk about the same kinds of things?"
-No, not in a million years. One has to always show respect towards the wife. It can never be the same. It's different with a friend. You can tell him almost everything; he shares in all your adventures, he knows the things that happen to you and the things that happen to him while he was with you. That's how you become close friends.
- "Didyou trust him?"
-"Oh, yes, of course I did! We were friends since childhood...we did a few mischievous things together..." [He laughs, evoking a sense of complicity and mischief].
-"What kinds of mischievous things, Don Jose? Don't tease me and leave me hanging..."
- "Well, the same kinds of things kids do today; I don't think that has changed, at least around here. I see the kids ganging up together and heading down to the river -some are young, the older ones are the heavy ones [caponeros], the ones that teach them what is normal, only natural when boy's bodies begin to change, when they start to grow into 78
men. Oh, and smoking, that too. The only thing is that all of that is kept a big secret.
Nothing shall ever leak out of that place. If somebody ever got a bruise or something because they fell, no one would ever say where it really happened. We would all say that it happened doing a chore [he laughs] ...You start becoming a tough guy [vaqueton].
What happened was that usually parents were very strict, at least in the past. Today, parents let their children do as they please, they don't watch over them. Consider also that women now work just like men do, in the factories, the "maquilas. "
-And the mischievousness continued when you went to Nacozari? I ask with a smile.
-You are very right.. .between you and me, I am going to tell you what really lies underneath the surface of how one acts. You see, in that occasion when Chico accompanied me to take the bean sacks to Nacozari, we carried the load on a mule and we rode horses. It was a long trip. Today one can get there quickly because they now have roads. But not back then. Everything took longer and sometimes you had to stop and rest or even spend the night somewhere midway. That was one reason why it was preferable to bring a friend along. Chico always kept me company when I had to run errands and I did the same for him. When it was not possible, well, we accepted that, but we always managed to find a way to make it possible for us to be together [he laughs].
Along the way, we started to talk to make the time pass faster. We talked about whether he had already been with a woman, or if I had done the same thing, and as it turns out neither one of us had had that experience yet. We only knew the things we had heard from the older boys. But in that time those kinds of conversations were very secret, they were a sin -not like it is today...Suddenly, from a short distance —Don Jose Pedro lowers his voice as if he were getting ready to make a confession— a woman standing by a door called us towards her. Well, the rest is history...we forgot about the load, the bean sacks, and the money! We came back to town empty-handed [he laughs]. That's how we carried on when we were young.
- "And what excuse did you make up when you returned home? "
-We said that the river had overflowed and had taken all along its path [he laughs]. You see, that's the kind of tough guys we were in those days.
- "And were you really "compadres " [had become "godparents " through baptism of one of each other's children]?"
- "No, never. We called each other "compadre " -my "compa " Chico and I was his
"compa " Jose Pedro [shortened "compa " is similar to good old buddy or pal]—but it was not something official. I told him once that as soon as I had a child he would baptize him or her, and the same for me from him, but when my daughter was born he was on the other side [the United States] and it was uncertain when he would return, so we had to go ahead and baptize the baby. That happened too with my second child. And later on, when he had his three children, one right after the other, then it was my turn to be on the other side. I was away for almost six years, hard to believe but true. Then he had another son, but his brother asked to be the godfather and he felt bad saying no to his brother. As you know, the holy sacraments are not something to argue about, and his own brother always had that desire. Nonetheless, we were "compadres " -that's how we felt.
- "And that photo, when did you have it taken? " - "Oh, you mean the portrait. Oh, you see, that's from one time when we went together to
Douglas, Arizona. We took some animals over there, and after finishing the job we had
some free time. Photography was popular in those days, so I said to Chico, 'let's go get
our photos taken. " Back in that time, photographic equipment was something very
different than today. Today there are very small cameras and anyone can carry one. But
in those days, there was no hope for owning a camera; cameras were a novelty and
everybody went down to the studio to get their portrait done. I had already noticed that
one of my cousins had his photo taken posing together with a friend of his. So when we
saw the photo outfit over there, it occurred to me to do the same. I told Chico, let's go
have our photo taken. I don't remember how much we paid. Let me see....uhm....no, I
can 7 recall, why pretend otherwise. We went into the shop and a very elegant-looking
man, wearing a tight vest, asked us to enter a small room that he had set up, behind a
curtain, to take the shots, as they said. We stood up there and he took two photos -the
one you see here I have kept all these years and Chico kept the other one. I wrote a dedication on his photo: "To my friend Francisco, from his friend who holds him in high esteem, Jose Pedro, in memory of our friendship."
-"Whatyear was it?"
-"Must have been around 1935 or there about; isn't the date inscribed on theportait?
-"No."
While I observe the image, I say to him in casually, almost inadvertently, and pretending to strain the eyes to distinguish the image correctly [although deep inside I could hardly contain my surprise and excitement]: "you are holding his hand." 81
- "Hey, of course, we were very close friends. " He answers me laconically, as if the
simple phrase was all that was needed to convey the true meaning of his words.
-'Was that the custom in those days? "
- "Uhm..." He pauses and I stay quiet. I don't want to interrupt him. Then he resumes:
-"I saw that my cousin's photo was like that and I wanted the same, so I grabbed his
hand."
- "And how was Chico with you? Did he hold you in high esteem? -I ask, using the same
terms he has used before.
-Yes, very much so; we were close friends. We got along real well. We were both
outgoing, we enjoyed going to dances. He was quiet, a lot quieter than I was. To speak
truthfully, I was more devilish. He was quiet but he had his own spark. One time he made
us laugh a lot -it was Christmas time and he came over to ask that I go with him to his
family's house. I had been drinking and was in one of those light moods. Observing the
situation, my wife who is very outspoken, said to him: 'no, he is not going with you anywhere.' I figured she thought maybe I would stay overnight, maybe with another woman or something like that. And Chico responded: 'what do you mean he cannot come with me? What are you saying? Don't you know that he is more mine than yours, that I
met him first?' And then everybody broke out laughing. But he was right, he had met me first. He was always very witty like that. "
Don Jose Pedro gets up one more time to offer me more coffee and says:
- "I like you, you know that?"
-I answered: "the feeling is mutual Don Jose Pedro." 82
- "You want to know why I like you? Because you enjoy drinking coffee. I don 7 care for people who don't drink coffee, it makes me feel as if they don't really know how to have a good conversation, that it is not something they enjoy. Although you must have noticed that already -I mean, the fact that there are people who don't know how to hold a conversation. There are people who are very closed, from the get go they put up a barrier. Of course, you saw more of that back in my youth. Nowadays people are more comfortable, surer of themselves; I think it is because they go to school, that is a big factor. But I was always self-assured and comfortable. More or less like you are. Are you married?
-"No. " [His question produces a light sense of embarrassment. I feel he is fishing for information about my life].
- "That is alright, who needs it?" -he says with a complicit smile—"You are still young.
But try not to stay a bachelor, because loneliness can be a very difficult thing. "
His questions begin to make me uncomfortable. I prefer to be the one who asks the questions.
- "Don Jose Pedro, was there ever any conflict, any misunderstanding between you and
Chico? "
-"No, never. We always got along just fine."
He turns quiet and pensive. Then he adds: "There was this one time, when something happened that made him feel ashamed. I am going to tell you without mentioning the real names, although come to think of it, all the people involved are already dead and I am going to follow soon. But I know that you are interested in these kinds of stories ...and also as a way of saying that people have always been the same and difficult things have always been part of life. So, you see this one time Chico and I were riding horses in the countryside and suddenly we saw something move behind some bushes. The sun was almost setting. We approached the bushes to take a closer look and we found his brother dressed in women's bride clothes, the brother's wife clothes, that is -he was wearing his woman's dress.
- "And what happened then? "
-My "compadre" yelled at him, "Have you no shame? What is wrong with you? Are you crazy or something? He got really mad, grabbed a rope and began to hit him. He ordered him to take the clothes off and to go home to his wife. I did not say a word. What could I say? He was overcome with shame. He did not speak on the way back or for days after that. Then, I said to him: don't worry 'compadre,' no one in town needs to find out, pretend that I was not even there. And that's how we handled that situation. That's why I am telling you that there's nothing new in this world, things have always been what they are."
- "And how did people call someone who was like Chico's brother? "
-"Doyou mean what insults they used? Well, people called him "nahuilon [sissy, effeminate], but they would not say it to his face, it was the word that people would use to insult someone who liked to dress or act like a woman. But this man did not always go around like that. Not at all. He was a regular person, he was married, had a good wife— the poor thing. Who could have ever thought?
" This Opata word is almost never used in contemorary Sonora, except for old people. - "And nobody ever found out? "
-"Well, people sort of knew, it was rumored that he was into that kind of thing, but nothing beyond that. I imagine even his own wife must have known about it in some way."
- "And did people talk about whether he had sexual relations with other men? "
-"Mmmm... " Don Jose Pedro clears his throat. He pauses as if to choose his words carefully. It's clear that this is not a topic that he is used to discussing.
-"Well, why would I lie to you? Yes, the fact is, yes...it was rumored that a man who was always hanging out with him, that used to fix his car...yes, but I never had any first hand knowledge that that was true, so why would I go around speaking badly about someone ...I did not see it, I could not be sure. "
-Don Jose Pedro becomes pensive again. Then, lowering his voice, he asks me: "Listen, now that we are on the subject, I have been wondering about something. Maybe you can clarify it for me. I think you can because you seem to be a very educated man. What does that little word they use nowadays — 'hombresensuaV [sensual man] — mean? "
- "You mean 'homosexual,' Don Jose Pedro.
-"Ah, that's the one, yes ...homosexual, " he says trying to pronounce the word correctly.
"What does it mean? "
-"Someone who, for instance, a man who prefers to have sex with another man."
-"Ah, that..." he says with a hint of refiexivity in his voice.
I am not sure I answered his question. He still looks preoccupied about something. Aware that I am coming across somewhat awkward, I ask him: 85
- "Did those kind of things also went on when you were young? "
-"There must have. How can I tell you...most likely they happened...the tough guys and their games (vaquetonadas) that has always existed."
II The politics of male identity and intimacy: the relational character of signification
The photographic image of Jose and Francisco hghtly holding hands moves us.
Many reasons can possibly account for this reaction. I will mention only a few. First, we may find dissonant the convergence of conventional markers of masculinity as represented in these two "country" men with the affective and corporeal act that brings them together in the image. Secondly, the idea that a register of an emotional and bodily union between two men can circulate publicly and become a personal and family document seems strange within our contemporary frames of reference. Third, we are startled to discover historical evidence about visible bonds and expressions of affection among males in the northern region of Mexico, barely two generations ago. In other words, it is difficult to come to terms with the temporal and geographic proximity of something that in many other ways seems rather "foreign." In fact, upon reflecting on the image we begin to realize that while in today's social context an action similar to the one represented in the photo immediately conjures up notions of "homosexual identity" that assign to the men involved presumptions about being a "gay couple," in the past this same action was invested with other meanings. When Jose and Francisco posed for their photo, the sexual identity we nowadays call "gay" did not exist and the concept of a "homosexual" identity was only known to select medical professionals. Of course, there were other terms in currency to designate those who transgressed the established canon of male masculinity. In northern Mexico, men who were perceived as "effeminate" were called "nahuilon" or "marica"
However, the most surprising and significant realization in trying to understand the meaning of this image is recognizing that the photographic register of two men holding hands to symbolize their affection towards each other was not deemed a transgression of the socially prescribed norms of masculinity or male sexuality prevalent at the time. Even when the photograph was inscribed with a personal and intimate dedication, as was the case in this instance, such an action did not bring upon the participants the kind of social stigma that would eventually lead to the construction of a new identity and a differentiated lifestyle. Today, two men who hold hands and dedicate to each other a photo of that action would be inevitably suctioned into an ideological manufacturing belt that would impose a prescribed meaning over their actions and stamp suspicion over their sexual orientation and their "manhood." Their efforts to resist the effects of such a homophobic-driven impulse towards naming and categorization would likely result in their construction of a "gay" identity and an identifiable "gay" lifestyle.
The contrast between the meanings of the same act in different historical moments brought forth by the photo of Jose and Francisco leads me to advance two conclusions that I hope to thoroughly substantiate throughout this essay:
1. The meanings attributed to "being a man" are historical constructions. These
meanings can change over time, and with them, the gender connotations for 87
what we denominate as "masculine" or "effeminate" in relation to men's
behaviors, including acts of bodily affection such as holding another man's
hand. In other words, connotations of gender that affect the whole experiential
range of intimacy for and among men come into question. To the degree that
the meanings of these actions change, so do the possible actions and behaviors
undertaken by men in their daily lives.
2. The meanings attributed to "being a man" and the changes in those meanings
throughout different historical periods are intimately related to meanings in
other spheres of social life. Namely, the meanings associated with practices
considered to be gender or sexually dissident. These other meanings are
usually condensed in terms that express either stigma, such as 'joto" [faggot],
"homosexual," or "nahuilon," or terms that express self-affirmation such as
"gay."
The symbolic borders of what it means to "be a man" at any given moment are thus always established, in turn, in relation to the symbolic borders of stigmatized sexual and gender identities. We find, therefore, that a variety of meanings correlate to form both the possibilities and the modalities for the construction of emotional and corporeal bonds between men. That is to say, to form conceptual frames for thinking and understanding the possibilities for affection between men, to express affection in public, or simply to think and understand male identity and intimacy in a broader sense.
If we understand power in the sense in which Michel Foucault discusses it, that is, as the structuration of the possibilities for action, then we can also understand transformations in the meaning of specific actions and the consequenses for social action that follow from those meanings, as transformations per se in the relations of power that the sex-gender system holds over men in general in our society. During my fieldwork in different small towns in the Sonoran sierra, I was able to see photos similar to the one in question here. They usually depicted men wearing cowboy's clothes, holding hands, and usually included personal dedications about the meaning of their friendships. Researcher Ana Alonso commented through personal communication that she also found similar images while conducting field research in the region of Namiquipa, Chihuahua. Some of the men in the photographs she saw had been actively involved in the Mexican Revolution. It is safe to say that portraits of men holding hands were relatively common during the first decades of the century in sierra communities around Sonora and Chihuahua. The phenomenon seems to have been more common in the economically developed centers that were in close proximity to the small sierra towns, such as Nacozari, Sonora, Douglas, Arizona, or Casas Grandes,
Chihuahua.
Men used to travel to these regional economic hubs to sell agricultural or meat products and to purchase goods such as fabric, tools, and other domestic utensils. The journey to these places was usually long and exhausting, and in many instances quite dangerous. Men preferred to make the journey in the company of another man or group of men -usually partners, "buddies," close friends that shared with them labor, adventures, fun, and confessions. Feelings of affection and emotional connection between men were thus cemented by the sharing of daily life and the trust {confianza} generated by shared toil. In addition, a sense of equity in attending to "manly" things -they both were "men" - underscored the affective elements developed through such relationships.
These affective bonds among men stood in sharp contrast to the productive and 89
reproductive roles and connections that men were expected to have with their wives. In the context of marriage obligations and of a highly segregated and dichotomized gender social ideology, these distinctions were especially noticeable. The journeys from the interior of the sierra to the urban centers provided opportunities for men to forge and deepen their sense of connection to other men and to express such loyalties through a joint photograph.
What is particularly interesting about the type of photographs that were taken in that context is that in such representations the notion of masculinity -indexed through the men's clothes, pose, and "look" as defined by the social conventions of manhood— does not appear in contradiction to the corporeal and affective proximity also apparent in the image. 1 would argue that the significance of the image lies precisely in the reversal it advances of the same elements: here, masculinity enables the bond between the men, forms it, feeds it, and sustains it. Masculinity thus appears as the possibility of affection in and of itself; the thing that makes possible the bonding represented. This semiotic
"reversal" whereby masculinity and expressions of male intimacy converge instead of negating each other is all the more significant because it is out of step with the politics of signification about masculinity prevalent in contemporary Mexican and Sonoran societies. In both places, today, the effects of such a politics of meaning is to exclude
"manliness," on the one hand, and the act of two men trying to represent their friendship through holding hands and haing a picture being taken.^^
It is interesting to note that in today's society there are other gestures for expressing affection among men, such as putting one's arm across the other man's shoulders, that do not put in questions the men's "virility" or manliness. Paying close attention to Don Jose Pedro's testimony we notice that the friendship he describes with Chico, expressed graphically through the photograph, is articulated by him in relation to a playful arrangement of various experiences and signifiers. For instance, he is talking about two friends, specifically two male friends, but not just "men" defined in a biological sense; instead, men who stand for the socially sanctioned ways of being manly. In other words, they are ''hombres-hombres" (manly men). Manliness or even "manhood" is constructed in Don Jose Pedro's discourse through the men's work ethic, their responsibility as providers towards their families, the clothes they wear -even their hats give off signals of virile self-assurance—and their fulfillment of certain social values such as "«o rajarse" (not giving up, or not "cracking under pressure"), their responsibility to be honorable or "serious" and to command respect.
In this case, therefore, friendship appears as a byproduct of the men's induction into male socialization. As Don Jose Pedro remarks, there are rituals of manhood that are shared: going down to the river (i.e. to an isolated area) with more experienced men to leam about sex, something that "girls" don't do. The terms Don Jose Pedro uses to designate his childhood antics turn on military metaphors: a "cuadrilla" (band) and a
""tropa" (troop) refer in both cases to groups of men engaged in a "mission" or a common task. Friendships between men are thus nurtured and enabled by the bodily proximity derived from working together in the fields, or in work-related errands, or through what is simply called ''andanzas" (hanging out, or partying). In the social context, all these activities are presumed "masculine" (not things that women do). A man's first heterosexual experience, characterized by Don Jose Pedro as ''conocimiento de una 91
mujer" (to "know" a woman, or, "to be" with a woman) is expressed through the semantic expression '"vaquetonada" (an act of a "tough" guy," a real man). But that expression is also used semantically to connote distinctive and unequivocal acts of masculinity in other social realms and usages. Hence, the bonds of male friendship are solidified through the exchange of these kinds of non-ambiguous "male" behaviors shared by men through stories and experiences.
The terms ''vaqueton' and ''vaquetonada" -still popular sierra expressions well known in Hermosillo—are also interesting for another reason. In everyday speech, these words carry a significant ludic connotation. Most of the time, the terms refer to playful modes of behavior related to sex, but not exclusively. The same words can also refer to subtle transgressions of ''deber" (moral and social obligations), without falling into disgrace of obvious deviancy. A ''vaquetonada" is a mischievous act (travesura), a transgression that breaks the rigidity of Catholic morality in its extreme forms. But as the word is used in male contexts, this last meaning is extended to include "worldly" experiences that men must have and partake of (to "know" the world) and that women, secluded in their domestic realms, do not have access to.^^ "Vaquetonadas" are thus male socialization rituals that contrast male's ability to play with the social rules -to disobey— against the mother's moral teachings and women's modesty in general. The
"mischievous" acts construed in the local speech community as ''vaquetonadas" are
''"Knowing about life" or "being worldly" is male experiences that are constructed from the time men are boys, through priviledged and gendered opportunities for mobility in and around town and its outskirts. Some of these priviledges exist in connection to male responsibilities as well, as in the chores expected of boys -gathering firewood or fetching w ater. The woods (monte) are considered dangerous, not a fitting place for women. On the other hand, this "knowledge" of the "world" that boys acquire is plagued with religious connotations, insofar as "the world" is the site of sin in Catholic ideology. To be a man is to have a familiarity with "worldly" things that women -always pure and naive—clearly lack. expressions of masculinity that reinforce men's "right" to autonomy: in their bodies, their decisions, and their sexuality.
Another interesting term used by Don Jose Pedro is that of "nahuilon" (sissy or effeminate). The term has Opata origins, referring to the "nahuas" or a woman's skirt. A man described as a "nahuilon" is someone who acts "like a woman," as if he were wearing a skirt, literally. In other words, the term is a semantic expression of male gender transgression in which masculinity and clothing are linked together. To break the code of masculinity is also to break the code of proper clothing. Clothing configures the body publicly. It attaches to gender social expectations for distinguishable characteristics. The term '"nahuilon" does not refer to erotic conduct, although that meaning can appear occasionally as well. The term points primarily to gender conduct. It does not function to designate someone with a different "identity" -as is the case discussed by Foucault of the
"homosexual" in the 19"^ century, condemned to have a "different" life. As Jose Pedro indicates, the man found in women's clothing behind the bushes was married, had children, was hard working, and did not have to choose a whole different "lifestyle." His actions could be seen as a "relapse," a sin, or, as his own brother tells him, a "crazy" thing to do, but they do not necessarily make him a man of another "species."
At one point during our conversation, Jose Pedro seems confused by the proper pronunciation of the word "homosexual." He asks me about men who are "hombre- sensual." But his apparent semantic confusion reveals a broader social difference at stake.
The "nahuilori" is stigmatized because of his transgression of the expected social conduct of a man. The "hombresexual," on the other hand, can be constructed in today's social context as a man distinguished by his erotic difference, for being a "sensual" man. Rather than being a simple "slip of the tongue," I believe the difference between the two seemingly related terms points out the very different ways in which gender and sexual differences between men can be understood (or misunderstood) in Mexico today.
Don Jose Pedro's use of the term ''vaquetonada" to refer to himself and certain ludic and heterosexual behaviors in his youth as well as to refer to sexual relations between men also strikes me as interesting. "Men have always engaged in
''vaquetonadas" (in mischievous behavior), remarks Don Jose Pedro, when I ask him if in his time there were men who had sex with other men. In this manner, forms of "illicit" sexuality, transgressive modes of sexual pleasure obtained outside the boundaries of marriage and for non-reproductive purposes, are codified in Don Jose Pedro's testimony with a word that allows room for a certain playful indulgence, even though it is still a word that marks a difference from the norm. One does not turn into a ''nahuilon" by having sex with another man. Such an act, while not the prescribed behavior, is comprehensible within the frame of "things that men do;" it is, in other words, a
"vaquetonada."
However, the "nahuilon" and the men who have sex with a ''nahuilon'' (an effeminate man or a man who "acts" like a woman) and the contemporary "homosexual" or "homosensual" (sic) are not the only expressions of male sexuality at play in the social discourse. What about those things that happen between men who are close friends, pals, buddies (camaradas)! Don Jose Pedro speaks vaguely about a couple of possible scenarios. First, he tells me about young men who "pair up" with other young men and go 94
down to the river to talk about sex openly and to do ''vagancias'''' (things to pass time,
kid's sex tricks) when the boy's bodies "begin to change." Other informants in the same
region, younger than Don Jose Pedro, have also reported such "pairings" between
adolescents for the purpose of exploring sexual practices. In the small towns in which I conducted fieldwork, I heard men in more than one occasion talk among themselves -or
"ourselves" to be exact— (in confidence or "en confianza") about group masturbation sessions, mutual masturbation experiences, or having sex with farm animals during their adolescent years.
Secondly, we leam from Jose Pedro that his friendship with Chico included
moments of close corporal contact: they traveled together on the same horse, they slept
together at improvised spaces along the way. There's only one instance during our conversation when a single word and a joking context seem to hint -but no more than that—to a closer physical contact between the two men. The verb "conocer" (to know something or to meet someone) is used in Don Jose Pedro's discourse in two ways: to express the experience of having a first time sexual encounter with a woman, which can be read literally as "gaining knowledge" about being with a woman, and to reinvindicate,
Small groups or pairs of buddies are the quintessential sexual socialization space among male adolescents, particularly in rural areas. The sexual practices engaged in by these groups are diverse but they have been known to include masturbation and sex with farm animals such as a young female ass or "jenny," a female bulf calf, chickens, turkeys, or female goats. Many urban people react negatively or are repulsed when they hear about such sexual practices. Although I will not pursue an analysis of these practices in the present work, it is important to note that there are multiple references in the Western ethnographic record of such practices in diverse parts of the world. Bronfman and Minello found these sexual practices with animals and among children (between 8 and 12 years old) in their study about the sexuality of rural Mexican immigrant to the United States (1995: 39). A recent anthropological study about sexual practices with animals in a rural setting in contemporary Greece also remarks pointedly on various homoerotic exchanges among adolescents in that same country (Anest 1994). It is quite possible that the appearance of these teenage rituals practices in the sierra communities of Northen Mexico may owe something to mediterranean influences in the area, but this is not clear. 95
jokingly, the primacy of the friendship between the two men over the marriage bond of
Jose Pedro with his wife. Chico said pointedly: "jyo lo conoci primerd" ("I met him first" or "I knew him first"). Relaying the story to me, Don Jose Pedro added: ''y era verdad"
("and he was right" or "he was telling the truth").
Nonetheless, whatever the true nature of their relationship may or may not have been, it is exceedingly clear at any rate that the affective relationship between Don Jose
Pedro and Chico represented for them a unique personal and social experience. It is also clear that from and through their friendship the two men derived important insights about their self-images, their ways of understanding each other, their personal sense of happiness, their overall life dynamics, and the formation and affirmation of their individual masculinities. It is possible that the friendship may have also impacted them in other areas of social life, such as economically or politically. But such an assessment is for the moment beyond the scope of the present work.
It is important not to forget that the affective bonds described up to this point are always constructed within the dynamics of gender politics. These politics, which in turn construct the "masculine" and the "feminine" as two distinct realms of social life, make it difficult for men and women to develop similarly strong bonds of friendship and trust with each other. The conjugal relationship thus represented for many men of Don Jose
Pedro's generation a different type of affective relationship, one primarily based on the exchange of work roles (and value) and sexual rights, what is socially sanctioned as the
"relacion de pareja" or "married /couple life" (Nunez, 2004). It is no wonder then that in a social order segregated according to gender roles, affective relationships will also 96
follow the same route. Homo-sociality^^ among men and women respectively becomes the main mechanism for establishing social bonds. The affective bond between Jose
Pedro and Chico takes place therefore within the patriarchal context that establishes these sexual distinctions.
I feel it is important to remark, however, that homo-affection and homoerotism, as human relationships, are not dependent on or are merely a function of homo-sociality and gender segregation. There is simply no evidence to support such a claim. Societies that have experienced significant changes with regards to the de-segregation of gendered social spaces, where more equitable and accessible relationships of friendship and camaraderie among men and women have been made possible, have certainly not showed evidence of reductions on homoerotic interests. What I think we can assert, instead, is that different social configurations will result in different modes of expressing and experiencing homoerotic feelings. It seems to me that to some extent anthropological studies have perpetuated heterosexist ideologies by treating homosexual conduct as a
"sub-product" of the so-called "traffic-in-women" dynamics, even when ethnographic evidence has failed to support such a characterization (for instance, in the work of Levi-
Strauss over the Nambikwara, 1984:372, and in the case of Mexico specifically. Carrier,
1995). In these and other instances, the anthropological bias has been to treat
For a review of the concept and a study about its appHcation in religious communities in North America see Quinn (1996). The author also introduces some additional interesting concepts, such as "homo- emotional" and "homo-tactile." 1 define homosociality as the sociability among people of the same sex or the same gender. This sociability is the product of sexual and gender segregation through institutions and subjectivities. heterosexual practices as the "norm" of sexual expression to be expected and predicted when "normal" social conditions prevail.
Conversely, the anthropological interest in men's intimacy, or men's affective bonds and friendship in general, has been close to non-existent. If they have been addressed at all, it has never been in any substantial way. The anthropological contribution to our understanding of the meaning of men's physical contacts with each other, as these contacts are produced within the parameters of the social regulation of the body and according to specific gender politics, has been up to now rather negligent. In
Mexico, in spite of an outburst in interest in masculinities and homosexuality in recent years, the field of ethnographic knowledge in these areas remains sparse. Much of the recent literature on homosexuality in Mexico has placed an emphasis on "sexual roles" as opposed to the broader spectrum of homoerotic relations and homo-affective bonds between men. The result has been a considerable gap in knowledge about these practices. 39
Ill Bodies: proximities, distances, and contacts
My experiences researching the field of men's corporeal and affective relations in
Mexico's northern region have been complex and contradictory. In general, there is some truth to the generalized perception that men tend to have difficulties expressing physical affection towards each other in public. Men's bodies are repeatedly subjected to surveillance when it comes to their public expressions. The way a man talks, his way of
Chapter 6 below elaborates on the critique of the anthropological literature on Mexican "homosexuality" addressing other men, the way he walks, the way he expresses his emotions, the way he engages in conversations, and the way he dances, are all subject to scrutiny. Men feel the effects of such a state of constant vigilance over social norms of manliness in quite specific everyday terms. One man that I interviewed told me that when he saw that there were many people in the plaza, he never walked crossed it; he preferred to walk around the perimeter instead. A friend of mine told me about the extreme case of a cowboy
(yaquero) that said that just thinking that he would have to walk across the aisle in the church for a wedding, he would rather never marry. In fact, when the man finally got married, he refused a church ceremony.
The body can be a great source of personal stress for some men, especially when it becomes the object of attention of others in myriad everyday performances. In my field interviews, I have been told by several young men that walking across a group a men makes them nervous, that they are afraid they will trip or that their legs will give out. On the other hand, men who "carry themselves" confidently, whose stride is firm and determined, who are perceived "in control" of their bodies, tend to be highly admired.
Legs wrapped in blue denim, feet snuggled into workboots or cowboy boots, arms covered by long sleeves, heads protected by hats or baseball caps —these body parts contained in specific garments and accessories stage a form of closure. The physical or corporeal closure symbolizes a communicative closure -men are thus rendered inaccessible, "impenetrable." The act of walking manifests subjectivities associated to manliness: the movement of the shoulders should be tempered, the hips must not swing, the arms must not fling out of control, the neck must be kept straight, the facial 99
expression must suggest concentration. If two men suddenly meet face to face in a trail or pathway, a greeting is expected, but it must be as brief as possible: barely a couple of words {"quihubo" or "what's happening"), a laconic exclamation ("hey," or "yep") or a quick whistle. Public greetings between these men rarely include kisses or embraces. A handshake is usually considered the only necessary and appropriate greeting, and only among men who share other social bonds (personal or professional). Everyday acquaintances are only greeted with a passing "good morning," "what's up" {''que hubo") or "how is it going" {''que paso"). Meeting strangers requires an added sense of formality: men usually get up if they are seating, and older men have it as their custom to lift their hats slightly with the left hand while extending the right hand for a handshake.
Men's social greetings contrast significantly with that of women. Women's clothing also exposes more of the body, such as legs, feet, shoulders, arms, or even hair.
Most distinct of all, however, are the ways women usually greet each other. It is not uncommon to see public expressions of happiness, surprise, fear, pleasure, sadness, or even crying when women meet in public. Women are also comfortable expressing in public gestures or actions that signify tenderness to each other. These marked distinctions in the areas of emotional and affective expressions are precisely what feminists have referred to as "the social division of emotions." The responsibility for carrying on emotionally charged domestic tasks has also fallen on women primarily. That is, women organize the family gatherings, offer support at funerals, take primary charge of caring for the sick, bear the responsibility of cultivating emotional bonds with the children, oversee the children's education, their appointments with the doctors, and of course, take the lead in their spiritual education and participation. The social mores usually referred to as "Christian values" — compassion for others, forgiveness, generosity, the repudiation of cruelty, etc - are also usually passed on to children through the mother and are associated with feminine qualities in general. In Mexico, the common expression to refer to someone, especially a man, who does not display compassion or acts in a particularly wicked manner is "no tiene madre" (literally, "he has no mother"). The implication is, of course, that such a man did not have access to the kind of maternal socialization where he would have been expected to leam good values. A person that "«o tiene madre" (who does not show respect, perhaps somewhat akin to the American English expression
"motherfucker"), is also known to be someone who is disconnected from his emotions - in common speech, someone who "no tiene corazon" (is heartless), or "no tiene sentimientos" (lacks feelings).
At the same time, I have observed that in certain contexts where men are more relaxed and open to social interactions -where their "guard" is down, so to speak—it is possible to identify other modes of bodily proximity and contact not usually found in the course of everyday life. Sometimes the contrast between the two realms and the behaviors displayed can be quite surprising. One of these sites of openness are parties (or
"el baile" -any social gathering where dancing is allowed). Parties to celebrate a community event, a wedding, or a girl's fifteenth birthday, are the classic sites for the expression of happiness, affection, and sexuality. Even if from the outside those occasions and the dances that take place in them seem contrived or ritualized, compared to less rigid social settings in which dancing can be more free and sensual, these traditional gatherings are fertile sites for a wide diversity of bodily expressions by men and between men. In such gatherings, men sometimes can be seen retreating together to a spot nearby to urinate or throwing their arms around each other in good spirits while holding a conversation.
Of course, these behaviors are sometimes greatly aided by the consumption of alcohol. In fact, it may be hard to say with precision whether parties encourage alcohol consumption or it is the other way around. One thing seems clear, however: alcohol plays a role in helping configurate the range of possibilities for more open bodily expressions of affection among men. At many communal or family parties, it is common to see young and adult men form their own separate gatherings somewhat distanced from the main event. These "on the side" gatherings are occasions for more drinking, rough talk, and dancing. It is common in these moments for a man to start dancing all by himself to the tune of a song he likes, then be followed by other men dancing alone, and sometimes for two men to dance together as a couple. This scene has become so familiar, that sometimes children can be seen imitating the same behaviors. Certainly, as the above observations illustrate, there are many forms of physical contact between men that seem to contradict the otherwise strict surveillance that operates on men's body and masculine identities the majority of the time. In the next several pages I have elaborated only on a few of these.
In my opinion, weddings offer an intriguing opportunity to observe men's bodily proximity. During the part of the celebration when friends and associates approach the bride and groom to dance with each separately, sometimes the men of the family or close male friends approach the groom, not the bride, to dance with him. The women of the family and close female friends do the same with the bride. In one occasion, at a wedding in the town of La Mesa, I witnessed a man ask the groom to dance with him and hold on to him for almost two consecutive dance selections, embracing and talking intimately to the groom while they danced without interruption. Examples such as this one of unusual body proximity between men seem all the more disconcerting, at first glance, when contrasted with the contrived expressions of affection one is used to observing under ordinary circumstances.
In today's social context, it is highly unlikely that two friends from the Sonoran sierra would pose for a photograph holding hands. The closest that two young men would come to that action today would be to throw their arms around each other's shoulders. Today, the gesture of holding another man's hand to express affection in a portrait carries connotations about romance and homosexuality. In the short span of two generations, something has changed in the social structure about our understanding of male intimacy. And yet, even so, it is still possible to gleam spaces and possibilities for the public expression of male affection. Unfortunately, the lens we use to "see" these social dynamics between males in Mexico today has been colored by a persistent bias in favor of so-called dominant "Mexican gender ideologies" that render much of what we see "odd" from the outset. In many instances, such reductionistic viewpoints have been abetted by an "anthropological glance" to begin with.
The public presentation of men's bodies proceeds according to a binary pattern of
"closure/openness" which is in turn symbolized and reproduced as "masculine/feminine" 103
respectively. Along the same lines, it seems to me, among themselves men reproduce this binary by marking two distinct times and spaces: "everyday life/party life" or what has been called in the anthropological literature "ordinary/extraordinary" experiences. Hence, even though "manliness" or "maleness" {lo masculino) depends to a great extent on the presentation of a "closed" body in its gestural and clothing patterns as discussed earlier, the arrival of "party time" signals a time and a space where transgression of the quotidian ordinary is allowed, within limits. The "party" as such does not exist or function outside the norms; quite the opposite, the norms themselves configure the possibilities for exploring gender and corporeal expressions contained and repressed within the norms all along. I do not want to argue here, however, for the uniqueness or "licensed" singularity of the party as an isolated instance, perhaps on an annual basis. In fact, what happens in real life is that the social milieu of the "extraordinary," the festive, is continually absorbed and reproduced within the parameters of "ordinary" life. In this sense, informal evening gatherings, the drinking sprees of weekends, birthday parties, vigils for patron saints, and a wide range of other social occasions, instigate the possibilities for "party time" inside the flow of everyday life.
In many communities, to be sure, alcohol provides the incentive for creating these distinctive "festive" time-spaces that stand in contrast to the quotidian. In Northern
Mexico, the convergence of alcohol consumption with the creation of a set-aside festive moment, without any particular special occasion to call for celebration but simply for the pleasure of gathering and drinking, is denominated a "pisteada." Traditionally, pisteadas have always been exclusively male events. In recent years, however, as a result of the dramatic increase in women joining the manufacturing labor force and the parallel shifts in relationships between young men and women as co-workers, some women have started to participate in pisteadas as well, even at the risk of "soiling" their reputations
(Nunez, 1998). Alcohol consumption has been and remains a fundamental rite of passage for the initiation of males into adulthood as well as the primary means for the establishment of male homosocial networks.
The body and alcohol conspire within the homosocial spaces of the ''pisteada" and the ''fiesta" to authorize and to justify the exploration of other means of bodily affection and expression. These explorations entail in the first place new modes of presentation of the embodied self and from there extend to affection, erotism, and reach as far as the expression of pain, suffering, anger, and even violence. Through the intervention of alcohol (as catalytic agent of the emotions) the presentation of the
"everyday" body as a closed, controlled, disciplined body, is upset. A man who alters these prescribed patterns on account that he "drank too much" usually finds a certain degree of tolerance and social leniency for his behavior. The leniency, however, is not absolute. Even then, a man must uphold his honor and dignity, for the sake of himself and his family.
The binaries "closed/open" and "masculine/feminine" are rearranged through the consumption of alcohol in these festive moments to activate yet a third binary set: that of
"inside/outside." The man who "has a few drinks in him" at these festive gatherings occasionally breaks out into song or tears or confessions and in doing so (when he
"opens" himself up or in Spanish "a/ abrirse" or "rajarse") he exposes an "interior" life 105
that is unusual in the prescribed closeness of his everyday life. In this sense, ''pistear" becomes a verb, an action that encompasses all of these possibilities at once or at any given moment. This kind of association and mis-associations between the binaries described above seems to structure some of the ideas expressed in the following monologue by Raul, a 45-year old man who inebriated throws his arms around me at an alley behind a cantina;
- "don't pay me any attention, ok? I am drunk. But do you want to know why I am drinking? Because I am a man. Because men.. .you are a man and I know you will understand me...because men, we know about things that women don't know anything about. You understand...right? Let me explain...do you know why a man starts to drink? A man starts to drink when he loses that thing from his childhood, that innocence, you understand? When he has feelings and things inside of him that now he must keep to himself, when he carries pain, when he has committed a sin or two...yes, my boy?[mijo] Do you agree? I know you understand me because you went to school. I did not go to school, but I know what I'm saying. Shake my hand, come on. I am going to tell you something: a man only knows what he carries inside; no one else really knows him. When you carry something deep inside yourself, it is almost as if you carry another silent man inside..."
If there is something to be leamed from this drunken monologue, from this maneuvering between conscious and unconscious speech, it is perhaps the central role played by the inside/outside binary in figuring this man's understanding of his actions.
Raul, however, is not an isolated case. I would argue that for many men his words ring true. Raul's "explanations" are part of the subjective dynamics by which many men justify their drinking and their particular assessments of what it means to be "a man."
Such explanations express a vision of gender identity in relation to the loss of innocence, sin, and secrecy. When Raul describes his emotional/personal self as "another man inside oneself he activates fundamental assumptions about the ideological aspirations of masculinity and the kind of work it requires to keep the space of those emotions "locked up" in everyday life.
"With a few drinks in him," so to speak, Raul throws his arms around me, confesses his deepest feelings, his motivations, he aches as he describes his inner struggles, and treats me as an accomplice who certainly understands him because I, too, am "a man." At one point he addressed me with tenderness, calling me "my boy"
("mijo"), even though we only know each other from passing. A few days later, now sober, Raul walks past me in the street. He barely says hello; his previously open self is now sheathed back into a stem and locked-down body.
IV The kiss and the saint: the social ritual for expressing affection
During the three years of my fleldwork living in the sierra, only in one occasion I saw a couple kissing in public. It was at a community dance. The act is so uncommon in this region that the kiss caught the attention of most of the people in attendance, including mine. In general, it is fair to say that couples refrain from kissing in public. While in large urban centers in Mexico it is common for men and women to kiss each other lightly on the cheeks as a greeting, the practice is not common in this area. Kisses are reserved for private moments only. Over the course of one year, I recorded only three public occasions when kisses were exchanged.
Similarly, children are not kissed frequently. Only babies receive such gestures of affection. In fact, children sometimes are scolded simply by walking in front or across an adult without asking first for permission. It came as no surprise to me, therefore, when in interviews and various conversations, young men would make comments about the general affective distance they felt from their fathers or about the actual physical absence of their fathers in the family home. Rarely were the same remarks made about the mother. In stark contrast to these sentiments of affective restriction, in more than one occasion I saw almost the entire population of a town throw themselves into a frenzy of affection towards their Patron Saint in his day of commemoration. It was almost as if the whole community joined in a long extended kiss with itself through devotion to "their"
Saint.
(Fieldnote, winter 1998)
Today is the eve of the Patron Saint's day. The popular festivities began yesterday. The four main attractions in the 'fiesta " are food kiosks, mechanical carnival rides, stands where one can throw darts or rocks to win prizes, and a musical group from Hermosillo.
The area where the festivities take place seems to be divided informally according to age and gender. Women gather in the dance area and at the food kiosks or walk around the periphery of the plaza. Children of both sexes congregate around the carnival rides. Men also gather in the dance area, but they can also be seen walking around the plaza, throwing darts at the game booths to win a pack of cigarettes or a six-pack of beer, or assembling around "cantinas " and beer booths. The elderly seem to have stayed home, especially these days when the temperature can drop so dramatically. In spite of the cold weather, men still hold cans of cold beer in their hands. Men who have more money bring shot glasses along with their favorite spirits: in this case, whisky or tequila. One can 108
notice distinctions of class based on what drinks certain groups of men consume. Most of the men here have been drinking beer since yesterday, when the booths opened. Except for small interruptions to eat and rest, the party is going on strong for most.
Generally, people are well dressed. It seems like everyone chose his or her best outfit to come out to the "fiesta." It is not hard to tell that some men and women are sporting new clothes bought just for the occasion. Most of the men wear brand new or high quality "vaquero " type clothes (i.e. western wear). Some wear suede coats. Their gait and style resembles that of the "Marlboro man. " That is one thing about fiestas that makes them unique: men and women are both interested in displaying beauty and presenting themselves as beautiful. In the context of everyday life, such desires remain somewhat hidden.
Around midnight, everybody starts getting ready for the ritual honoring the
Patron Saint. The ritual will begin with the singing of the traditional song "Las
Mananitas. " Shortly before midnight, most people have already found a seat inside the church. A few people straggle along. In the church, rich and poor mix evenly. This year, I am sitting on the first pew so not to miss anything. Last year, I did not get to see as much as I wanted. I begin to see groups of families, children without parents, men in the company of their friends arrive and take their place in the sanctuary. Everyone is ready to sing to the Patron Saint. In due time, people of all ages line up to make their way to the statue of the Saint laying upside down on a table in front of the altar.
The statue of the saint is dressed in a Jesuit robe -high collar, long sleeves, black fabric, and black shoes. He also wears a trimmed dark beard and has very dark 109
eyebrows. The black color of his robe and his facial hair contrasts with the large white hands that display prominent green veins. His face is beautiful — almost porcelain white, wide forehead, a near perfect "Roman " nose, red lips, long eyelashes, and eyes the color of honey. The sculpture displays all the signs of good craftsmanship. The Patron Saint, as represented, looks handsome, like a man of certain distinction, yet virile. Unlike other images of Saints in the same church or at other churches, the Patron Saint looks quite natural and masculine. For example, the image of Michael the Archangel in the church of his same name depicts a young man with no facial hair, of soft features, barely covered around his genital area with a light cloth, posing as if to take flight any minute. He looks uncomfortable, with the left leg extended forward and the hind leg suspended in the air.
His left hand lifted and a sword offire on his right hand. His downward stare is fixed on the sword in his hand. This extravagant pose, reinforced by the nakedness of Michael's white legs and his exposed buttocks and torso, speaks about an iconography intent on diminishing clear marks of masculinity. In fact, the body of Michael the Archangel is best described as androgynous. Were it not for the sword (and the fact that we know Michael is fighting the devil himself) we would never associate this image with a sense of virile strength.
On a side note, something else strikes me about the Michael representation: this young, white, and "pretty" man faces off against a particularly ugly and dark demon. I suspect there is an ethnic/racial subtext in this representation. I wonder how such an image played off when the white men of these lands were fighting the Apaches. In one occasion I was surprised to see a very burly, rustic man, wearing cowboy clothes, enter the church, kneel humbly before Michael, and ask for the favor of this non-virile saint.
In contrast to Michael's campy exuberance, the Patron Saint represents a more modest image, one that conforms better to the kind of reserved masculinity typical of the men in this town. However, the gentle expression on his face and the fine features of his likeness give the Patron Saint a sense of "distinction " that sets him apart from the real men offlesh and bone that live in this town. The Patron Saint's eyes seem to give off a certain tenderness and kindness -a sensibility that is not easily found among the local men, at least in their everyday public performances.
The rituals to pay homage to the Saint have begun. Some men have called upon small bands of musicians or a mariachis to sing to the Saint. While the musicians play and sing, the men stand still next to the Saint. A long line that stretches all the way to the street has formed. Slowly, in silence, the line advances towards the altar where people will have an opportunity to kiss the Saint. There is no one at the altar directing the flow of people or the event. Everyone seems to know the protocols quite well. I cannot help but to be surprised about this public demonstration of affection, particularly when men are involved. Men walk slowly along the stretched body of the Saint and caress him with their large and heavy hands. They touch different parts of his body: his shoes, legs, arms.
Some men hold his hands tenderly, others lean towards his face and kiss him. This image of devotion calls my attention not only because it contrasts with the absence of expressions of affection in the men's daily lives, but also because through these acts it is possible to see men —otherwise robust, reserved, locked up emotionally, dry, and rustic- be able to demonstrate a unique tenderness.
Nonetheless, it is important to remember that alcohol plays a role in creating this scene. Some men have told me that it is the only way they can be "motivated" (animarse) to express their feelings. Many have entered the sanctuary "with a few drinks in them" as they say. I notice how young and adult men clothed in cowboys outfits hold their hats in their hands and lean forward to caress the hands of the Patron Saint and to kiss them.
They kiss the Saint repeatedly: on his cheeks, eyes, and forehead. Some even kiss his mouth. The place is filled with respect and devotion. I turn around to see if anyone has noticed what I have just witnessed; if anyone else is as surprised as I am. But people continue to file along in silence, extremely respectful not only of this place where they are gathered -God's home ("la casa de Dios ")—but also of each person's unique way of demonstrating their affection for the Saint.
I am intrigued about the deep meaning that this celebration seems to have in this community. It is obvious that a great deal of religious education has contributed to this devotion. But it is also evident that the modes of expression enabled by these religious experiences crisscross and intersect the daily dynamics of men's bodily expressions of affection, or, should I say, the lack thereof. On this occasion, however, the men kiss and caress a man who, although virile, is nonetheless perceived and represented as pure, sweet, generous, without malice (^'sin maldad'). The Saint is also a man who reflects the values taught and passed on by women (mothers) as part of a boy's Christian education. I venture a conjecture: perhaps through the image of this Saint men access deep feelings, a hidden inner world that is ordinarily denied and silenced in everyday life.
In the religious celebration and mediated by alcohol, the ritual of kissing the Saint allows these deep feelings to come to light and therefore accomplish some kid of emotional reconciliation. By means of the ritualized collective kissing of the Saint, men are able to express in public, at least once a year, an expressive capacity for affection, tenderness, and devotion. The ritual experience affords a unique sensation of transformation and reconciliation, both personally and communitarian. In fact, the entire community becomes a participant in the enactment of this symbolic reaffirmation of their expressive capacities. Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that in this region so many baby boys are named after this Saint.
V Ventura: the ambiguity and difficulty of love between two men
I met Ventura quickly after my arrival in the town of Los Corazones, through an accidental encounter at a government office. Later on, he saw me at the Plaza and he approached me. Ventura is 42 years old, married, and has four children. He has had many occupations, but mainly he is experienced in mining. Tall and slender, his normally light complexion tanned by exposure to the sun, Ventura always has a smile on his face when he speaks. The smile has become a symbol of his public image; in this town, he is well known for his ability to make people laugh. One afternoon later than autumn, he invited to me to come hang out with him to talk while he worked as a nocturnal guard at a warehouse along the highway. Thus, we began a series of very fruitful conversations. In fact, Ventura became one of my key informants.
Ventura is not originally from Los Corazones. He came here from Datil, a small mining community in the high sierra, fairly isolated and generally less impacted by modem communications and lifestyles. Ventura came to Los Corazones after a series of circumstances having to do with his romance with a young woman he had known since he was a teenager. Nevertheless, it is here that he also developed a deep friendship with a young man of his own age. Over the course of our conversations, Ventura revealed to me in great detail the story of this unique friendship that, as he said, he had "never been able to talk about with anyone." I sensed that he was especially thankful to be able to talk about it with me at last.
- "I met Rodrigo at the local bar. Listen to this: I met him just a short time after arriving in town. I was working at the time in the mines up there in the sierra...you know where they are located more or less, no? I had gotten paid that day. I walked over to the bar looking my best shaven and wearing clean clothes, very "pretty "—he says smiling— and since I was a young man then, well, even prettier. So I went to the bar, I asked for a beer and hung out quietly for a while. Soon after, the man that took care of the bar put some money in the jukebox and began to play music. I got really melancholic, thinking about my family that I had not sees in a while. I also got depressed thinking about my failure with the girl that I told you about and one thing led to another and before I knew it tears rolled down my face, from sadness and nostalgia. In the bar there was only another young man and I, well, and maybe a few others
on the other side. The thing is that unexpectedly that young man ["chavalo "] sent me
over a beer and then he came over and we started talking. He asked me if I was from
around here, if I was sad, and that's how we became friends. Then he asked me to come
over and have dinner with him at his house. From there the friendship sort of took off
Later on, after we've been friend for a while, he told me that he paid attention to me that day in the bar because he had seen me cry, that when he saw the tears roll down my face he was surprised because, well you know, around here most men boast of being so tough and macho ["se las dan de muy machos "] and here I was, acting differently, and for that reason he noticed me. Deep down inside, he said, he and I were the same kind of men.
Check it out, that's what he said to me. What do you think? — asks Ventura with a smile.
We became the best of friends and since I did not have family here and I was renting a room from this one lady, he said that I should come live in his house. And I did, I lived there for a long time.
Soon we started hanging out, going together to the community dances and that kind of thing. And, let me tell you, I taught him how to dance, because he did not know how. He was a shy young man, overall. So, I began to give him dance lessons when we were alone in the house. Later on he hooked up with a girlfriend, and so did L
Sometimes the four of us would go out together.
-Listen, Ventura -I interject—did the two of you ever had sexual relations?
-No, you will see, I will tell you the whole story, OK? I believe that he liked me that way, because I could see that he would get jealous if I hung out with other friends. He asked me once if I had already learned how to kiss and I said, yes, that I had. Then he asked me what it felt like. I told him that I didn 't know how to describe it, it was just something you felt. Then another time when we were at the ranch by ourselves ...I was laying down resting and he was next to me and he said, "kiss me, so that I can know what it feels like; I want to learn how to kiss." I laughed and said to him, "oh, you are so naive, no, no way, how am I going to teach you such a thing? " And he answered me, "so what, there's nothing wrong with it, I want to find out what it is like. "
- "And did you ever kiss?, " I ask.
-"I did not want to. Well, not exactly; the truth is that I wanted to do it, because he was quite a handsome stud ["estaba bien chulo el cabron "] but I was embarrased, " says Ventura smiling. "But for a long time we slept together holding each other, especially when we were out working in the countryside. Hey, what do you say to that? "
-"Do you still see him? "
- "No, not anymore. He went to the other side [the United States] to work and he stayed there, in Tucson. He hasn't come back, he hasn 't...he left the woman he had here and hooked up with another woman overthere. Ah...there was this one time when he came back...oh, for god's sake, yes...I was working right there in the Plaza, trimming some trees way up high in the branches, and he saw me and you should have seen what an uproar he made. I hadn 't seen him in so long that I almost didn't recognize him. He was always excitable, like that...when I came down from the tree he embraced me and kissed me repeatedly ...[he laughs] ...how about that? Then when he left, all the men 116
around me, there in the Plaza, started teasing me because they saw how distressed and sad I became.
- "Have you had another friend like him since he left? "
Ventura speaks in a deeper tone of voice and his whole body language changes.
He seems to be overcome with emotion.
-" Well, with Chalo, like I had mentioned earlier. But I am going to tell you something here, only between you and me: I think I truly am in love with Chalo. If a day goes by and I don't see him, Ifeel sad and I come up with any excuse to find him and see him. He does the same, he looks for me in the same way. Did you notice that I even have his photo displayed in my house? He gave me a photo of himself.
- "Oh, yeah? And where is it? Where do you display it?
-"Right there in the living room...seriously, you didn't notice? There he is, standing tall and proud, my pal ["compa"J. I bought a frame for it.
- "Andyour wife, what did she say about it?"
-"Nothing...well, she said: "ay, how come you have his picture there, as if he were pretty or something..." she laughs when she says that. I responded to her: "come on, I don't keep his photo there because he is pretty, but because he is my friend and he gave me that photo. The truth is that I really do find him "pretty " but I don 7 tell her that, of course, [he laughs] But there's nothing to it, I have photographs of other friends displayed in the house. But Chalo and I, well, we are different. I have told him straight out that I love him and that I want to kiss him and feel his body...all of that.
-"And...?" -"Yes, we have kissed, a few times when we both were drinking...but not the real
thing, not a real kiss, just pecks on the mouth, playing around, that's all."
- "Playing around?"
-"Yes, more or less. See, let me tell you: the thing is that Chalo told me that his father, who by the way was a very "macho " kind of man, I mean, so much so that he even died as a result of a rumble with some guy. Well, Chalo told me that when he and his
siblings were kids his father had a custom of kissing them lightly on the lips...like birds
do, peak to peak...barely touching. He has good memories of his father, but one of his
brothers doesn't. As it turns out, the old man liked to drink and he had a temper. And
Chalo's brother ...well, he is effeminate. Someone told the father once that they had seen the boy, barely 14 years old at the time, have sex with an older man...a man from the area. The father got drunk and hit the boy really bad, he also threatened with hanging him, if you can believe it. That's the reason why Chalo's brother does not care too much for the old man.
I also think that's the main reason why we only kiss lightly. I think he feels guilty, because he comes forward and then he retreats, and then he comes back. He has told me it is not easy for him. But when we go to sleep, I embrace him and he cuddles up in my arms, and I give him sweet caresses, as if he were a little boy ["un chamaquito"J. There was this one time when I had to travel to the countryside to watch over some farm equipment and he went with me. Over there, we acted like two people in love...at night fall, we walked along the river holding hands. But something sexual? No, he does not want that and I don't insist, you know? In that manner, we carry on. Nobody in town knows the truth. I mean, people know that we are very close, they always see us together,
but that's it. But he and I are not the type to be making a big fuss about things. And
besides, you can tell, I act manly, and so does he. We are not going to be carrying on like
that guy, what's his name, the one who acts like a faggot ("joto") ...all he needs are a few
drinks and he makes a fool of himself acting out like a woman. That's why I say that
people see us and they know about our closeness, but I don't think they have any idea, I
mean...they can'tpossibly imagine the truth...that is, that we are in love with each other.
Ventura smiles as he speaks and his eyes shine with the peculiar glint of someone
who is deeply moved.
Ventura never uses the word "homosexual" to refer to himself. It is not a word
that he considers is applicable to him, for after all, he acts "manly" and he is married, as
he frequently makes it a point to remind me. He would not use this word to refer to his
friend, either. Their relationship is safely sheltered within the social space of friendship.
Conforming to the conventional parameters of manliness and camaraderie between men, they take advantage of whatever concessions for intimacy they are able to find. In the two friendships with other men that he describes, "falling in love" has always been a real possibility for one or both parties. In both cases, the expression of romantic love has been channeled through the institution of friendship. Yet, invariably, such expressions of affection stumbled repeatedly over the ghost of sexual prohibitions, over the threatening proximity of homofobia and its sequels: shame, guilt, silence, and the difficulties to manifest one's feelings. For Ventura and for most of the men in town, at least as he describes them, a "joto" [faggot] is someone who violates the canon of manliness: he is
effeminate, or when he drinks he behaves "likes a woman," making a public spectable of
himself with his behavior or letting others know about his preferences, as is the case with
Chalo's brother. More than an elaborate discourse on homosexuality as a "repressed"
social experience that demands to be released or does not dare to free itself from social
prejudice, what we find here instead is a particular way of articulating desire, gender
identities, and affective relationships.
In this context, it is worth asking the following questions: (1) What are the social
coordinates that mark and define manhood and manliness {''hombna") in Mexico? (2)
What social coordinates, in turn, mark and define homosexuality? (3) Are the boundaries
and limits of these two notions established once and for all? (4) How are the borders
between these two notions defined and what room is there left for enacting different
possibilities, actions, and connotations?
The experiences documented in these ethnographic interviews suggest the need to
investigate something other than specific objects of speech reified at certain historical
moments: homosexuality, heterosexuality, gay identity gay, etc. These testimonies issue a
call to examine, instead, expressive possibilities for affection and erotism as a field of
social relations that has been subjected to various and divergent regulations throughout
different historical moments. This field of expressive possibilities is manifested in
different modes, forms, and meanings at different times. As such, it also results in different consequences for the subjects who embark in its various practices and demarcates in general different possibilities around how power and pleasure are experienced. To renounce this kind of analysis that I advocate in pursue of general ahistoric discourses about homosexuality, masculinity, patriarchy, and so forth, represents a renunciation, as well, of the richness and complexity of the human experience in general and of the manifold strands through which "freedom" and "power" intersect.
Feminist scholarship and the feminist movement more broadly have demonstrated the veritable existence of a "machinery" of power that acts upon the bodies, feelings, and sexuality of women. Central to the operation of such a system of power are a number of dominant and naturalized conceptions about what it is to be a woman and what counts as femininity. Similarly, a number of dominant discourses set the horizon for undertstanding and defining women's bodies, their desires, and their sexuality. Consequently, the gay movement denounced as well the existence of a similar (or parallel) system of power that in attempting to define and regulate what was considered "normal" sexual practices, rendered homosexual practices "abnormal," unnatural, pathological, or even criminal. In an effort to contribute intellectual validity to these liberating movements, many sympathetic academics -anthropologists and historians among them—revealed through their analyses the persistence of homoerotic practices among human groups since the beginning of known human records. An unfortunate and most likely unintended consequence of these intellectual efforts has been the tendency -still detectable even in some post-structuralist takes on the issue—of focusing attention on explicit homoerotic practices identified under the rubric of "gay identity" and "gay culture" at the expense of more broadly conceived notions of intimacy and intimate expression between men and
among women.
Not until recently, with the expansion of the field of men's studies and queer
theory, has it been possible to explore theoretically the topic of male intimacy in the way
in which the ethnographic subjects in this study seem to understand, live, and negotiate
this experience. By putting into question the constructed nature of the meanings
attributed to masculinity and the possibilities for male expressions of affection that such
constructions police, queer studies and recent inroads in the emerging field of men's studies have opened a door for the kind of experiences illuminated in the present work.
Only by understanding the intricacies of a social system bent on mastering the
power/knowledge to define the subjectivities and bodies of men are we able, in turn, to
understand how the possibilities for being a man and loving other men -affectionately
and sexually—are sinisterly regulated and hence, denied.
VI When he held my hand: experiences in the field
(Fieldnote, April 14, 1998)
Driving my pick up truck through the streets of a small town in the sierra, I suddenly
come into view of Joaquin. He is standing on the sidewalk gesturing to get a lift from any
passing driver that will take him to the next town down the road, El Amanecer, where his
wife hails from. I wave at him. Anxious to engage in deeper conversation with him and
remembering the few times when we have started to talk and have been interrupted, I
offer to drive him to his destination. Joaquin is 34 years old, a little older than I am. Although his countenance is very serious, almost to the point of seeming hostile, when he
jumps on the truck he smiles widely, showing off strong and very white teeth. Once we
are on our way he returns to his taciturn self Like many of the men around this area, he
is a man of few words. Nonetheless, he makes an effort not to seem rude and exchanges
with me opinions and comments in a very pleasant tone of voice. In contrast to his mood,
I am quite talkative and upbeat this morning. I know that he is pleased with my comfort
and happy disposition. For him, as for most of the people in this town, this makes me different from the men around here and gives me an advantage as a researcher.
Along the way, Joaquin tells me that he really enjoys talking to me. He complaints that it is not easy to make friends in this town: "at least what you can call a true friend, " he adds. According to him, "people make fun of other people or want to show off" or for the same token, "you never know if they will gossip about you behind your back. " I pay close attention to his words. Other men have made similar comments and I realize that for Joaquin as well as for the other men it is very important to be able to trust me if we are going to have the kind of special communication that I seek. Their words also signal, to be sure, a nonspoken agreement to be complicit and reserved about the confessions exchanged, or, as they say, to keep things "between you and me" ("aca entre nos ").
Before arriving at our destination, Joaquin invites me to see the small cornfield he owns and that he has been bragging about all along the way. We get on a narrow dirt road, headed towards the river. Realizing that the road is too difficult and that the truck can't make it, we decide to get off the vehicle and walk the rest of the way. After he shows me the well and the piece of land where he grows his modest crop, I ask Joaquin how far is the river from where we stand. He asks me if I want to go, promising that "it is very nice " and that I would "like it a whole lot. "
Night is falling, so we must be cautious as we make our way down the path.
Joaquin, tall and slender but with obvious strength, leads the way. He warns me about obstacles along the path. When we reach a wire fence, he crosses under first, and then politely proceeds to stretch the wire hurriedly so that I may cross without difficulty. In time, I have come to accept these kinds of gestures as a sign of courtesy from the local men. When we reach a stream down below, he hurries once again to cross first. He jumps across avoiding getting wet and urges me to do the same from the other side. He stretches his hand to help me keep steady and avoid slipping or falling. I take a long jump and there I am, next to him, our bodies perfectly synchronized side by side, embracing. I am nervous, but Ifeign tranquility. I wonder if he is trying to seduce me, but Ifind that idea surprising because I haven't received any signals to that effect from him up to this point. I speculate that maybe I am not familiar with the codes of masculine seduction in this region. But suddenly, quite naturally, we separate and continue on our way. When we arrive at the location he wanted to show me, our bodies are once again in close proximity due to the small clearance among the thick brush around us. He is so close to me that I can feel him breathing. Upon our return to the truck, darkness enveloping us completely, Joaquin takes it upon himself to lead the way once again and to brush aside any branches that could possibly stand on my way.
He tells me: "come, follow me, I know this terrain quite well." Then he extends his large and strong hand, typical of the hands of many of the men around these lands. and in this way, holding my hand in his hand for approximately seven minutes, he leads me along a safe passage. Through the touch of his hand I can feel his strength, his vitality, and his heartbeat. I follow him quietly, in awe of what is happening. No other man has taken me by the hand in this way since I was a small child. Once we reach an open space near the vehicle, Joaquin lets go of my hand easily. He seems at peace, satisfied that he has treated me well, with kindness. He is happy when I confirm for him that " indeed the river is very nice. " Ifeel that something has "happened" between
Joaquin and I through the exchange of these diverse moments of closeness, invitations, and silences, but I am not sure what to make of it, how to place it exactly. Later on, with more time, I come to the realization that when men are together out in the woods or in the countryside they display among themselves special gestures of concern and solidarity that are not usually practiced when they are back in town. There is an ethic and a sense of aesthetics about the moments shared that shape how men behave in these circumstances. I imagine that in my case these gestures of courtesy are also compounded by the fact that I am a guest in their town.
When we finally get to his house, Joaquin invites me to come in. He introduces me to his wife: "this is a friend that is lives in Los Corazones, I invited him for coffee, " he tells her. " Our conversation is relaxed -much like Joaquin himself. We talk about simple things, and he tells me to feel free to come back and visit him anytime, to join him for another cup of coffee.
As I am getting ready to leave, he asks me to follow him to the backyard. He climbs a tree, picks a handful of fruits for me, places them in a bag, and tells me: "let's see if you like them." I am moved by his generosity and sincere affection towards me. I am surprised by the contrast between these demonstrations of friendship and hospitahty and the image that he projects on a daily basis around town. But come to think of it, most of the men around here walk around with the same demeanor. I understand that his generosity might be a way of paying me back for the ride I gave him. People from this region generally prefer to return a favor quickly rather than remain "in debt" to someone.
Nonetheless, I am surprised by the care and affection that men demonstrate when they follow these social customs.
VII Sharing the bed. Experiences of male intimacy
During the three years 1 spent doing fieldwork in rural Sonera, 1 received multiple invitations from male informants and collaborators to share their bed"^®. The first time it happened was only two days after I took temporary residence in Los Corazones. In the process of getting to know the town and the people who lived there, 1 attended a wedding that was taking place in a public park and did not require a previous invitation. While 1 stood on the side observing the wedding party 1 established conversation with a man in his early 3()s who asked for my help to move a group of chairs.
The man was an employee of the father of the bride. Me was dark-skinned, of medium built, with thick eyebrows and a thick mustache, and single. When we finished the chore, he asked me my name and thus we began an extensive conversation. After an
This invitation was not equivalent to the euphemism commonly used in the United States about '"sleeping with" somebody to signify sexual activity. In fact, my point here is precisely to demonstrate how different are social constructions of intimacy and "homosexuality'". hour or so, aided by the buzzing sensation of uninterrupted beer servings offered by the brothers and cousins of the bride to ail present, we both felt relaxed and comfortable in each other's presence. The man expressed happiness over our impromptu friendship. He told me: "man, you are good to hang around with; it is easy to have a conversation with you!'" He then asked me if 1 had any relatives in town, or any friends. When I said I didn't, he immediately tried to be helpful and asked me in a concerned tone: ''where are you staying?" Before I could answer he said: "if you want to come and stay at my house, it is a pleasure for me to offer it to you; I live with my mother, that's it. My brothers and sisters are all married and live in Hermosillo. You can stay there with me; I have a big room and a big bed. big enough for the two of us. We are poor, but we can manage." 1 answered politely: "No, don't worry about being poor, I am a simple person, I would feel comfortable there, 1 am sure." I then proceeded to inform him that I had already paid for a room in the town's guest house. He replied: "as you prefer, but if you ever need a place to stay, you are more than welcomed to do so." His tone was kind, sincere, firm, and attentive. It was clear that his offer had no sexual hidden agenda; it was an act of hospitality from one man to another borne out of empathy, confianza, and friendship.
It wasn't long before I realized how common it was among men in this region to offer their bed to another man as a gesture of friendship and hospitality. The same night I met Mario, the man in the story above, he introduced me to several men at the party and soon we were all engaged in a lively conversation about everything and anything: local politics, baseball, beers, the changing social roles of men and women on account of their work at maqidlas, and personal anecdotes of all sorts. The atmosphere was one of camaraderie and confianza. Among the men present that evening were Isaac and Daniel, uncle and nephew with barely 10 years of difference in age -approximately 35 and 25 respectively. Among the hustle and bustle of the party, at one point 1 found myself alone in the company of Daniel, the younger one. Daniel stood out because of his blond hair and high energy personality. He was employed as a clerk at a hardvv'are store in a nearby town. I had noticed that Daniel had been observing me throughout the night. He had not said much but whenever he spoke he did so with a keen sense of humor. I thought that maybe the presence of his uncle among the men gathered prevented him from taking a more leading role in the conversation. At the very first opportunity when we were left alone, without preambles, he said to me; "1 keep thinking about what you said a little while ago about how people sometimes form an opinion of someone without having talked that much to that person. 1 mean, look, 1 hardly know you, but 1 feel you are a cool guy, just based on the things you say. It is hard to find someone with whom you can have a real conversation." I replied: "yes, that's the way it is." He then added: "It is such a nice thing to have friends and 1 think you are a real nice guy; 1 can tell you are a sincere and humble person and at the same time you are serious and it is obvious that one can really have a conversation with you." 1 responded simply: "Ora/c" (there you go!). He then proceeded to make a confession: "I am not quite as self-assure as you seem to be...you seem real secure in who you are, and 1 don't have any money.'" There was a hint of shame in his voice when he said these last words.
He added: "We used to have a decent lifestyle, but my father left us and things were never the same after that. In other words, Til tell you the truth—my father liked drinking and he would sometimes come home drunk, if he came home at all, and then this one time he tried to hit my mother and that's when she asked him to leave. The Fact is we are better off this way, but because of what happened I had to leave school and get myself a job to help support the family," As I listen, I become aware that this is an important confession. He waited for us to be alone to tell me these personal details about his life.
The type of things he is sharing with me can create social stigma (an alcoholic father, domestic violence). 1 think 1 said something quick to offer support: ("those things happen and the important thing is that your mother and you can live in peace."). Suddenly, we were joined by his uncle and another man. Daniel then turned around and asked me the same questions that Mario had asked before— "do you have any relatives in town?
Where are you staying?"— followed by a similar offer. He said: "if you want you can stay at my house, 1 have my own room; it is small. I only have a bed and a small dresser, but 1 painted it really nice and I put aluminum paper in the windows to deflect the sun...you know.. .for those mornings when I wake up after too much drinking...so there you have it, we can get up at whatever time we want, no problem." He said this with a complicit smile, the kind that men exchange when faced with the possibility of drinking beers into the wee hours of the night, one of the classic expressions of male solidarity and friendship, or what sometimes is called "vagancia" (laziness or wanton). Even though 1 was curious to live this experience that Daniel offered, I declined politely. I felt that 1 was not well-versed yet in the customs and modalities of this town and not being sure of how to read this invitation I thought it was more prudent to avoid the kind of intimacy that confronted me unexpectedly. Throughout the duration of my fleldwork, I eventually had the experience of sharing the same bed with male friends that 1 made along the way. Ruben was one of those men. He was 23 years old, of vv'hite complexion, good looking and masculine. I met him through one of the inevitable rides in my truck that 1 offered or was asked to help with between Hermosillo and so many of the small sierra towns where 1 was working. He was a university student and traveled every weekend between his small town. La Mesa, and the state capital. Approximately one year after knowing each other we attended a dance with his girlfriend and some friends and stayed up almost all night. Considering that 1 was in no condition to drive home, Ruben asked me for the keys to my truck and drove me to his house, where he lived with his parents and three siblings. When we arrived he showed me the bed we would have to share and ordered me to bed. He helped take my boots off and folded my shirt over a chair. "Feel at home" he whispered. He tilled a pitcher with water and put it on the night table next to the bed in case 1 became thirsty during the night and pointed out the bathroom down the hallway. Then he stretched alongside me in bed and pulled the covers over both of us. At dawn I woke up and noticed that his body was laying close to mine and that his arm rested on my shoulder. 1 also noticed that his sister and his nieces slept in a room directly across from where we were and that only a thin curtain separated the two rooms. 1 felt asleep again.
Later that morning, Ruben woke me up with a cup of coffee in bed and invited me to come to the kitchen to eat breakfast with him and his older brother. During breakfast we talked, commented the news, and laughed about the events of the night before. I found out that in many of the small rural towns in Sonora, sharing a bed among male friends is considered an act of friendship and affection. Most of the time, the occasion to share the bed comes about through special circumstances such as being in transit between towns, having to travel somewhere for work reasons, or having to spend the night when it gets too late and one has had one too many drinks. As such, this act is performed in plain view of other members of the family or friends. There is no shroud of secrecy imposed on the invitation to share a bed and it is rarely something that invites scrutiny from the social group. In the same manner, when a man sleeps with another man in such contexts this act is not inscribed in the framework of a homosexual experience.
Most of the time, it doesn't even raise suspicion along those lines. The sexual and gender norms of these communities allows for the possibility of an affective and corporeal intimacy between men that questions dominant conceptions about what counts or not as
"sexual" as well as general definitions of what is "normal," what is manliness or homosexuality, or even ''queer.'' I contrast these experiences in the Sonoran sierra with the discovery I made when I lived in Tucson, AZ and went to the movies one evening with a heterosexual male friend. As we sat down to see the movie, he left an empty seat between us. Later on I was told that leaving an empty space between seats in a theater is a common practice among young heterosexual men in the United States on account of fearing to give the impression that they have a homosexual interest in the other man.
These gestures of intimacy are not only found among men. In fact, it is far more common among women who often find occasion as friends to spend the night in each other's house and to sleep in the same bed. Sharing one's bed with another person of the same sex is an act that signals for both genders a desire to express corporeal and affective intimacy considered appropriate within a friendship. It is an act that is usually framed along other acts of solidarity, such as keeping one another company (especially among women) or helping someone with a large home project, helping a friend fix his car, or giving someone a ride to attend to some kind of errand. Family members usually become w itnesses and participants of these types of exchanges among friends. For instance, when a man visits another man in his house -when a friend drops by or comes along after sharing a chore— it is common that the brothers, the father or mother of the one whose house it is will invite the friend for coffee, to eat, or simply engage him in conversation.
Sometimes a friend becomes a "best" friend precisely on account of the extended family activities in which he participates overtime. The expression "so and so's friend" becomes a code for those types of friendship that share in these more intimate spaces. Eventually, becoming someone's "'compadre'" is a means to institutionalize and add religious meaning to these types of unique liaisons between close friends. It is quite common to hear friends start calling each other by the word ""compa'' (short for compadre) quite some time before an actual act of baptism of a child takes place.
As time went by. Ruben and I developed a very close friendship. He came to my own house in Hermosillo and on several occasions he shared my own bed. 1 was able to share with Ruben many questions that came up during fleldwork about gender expectations, behaviors, and relationships among men. He always offered interesting perspectives that allowed me a closer view into the sexual behavior and values of young men his age, not only because of his own experiences but also those of his friends. He 132
also shared quite a bit of information with me about the sexual and affective dimensions of his relationship with his girlfriend. One day he asked me directly whether 1 "was able to distinguish when a man is good-looking or not." I answered affirmatively and told him very honestly that I considered myself capable of loving a man or a woman in the same way, as in effect 1 had the opportunity to do in my life. He listened politely to my answer and never brought it up again.
In spite of Ruben's apparent acceptance of the possibility of bisexuality or homoerotic desires among men, not once did he ever bring up the subject of "sexual orientation"' or any statement related to the notion of "homosexuality."' However, the few times that he used the word "homosexual" it was always to criticize and correct other derogatory terms such as fairy(Joto) or fresco (fresh) that some men imputed to other men when they refused to drink more or accept a dare. He always rejected these kinds of situations as being ''machista." Conforming to a strongly held value in many of these small communities about being a "true man" by respecting the privacy of people's lives, 1 never heard him call anyone "joto'' or even "homosexual.'" To talk too much or spread gossip about someone else's private affairs is not considered a "manly"' characteristic in this region. Only in one occasion 1 heard Ruben use the words "pansy" {maricon) and
''loca,'' but it was in reference to a Joke that made fun of someone's hyper-effeminate
We have translated joto as "fairy" after Chauncey's study Gay New York. "Fairies" according to Chauncey were defined not on reason of "their same-sex desires or activities (their "sexuality"), but rather the gender persona and status they assumed [...] The fairies' sexual desire for men was not regarded as the singular characteristic that distinguished them form other men, as is generally the case for gay men today. That desire was seen as simply one aspect of a much more comprehensive gender role inversion (or reversal)" (1994: 47-48). Mayate, was defined as "Trade". According to him, the term refered "referred to any "straighf man who responded to a gay man's advances" (1994: 70). gestures. I found that comment from Ruben particularly interesting because it revealed an implicit and hidden homophobia in someone who by any other account had given all indications of being comfortable with male affection and intimacy. It is possible that
Ruben perceived enough evidence of the heterosexual side of my life or felt comfortable enough with my own expressions of manliness that he accepted the possibilities of male intimacy as something that simply belongs ''among men" or among "good friends"
{hitenos amigos).
After a couple of years of friendship with Ruben, mostly around weekend get- togethers, one day he made a startling confession and proposition. While drinking beers one afternoon he told me that he "loved me very much" (me quena mucho) and that he thought "we would always be friends no matter what happens'" and 1 could "always count" on him for anything 1 needed. He told me that he often talked to his girlfriend (by novv fiance) about me and the kinds of things we talked about and that she also thought 1 was a very nice person. Then he added: "Guillermo, my fiance and 1 were talking...and 1 was thinking that maybe when we get married, if you haven't married yet, that you come to live with us. She told me she liked the idea, what do you think?"' 1 smiled and made a couple of humorous remarks, primarily to aid in helping me get over the surprise at this new proposed configuration of our friendship. It was clear that the bond of intimacy that
Ruben allowed himself to live vvfith me called into question the dominant conceptions about male subjectivity and the contemporary identities and relationships around
"homosexuals" and "heterosexuals" that 1 had encountered in the literature coming from
Europe and North America as well as in certain dominant urban, modern, middle class discourses in Mexico. Ruben constructed an affective intimacy with me that was deeply steeped in a discourse of love and corporeal proximity. Yet, he did so from the subject position of a "man'" (a young man from the countryside with some access to higher education and limited urban experiences) and not from that of a "homosexual."
Ruben's subject position and his understanding of the range of meanings of a
"friendship" were akin to Whitman's notions of "adhesive love" or to the stories of male intimacy and affection described by Jonathan Katz among men in the United States in the mid-1800s in his book Love Stories. Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality. At the same time. 1 was keenly aware of the fact that Ruben's subjectivity and identity position in this regards could not be understood as an expression of a unique and liberating dominant local model of masculinity. Quite to the contrary, Ruben repeatedly affirmed a critical attitude to what he termed ''machista'' modes of thinking among many men and women in the region. In other words, the subject and identity position claimed by Ruben involved a very deliberate act on his part of re-subjectification towards the dominant modes of male subjectivity in his community. At the same time, within the framework of certain select possibilities in his community, the friendship that I had cultivated with him around critical questions of intimacy pertaining to this research project had also assisted his ability to perform this action. Ruben's marked discrepancy with his social context, however, cannot be understood as a difference articulated around "sexual orientation" but more so as an enhanced capacity for affective intimacy within a set horizon of cultural negotiations and debates about the meaning of "being a man." Throughout my fieldvvork experience in Sonora I met other men who shared similar stories of male intimacy and bodily contact with other men. Some of these men had the opportunity to work as researchers or as doctors in various small communities in the sierra. I brielly recount here five examples:
1Ananthropologist/medical doctortold methat uponarriving ata humble housing development after a long and arduous itinerary in the southern part of Sonora and faced w ith the possibility of having to travel through the night, a local man invited him to eat at his house and to spend the night. The man and his wife decided that she would sleep in another room with the children and that he would get to share the matrimonial bed with the guest. When 1 asked my friend whether there had been any body contact between him and the man, he answered that he was surprised when the man "stretched his arm over me all night long."
Am I suggesting that there are no instances in which the kinds of affective and corporeal intimacies described above evolve or transform into sexual relations, even if they remain within the socially acceptable context of friendship between men? Not at all.
It is hard to believe that such things do not happen. In fact, I have also collected stories that speak to such dynamics. But the main point I wish to emphasize is that the predominance of the non-sexual stories point towards a kind of experience of intimacy between men, in rural communities but also in urban working-class settings, that escape the dominant conceptualizations about the "homosexual act" that usually limit such homoerotic practices only to explicit "gay" or ''homosexual" identities or to the dichotomies 'jofo-mayalt" or active-passive.
2.- In a trip from Hermosillo to the US-Mexico border 1 met Antonio. He was 39 years old, dark skinned, with a thick mustache and dark eyebrows, medium built and slender.
Except for the green eyes, he truly resembled Emiliano Zapata. After he noticed that 1 was reading a psychology book, he dared to initiate a conversation with me that resulted in a rather intimate confession. He began by asking me about my profession. He told me how much he enjoyed reading the literature text from his grammar school days (he had only studied up to the 6"^ grade). He said he still had that book among his most precious possessions. 1 encouraged him to tell me which were his favorite poems and 1 took the liberty of reciting for him a few stories and poems that 1 remembered by heart from that text. Antonio told me that he came from a very small rural community in Zacatecas. After a few mutual confessions and feeling that he was in the company of someone that as he said "really knew how to carry on a conversation" he began to tell me a story in a deep and measured voice.
"1 have a friend, we have always been best friends, since we were kids...we were always together, up and down the two of us; as we got older we also became party buddies and used to go to the dances at nearby towns together; it was a very special friendship. Later on he got married and so did 1, but we always kept our friendship. One evening 1 drank a lot; it was almost dawn by the time we stopped drinking. Since I did not want to get back to my wife in that state he invited me to stay with him in a house out by the cornfields. It was a house that his family owned in the outskirts of town. We had been there before, the two of us. So, there we went; I was pretty out of it. But 1 do remember that when we arrived he told me to lay down and he took off my boots. It was all very nice; he placed my hat in a safe place, and later on....I was already laying down, he brought his face close to mine and gave me a kiss [he said this while placing his hands over his lips]. Then he fell asleep and so did I."
Antonio remained silent for what seemed a long time. I did not say a word.
Then he said in a soft voice: ''what do you think?" I was very surprised both by the content of the story and by the ease with which he had told it to me. Trying not to sound too intrusive or to break the aura of trust between us, I ventured to ask: "and you, how did you feel?" And in a most relaxed and soft tone he said looking me in the eye: "good, I felt good." Somewhat awkwardly I asked: "you mean because he is your friend?" He responded reflexively: "Maybe so, no?" I asked: "What happened next?" He replied:
"Nothing; the next day we both acted like nothing happened, the same as we were before...but sometimes I remember what I felt when he kissed me, like that....hovv' it felt on my lips...but I have never brought it up with him. A little bit later I came to the other side [the United States]. We stopped seeing each other, but when I return home we always get together, as the best friends that we are."
There was a long pause in our conversation. Finally, I said: "well, that was really nice, no?" He replied barely audible: "eyyyyyy..." I felt that he was happy to accept my opinion on the matter, as if somehow my moral approval mattered to him on account that 1 was "educated" and studied psychology and was a '"sensitive man" who could recite poetry.
At that point I arrived at my destination. I got off at an intersection hoping to catch a ride to a nearby tovvn and he continued to the border line. We shook hands and he said to me: "May God bless you. Thank You. ] hope someday we cross paths again." His tone and look was kind and grateful. 1 could not help but to think that his confession was motivated as much by the trust that I inspired in him as by the fact that he knew he would never see me again.
The ethnographic experiences of corporeal and affective closeness that I have been relating so far, as well as my own difficulties in making sense of them, confront me face to face with two main threads running through this thesis: the culturally constructed nature of the meanings often attributed to physical contact and emotional intimacy between men, and therefore the socially constructed character of men's possibility for affective and erotic intimacy, and the inadequate character of dominant sexual categories
(like fairy, trade, gay or homosexual) to account for this intimate relations. Several instances of physical contact and emotional bonding that for me would have immediately represented erotic interests and would have pointed out to a "gay" identity, turned out to be ordinary "masculine" behavior for many of my informants. Along the same lines, everyday bodily performances, gestures, and postures that for me suggested excessively rigid expressions borne out of the local modes of'"machismo," were considered by many of the men that I interacted with "normal" modalities of "being a man." ("Je ser hombre"). In several other instances, I was left to ponder actions and behaviors that from my point of view seemed rather ambiguous.
The meanings attributed to affective and corporeal intimacy among men are always constructed in relation to other meanings in other areas of social discourse: namely, meanings about what counts as "manliness" and conversely what does not count as such (and is thus considered feminine, effeminate, less masculine, less manly, ''joto" or proper conduct of women). The semiotics of gender are thus implicated in the social regulation of what it "means" to "be a man," and these regulations are in turn mobilized to establish a horizon of possibilities for exchanging intimacy with other men. Some of these intimacies, certainly, transgress somehow, in a greater or lesser degree the dominant conceptions of being a "man" in those communities.
However, are the semiotics of masculinity and of "manliness" always transparent, fixed, homogeneous, and inflexible? The testimonies of the men that I met and my own experiences in the field seem to suggest quite the opposite. They point, instead, to negotiation, flexibility, heterogeneity, and dispute with regards to the meaning of "being a man," even in traditional communities in the northern sierra of Mexico where one would assume the opposite to be the case.
At the same time, I recognize that the cultural significance of the practices of masculinity and intimacy that I discuss here were apprehended through a research process and experience that implicated my own performances of "manhood" in relation to that of my research subjects. Or, better yet, I should refer to the dialogic nature of what "has been learned" in terms of my own knowledge and trajectory in grasping the politics of 140
masculinity and intimacy in contrast to the processes undertaken by my informants towards the same end. Yet, in what may seem at first glance a paradox or perhaps a disclaimer, this contrast between myself and my research collaborators makes all too obvious a point that I argue in the next chapter: the meanings of masculinity in Mexico are not always the same for all men, in all places, and at all times. CHAPTER 2. DISPUTES OVER THE MEANING OF "BEING A MAN" IN
MEXICO: APPLICATIONS OF QUEER THEORY
I Masculinity as Challenge
(Fragment, Fieldnote, January 27, 1999)
While I sit on a bench in the Town Square in La Mesa, around the time when people retire to take their 'siesta' and the streets look deserted, I see three boys approximately 6 or 7 years old playing around and climbing a large olive tree nearby.
One of the boys climbs to the highest branch. Looking down, he says to his friend below:
"let's see if you are really a man, I dare you to climb as high as I did." The boy below responds: "I'll show you" and rapidly ascends up the trunk until he reaches the same branch where the first boy sits. Intrigued, Ifocus my attention on their conversation. The second climber now begins to taunt the third boy who has stayed behind, close to the ground.
"don't be a bizcocho [sissy], climb up, nothing bad will happen to you! [the Spanish word "bizcocho" has been translated as "sissy" but a literal translation would be something like "don't be a sponge cake ").
-The third boy, who is also the youngest of the three, responds in a fearful voice: "no, I will fall..."
-"Come on, climb up; nothing is going to happen, try again..." says the second climber.
"Leave him alone, he is very culdn [sissy]... " adds the first boy from the tallest branch
[the expression used by the boy in Spanish is "es bien culon " -a literal translation would be "he has a big ass" but in this context, the connotative meaning is the same as "sissy "] The second boy now turns his attention to the first climber and issues another challenge:
- "let's see who is more man -I dare you to jump from here all the way over there ..."he says, pointing towards the end of the long branch on which they are sitting.
- "I'll do it..." says the first boy and jumps hurridly.
The boy who issued the challenge retorts:
- "well I can do it, too...look, look... " and he jumps daringly only to land next to where I am seating, his knees badly scraped.
- "It's OK to rub yourself... " says the boy on top sarcastically.
- "that didn 't hurt me..." responds the second boy confidently and quickly gets up and dusts himself off
The boys continue to carry on a little while longer and finally move away to play some other game.
I have been following the exchange between these boys and I am surprised to hear them, at such a young age, compete to prove who is "more man" than the other.
Socialization into gender identities, as many studies have already confirmed, begins literally from the moment of birth (Badinter, 1995; Chodorow, 1978). Yet, other studies have indicated that this process of gender socialization is not universal, but rather than in some human groups gender differences are established through specific rituals performed around the age of puberty (Herdt, 1981). Certainly, most of the ethnographic studies about masculinities have focused on such rituals of "masculinization." In general, however, there is agreement in the literature about the deployment at some point in a boy's life of experiences that transform his subjective understanding of himself as "male" 143
—a process that is both a matter of the construction of the boy/man as subject as well as of establishing the social and personal dispositions of what Bourdieu calls "habitus." In fact, the behavior of the boys in the field observation above reveals a point that Bourdieu theorizes in his book La Domination masculine: that the construction of masculinity involves also the formation of an ''illusio." That is, the social struggle to obtain the symbolic prize of "manliness" often involves the desire to place a "bet" or dare others to give you the opportunity to "prove it" (Bourdieu, 1998).
Taking into account these dynamics, something becomes exceedingly clear;
"manhood" and /or "manliness" is not a given, a fact, a fait accompli, a substance, nor an intrinsic quality. Manliness appears to be, instead, a social "good" in short supply -the object of everyday disputes that must be adjudicated through competitions, games, and burdens of proof. Manliness is the result of certain specific actions and ways of signification and of the capacities of subjects to enact those actions and meanings corporeally and subjectively. The meanings of what may or not constitute manliness are also objects of dispute; "let's see if you are really a man." It is a meaning process experienced through attributes of quantity and quality: "let's see who is more man." In these instances of competition, meaning is relational; in other words, meaning is defined by what it opposes, in this case the "feminine" ("he is very sissy").
On the other hand, the use of the adverb "very" in the boy's description of the youngest boy as ''very sissy" seems to suggest the possibility that what is opposed to
"manliness" is also a matter of degrees and quality. In Spanish the use of the adjective
"bien" before the word "culon" produces the same semantic effect. But in either case, both masculinity and its opposite are apprehended in terms of bodily images: in Spanish
''bizcocho" (a sponge cake in the shape of a ring) and ""culon" (a big ass) are both connotative references to "sissiness." In both cases, the words are used to reference
"fear" or the inability to overcome fear, or being excessively cautious (timid). In all cases the reference is to qualities at odd with virility. "Being a man" is thus configured as a matter of courage, self-control, a daring attitude, and finally, suppression of pain. The deployment of these meanings is mediated through sarcasm, mockery, scorn, and disqualification, as well as by a conception of the male body as closed and impenetrable.
In other words, a "real man" does not have the openings of a "bizcocho" (a ring) or of a
"big ass". A culdn on the contrary has an open and exposed body.
Another small detail in the boys' exchange catches my attention: the youngest boy was not able to resist or revert the meaning attributed to his behavior. Recent studies about masculinities and gender socialization have emphasized the importance of agency as a reminder of the complexity of these processes. 1 do not discount the importance of agency in approaching the construction of "masculine" identities, but I am also compelled to note the pervasive character of the "exigencies" (Welzer-Lang et al, 1994) or requirements, the compulsory calls to conform that seem so integral a part of the gender socialization of boys. These demands are even more difficult to resist when one's own peers issue them, when children function as agents of order and comformity among themselves.
According to Bourdieu, once subjects enter a "field" socially configured (in this case the "field" of gender and sexuality) and common interests are recognized between the subject and the social context, a mechanism of shared functionality sets in motion the reproduction of "distinctions". In this case, the distinction refers to "manhood" and its privileges. But this line of argument begs the question: do subjects ever have the option to resists, to differ, and contest? In the case of the boys playing in the tree, the answer to that question comes almost too easy. And that easiness in itself makes me wonder what may be at stake in the candor, almost common-sensical way, in which two boys issue a call to a third boy to step up and represent his manliness. Is this process between children always so effective?
A few days after my observation of the children playing in the tree, I had the following experience.
(February 2, 1999)
While I sit writing fieldnotes in the small living room of the adobe house where I am staying, I hear two girls and a small boy playing "house " in the courtyard. The boy plays the role of a small child and the two girls play the role of mother and "comadre "
(mother's friend and godmother of her child). At one point they stage a scene in which the young boy is severely scolded by the girl playing his mother. Upon seeing this, the
"comadre " intervenes and says to the "mother:" "Comadre, it's not a good thing to scold your child so harshly, please count to ten before you do it. "And then, addressing the small boy, she says: "remember that children like us have a right not to be mistreated or abused. " I am surprised and amused to hear such a clear reproduction in these children's play of the messages from governmental campaigns to prevent domestic violence. 146
The existence of a social discourse against domestic violence and the rights of children contrasts with the usually violent exchanges that characterize children 's play in the first place. It occurs to me that maybe the experience and process of childhood is not as ideologically homogeneous as it has been made out to be. Maybe there are possibilities of resistance to the traditional values and child-rearing practices passed on through socialization. These possibilities are not abundant, but they are present nonetheless.
II To be a "man" or to be "macho:" disputes over meaning
I saw Rogelio for the first time when he was pushing a stroller and walking with his wife in the neighborhood. Both, he and his wife are 23 years old. They caught my attention because during the time that I lived in that town I never saw a man pushing a stroller. Many young couples used to take walks in the late afternoon, but they were either alone or the woman was always in charge of the baby. After seeing Rogelio that aftemoon, I always recognized his face whenever I ran into him in other locations around town. The few other times that I saw Rogelio, he was always in what I could be generally describe as "unusual" situations for men in that area: grocery shopping with his wife, wearing shorts, or practicing karate moves on a baseball court with a foreign guy.
Over time, we became friends. Rogelio told me he was pleased to find someone with whom to share what he called his criticisms of the "machismo" prevalent in the town. I, in turn, was pleased to find such an excellent informant -a native of the town and well-versed, as he put it, of the "ways of thinking" of people in the area. One aftemoon, as we sat in the living room of the guest house where I lived, I brought up the subject of his differences with respect to the behaviors of other local men.
- "Listen, is it common for men around here to walk their babies on a stroller the way you do? "
-"No, not at all... " he smiles. "Don't we wish, Guillermo. Haven'tyou noticed that people around here are very "machista " and they would feel embarrassed to be seen strolling a baby.
- "Yeah? And why is that?
-"Because as I am telling you, they are "machistas."It's the Mexican Machismo, you know how that works..." he says, expecting the meaning of his words to be self-evident.
- "And what kind of things could happen if a man is seen strolling his baby? "
-"Well, nothing... " he seems impatient with my questions. "What could possibly happen...? Nothing has happened to me yet."
- "You think they are afraid that people would say something to them, insult them? "
-"Yes, that's right...they are afraid to be called "mandilones" (submissive to their wives, to be commanded, in Spanish 'mandar'). OK, let me explain it to you, there are people in this town, men mostly, not the women so much, although there are women who think in the same way —well, there are men who like to make fun of other men; if they see you for example playing with your child, they say: "oh, look at that guy, what a sucker
("mamon "), making a fool of himself. Or, if you go out carrying the baby on a stroller, all the same they talk about you, they say, "look at that guy, his wife orders him around" and things of that sort. I know what to expect from guys like that. Since they always make fun of other men, then they restraint from doing things that they know will cause others to make fun of them. There are men that even restrain from hugging their children for fear of being ridiculed.
- "No way!" I say pretending to be surprised.
- "Yes. Haven't you noticed? Yes, they are ashamed. They horse around with the boys and pretend to play rough with the kids, in order for them to look tough themselves" he tells me with a smile. "They act in the same way with regards to other things... not so much the older folks, they change as they get older, but the guys more or less my age, they are full of themselves and pretend to be real tough; they are always boasting that they can beat the crap out of anyone, that they gave so and so a good beating, that they can hold their drinks...things like that...1 guess they like imagining that they are the tough guy on some old Western movie, or the hero of a "corrido " [he laughs] Ifind it all very funny, I laugh to myself, but sometimes it also makes me mad."
- "You don't act that way. Why not?"
-"I don 't want to be like that. Well, to be fair, not everybody acts in the same way. It's mostly the guys who come from the "ranchos, " have less education, are a bit more boorish. But me, ever since I was a little boy I said I did not want to be that way. I am different, and even if they make fun of me, I said to myself, it is they who are wrong, not me. Once, when I was about 15, some guys wanted me to smoke cigarrettes with them.
They kept saying: "come on, smoke, be a man... " and I said to them: and what does being a man has to do with smoking? I am a man, I and I don't want to smoke. The same guys later on insisted that I drink beer with them. I refused and they began to insult me: "sissy ("bizcocho," "culon, "), he must be a faggot ("joto"). They grabbed me and poured the beer over my head. I got really sad. When they let me go, I went back to my house and Ifelt real sad about what had happened and I even shed some tears about it, but I didn't tell anyone.
Let me tell you, there was a time when Ifelt depressed because I was different. I used to wonder if there was something wrong with me, because I was...how can I say it?
Uhm...so sensitive. I used to pray to God that I could be tough like other men. I wanted not to give a damn about anything. And I used to think: maybe they are right; maybe I am a faggot ("joto"). I used to have these fantasies that I was a bully, that I would throw punches to anyone who crossed me. But at the same time, I used to think: no, I am fine the way I am, they are the ones who are wrong. One day some boys around my same age instigated a fight and they said: "come on, are you a man, or what? " And that day I finally had it in me to tell them: "yes, I am a man, but fighting has nothing to do with being a man, you guys are just caught up in some idea about "machismo," why would I get into a fight with someone over nothing? "
- "But that made you different from other men in town. Why do you think you are this way? "
-"Uhm, who knows! I don't know, I was always more sensitive, so to speak. I remember that I had this teacher, and he was a priest also...he was really nice, and he used to talk to us in a different way, and I noticed that he acted differently from other men that I knew, because he was more affectionate and he always used to tell us: "never be ashamed to express your feelings." In a way I am different, but I am not the only one who feels this way. There are people who change over time, who do not agree with those ideas about making fun of other men. It's only a matter of ignoring those types of comments.
You can't live your life to please other people. That's exactly what I told one of those tough guys once. I said: "come to think of it, I am more man than you are, because I have the courage to take a walk with my wife, to wear whatever clothes Ifeel like wearing, of kissing my brother when I run into him somewhere. You, on the other hand, are always thinking what people would say about you, even if you feel like acting the same way I do.
You are not you...I said to him. You are afraid. I, on the other hand, I am more man than you, even though you are a "machista. " For you being a man is always acting tough and mean, but deep inside you wish you could be like me, but you do not dare... "And, guess what, he stood still and very quiet. "
- "He just stayed quiet, nothing else?"
- "He looked at me and not knowing what to say, he said: "don't be such a pussy...I was only joking with you, man. "
Rogelio surprises me once again. He is a "sui generis" kind of man, not only because of his uncommon public behaviors, but also because of his discursive clarity. He has the ability to articulate an alternative discourse about the meaning of being a man and to resist the pressures around him to conform to a fixed set of ideas. Ironically,
Rogelio comes from a neighborhood with a reputation for being a place where people are
"mean, " "vulgar, " and "fisty. "
My conversation with Rogelio reaffirms my realization that the meanings of masculinity are disputed, even in small "traditional" towns like the ones in the sierra. He is living proof of the fact that some men are capable of articulating an alternative discourse that resists the demands and restrictions imposed on behalf of a particular version of manliness or manhood. We also see, again, how terms of insult such as
"bizcocho," ''culon," "mandilon" or ''joto" (sissy, softy, submissive, or fairy) are mobilized as threats against the fulfillment of certain idealized forms of masculine behavior. It is interesting to note that in this usage ''joto" (fairy) is not a term that describes a man's sexuality, but his gender identity. Specifically, Rogelio is called a
"fairy" because he is sensitive, pacifist, refuses to smoke and drink beer, enjoys doing things with his wife, expresses his affection and insists on his own aesthetic choices - namely, he likes wearing brightly colored shirts.
Rogelio, on his part, mobilizes in his discourse the term "machismo" as a powerful argumentation intended to substract validity from the actions of so-called masculinity. As Mathew Guttman (1996) points out in his book about meanings of manhood in Mexico City, the term "macho" has lost currency and very few men use it nowadays when talking about themselves. Being "macho" is no longer considered a desireable quality. The term has become associated with notions of underdevelopment, pre-modemity, and ignorance. In other words, "macho" is now recognized as an inappropriate way of "being a man." Behaviors associated with "being macho" such as violence towards women or failing to share in the care and upbringing of children have also lost social legitimacy. In general, there is now greater diversity in Mexico about the behaviors that count as "manly" and a social dispute over the meanings of masculinity. 152
The expression "Mexican Machismo" utilized by Rogelio is represented discursively as an image clipped from a film, or as the fantasy character in a "corrido"
(popular song). In both cases the emphasis is placed on the masking function of the concept ("deep inside you are afraid"). At the same time, Rogelio invokes the same tropes associated with mythical conceptions of "Mexican Machismo" to affirm other ways of being "manly" ("I am more man than you are"), almost suggesting that his is a more authentic version of manhood and hence lending legitimacy to his unconventional behaviors.
Ill Diversity and Disputes over "being a man" in Mexico: a post-structuralist analysis
Departing from the work of Samuel Ramos in the 1930s, the general intellectual conceptualization of the "Mexican man" has been dominated by an essensialist perspective that has refused to examine not only the diversity of "manhoods" manifested in Mexico, but of Mexico itself as a nation-state. The "Mexican man" that became the object of analysis for most of the 20"^ century was thus represented as disorderly, hypersexual, aggressive, a womanizer who drank excessively, and someone incapable of expressing his true feelings (as Octavio Paz so eloquently describes him in his seminal work The Laberynth of Solitude). For Paz and his followers, the peculiar phenomenon denominated the "Mexican man" operates as a kind of "protest" enacted by men to hide what is otherwise an alleged inferiority complex. This sense of inferiority can be attributed in turn to processes of conquest and colonization, the rape of the archetypal 153
Indian Mother, and the abandonment or distance from the Hispanic Father. In this light, the complexity of socio-cultural formations in Mexico is reduced to a pseudo- psychological plot fitting for a soap opera.
I want to argue here for a fundamentally different conception of this ideology.
Taking into account a variety of ethnographic materials about men's lives that has been produced in Mexico and elsewhere in the last few decades, I want to begin by stating the obvious: Mexico is not a single homogeneous cultural entity. As such, Mexicans are not all the same, not even all "Mexican men." There is no such thing as a uniform, stable, predictable, and fixed "Mexican man." That kind of "man" never existed. The only possible way of invoking something close to a "Mexican man" is to refer to it/him as an object of discourse, the product of a series of rhetorical maneuvers linked to a very specific political goal -namely, the construction of the nation (Anderson, 1983). The substantialization of the nation into a human figure is a political and rhetorical strategy mobilized to accomplish projects of state-formation (Alonso, 1994). In post-revolutionary
Mexico, this nationalist substantialization has acquired clear connotations of male identification (O'Malley 1986; Muniz 2002).
Setting aside the rhetoric of a national male prototype, we are left therefore with a vast diversity of experiences that configure "men" in Mexico. Mexican men are diverse in terms of class, ethnicity, lifestyles, sexual practices, age, skin color, notewithstandingly the complex processes of subjectification elaborated by the Church, the State, and the capitalist economy. This diversity that now seems so "obvious," however, was not always identifiable under the weight of conventional mj^hical 154
constructions of the nation and its subjects. Since the 1960s, a persistent popular struggle for democratization in tandem with several ideological crises in the nationalist ideology has helped open up theoretical and political spaces to acknowledge this diversity.
It is not enough, however, to limit the argument of "being a man" in Mexico to an affirmation of the diversity of experiences of manhood between and among men. We also need to examine critically the notion of being "a man" in the first place. We need to recognize that the difference established in the first instance is a gender difference. In other words, we need to recognize that in Mexico there are many ways of conceptualizing that which we uniformly call being being "a man", as well as many ways to understand masculinity, and hence different ways of organizing gendered social distinctions, even among "biological males."
The theoretical argument that I am advancing proposes that instead of referring to
"the Mexican man" or simply to "man" as conceptual categories, we need to make the categories themselves into objects of study. The term "man" seen from this perspective, as Bourdieu points out, is part of a struggle over modes of representation that encompass more than a singular experience but that have to do with the power to represent reality in the first place and the power to achieve "legitimate" and adequate representation (1990).
The concepts "man," "masculinity," "virility," "manliness," etc. are mobilized as part of politics of signification that debate the very meanings of these terms and their uses to represent actions, ways of feeling and being, objects, and relationships.
The extent to which these terms are in dispute, however, is tighly connected to the ways in which the same terms participate in the organization of social distinctions. Ostensibly, these are terms that (a) differentiate people from one another and (b) assign
status of distinction to some to the detriment of others (Bourdieu, 1998). In patriarchal
societies, notions of "masculinity" and "manliness" are priviledged markers of distinction
that assign values and symbolic powers to some, at the expense of others, and that
translate into forms of "capital" in other social fields (Bourdieu, 1997).
These theoretical considerations throw into a whole different light how we
conceive of our "object of study," properly speaking. In contrast to essentialist tendencies
prevalent in the emerging field of "men's studies" that purport to study the practices and subjectivities of "men" as a natural group defined by common biological characteristics, in the present work the objects of study are not simply "men" who do "manly" things or a distinct group of "men" with different and idiosyncratic interpretations of their
"masculinities." I would hope that in place of these seemingly positivist conceptualizations, the present work can focus attention on "men" as a group of people who have been socialized according to divergent and contradictory semiotics of gender that co-exist in contemporary Mexican society. The codes that establish the divergent meanings of "manliness" and "masculinity" are disputed in everyday life and account collectively for the determined "male" character of specific forms of subjectivities. Put simply: notions of who and/or what are "men" or masculine are not transparent and cannot be applied unambiguously in all cases. The processes by which subjects are designated as "men" are part of political dynamics of signification that ultimately define the gender identities by which people are differentiated. In this scenario, of course, a 156
certain presumption of "masculinity" is attributed through processes of sociaHzation to those subjects who bear "male" genitals.
IV Manhood and the "male" body: a problematic relationship
(Fragment of a conversation with Jose)
I met Jose at a bar in Hermosillo that is known as "de ambiente", that is, a place where a certain homoerotic audience and permissiveness predominate, even though it is not formally designated as a "gay " bar in the conventional sense of the word. Men from all walks of life —from blue-collar workers to government employees to hairdressers to white collar professionals, and intellectuals—converge at this location to play dominoes, talk, or in some cases for flirting. Women are not denied entrance to this bar, but for the most part it is a male dominated environment. Some women come to the bar in the company of gay friends. It is common to find a great variety of gender representations in this place - some men carry the hyper-virile look of blue-collar workers and cowboys while others appear to be what I would call androgenously gay. On Friday nights, one can also see a few tranvestites in attendance.
I saw Jose come into the bar several times. He usually came alone, dressed in a cowboy outfit but without a hat, and sat at the bar to order a drink. He usually stayed there the whole time he was at the bar, staring at the TV monitors that showed movies or sport events. In another part of the same location they have installed a TV that shows heterosexual soft-porno movies. We never talked, but on more than one ocassion I observed him leaving the bar discreetly in the company of another man, usually a man identified as "gay. "
Some time later, I ran into Jose at a party in one of the small towns where 1 was conducting fieldwork. We both were equally surprised to find the other there. We exchanged greetings and started a conversation. I had a feeling that our conversation was facilitated by a sense of complicity about having spotted each other previously in the same bar in Hermosillo. I learned at that moment that Los Corazones was Jose's hometown and that he had moved with all his family to Hermosillo four years ago to work at a 'maquila' (assembly plant). He said he only came back to town for special ocassions or when he was on vacation. He asked me what I was doing in town and I explained to him the nature of my research project. Satisfied with my explanation, he then made it a point to tell me that "nobody in town knew what was going on" referring to his affective and erotic attraction to men. I quickly let him know that I would keep the matter confidential.
Later on that day he asked me if I was headed back to Hermosillo and whether I could give him a ride. On the way back, indicating that he thought I was someone who could understand him because "I knew more than he did" about life and such matters, he shared with me his life story. I could tell that his compliment was genuine. Over the course of our conversation that day he shared with me what he said were things that he
"had never talked about with anyone:" his adolescent escapades as well as his fantasies and crutches, topics which provoked a certain degree of embarrassment in him. 158
My conversation with Jose was one of the most unusual exchanges I had with anyone during fieldwork. In my view, it revealed just exactly how complex can be the intersection between predominant ideas about "being a man " and the practices and conceptualizations about erotism among men. By the way, it is worth mentioning that
Jose's demeanor and behaviors were conventionally "masculine, " as evidenced by his gestures, attitudes, and his style of clothing. In other words, by the standards of the town of Los Corazones, at first sight he does not project any sign of sexual dissidence or gender playfulness. At one point during the conversation Jose saw it fit to go into details about some aspects of his sexual life:
- "Listen, I don't know what you think, but look.. .1 want to be frank with you. ..even though I am 22 years old I have just barely started to have sexual relations of this kind...well, the thing is, you see, I am the one who gets penetrated and...well, I don't like it too much, I am not sure..."
- "Do you feel guilty? "
-"Well, yes, sometimes ...but it is not so much that...maybe with time it will pass...more than anything I am afraid."
-"About AIDS?"
-"No, not that...well, yes, that too, but...well I don't just do it with anyone, a prostitute fag...no, I do it with a guy who is pretty quiet and reserved, like me...I met him this one time when I took my girlfriend to a 'Norteno' dance at the Stadium, and we got along just great, it was really happening, so we agreed to meet at another time to drink some beers ...and from then on, we continued seeing each other, and we get it on, that 'sfor
sure...and he is the one that I have allowed to penetrate me."
- "So, what are you afraid of?"
-"Oh, geez, let me see...it's not really fear, how can I put it? I don't want to continue
doing it because I think that if I am always being penetrated maybe over time, who
knows, it's almost as if my body would turn more feminine, my hips would grow wider
and I would get breasts, what do you think?"
Utterly surprised by his confession about what sounds to me almost like a superstition, I
ask:
- "And why do you think that such a thing could happen? Who told you that? "
-"No, no one...I have noticed those changes in other people...haven'tyou noticed how
the faggots ("jotos ") have large breasts and large hips, they almost look like a woman?"
I explain to Jose that those men he has seen around town that have the features he
describes, that "look like a woman," in most cases have had silicone breast implants and
surgery to modify their bodies. Trying to provoke further reflection on his part on this
confusing subject, I ask him:
-"Have you ever met men, masculine men, like you, for example, who have sex with other
men? "
He pauses and thinks and then says:
- "Yes, that's true, isn 't it? Because I remember that I met this guy who plays in a baseball team, a professional team mind you, and you see the guy and you could never imagine that he also likes to get it on with other guys, [el cotorreo machin] ...I know that 160
guy likes to be penetrated and I hardly doubt that he is new to this...and I tell you, you see him and he is all man. Yes, you are right..."
In Mexico's non-indigenous rural communities, a "man" is immediately identified in common sense terms by having a penis and testicles; in other words, with being identified as having a "male" body in the biological sense. This common sense association between "maleness" as a biological marker and "manhood" can be interpreted as a symptom of the hegemony of a patriarchal system that declares things "normal" in their most obvious ways while working to conceal the contradictions among the key markers of such a system. In short, by rendering seemingly "natural" the trilogy "male- masculine-heterosexual" as if one term inevitably and "logically" followed the other and so forth. These contradictions are particularly evident when we focus our attention on the term "man" and the politics of representation that invest that word/category with meaning, as is most notable in the case of subjects such as "effeminate men" who appear always peripheral to the center of the sex-gender system.
The term "man" is therefore inflected with the following contradictions: having a
"male" body is not enough to achieve "manhood;" men who are "effeminate" are still
"men;" behaving "like a man" has nothing to do with having a "male" body. A number of particular ideologems have been activated in order to achieve the "ordering" belied by these contradictions; (1) men who are "effeminate" partly belong to a "third sex" (even though they appear to have the attributes of a "male" body, that body is not in fact really
"fl// male."). (2) "Effeminate" men and other biological males who engage in practices considered "not-masculine" are mentally and socially deviant. Insofar as these beliefs become operational, it is not hard to see how the perception of a normalizing correlation between "male body," "manhood," and "masculine behavior" justifies and abets homophobia.
The concept of "man" in Mexico is therefore more complex than it seems. The same can be said for the concepts ''joto" or "homosexual," as I have argued elsewhere.
So-called "homosexuals" are not necessarily those who have sexual relations with persons of their own sex (a topic that I will explore in more detail later). As far as the concept of "man" is concemed, my previous research on male identities and subjectivities revealed that although "male" genitalia is required for identifying those who are "not" men (i.e. "females"), the presence of genitals alone is not enough to define who is or is not a "man." What happens instead is that the male body is subjected to a set of prescribed cultural readings that specify ways of presenting and acting with (in) the body.
As a result of these compulsory dynamics, the body is endowed, so to speak, with "male" qualities and the equivalent socially assigned value of "manliness."
This process that I describe above becomes all too apparent when we consider the concept of "man" in relation to transexuals, tranvestites, or "jotos." The category of hermaphrodites or intersexuals that would cast serious questions on the normalizing trilogy described above, does not even figure in the discourse of manhood (Fausto-
Sterling, 1993). There is a euphemism used in some parts of Mexico to refer to "jotos" that captures some of the normative weight of the category "man" as well as some of the ambivalence with which "jotos" are regarded socially. The made-up word ''machomenos" has double meaning: it means literally "menos macho" (less male) but it also calls into play phonetically the expression ""mas o menos" (more or less) which in this instance means "mas o menos macho" (male.. .more or less). Intended to be a clever expression, the word "machomenos" condenses the ambiguity that permeates the concept of "man"and the allegedly natural relationship between "manhood" and the biologically marked "male" body. Jose's confession and his story in general underscore the social relevance and prevalence of these ambiguities.
Far from being the natural and safe site (residence) of masculinity or femeninity - ground zero for the construction of gender identity—the body is burdened and crisscrossed by multiple demands and preconceptions that entail ideas about desire, erotic practices and the ultimate expected configuration of one or another gender identity
(masculine or feminine). Gender, therefore, enunciates the possible understandings of sex and body (Butler, 1993). Of course, it would not be sensible to assume that all the young men in Jose's town who more or less share his characteristics think alike about these matters. Nonetheless, I think that Jose's conceptualization of these gender/sex/body dyanmics offers a good example of the surprising heterogeneity about "being a man" prevalent in Mexico. In general, we can say that in Mexican society the possession of a
"male" body is associated to "manhood" and "manliness." However, the mechanics of this association are not clear or homogeneous. They are mediated in the first instance by social constructions and ideologies about what constitutes "manhood" and most basically, what constitutes a "male" body. In turn, these ideologies are the subject of shifting negotiations, ambiguities, and disputes. V "A Man" and "A Real Man": Internal Distinctions in a Cultural Fiction
In semantic and political terms, there is another area of contention about "being a man" in Mexico that deserves elaboration. I am referring to the similarities and differences among various cultural communities within the same country regarding the gender designations of a wide array of everyday actions, objects, relations, and presentations of the self Such similarities and differences, particularly with regards to the meanings of "masculine" behaviors, underscore the construction of distinctions and hierarchies among "Mexican men" when it comes to determining their "manliness" and/or "manhood." These distinctions are manifested in the use of expressions such as
"he is a real man," "show that you are man," "I am more man than you," etc. ("m« verdadero hombre, " "que tan hombre eres, " "menos hombre"). The stories and commentaries by the men introduced up to this point in the present work ~ Jose Pedro,
Rogelio, Ventura, and the children—demonstrate the currency of these conceptualizations.
Mexican men experience and express the semiotics of masculinity differently. For the same token, people in Mexico differ about how they understand, even in the broadest terms, what are masculine or feminine behaviors. Rather than assume that we know in advance how social conventions resonate with people's emotional links to gender categories we should study the exact ways in which these processes unfold. For example, in Tzotzil communities men hold hands when they walk together. For them, such an act is a sign of manhood that expresses the values and meanings that define their "masculine" sense of self. In contrast, in non-indigenous communities in Mexico, holding hands between men is predominantly considered an "effeminate" behavior (since women, for the most part, are allowed the freedom to hold hands in public as an expression of friendship).
Another example of a divergent interpretation of gender designation can be found in an indigenous community in the Sonoran sierra. In this community, wearing shorts can be interpreted in a variety of gendered ways. In fact, the very ambiguity and multivocality of this action testifies to the ongoing struggles over the meanings of masculinity.
Although wearing shorts to play soccer (also a new interest in this community) or to hang around the home is becoming increasingly popular among young men, it is also quite common to hear comments among men and some youth against the practice for fear of not looking "masculine" or being identified as "jotos." This connotation is so prevalent that many of the male high school students resist wearing shorts during gym classes or playing any sport were shorts are part of the required costume.
In stark contrast, in the city of Hermosillo barely 150 kilometers from this sierra community, wearing shorts in itself is not a relevant gender marker, but the style, color, and design of the shorts worn are. If the shorts are too short, or have buttoms instead of zippers, or are made of "soft" color fabrics, then they are not considered "masculine."
This diversity of interpretations about the meanings of masculine or feminine markers of identity is not exclusive to distinctions between rural and urban communities or among ethnic groups. These variations in gender signification can be found even within the most close-knit communities. A similar pattern of differences can be detected with regards to notions of virility or manhood. The values and meanings that constitute "manhood" within a given community are often fraught with internal contradictions. At least, that is what I have observed through my fleldwork experiences. On the one hand, one can find a palpable admiration for qualities focused on the constitution of a male "self such as strength, courage, capacity to kill, physical prowess, independence, self-control, autonomy, sexual potency, self-gratification, and participation in public or civic affairs. On the other hand, one can simultaneously point to an equal degree of admiration for qualities that reinforce social responsibilities such as leadership, being family-oriented, paternity, sociability, respect towards others, reliability, honesty, and modesty among many others. It is expected that every once in a while some of these socially oriented qualities might come into conflict with the aforementioned "egocentric" attributes. There is a great deal of variety in how people negotiate these tensions through their actions as well as in how they interpret the identities and actions of others. This diversity in values and judgements testifies to the saliency of social struggles over the meanings of masculinity, or of the
"right" kind of masculinity, to be exact. Rather than assert with certainty that one set of values is predominant, the practices under review so far demonstrate that the meanings of masculinity are complexly intertwined with many other elements and that such meanings are disputed often. Hence, when it comes to the wielding of these meanings in scholarly investigations, contextual factors must be taken into account and afforded analytical preponderance.'*^
This pecuHar double character of the values and qualities deemed "masculine" has been remarked upon In the rural communities in which I conducted fieldwork, men act out values related to their masculinities depending on the cultural repertoires available to them as well as in their personal histories (which is another way of saying that configurations of desire also vary from one man to another). Given these variables, men become apt at manipulating the multivocality of the available signs in order to negotiate a range of actions and identifications. For instance, in the community described above, a man who holds a baby and takes him for a stroll around the neighborhood can be seen as someone who lacks independence or autonomy vis-a-vis his wife and his familial duties; in other words, he is described as a ''mandilon" (someone who gets "bossed around"). However, these same actions -and the identity indexed through them—can be seen as expressions of manly responsibility, paternal care, and family affection in another context; in other words, characteristics that configure the values of a "real man.").
A brief excerpt from my fieldnotes reinforces this point:
(June 12, 1998)
This morning, as usual, I walked over to the food stand on the corner where Pedro works.
Placing myelf at the stand every morning has proven to be a good decision for my ethnographic interests. This is a site where men gather regularly during the course of their daily activities. Some stop by quickly while running errands; others rest here a bit after getting off work, or come to pass time after finishing their early-morning agricultural chores. Most of them, like me, come by for a bite. Pedro, as I have already in the ethnographic hterature in relation to those cultures considered of Mediterranean origin. Prestiniany, Pio Broja, and Bourdieu, among others, make reference to this duality to describe men in Greece, Spain, and Algeria. See the seminal work by Peristiany El concepto del honor en la sociedad mediterrdnea (1968). Alonso (1995), in a related argument, reflects about the differences between "natural" and "social" dimensions of masculinity among the men of Namiquipa, Chihuahua. noted in earlier entries, is a 24-year old man who displays an unusual charisma - whether due to his good looks, his masculine demeanor full of anecdotes, challenges, and dares, or on account of his courtesy and charm towards the children and grown ups who approach his counter. In general, the clientele around here, as well as this researcher, finds him quite seductive. This morning upon my arrival, four other men where hanging out in addition to Pedro; they included Pedro's older brother Victor, two blond guys from the adjacent neighborhood, and my friend Ventura. Victor was telling the rest of us about the funeral of an older man who had just passed away and of how the diceased man's sons were "carrying on a big crying show" ('tenian una llorona'). Pedro interrupts the story and says:
-"That's not even the custom anymore...why cry and carry on like that? He is dead, so bury him and that's it. "
The men present listen quietly. Then one of them says softly: "yeah, that's righ...that's the way it is, no? "
Surprised and eager to provoke further conversation on this topic, I say:
- "Let me see, how is that about crying being out of fashion? "
- "What? Asks Predo, apparently disconcerted by my intervention.
Well, sometimes I cry and I didn't even know it was something that can fall out of fashion. "
I go on paying attention to the food on my plate, not wanting Pedro to become defensive.
In a casual and detached yet self-assured manner I add: - "Man, I cry all the time...in fact the other day I was watching a TV program, one of those where they present a mother reunited with a son she has not seen for twenty years, and I broke down crying.. .made a mess of myself over it."
I immediately take a bite of my food, reinforcing the comfort and naturalness of my conversation and letting my comment linger.
I lift my head from the plate, look around me, and notice that Pedro has stopped chopping onions and that he is now staring at me, disoriented and serious, without uttering a word. Everyone else is silent, also.
Suddenly, Pedro's bother Victor, a 37 year old man who drives a truck and earns a living selling and buying cattle, erupts and says obviously moved:
-"Ah, yes! Was that in the show of that blond lady who comes on in the mornings? Maybe two weeks ago? Yes, I also saw that program. No, man...when I saw that story I was chocking with emotion, I almost cried..."
- "That's the one, yes..." I respond with no added emotion in my voice.
Pedro asks, again apparently surprised and disconcerted, but in a soft tone of voice:
- "What program are you talking about? "
One of the young men present adds:
"Man! The same happens to me...for example when the war, remember, the war in
Iraq.. .things appeared on TV that made me want to cry. "
I notice that all it took was for one of us to validate feelings of sadness for the rest to feel free to share their own tearful moments. I was curious, however, about how the men interpreted my initial emotional confession, especially Pedro who seemed so disconcerted. Later than afternoon I saw Ventura and asked him about the men's perceptions of me in the morning. He told me:
- "Man, that was great that you said that...you fucked with their minds..."
- "How so?" I asked.
-"Yeah, bottomline is that by saying what you said the other men see you as being more of a man, if you will...the real deal...because you are so manly that you are not even afraid to say that you cry, and you say it with such conviction and naturalness, and they see that you are not afraid of being criticized.. .you know what I mean? No, man...Pedro was in awe of you...I saw it in his face, deep inside he admired what you did."
As an expression of emotion, crying can be read through different lenses: on the one hand, it can be seen as an expression of weakness or "softness." On the other hand, to expose one's feelings before other men by saying "I felt like crying" or "I cry sometimes for this or that reason" can be considered a gesture that affirms manliness because the person in question demonstrates the "courage" {valor) to express it. Courage, assertiveness, and determination to face one's fears are signs that connote masculinity.
These actions, therefore, must always be read within the framework of the gender politics that regulate "manhood." Paradoxically, the common sense notion that crying represents a gesture that diminishes masculinity was disputed by me and other men present, resulting in the end in the legitimization of an action that signified increased manliness.
Against Pedro's masculine anti-crying performance I constructed another more efficacious performance (Herzfeld, 1985) that put into evidence the inherently contradictory meaning of cultural actions. 170
VI Masculinity as unflnished and anxious performance
I reflect back on the discomfort expressed by Pedro throughout the above anecdote. Pedro is well known for his ongoing urgings to viril competitions, so his apparent "loss" in this situation put him in an odd position within the group. I ask myself: if the meanings of masculinity are in fact more unstable, heterogeneous, and subject to negotiations than they at first glance appear, what are the repercusions of such variances in the personal projects of identity of some men? That is, in the personal efforts of men like Pedro to demonstrate their personal sense of "manhood?" I think as well of the observations made by Rodrigo earlier in the text about his difficulties as an adolescent to cope with the demands placed upon him by his peers to demonstrate that he was "a man."
In other words, the peculiar equivalence Rodrigo's friends made between being a man and drinking, picking fights, smoking, and acting guarded. Rodrigo described his friends' behavior as putting on an act —a covering up of their true desires for fear of ridicule or peer rejection. In this sense, Rodrigo has grasped the degree to which being "macho" is fundamentally a mode of presentation of the male subject in relation to politics of gender around him. He seems to understand, also, the reach of these politics into a variety of everyday actions; as he once said, "even wearing shorts and exercizing in public" are subjects to observation and regulation.
Butler and other post-structuralist authors describe the "performative" character of gender identities in everyday rituals. These routines of body comportment are described as instances of "complex technologies of power." In the post-structuralist 171
argument, identity is not conceived as an essence or an ontological truth about the self, but as an artifice, a fabrication, a social and historical construction withing a given set of discursive coordenates. Apprehended semiotically, identity must be understood as a construction that straddles symbolic frontiers of the self (the "I") which are subjected to constant surveillance and performance. Male identity, therefore, references those symbolic frontiers of the self that are elaborated through practices, relationships, objects, attributes, and bodily and subjective dispositions that connote "manhood."
Male identity is, so to speak, a project under construction, a practice of "being" constantly re-enacted in comformity with given sets of observances, performances, and behaviors. The meanings of the symbols that constitute these frontiers of identity are never stable -not only because of the intrinsic qualities of the difference as observed by
Derrida—but most importantly because of the social struggles involved in the constant efforts to fix the meanings of "masculinity" in a more general sense. Given these characteristics of male identity, I ask myself: how are the flux and ambiguities of these meanings experienced by subjects who are simultaneously under tremendous social pressure to demonstrate or "prove" the "right" kind of manhood and manliness?
Departing from a psychoanalitic perspective, a number of other authors describe the anxious nature, and hence fragmented and unstable status, of the male psyche
(MacBride 1995; Badinter 1995; Jefferson 1994). The same authors associate these psychic anxieties to the incidence of violence. Buttressed by the anthropological findings in the present study, the aforementioned perspectives on the signification of masculinity contribute to a comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon that privileges and acknowledges diversity, struggles, and play. Given that the meanings of masculinity are disputed among distinct cultural communities, the subjects who are socialized as "men" tend to live their "manhood" not as a natural and homogeneous phenomenon established
"once and for all," but instead as a continued "nervous" process. Such a process places demands on subjects to "become men" (hacerse hombres) through everyday practices and decisions which must be negotiated, disputed, or imposed. Rather than speak, therefore, of male identity as if this were a fait accompli, it may be more accurate to speak instead of what Herzfeld describes as an "ideological project of masculinity" that orients subjects
(1985).
Those of us who are "bom" males (biologically) are expected from the moment of birth to act socially "masculine." It is expected of us that we express our "manhood" and we, to lesser or greater degrees, make efforts to comply. Our compliance is manifested
(or put into evidence) through specific actions, relationships, and behaviors that express the values and meanings considered "masculine" in our specific social contexts. A great part of what has been described as socialization, therefore, involves a becoming familiar with the semiotics and politics of gender that spell out our intentions to be recognized one or the other gender appropriately. The majority of the rituals and routines implicated in this process make the body and bodily subjectivities a locus of these enactments. It is through the putting on stage, socially speaking, of these rituals that we constitute ourselves as male and as "virile." When the social exigencies or demands "to be masculine" coincide with our intemalized expectations of ourselves, those of us bom
"males" feel our manhood, our masculinities, and our gender identities fixed and secure, at least for a few brief and seemingly "magical" moments. However, the process of feeling one's own "manhood" and of constructing "masculinity" is never homogeneous.
The values attached to the meanings and to the subjects who perform these meanings are open to interpretation and hence are disputed first and foremost among males themselves.
Seen from this point of view, the "anxiety" associated to male identity is intimately related to the ambiguities and contradictions that constitute socially what is deemed "true manhood." While the meaning of "manhood" does not congeal into one's body at a given super-ordinary moment once and for all, it is nonetheless possible to make oneself and others believe that one is a "real man" through actions, poetics, and performances (Herzfeld, 1985). This anxiety that I make reference to originates from the relational, reactive, and competitive character of the process through which social identities are configured.
As has been noted in the present study, subjects (especially males) dispute among themselves the "level of masculinity" or the authenticity of the "manhood" that their actions and identies proclaim. Hence, it is not enough to simply refer to someone as "a man" -authentic "manliness" must be demonstrated. A number of idiomatic expressions in Mexico index and reinforce notions of "authentic manliness" on an ongoing basis; one example is the prase "he is a manly man, no fucking around with that" {un hombre- hombre, no chingaderas). This need to reiterate manliness points out the fragility of male identity and "manhood" as a social/ideological project. At the core of this anxiety we find among men a culturally induced fear of moving towards femininity and its fundamental implication; becoming an object of oppression. Masculinity is not simply relational vis-a 174
vis femininity, it is also reactive against femininity, as several authors have previously noted (Kimmel 1995; Badinter 1995).
VII Styles of "manhood"
(Fieldnote, November 15, 1997)
Sergio and I approach the municipality of Chiltepin, a subdivision of Los Corazones where he lives with his wife. Sergio is a man who "opened up to me, " as he put it, and lately we have been spending a lot of time together. He has asked me to drive him in my car to Chilpetin to run an errand. After we cross the river and begin entering town Sergio tells me: "put on this baseball cap " referring to a cap that sits on the dashboard of my truck. I look at him puzzled. Sergio is 33 years old, married, and the father of three girls.
He works construction and when work is slow or he can't get hired working the temporary crops of "chiltepin " (a piquant wild fruit of this region) he goes to Hermosillo or to the border towns to find some way of earning money. He is slender, dark-skinned by the Sun, and always wears blue jeans and cowboy boots. He does not wear a Western hat because he says he is not tall enough and hats do not look good on him, but he often wears a baseball cap. I do not question him andpromply put on the cap as he tells me even though I am not clear what is going on. After he finishes his errand and gets back in the car he explains:
- "The thing is that in this town people are very nosy and closed-minded, always criticizing other people, haven't you noticed? I know them well. Here it is expected that a man always cover his head with a hat or a cap when he is in public. If you don't, they will consider it odd, since only women go out with their heads exposed like that, do you understand? "
Of course I understand what he is saying, but that does not make it less surprising. I ask:
- "Is that so?"
- "Hard to believe as it may be, the other day I was wearing a short just to relax at home and an old lady from the neighborhood said to me, "what is that you are wearing? Don't tell me that now men wear skirts as well... " Later the same day, she saw me washing my underwear in the backyard, the kind that is now in fashion, bikini type and in all colors, and man, laughing at me she asked why I wore women's panties [he laughs]. I did not respond. On another ocassion I did, I tried to explain to her ...but that's how people are around here, they either don't understand or pretend that they don't. "
(Fieldnote, March 4, 1998).
Today I overheard a conversation between my neighbor Martha and a lady who came by to visit. They were criticizing a man recently widowed:
- "Oh, you can see him already wearing short sleeve shirts and no hat, as if he were a young man or single... " says Martha's visitor ironically.
I understood their criticism to be a commentary on how the man in question deviated from the modesty expected of adult men in this town. I have noticed that even when the heat is most intense, adult, married men are expexted to cover their heads in public with a hat and to wear long-sleeve shirts. That is the compulsory clothing code in this town.
The diversity of styhstic forms or "poetics" of male identity and the importance of these signs to represent "authentic manhood" or "appropriate" masculinity must always be taken into account when talking about "men." So called "Mexican men" are not
excempted from the same dynamics. Habits, ideas, and bodily manners such as a man's
stride, his way of holding a cigarrette, his choice of clothes, the way he talks or dances -
these are all important signs that other men read to evaluate a man's "manhood" and
hence establish social distinctions and relations of power with one another. Of course,
these stylish elements condense other social and personal dimensions: class, ethnicity,
religious affiliation, political ideology, nationality, sexual orientation, level of education,
morality, etc. These multiple factors combine with the visible signs described above to
render an assessment of the level of "manhood" of a given man in question.
In the displays of everyday life of the sierra communities in Northern Mexico it is
possible to encounter a wide range of stylistic proposals for the appropriate presentation
of male subjects. In addition to the forms so-called "traditional," the exposure of many
men in the region to radio and television, magazines, travel to other regions due for
school or work, as well as the presence in these localities of "foreigners" (mostly men
engaged in business transactions but some social scientists as well), has increased the
range of possibilities for the presentation of the self in everyday life. Clothing and
accessories play a central role in marking these differences. It is also true that the process of economic and social "modernization" in these communities has also impacted the stylistic diversity now found in the area. For instance, it is not uncommon for older men - grandparents and fathers—to argue with their younger sons or grandsons about wearing baseball caps instead of Western hats, tennis shoes instead of work or cowboy boots, or
for piercing their ears, wearing chains or bracelets, wearing their hair longer or stylish. 177
shaving their mustache, or wearing a goatee. Young men themselves dispute through jokes and bantering the legitimacy of certain choices in clothing, accessories, or styles in general. Peer group approval can be so important that many men think twice before buying or wearing an article of clothing or accessory that may invite "comment" or ridicule from other men.
Each of the elements of a so-called "style" plays an important role in the composition of that modality insofar as they represent an aesthetic and ideological proposal and positioning. Stylistic posturing becomes an important part of how subjects negotiate their roles within a community in relation to notions of significant social and local consequence. For instance: giving off the appearance of being "modem," "foreign," or urban; pretensions about belonging to a given social class; simulating youth or less than one's real age; being associated with a marginalized group (like "cheros"); being labeled as less than masculine or possibly even effeminate; having the "look" of a drug dealer, or of a federal agent (verse "placoso"); or being perceived as a member of a religious sect (Mormons, for example), etc. Each one of these identifications is related in greater or lesser degrees to holistic gendered evaluations about a person.
Following the logic of these stylistic interpretations, it is plaussible then that a male member of a religious community (Mormoms are especially singled out), because of his "soft spoken" mannerisms, would not be considered a "real man" by the standards of masculinity of many sierra communities. On the other extreme, a young malaunder thought to be a gang-member (a "cholo"), would not be seen as a "normal" person but as a savage, a type of man who invites repulsion, or as an elderly woman in a small Sonoran 178
pueblo called them, a "modem Apache." These types of characterizations are not exclusive to small rural communities; they are also common in Hermosillo and other large cities. Ironically, the "cholos" tend to perceive "cheros" as pretensions, conservative, and impersonating a "fake" masculinity. "Cholos" and "cheros" express their conflicts through graffiti that appears regularly on walls in Hermosillo and through ocassional street scuffles reported in the press. These practices make it all too clear that stylistic differences can play a significant and complex role in the social dispute over power and masculinity.
Cultural ideals of masculinity come to us embedded in aesthetic and ethic choices
(see Mort 1996; Luciano 2001). It is therefore productive to study the specific manifestations of these practices to better understand the parameters of the "imaginary" that defines individual and collective "manhood." The recognition that in a multicultural state like Mexico there are a variety of modalities, forms, and styles of masculinity becomes a necessary step towards a critique of the generalizing notion of "Mexican men." Examples of these differences abound. For instance, in a small riverbed community in Sonora that I visited, huaraches (leather sandals) are a sign of poverty,
"indianness," and a practice associated with Southem Mexico. A Sonoran man wishing to portray a "manly" image would never wear huaraches. Instead, it is expected that he would wear cowboy-style boots. Boots, in tum, connote a variety of "masculine" styles depending on their color and form. Although it is well known that indigenous men wear huaraches, in Sonora these style of footwear is considered a sign of "weakness" —this, of course, is due greatly in part to the fact that it is precisely Indians who customarily wear them. The imphed message is that an Indian man is "less of a man" than non-Indina
Mexicans and hence less "virile" and less powerful. On the other hand and for no apparent reason, in the neighboring state of Sinaloa it is a common practice among men associated with the drug trade {narcotraficantes) to wear braided huaraches. Along with pickup trucks, guns, and jewelry, huaraches connote in this case a kind of "raw" masculinity -one that is also crude, aggressive, and less refined. In recent years, working class youth in Hermosillo began emulating these markers of fashion, including the wear of huaraches, to construct a more deliberately "powerful" masculine identity evokative of the drug lords. The "narco" or drug dealer is mythologized by young men as a masculine image that privileges adventure, risk, economic power, dominion, revenge, immediate gratification and emotional distance. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that the
"narco" image, as an aesthetic proposal for expressing masculinity, has come to be intrinsically connected with the "narco" trade as an economic option for many young men.
Styles of clothing and accessories are read by men and women not only as signs of economic and professional status but also as connotative gender messages. Style, or better yet, stylizations of the body and self, are one of the most visible realms of the everyday disputes about the meaning of being a man and hence the representations of manhood considered "adequate." The existence of such disputes and their tangible manifestations in everyday choices of self presentation testify to the diversity and complexity effectively denied by previous attempts to codify and theorize a generic subject known as "the Mexican man." Men's stylistic choices are part of the construction of a poetics of masculinity that can result in either an effective or successful expression (a kind of social competency) or, in the worse case scenario, in a desastrous failure that invites ridicule. The "loss" of style (a demonstration of incompetency in reading and interpreting "male" codes) is often punished socially with a variety of insults and derogatory terms. Some of these moments of aesthetic failures congeal into enduring nicknames (apodos) that follow a man sometimes all his life: "e/ gorm meadd" (limp biskit), "e/ apenitas" (the wannabe), or "el chorreado", etc.
Sometimes, stylistic choices can be appropriated by subjects to express masculinity or manhood independent of sexual preference. In other words, as the following fieldnote reveals, the politics of gender operate in contradictory and playful modes to render new and often implaussible modes of masculine expression.
(April 25, 1999)
There are very few men in Los Corazones that are openly known as "homosexuals,"
"jotos, " or "gays. " There are considerably more men who have had homoerotic relations without assuming or being designated with those labels, as are my friends/informants Ventura and Jose. But Miguel is one of those few. He has been identified as such mostly on account a series of public scandals that he was involved in several years ago when he drank excessively and before he embraced sobriety. Although most people in town recall the events and speak about it behind his back, it is considered impolite to confront or embarrass Miguel to his face about what happened. For this reason, I was very surprised this morning when I witnessed a young man banter Miguel publicly about his sexual conduct as he walked passed us. The young man in question is a 17-year old who Ventura told me is the lover of an older man "who gives some gifts in return As Miguel walked by with a pocket knife hanging from his belt, the young man - perhaps wanting to show off or to get back at him for some personal reason or simply for being socially inappropriate—said in an ironic voice:
-"Ahh, fag ["loca"] ...a pocket knife and the whole nine yard [con navajay toda la cosa] "
And Miguel, serious and stern, obviously angered but ready to confront what would be considered by any standard a "falta de respeto" (a lack of respect literally, but culturally, a violation of social etiquette as well) responded:
- "Yes, and boots and chaps and hat, and rope and horse as well, and you should see how good I can lazo an animal and when it comes to working hard, I am first in line, 1 don't crack [no me rajoj rising earlier than anyone to put in a hard day of work, what do you think about that? "
The young man did not say a word. Instead, he lowered his head, embarrased and aware of his insolence. I am not sure if my presence there, as a witness, had any impact on how the situation went down.
Miguel always wears cowboy-style clothes and he indeed has a reputation as a hard worker. He is not effeminate in his mannerisms, yet stories abound about how "faggish " he would act ("se ajotaba de a tiro') back then when he used to get drunk.
Against the young man's ironic remark, based of course on his prior knowledge of
Miguel's "homosexuality" and the apparent dissonance of Miguel's display of a pocket knife -a sign of virility—Miguel responded by affirming his masculinity. He reminds the young man that he always wears cowboy clothes and accessories, making clear the significative power of those articles to reference masculinity. But in addition, Miguel stresses his quality as a hard worker. In other words, the kind of attribute that Don Jose
Pedro once described as key to being considered a "true man." Miguel's tone of voice and the directness of his answer are enough to quiet the young man.
It seems to me that Miguel, in his irrefutable affirmation of masculine
"belonging," may have also been pursuing a parallel objective -perhaps the right to be respected for who he truly is, a modicum of social legitimacy. Masculinity works here as an index to the moral dimension of a person: responsibility, discipline, seriousness, respectability, and courage are some of the qualities that it activates. It is common to hear in Mexico the phrase "«o me rajo" ("I don't brake under pressure,"or literally, "I don't crack open") to express this moral imperative. Miguel's response to the sarcastic young man manifested the power in action of this corporeal metaphor. Instead of "taking it"
(accepting) the young man's appelation to him as a "fag" (loca) and breaking under that word with shame, Miguel "does not crack" (no se raja). He puts to work this conventional cultural notion of impenetrable masculinity on his own behalf as a mode of empowerment and by doing so demonstrates, once again, the complex politics of meaning that construct men's gender and sexual possibilities in Mexico.
The meanings of manhood are not fixed, but negotiated and disputed, even if we can agree that there is a set of hegemonic symbols and meanings. These meanings are relational and reactive to femininity, and play an impotant role in children's socialization into manhood. Metaphors of an "open body" are used in this socialization to represent a 183
deficient masculinity. As well as other homophopic terms like "joto". These terms can be resisted in their gender connotation for the subject through the manipulation of oher symbols and conventions, as shown by Pedro. Emotional and erotic intimacy, as exemplified by Rodrigo or Pedro's lives, is subjected to these potlitics of masculine identity. 184
CHAPTER 3. ACA ENTRE NOS (BETWEEN YOU AND ME): CULTURAL
NOTIONS ABOUT RAJ ARSE, THE BODY, AND THE NEGOTIATION OF
MALE INTIMACY.
I Introduction
When I began this research project I often wondered what difficulties I might encounter trying to obtain personal information from the people I interviewed. I questioned my ability to get answers about issues that for most people are shrouded in privacy. Even though I entered the field with previous experience in the research of homoerotic practices, I felt that now I was dealing with a different field of social relations. Afterall, my previous research had led me to inteview informants in places that were clearly identified as "flirting" spaces (espacios de ligue) or the "ambiente""^^. Many of the men I encountered in those locations had already invested considerable time on self-reflexion about the subject of their sexual practices or identities'^'^. Now, my topic was broader and therefore more elusive. What kind of questions does one ask of ordinary men to elicit knowledge about their sense of "manhood?" Uncertain about how to
The word ambiente is hard to translate. It refers to a space frequented by men (and sometimes women), and with a very importance presence of men who likes men. These men can call themselves "gay", "homosexual", "bisexual" "jotos", or just men who like or allow themselves a "cotorreo", that is, "to have fun" ("sexual fun"). Certainly, gays and jotos have their own terms to call them. The term ambiente expresses very well the complex links between homosexual identities and practices in Mexico. See Niifiez: 2000: 193. *''' My book first book: Sexo entre varones. Podery resistencia en el campo sexual, can be seen as a research work on a particular kind of people with homosexual practices: those who comes to identify themselves, through a difficult process as "homosexuals" or "gay". In this research I was broading my field of vision, through the category of "male intimacy" and its relationship to masculine identities. 1 consider, therefore affective and erotic practices, within or outside "gay" identities. 185
proceed, I worried and anguished about my research project. An excerpt from my field notes reveals some of this internal struggle:
(September 12, 1997)
How exactly should I go about producing knowledge about men and their possibilities for affective and/or sexual relations with other men? This is not the kind of information that I can pressume to find on the surface of everyday life activities, consciously accessible to an ethnographer in a simple conversation. I know this from my own experience as a man, but it is also a fact well documented on the literature on masculinities and intimacy.
Nonetheless, the very fact that such a literature exists is evidence that it is possible to obtain that information. Although, to be sure, none of the authors that I have read explain exactly how they managed to get men to open up to them. In fact, the same literature makes repeated references to concepts such as "emotional illiteracy," silence, hermetic postures, naturalization, and repression to name some of the difficulties of getting men to talk about their feelings of intimacy. (I may have gotten myself into trouble by picking this subject). From personal experience I know how difficult can be to assume and stay focused on constructing a "different" kind of masculine identity -one that, as they say, is not "machista. " I have found it particularly difficult, sometimes even painful, to confront the limitations, anxieties, and troubles that the dominant politics of gender and sexuality involved in the process of masculinization prescribe for me. I was greatly helped along the way by the literature produced by the pro-feminist men's movement, as in the case of the British group Achilles Heel and several others. Discovering the writings and manifestos of these groups certainly supported my own individual quest to transform my 186
masculinity and aided my mental health, more broadly speaking. I laugh as I write these words. It is so obvious to me now that I derive a sense ofpsychic comfort from listening to other men tell stories about their own struggles with the dominant gender and sexual norms. Such a research project, not surprisingly, echoes so perfectly the dynamics of my own desires and my own ideologies of masculinity. It is clear to me that in studying these topics I study myself, so to speak; or, at least find a sense of meaning that connects my professional with my personal life. How do I go from that realization, however, to actually producing knowledge so that others can understand aspects of these intimate processes? I began to explore aspects of my own subjectivity and to discuss my feelings openly when I was around 20 or 22 years old and joined my first self-help group. The group gave me the confidence I needed. But, how does that relate to my task as a researcher today? Ethnographic work is not meant to be therapeutic; it cannot recreate the context of a self-help group. Maybe, what matters most is being able to develop the trust necessary (between researcher and informant) to open up. I am not sure, though, how "trust" is accomplished in the cultural contexts in which I am doing fieldwork and around the topics that I am investigating. Isn 't the issue of "trust" itself one of those complex elements that play into the construction of masculine identities? Isn't "opening up " something of a threat to the stability of those identities? I must be specially careful and sensitive in the handling of these matters. Nonetheless, I want to believe that somehow there is a vernacular modality, a "native " skill or resource inserted within the cultural milieu itself that provides access to a certain inter-subjectivity that makes trust and opening up possible. A few days after writing these reflections in my journal, I entered the following field note:
(September 18, 1997)
This afternoon I traveled to El Amanecer, a small town close to Los Corazones which is where I took residence after two months of travel in the high sierra and the Moctezuma
River area. El Amanecer is a small town. The main highway cuts across this settlement of approximately 1,000 people dotted with old adobe residences with large windows covered by ornamental iron grills from floor to high ceilings. In spite of the highway, the town is very quiet. There is a small assembly plant located there. The plant employs around 25 people; the objects they produce carry labels in French, Japanese, and
English. The main economic activity, however, is the cattle business. People from this area have a reputation for being very "clean " and "quiet. " I noticed that the town's cantina seems to be highly patronized by the locals. This is somewhat surprising because in this area men generally go down in pairs to the river or to the town outskirts or drive around in their trucks when they want to have a few beers. The cantina has a very
"modern "feel and look. It has a large TV screen that I am told is continually tuned in to a large sports cable network from the United States. But come to think of it, this is not really surprising. In contrast to similar small rural towns in other parts of Mexico, towns in the Sonoran sierra have a lot more access to advanced technology. I must confess that although I am used to entering cantinas in many different towns and hanging out comfortably, in this instance Ifelt a bit apprehensive. When I went in to the cantina there were only a few people there -around 11 in total I would say. They were all gathered in a 188
small side room. As I came in, they all turned around at the same time to look at me. I took a seat at the bar. The bartender, a robust middle age man sporting a thick mustache, approached me. The whole place became silent as I told the bartender what I wanted.
Once I had spoken and everyone had heard me, I turned around and some of the men across the room greeted me with a slight head nod, returning quickly to their heated discussions about the local baseball teams. Nobody was paying attention to the TV at the moment. The men seated at the closest tables all had their backs to the TV. All the men present wore blue jeans, work or cowboy boots, and either cowboy hats or baseball caps.
They ranged in age from approximately 21 to 50. At one of the tables I noticed two men talking in very close corporeal proximity. As they talked and gestured, they touch their shoulders. In general, the atmosphere of this place was very relaxed, but as it is common in Mexican cantinas the emotional dispositions of those present functioned in direct proportion to how much alcohol they had consumed. These two fellows I was observing looked particularly "sensitive " at that point. When the jukebox began playing a song by the popular ranchera singer Vicente Fernandez, one of the two men squalled what could be called "a typical Mexican grito" and two other men across the room responded likewise with "gritos " of their own. Suddenly, the place was filled with a new emotional intensity. As the song played, several men got up to the jukebox and selected the song for play again and again. The song rendition by Vicente Fernandez is accomplished with deep, hearfelt emotion. An excerpt of the song lyrics goes like this:
Acd entre nos Between you and me... quiero que sepas la verdad I want to tell you the whole truth no te he dejado de adorar I have never stopped loving you y alia en mi triste soledad and in my loneliest and saddest 189
moments me han dado ganas de gritar sometimes I have felt like yelling salir corriendo y preguntar take off runing and ask around que es lo que ha sido de tu vida whatever became of you
Acd entre nos Between you and me... siempre te voy a recordar I'm always going to remember you y hoy que a mi lado ya no estds and today when you are no longer by my side no queda mas que confesar all that is left for me to do is to confess que ya no puedo soportar that I can't take it anymore que estoy llorando sin llorar that I am crying even when I shed no tears porque respiro por la herida " that this wound is my last breath of life
I believe this song is relevant to understand something about the subjective dynamics of masculinity as well as the possibilities for men "opening up" their emotions.
The song makes me think about Octavio Paz's misguided and incorrect statements about the phenomenon of "rajarse" in Mexico (craking oneself open or breaking down). Men indeed experience openings, fractures, wounds. The core logic of masculinity does not rest on the absence of openings and fractures but on the pretense of absence as well as in the regulation of the discovery and visibility of such openings. The expression "between you and me..(aca entre nos) is a phrase that summons a call to enter a space of trust where those emotional wounds can be displayed, where a man can show a vulnerability that goes against the everyday performances of masculinity where he feels he has to pretend to be different. Certainly being a man does not mean that one does not "crack open" (que no se raje) or more literally gendered, that one does not "have a crack" (no tenga rajada). What is predominant is the social regulation of the processes for expressing 190
those "cracks" among men themselves. Learning about those regulations is part of the socialization of becoming "a man." From personal experience I can attest to the difficulties one faces to understand those regulations and the ackward negotiations one has to engage in to express sensibility, affectivity, pain, love, and desire, especially when these emotions are not circumscribed to an exclusive heterosexual context. In the process of understanding and leming these regulations, the socialization into masculinity becomes a form of "pedagogical violence" which in most intances results in plain and concrete acts of homophobic violence. In fact, hasn't the decision of researching these tj^es of questions placed me in a vulnerable situation already? I believe that the phrase
"aca entre nos" holds clues to help construct a methodology for researching men from the perspective of gender and to help launch a systematic reflection about what it means to engage in the study of men, masculinity and politics of intimacy.''^
II The politics of '•'•rajarse''' and of "being a man"
A possible English translation of the Spanish or in this case Mexican word
''rajarse'" would be to "break down" but the word in Spanish has more of the emotive force implied in saying in English, for instance, "to crack open." ''Rajarse" is a very powerful concept in Mexican society that enjoys wide circulation among the working class. Among men, phrases that make reference to the implicit or explicit action of
"breaking down" abound. For instance, expressions like "el que se raje es puto" (a man
1 must confess that although I knew already this song, and I had even thaught on the meanings of "rajarse" for the course of Linguistic Anthropology, all these implications for doing research with men had escaped to me. who breaks down is a faggot); or simply "pinche rajdn" (damn sissy) or "no seas bizcocho" (don't spread it open), or "piche culon" (damn chicken) can be overheard among boys at an early age as part of male socialization rituals. In fact, it is not uncommon to hear "no rajarse" (not breaking down) as one of the desireable characteristics a man should have, at least if he is a "manly man" (hombre-hombre) as
Don Jose Pedro once told me. The concept seems to issue a call for men to submit themselves to an emotional and bodily "lockdown" lest they risk losing their "manhood."
At first glance, the construction of male intimacy and the value placed on "not breaking down" would seem impossible to reconcile. Yet, the song by Vicente Fernandez suggests the opposite ~a mediation made possible by a symbolic space created "between you and me" through which one is able to "breathe," to expose one's "wounds." The expression
"between you and me" {aca entre nos) suggests a kind of social bracketing wherein it becomes possible to transgress the dominant codes that include, among several things, the prescription of bodily and emotional closure. What relationship does such a license to
"open up" have with the dominant definitions of being "a man"? To what extent are these codes related to the construction of other identities such as "homosexual"? And, to what extent are these codes related to the social possibilities of male intimacy? In the earlier example of Miguel we saw that his response to the young man who insulted him, in spite of having been identified as a homosexual, included the reiteration of "no rajarse" when it came to the honor he attached to his work ethic ("cuando hay que trabajar duro, no me rajo").
The use of the verb "rajarse" in these instances therefore demonstrates how inadequate it can be to think of language in strictly referential terms that point to transparent meanings outside of very specific contexts (Silverstein, 1977). ''Rajarse" as used in these various instances is introduced in speech as a metaphor and the various meanings that the word acquires are related to their use in context. As a metaphor, the word does more than simply denote a known fact; indeed it leaves open a myriad of interpretations. As Dell Hymes has perceptively observed, in this case, too, language is not simply an unmotivated mechanism, but a modality of social action (Hymes, 1964).
"Rajarse" is thus a metaphor placed in the confluent space between language, gender (particularly masculinity), power and social relations that make possible or inhibit access to intimacy. As a social concept, the word structures possibilities and modalities of expression and hence those of social action (Bauman, 1987; Sherzer, 1987). Specifically, the fear that one's actions could be interpreted as instances of "breaking down" conditions in turn the practices one chooses to engage in the first place. To understand better the nature of these social and symbolic connections it is advisable to study those
"speech acts" in which certain words and expressions occur and that at the same time function to socialize individuals in the "proper" use of those words (Ochs, 1990). In other words, it is imperative to pay attention to the linguistic (social) practices in and through which certain words make their entry into a cultural milieu (Hymes, 1964; Silverstein,
1977; Sherzer, 1987). The linguistic practices in which the word "rajarse" plays a prominent role can be read therefore as moments of intervention in a social struggle over meanings. This is a struggle at the level of representations -over the power to be able to represent "reality" as one of the fundamental dimensions of social struggles more broadly 193
defined (Duranti, 1990; Bourdieu, 1990). What kinds of representations are at stake in this case? Precisely, those that are related to the moral construction of gender identities and social networks (Irvine, 1992).
The ranges of situations in which the verb "rajarse" (or its variants as adjectives or adverbs) can appear as part of a communicative act are plentiful. The following is an attempt to classify some of the most common instances of the word "rajarse" in Mexico today:
1) The first meaning is associated to a situation in which an individual
"abandons" or "desists" in pursuing a task or project in which he/she had been
previously involved, particularly if that task or project involved a certain
degree of commitment and honor.
(Novembers, 1999)''^
/ ran into "El Prieto " this afternoon. He was standing in the corner of my house looking out to the empty streets. El Prieto is a young man, approximately 28 years old, recently married. People call him "Prieto " because of his dark complexion. He told me he has been out of town for a few days, "chambeando" (working). I assume he meant he was working in Hermosillo, which is where most of the people from the town go when employment opportunities are scarce and they don't own lands or cattle or are employed in assembly plants or the public sector. Those with less education go to work in the vineyards nearby Hermosillo, such as Estacion Pesqueira. Those who have a trade -
I have many field notes about the instances of "rajarse". I have decided to present the whole field note and not only the explicit sentence where it appears, because they usually give important ethnographic information about men lives or about society in general. 194
bricklayers or carpenters— work construction. Still others work temporary jobs in government-sponsored road and infrastructural improvement projects or go to the United
States looking for work, particularly to Arizona. Ocassionally, there is work in collecting local crops such as the "chiltepin " -a small red fruit that grows wild in the sierra that must be picked by hand in order not to damage the bush in which it grows. The harvest of
"chiltepin " takes place between the months of September and December and the work has a reputation for being quite exhausting.
I ask El Prieto if he has been working in the United States and he laughs:
-"No, man... I wish. I would have fared better. I was deep inside those evil hills, up in the sierra, as far as you can think of picking "chiltepin. "
- "But why so far away? " I ask
- "well, there's no more chiltepin down here, and my compadre is so damn stubborn so up we go, son of a bitch, I fell, I scraped myself, I am all screwed up, " he says smiling, as if making fun of his misfortune.
- "Do you usually go to pick chilpetines? "
- "No, well...kind of I have done it before but it is shitty work, and then this time I went up with this big hangover and nothing to help me get over it; we had been drinking for two days straight, not my compadre and I, but with another buddy of mine and I had forgotten that I had made the commitment to my compadre to go with him. A long time ago I had said I would go along with him for the 'chiltepin' harvest. My compadre even said to me: "you better not break down, compadre" ("no se me vaya a rajar") and I said to him, "Come on, what do you mean? Of course I'll be up to it" and what you know that the day came and it caught me all messed up (laughs). Ifelt so sick but what could I do?
No way I was going to hide from my compadre. I know how he gets, he would have
become all depressed about it and besides, he had already bought all the supplies we
needed and he had arranged for transportation. So, there you have it, we faced shit
together, " says El Prieto still smiling.
- "Man, I tell you, up there in the sierra, I couldn't find my way around, and Ifelt all fucked up, I even considered the idea of returning, but whenever I thought about that I said to myself no, I am already here and there's no way that I am going to break down and let my compadre down (no me le puedo rajar a mi compadre).
I reflect about El Prieto's story and this matter of commitment and the value of a promise. I am also aware of the value that men in this region place on their labor. As far as I can see, "not breaking down " (no rajarse) is a concept that plays an important role in stimulating following through with one's actions, no matter how difficult these might be.
2) In this situation "rajarse" means not fulfilling a commitment one has made, or
giving one's word and then backing out.
(May 7, 1998)
While I am at the town's electrical workshop -a business establishment owned by
Fernando, a rather prosperous 40 year old man—I listen to the jokes exchanged between the workers and their boss. The jokes, pun, and verbal games can get rather heavy and vulgar, but the code of honor is simply to withstand it all -or, as the men say, "take it faggot" (aguantate puto), or "don't take it too seriously, it's a joke, learn how to carry on ("no lo tomes en serio, es una bromay aprende a llevarte asi"). Somehow my presence only serves to stimulate even harsher and more direct taunting, as if the men were putting on a performance just for me. At the same time I can tell that there is a spirit of loyalty and camaraderie among these men. While I am talking with one of the workers,
Fernando approaches him and says:
-" What do you think, Lucio?"
-"About what? "
- "It broke down" ("se me rajo ")
-"It broke down? Psss (laughs), I told you...but you are such an ass, I told you it was no good. "
Another worker hears the conversations and yells from across the room:
-"You said that it broke down? " (Laughs) -yes, we told you, that asshole is all talk, a pretender. And now what? You see that happened to you for being a bad friend, remember you said you were never going to take us for a ride (laughs).
- "What happened? " I ask
Fernando explains that a man had come by to offer him a very nice car, and that he had agreed to buy the car from the man for a set price, right on the spot, because he wanted the car to take his family for a trip to Tucson. "We had come to an understanding, " he says. He adds that he had already gone to the bank to get the money when the man sent word that he had changed his mind, that he could not sell him the car for the price they had agreed on. He says:
-"What makes me so mad is that the man broke down at the last minute, that his word 197
was no good" (que el bato se haya rajado a ultima hora, que no tengapalabra).
3) A third meaning of "rajarse" has to do with reveahng a secret or divulging
information confidentiatly. The sharing of this kind of private information
denotes a special social bond, especially if the person revealing information
stands to suffer any kind of social or emotional damage for being so
forthcoming. The possibilities of this kind of information circulating as
"second hand information"or as gossip or rumor are in the specific context of
"rajarse" constrained by the implicit assumption of responsibility and personal
loyalty when one is a participant in such a valued exchange (Hill and Irvine,
1992).
(June 26, 2000)
From the looks of it, it appears that Cabezon (Big Head) was sent to jail a few days after the rumble at the wedding last Saturday. Of course, this is not the first time that something like this happens. It wouldn't even be considered news if it were not for the fact that this time they admonished him that if it happens again he will be turned over to the district authorities and charged with more serious crimes. Maybe this eminent threat will produce some positive results at last.
Generally in these small rural towns people try not to get in trouble with the authorities.
With the execption of adolescents who get into scuffles at parties, most people deal with their conflicts with others by simply stopping to address those who grieve them 198
("dejdndose de hablar"), or arguing the points or filing a complaint at the local police station. Police officers sometimes act as mediators and in many instances are able to persuade both parties to settle their differences. People take to the police station
("comandancia ") all matters of disagreements, even gossip or alleged libel, cursings, and threats. From a rumor that a certain woman is a witch, to allegations that is man is being unfaithful to his wife, or an accusation that a neighbor is a thief to anonymous public "talk" ("hablada ") about someone being a homosexual —all sorts of things are taken up to the local commander in charge. In extreme cases when a man feels that he is being singled out, mocked, and constantly harrassed by another man he has three options: he can fight him, he can threat to file a complaint with the local police, or if he gets no results, he can really complait with the police authorities. In many instances, the threat of a lawsuit is quite effective. Fights or major physical confrontations are not as common as one might think. Since the fines imposed on those found guilty of engaging in public fighting can be very high, the law in fact serves as a deterrent to street violence.
"Cabezon " is a young man who works as a ranch hand. He is tall and thin, but well built.
He has a reputation for being serious, standoffish and introverted when he is sober. But when he drinks he gets beligerent, he can say some nasty things to people, and he has a reputation for becoming hypersensitive to comments others make, even his closest friends. For all these reasons, Cabezon is one of the town's most peculiar characters. He has a reputation for being boorish, acting like a "burro " (donkey), a man whose "true" manhood is lacking as demonstrated in his inability to control himself, to reason, and to treat others decently. 199
In this ocassion a group of men gather outside my house; the incident of last Saturday is being discussed and Cabezon happens to be present. He complains:
-"Theproblem is that Martin is a lazy ass ("culon "), he went and broke down with the police commander ("se fue a rajar con el comandante") -why did he have to do that?
The issue was between him and I, why can't he just face things like a man? "
One of the neighbors answers his questions:
-"No, Cabezon, things do not work that way, get on with it, man... ("no es asi el rollo, agarra la onda ") the man had lost his patience with you. Besides, he had already told you what to expect if you insisted. You were wrong, no matter what reasons you may have had, you should not pick a fight with him. In fact, check this out; it was you who broke down first ("el que se rajo primero"), because you promised the police commander not to pick any more fights with him.
Cabezon gets very quiet and stays that way for a long time.
I think this incident is interesting because of the way in which the term "rajarse " is utilized in reference to notions of masculinity. The concept is used as a term that questions the behavior of an individual. In this instance, Cabezon affirms the assumption that within the homo-social contract conflicts between two men should be faced off as
"men " and that to involve the police is to act cowardly. He also alludes to the violation of a pact of silence between men -"nobody had to know"— therefore talking about the
conflict with others, confessing what should have been private is also understood as a
form of "rajarse." On the other hand, the neighbor reminds Cabezon, not fulfilling a
promise one has made is also "rajarse. " 200
4) In this instance, "raj arse" is utilized in relation to an individual making an
effort not to open emotionally, a man who tries to control his emotions or
affection.
(February 11, 1998)
Recently, Ventura told me that he has been distant from his friend Chalo, because he found Chalo having a good old time with his friend Miguel one evening while the two rode around in Miguel's car. "What the fuck does he have to do hanging out with that asshole?, he tells me. Besides, he tells me he was also upset because when he saw him
Chalo was almost drunk, when Chalo had promised him that he would stop drinking from the beginning of the year until Easter.
(Many men around here make those kinds ofpromises and most of them abide by them. I think it is a way of getting in order their economic and physical priorities, but most of all, a symbolic way of getting themselves under control. During the time leading to Easter many men change their behavior: they become more serious, responsible, and disciplined. I think it is fair to say that the emotional dynamics of many men run according to an annual cycle: first, a period of hard work, temperance, and order that coincides with new year resolutions followed by the Catholic abstinece during Lent, and secondly, a longer period of more openness, with a disposition towards festive indulgence that culminates in December with the celebrations for the Patron Saint of Los Corazones, the day of the Virgin, followed by Christmas and New Year).
In any case, it is obvious that Ventura is mad at his friend, but he is also very sad. I would say he is almost depressed. He brought beer so that I can keep him company while he talks about his sadness. Ventura tells me that he is pleased to at least have someone like me to talk things over, because before he met me sometimes he felt he would go crazy on account that he could not share "his feelings, the things that really hurt him " about his friendship with Chalo.
Ventura promises that he will not go looking for Chalo anymore until he asks for forgiveness. I doubt that he can keep that promise. He tells me that when he sees Chalo around town he pretends to lack interest in him, to show Chalo that he is not so easily taken by him. I laugh tenderly when I hear the story, so typical of love affairs, and I am also amused by Ventura's contradiction: he claims he does not want to see Chalo, but then he looks for him and when he sees him he pretends that he doesn't care. I tell
Ventura: "1 don 't believe you, you better don't make any promises because sooner that you think you 11 be looking for him again. " Ventura replies: "I'd rather tie one of my balls off ("me amarro un giievo "), but I swear I won't break down ("no me rajo ")...mark my words, this time is for reals, no way, no way am I going to accept his behavior, it's pretty shitty what my "compadre" did, don 'tyou think? there, showing up like an asshole with that prick ("ahi anda el giiey exhibiendose con ese cabron "). It's not that I have anything against that guy Miguel, but come on!"
Ventura's expression about "amarrarse un giievo " catches my attention. It's not the first time that I hear it, but it makes me think of how testicles function metaphorically as the
"residency " of virility. "Amarrarse un guevo" (or tyingor cutting one ball off) is to endure a great deal of pain in a body part visibly identified with maleness. He says he 202
prefers to do that than to "break down " ("rajarse"). That is, confess his needs, his heartache, desperation, sadness, and longing for Chalo. Through this expression,
Ventura seeks to regain self-control and hence emotional closure -the capacity to control his own emotional boundaries.
The events that describe the various instances of "rajarse" can be classified as instances that 1) imply a threat; 2) describe an act; or 3) affirm a purpose or ability. The concept of "rajarse" entails a semantic codification of a set of social values implicated in the regulation of social relationships. These values —discretion, trustworthiness, truthfulness, reserve, control—are used to represent, produce and evaluate ethical and aesthetic behaviors and play a central role in the configuration of the moral identities of various subjects. Adhering to those values makes an individual a person of "honor" and
"integrity" (social values that have specific gender connotations- Alonso, 1995). Going against those values and therefore departing from the behaviors that they prescribe leads subjects in certain situations to experience a type of communicative event in which
"rajarse" becomes a real possibility. Of course, how and when and what moral effects the concept of "rajarse" is capable of accomplishing are always subject to negotiation -a negotiation over assumed identities and gender positions indexed by the term "rajarse" itself This in turn becomes a negotiation over systems of meaning and social distinctions (Bourdieu, 1988; Bauman, 1987).
By referencial indexicality Sylverstein mean the relationship of dependency, "de co-ocurrencia o existencia, implicada mutuamente entre signo y contexto" (Silverstein 1977; 146) Ochs means by direct indexicality: "a direct-that is unmediated- relation between one or more linguistic forms and some contextual dimension. A particular particle in one language maybe described as a direct index of the speaker's feeling" (Ochs 1990: 295). 203
III Masculinity and the indexicality of "rajarse"
As an idea and as a linguistic element, the concept of ''rajarse" indexes indirectly, through references to affective values what I am calling here "moral identities." In turn, these moral identities index gender identities, especially as these are manifested in a social ideal type for what counts as "masculine." The transaction that links these different fields of signification together can thus be expressed as;
Rajarse"—^moxdX identities (coward or valiant, etc.)—>"manhood"
To understand how this chain of signification and social regulation functions in everyday life it is necessary to move beyond a simplistic correlation between "rajarse" and the set of assumptions and behaviors that have been popularized as the practices of
"Mexican men." In his famous essay on "Mexican Masks" Octavio Paz designates
"rajarse" as a masculine verb, a verb related to the dialectic of openness-and-closure.
According to Paz, Mexicans understand one who "breaks down" (que se raja) as a coward and the act of confessing or openining up to a friend as an abdication of manliness. A social record embued with "threats" and a generalized hostile social environment are presented as the causes for this necessary urge toward "closure" among
Mexican men. In this "central" element of the "Mexican character" Paz finds an explanation for many cultural practices and preferences otherwise difficult to understand.
For instance, the Mexican bent towards romanticism and the licensed "openness"
(aperture) that takes place during "fiestas" are examples of times and moments in which
Mexicans "se rajan" (crack open), expose themselves to the world, cry out and laugh loudly. Women, according to Paz, cannot "break down" because that are already "craked open" ~a condition of their very own sex (Paz, 1959).
If Paz's reflections come short in attempting to account for the relationship between Mexicans and the act of "rajarse" perhaps one possible explanation can be found in his lack of attention to social practices, including the linguistic use of the term
"rajarse" in everyday life. Specifically, to the fluidity and negotiated nature of the term and its meanings as studies in the field called the "ethnography of speaking" has amply demonstrated (Hymes 1964, 1971). Despite Paz's assertion, in Mexico women, too, can
"break down." Women apply the verb "rajarse" to their own actions and they are socially expected not to do, as well. Although it might be true that the term is less common among women and that women generally are not subjected to the same pressures imputed to the act of "no rajarse" as men are, a woman can say to herself "I am not breaking down" ("no me voy a rajar") or she can be called "rajona" (quitter, cry baby) by another woman or man. Paz seems to forget that the dyads open-close and inside-outside are subject to negotiation by the simple fact that they are cultural constructions. Whatever is considered "closed" or "open" in relation to emotions or linguistic expressions depends on the cultural construction of boundaries in the first place -on constructions of "inside" and "outside," the "I" and the "other" and of social bonds expressed through metaphors of space (Fuss, 1991). It is precisely those representations of the "I" and the "other" and the social bonds that bring them into contact with each other or distant them that require negotiations in everyday life. Contrary to Paz's assertion, a Mexican can "break down" without being considered a coward. In fact, by doing so he might even be considered a 205
"good friend" or an exemplary "comadre" or "compadre."
In the same manner, not all Mexicans wait until Independence Day to cry, to shoot their guns, and expose themselves to the world. Paz's conceptualization of "holiday"
(fiesta) is marked so radically different from everyday life that it makes it almost impossible to apprehend the expressions of laughter, tears, and confessions that form part of daily living for so many Mexicanos. In fact, it is quite possible to encounter "festive behaviors" in non-festive spaces such as in the bus or a school classroom. The right time for "festive behavior" is also determined according to negotiations. For instance, people negotiate the act of "rajarse" (as does Vicente Fernandez in the song when he calls out a space "between you and I" to open up emotionally) in relation to spaces and discourses that may be at hand in some moments and not others. The ranchero balad (or "bolero") is one example of a discourse that enables the creation of the space required to transform certain elements of a person's subjectivity.
An ethnographic outlook oriented towards actual practices can help us understand the use of the expression "rajarse" in a variety of forms and contexts: when it takes the form of an accusation between men and women; as a mode of explaining the huge success of the romantic balad genre (bolero ranchero); instances of gossip and reported speech; the importance of friendship bonds and the role of complicity between men (the culture of homosociality); and the excessive amounts of confessions, flirting, and love connections that take place between men in Mexican cantinas. Does this ample circulation of the concept imply that "rajarse" is not especially related to practices of masculinity? Not at all. What it implies is the need for further study, in the same way in 206
which it becomes necessary to investigate further why and how women acquire the
designation of "breaking down" and what such an act (of "rajarse') represents in terms of
women's subjectivities and the power relationships in which they operate. I hope to make
a contribution to that investigation in the reflections that follow.
IV Homophobia, misoginy and masculinity in "rajarse"
The type of communicative events in which the expression "rajarse" usually
appears provides many clues to a deeper understanding of the concept. It is common to
find the term "rajarse" in the company of other words and phrases that usually have
sexual connotations. For example, expressions such as ''pinche culon" (related to the
expression "asshole" in English but with a more emphatic gender mark), "puto rajon,"
(something like "bitchy cry baby" although the word faggot is present) or the phrases "e/
que se raje es puto" (he who quits or breaks down is a faggot) are often used in tandem
with expressions that feminize men such as "pareces vieja," (you act like womanly),
"pinche comadre," (fucking sissy ") or ''lavandem" (a literal reference to a woman who
washes clothes tumed pejorative in as ar as they are considered to like gossip).
To abandon a task, reveal a secret, or go back on one's word -all these actions are
associated with feminine qualities and are hence considered denigrating to males.
Similarly, there is a range of coloquial expressions that are used to mock or ridicule
someone who is not able to keep a secret or control their emotions. These expressions are
enunciated as sexual idioms that reference "lack of control" (control of the body and of desires).Some of the most common expressions are: "se te calento la garnacha" (one possible translation could be "your skirt got on fire"), or "/e faltaron guevos" ("you don't have the balls to do it"). These expressions imply that "rajarse" entails a deficiency in a person's sexual powers (or sexual desire) or in the transparency of their gender identities.
Thus, men who "break down" can be assigned the stigma of being a "vieja" (old female),
''maricon" (faggot), "poco hombre" (not man enough), or "hombrecito a guevo" (little man). In turn, the act of "not breaking down" ("no rajarse"), even when a person wants to do it, can be expressed through phrases such as the one used by Ventura --'me amarro un guevd"ox "I'd rather cut one of my balls off." In Hermosillo and other sierra communities I have also heard expressions that convey sexual images to describe someone who has courage, someone who is firm in their convictions or that keeps his/her promises. Some of the most common ones are: "tiene guevos asi" or "he has balls this big" [indicating with a hand gesture the alleged size of the testicles]; "/o5 tiene de dos yemas" or "his balls are doubled-yoked" [refering also to the size of the testicles]; "ese bato es lechudo" or literally, "he has a lot of milk [semen] in him;" or "es un tira-leche" which can be translated as "he can sure squirt a lot of milk" [again in reference to the amount of semen]. As it is evident from these examples, the act of "rajarse" points always to a semantic field crisscrossed by gender and sexual references and as such to a set of discourses that construct and imagine masculine and feminine subjectivities. In fact, in the logic of these semantic expressions these gendered subjectivities are seen as the products of sexed bodies, or put another way, as psychic economies resident in
Gilbert Herdt defines "idioms" as; "characteristic expressions having particularities of cognitive and emotional meanings and style established in the ordinary interpersonal communications" (Herdt 1981: 14), 208
corporeal entities.
An interesting question derives from this scheme: how, then, are men and women whose gender and sexual identities are manifestly dissident subject to the semantic dynamics of "rajarse"? Och's concept of indirect indexicality'^® can help shed light on this apparent dissonance. As a practice, "rajarse" alludes to social values which must be honored because they in fact constitute the substance of social relationships. Values such as courage, trustworthiness, truthfulness, sincerity, self-tempering, resistance, endurance, and discreetness are held in high esteem. Observing or preserving these values indexes moral identities and meanings. In turn, those moral identities index social conceptions about "egos" underwritten by clear gendered subtexts. Women can "break down"
{rajarse) insofar as they too are expected to uphold the values that hold society
"together." What is sexually conditioned is not whether women and other morally
"deficient" persons like "jotos" are expected to fulfill the said values but the range of social expectations that exist for fulfilling those prescribed roles and positions. For example, in the case of men who are not manifestly perceived as "jotos" (fags or queers) the expectation is that they will adhere more closely than "jotos" to the prescribed social values that define male gender and identity. Gender differences, therefore, entail different levels of social expectations about the fulfillment of social values and hence the moral capacities of gendered subjects. Ultimately, these differences are reflected in systematic
By indirect i ndexicality Ochs j eans, the process by which "a feature ofthe communicative event is evoked indirectly through the indexing of some other feature of the communicative event. In these cases, the feature of the communicative event directly indexed is conventionally linked to and helps to constitute some second feature of the communicative context, such that the indexing of one evokes or indexes the other" (Ochs 1990: 295) sexist conceptualizations in society (Irvine, 1992).
Nonetheless, this sexist system has its own ambiguities and counterarguments.
Women, for instance, are considered more "trustworthy" and are often chosen for public positions that have to do with the handling of money in many communities. Men are considered to be more prone to dishonest and corruption. Similarly, a woman who does not "break down" {''que no se raja") is highly valued and respected, for this quality usually indicates that she has an inner strength and a special commitement. On the other hand, a man who does not "break down" could be said to simply be acting according to what is expected of "a man." In other words, the action of "rajarse" or not "rajarse" proves a man's value as a masculine subject. Some of the phrases in common usage reveal this assumption. For instance, if a man or woman identified as a "joto" or morally deficient "breaks down" or fails to uphold his/her commitment, it is common to hear people say; "what did you expect?" or "you couldn't expect more [from a fag, or a woman, or a sissy]."
Paradoxically, these social expectations applied to those who have been publicly identified as "homosexuals" or "jotos" or of those men who are suspected of being one, often results in an increaded self-imposed expectation to "prove people wrong" and hence excell in adhering to social norms of respect, responsibility, discretion, and seriousness.
In other words, an increased adherence to the values that define "being a man." The added pressure of these expectations is sometimes more noticeable in men whom
"everyone knows about" or that "have been rumored to be" or that "it is not hard to imagine" what their "true" preferences might be. An interesting case in point is the case 210
of Irving, a 20-year old man from Mesa who, as many other young men of sierra communities lives and goes to school in Hermosillo.
I met Irving at his part-time job in Hermosillo where he works as a clerk in a department store. Noticing his name, I asked him if he was from Mesa and in that way we established a conversation that eventually led to friendship. I ran into him a few times at various places around town, mostly on weekends and usually accompanied by various family members. As it is the custom in Mexico, I was always greeted politely and acknowledged as a friend of Irving by his siblings and his mother. Although Irving is not clearly effeminate, he also is not someone who wear the usual cowboy outfits typical of the region. He is thin, fair-skinned, with delicate or elegant face features and generally introspective and quiet. According to his own words, it is not hard for someone "to imagine" that he might be "gay" (sic)^". Speaking of his ambiguous look, he says:
"Let me tell you, I have never had any troubles in this town. No one has ever said anything offensive to me, anything that may have bothered me, because the fact is I have never given anyone any reason to speak badly about me, never. People respect me. They greet me politely, I greet them back. I don't know if the talk behind my back, that's their business. If they do, in the end, the ones who look bad is them, because people around here know that I am someone who gives respect and gets respect. I have never been embroiled in any scandal, first of all because I don't care for them, and that's what people like about me.
Irving, as many other young men, use to get familiar and adopt the word "gay" when moving to Hermosillo. Althoug the recent spreading of the word through media is making possible to other people in rural communities to use it for themselves or to refer to others. I explore the use and meanings of these identity's categories in depth in the follwing chapters. 211
- "Do you think you have to live up to higher expectations?"
- "Yes, a whole lot higher. That's so good that you say that...because it is the truth, I believe it is. People pay a lot more attention to my behavior, that's why Ifeel I have to be more serious and dedicated to my projects, more discreet, more respectful of others, be more careful about what I say, not get involved in gossip, all of that. I do that not to mean that I am not gay, but because I think people put more attention to people like me. Most people they don't have those worries, but I am always so much more aware. I am not sure if you have noticed, but look...those of us who are "like this, " or that people imagine or kind of put together that we are this way, or maybe simply that they know...because people know these things, even if they can't prove it...well, we are a lot more considerate, careful, and respectful. We work harder, we help people more than usual, we excell at what we do, even the fact that we pursue more education, I believe it is all related. There are those men who are the same as I am, I mean they like sex with men, but they are more... uhm... "hombres " ...they think of themselves differently.. .tougher, or they are married, things are different for them because for people once you are married, even if they have suspicions, they no longer judge you the same, sometimes they don't even pay attention, or maybe they cannot longer "imagine" that a man may be like that...
Irvings perception captures one of the points I want to make through this thesis: the diversity of the homosexual experience, not only in terms of the dichotomy "simply sexual act and love relationship" (as Foucault put it, and as Eribon repeats it to create its ontogenesis of the homosexual subjectivity), a quite arbitrary dichotomy by the way, as 1 will show it later chapters, but in terms of the way they are intergrated to gender and sexual identities beyond the exclusiveness of the "gay identity". But Irvings raises another important issue, the difference experiences of those taking part in the "homosexual experience" ("el hecho homosexual"), a diversity that put into a question any intention to make a homogeneous (and transhistorical A three-prong exercize structures the dynamic that I have been describing; the failure to adhere to predetermined social values, demonstrated by specific practices, indexes moral identities that in tum index the failure to uphold a social idea or expectation about masculinity (Herzfeld, 1985). This chain of signification is possible insofar as moral identities are sexed identities and viceversa. Concepts like "honor" and
"integrity," when applied to the idea of maintaining a secret, or keeping one's word, or persisting when one has committed to do something, or controlling one's emotions, are central elements of the social definition of the male self and the power status of men. The same dynamics and values are present in women's sense of self, but they do not play the same central function that they do in men's lives. As researcher Ana Alonso has noted, following Peristiany's insights (1968) on mediterranean-derived cultures, in Mexico women's sense of "honor" and "integrity" is more a function of their sexual practices and are codified instead ad "chastity" and "modesty."
V The politics of control and excess. "Rajarse," body, and sex.
As already noted, "rajarse" indexes a sexed conception of subjectivity. Male subjectivity may be apprehended through an economy of desire that is dependent on the body for its expression. In other words, the male body is the locus of practices that define the male subject. These practices are often characterized through metaphors of fluidity and solid matter: toughness, resilience, resistance, impermeability, closure, etc. "Rajarse"
and transcultural narrative) even in "Western societies and in the last century". I think that not even injure as Eribon calls it (1999), can sustain such a narrative. 213
(or a literal "crack down") connotes a fissure in the body^^, but a fissure in a metaphoric
body: the masculine self. The male ego, constructed metaphorically as a body, is thus
expected to be solid, coherent, unitary, hard, disciplined, closed and hence independent,
autonomous, self-sufficient, not vulnerable. Certainly, "rajarse" also points towards a
symbolic ordering of cultural forms arranged according to gender. A number of dualities
construct such a symbolic system; masculine-feminine is the most obvious binary but
also closed-open, hard-soft, hot-cold, solid-liquid, clear-viscous, straight-crooked, right-
left, among many others. The hierarchy of this symbolic ordering can be discerned in the
terms that are usually employed to describe a man who is "effeminate" or "less manly"
{menos hombre): rajon (big-mouth, open), bizcocho (sponge cake), blandengue (softy),
fresco (fresh), se le hace agua la canoa (literally, "his canoe is filled up with water,"
meaning that one's abilities are suspect), ni agua ni limonada (literally, "neither water
nor lemonade;" similar to the English idiom "swings both ways"), raro (odd or queer),
torcido (crooked), corre para tercera (literally, "he runs to third base" -in beisball the
third base is always on the left side— similar to the English idiom "he scores for the
opposite team"). In the sierra communities I also found the localized duality
"puntiagudo-chato" (literally, pointy-fiat but could also be sharp-dull), manifested in the expression to refer to a highly viril man who is not afraid to fight if he has to -"picudo"
(literally, sharp-edged). The symbolic system that expresses masculinity is even
" Up to this point I have limited in this essay to the exemplified uses of "rajarse". There are other uses and terms which refers this fissure in a body, as when we say "rajas de chile", especially green chile. The "rajas" of a green chile gives the impression of a torn body. I thank Jane Hill for this commentary. 214
manifested in the use of certain phonemes.A man in the sierra once told me about an effeminate child of his times whom other children called simply by the letter "i" because according to this informant children have the feeling that "the letter "i" is neither "o" [the masculine suffix in Spanish] nor "a" [the feminine suffix]." The man also explained that the letter "i" "is kind of weak." Another informant, this time in the city, told me about a nickname for another effeminate boy at elementary school using simply the pronoun: "lo"
-because it is "neutral," neither "el" (masculine) or "la" (feminine). The preferred symbols to represent "manliness" in many of these communities are "lo cerrado"
(references to things that are closed or locked down) and "lo duro" (things that are hard- surfaced).
Many social practices associated with the presentation of the body in public such as dress styles or gesturing, tend to reproduce the ideal masculine ego as described above.
For example the practice of wearing hats or baseball caps as a way to always have the male head covered; wearing long-sleeve shirts, tight-fitted blue jeans, or never exposing the feet by wearing huaraches or sandals, or the use of certain accessories such as polarized sunglasses, or in the car as extension of the body the use of polarized windows.
All these artifacts and practices mark the presentation of the male body as "closed" and consequently suggest that male subjectivity is something in the same order -a project of emotional enclosure. The social presentation of women's bodies does not seem to pivot around the same kind of expectation. For instance, women's legs are visible through
Pierre Bourdieu, in his famous study of Kabil society (see for example 1968) and in his later book on "la domination masculine" (1998), refers this sexual and sexist symbolic arrangement that structures society's cosmogony, too. Nevertheless, his references are in relation to men and women, with any mention to its implications for the politics of manhood"and the politics of homophobia. shorts and skirts; women wear their hair long and loose; they wear sandals often and short-sleeve or sleeveless blouses. Of course, this hasn't always been the case for women. Scarcely two generations ago, women were also subject to the same social expectation of bodily closure through the use of hairstyles that gathered their hair in buns or braids or the use of long skirts or dark-colored stockings. But generally, we can say that changes in dress style have corresponded with a larger structuring binary conceptualization of bodies and subjectivities wherein maleness is associated with
"seriousness" and hermetic behaviors while female characteristics are stereotyped as always being "more communicative" and open.
Nonetheless, I venture to say that in both instances (male and female) we can find that the social conceptualization of subjectivities as described above, insofar as they represent a psychic economy of desire, are always subject to "erruptions," disorders, indisciplinary acts, or "calentamientos" (hot-headed moments). The social and cultural norm is to consider these instances of disruption not characteristic {"propios") of "being a man" but significantly more tolerable as far as women is concerned. This differential conceptualization of gender subjectivities rests upon a sexist understanding of power and ability expressed through body metaphors such as "guevos" (balls), "panocha'' (pussy),
"culo" (asshole), etc. This sexist construction of language and gender differences imputes to women's bodies as well as to the bodies of "jotos" and men who are "poco hombres"
(not manly enough), an alleged "irrationality," madness, or lack of control. In other words, it is the female sex what makes women "hysterical" and hence what makes men who are identified as homosexuals as "locas'' (mad ones, or mad females, literally). This notion perhaps also explains the culturally-held belief about men's high tolerance for pain
and the social expectation that "real" men do not wine or complaint. A man who
expresses openly and frequently discomfort or physical pain becomes the object of
ridicule by his peers. The assumption is that a real man "takes it" [the pain] or he must
''aguantarse" (hold it in), or he must minimize how bad it actually feels. David, a 38-year old man that I met during fieldwork, told me that when he was a child and worked with his father in the field he would sometimes get thorns in his hands, about which his father
always commented that "there was no time to waste" in complaining about thorns, that
those kinds of minor things were dealt with "on Sundays" when men took time aside to
"clip their nails, pull out thorns from their skin, and that type of thing." Other than
Sundays, the rest of the week were "work days," or "days of discipline."
The various instances in which men brake these social norms and engage instead in acts of "rajarse" support the existence of a social discourse around the question of desire that is manifested through speech acts such as intimate and affective
"confessions," or through pledges of silence and discretion. The inability to "hold it all inside" can be characterized then as "excesses of desire" (excesos deseantes), or in colloquial speech, a loss of control, that correlates with the subjectivities (and hence, bodies) of women or of those men identified with feminine attributes {"jotos" or men who suffer of "defficient" manhood). The colloquial term used in Mexico ''cruda moral"
(literally, a moral hang-over) to refer to shame, guilt, or regret among men who "talked too much" or became "too emotional" when they were drinking or were under the influence of alcohol is a visible, and pathetic, sign of the social control effected by these ideologies and cultural attitudes. Simultaneously, they point to the intrinsic anxious
nature of "normal" masculinity (McBride, 1995; Jefferson, 1994).
At the same time, the experience of shame, guilt, and regret, as well as their body
manifestations, reminds me of Bourdieu and Foucault conceptions of body, subjectivity
and power. In both authors, the social experiences of domination get integrated into subjectivty and into the body. Didier Eribon put it in these terms: "fear, awkwardness,
and shame are bodily attitudes produced by a hostile exterior world" (Eribon, 2004: 15).
The socialization of men, with its expectations and violences (includig homophobia as we
will see in the next chapter) produce lasting effects on male bodies and subjectivities.
The concept of alienation is quite pertinent to describe men socialization into dominant gender ideologies. This alienation in its turn seems to be necessary and functional to keep the masculine system of domination.
"Rajarse" thus implies a loss of control over one's desire and hence a loss of control over the boundaries of masculine subjectivity. The attempted efforts to control instances of "rajarse" is further evidence of the necessity to monitor the boundaries of subjectivity in everyday life, especially when it comes to the social lives of men. The threat of stigma and of other forms of "othemess" previously designated inferior or demeaning -i.e. femininity and homosexuality- reinforce the effectiveness of the social controls. Homophobia and mysoginy -two sides of a same sexist core - are thus key elements in the deployment of the technologies of power that regulate male identities and possibilities of intimacy.
The study of this vemacular modality called "rajarse'' enables us to access the discourse that organizes the social surveillance over men's expressive possibilities as
"desiring expressions". It allows us also to look at the the power technologies that
provide the meaning of the "excessive" and the need of control of men subjectivity, as
part of the organization of an economy of desire with gender connotations^"^. In this sense, we are capable of seeing and understanding how the social dynamics of power (in
this case, patriarchy) function as practices of regulation of intimacy as well.
I noticed the interesting use of the word ''sujeto" (subject) as a term of admiration among adults in sierra communities and among sermnos living in Hermosillo to refer to a man who has self-control. Don Manuel, for instance, referred to a ranch hand whom he recognized as a responsible and skillful worker as "es muy sujeto" (he is very much a subject). In other ocassions I have heard the same expression to refer to someone who is reliable, responsible, and level-headed, as in the phrase: "con ese hombre no hay problema, puedes tratar sin recelo, es muy sujeto" (you can trust that man, you won't
have any problems with hims, you can deal with him without reservations, he is very
much a subject). In these usages, to be a "subject" is in fact to have the capacity "to subject" one's basest impulses down or under control. In other words, to have self- control, to monitor one's own behavior, and hence to be reliable or predictable. This self-
control must be first and foremost exercised over one's body and hence one's emotions
and social relations. In this vernacular reference, we can see or evoke Foucault's concept
of the "subject" as a condensation of a parallel process of subjectification/subjection.
In his article "Le combat de la chastete » (1982) as in other of his last works, Foucault insists on this relationship of subjectivity (as the product of a process of subjetification) as involvig a relationship to oneself in the domain of sexuality and as well as an economy of acts. 219
manifested in this instance with a clear masculine connotation^^. We can see how this subjectification both: it is part of a gender identity process in which the very subject is implicated, and it is a process tht get recognition and therefore, in some way, pleasure.
But, is the process of subjection does exist, is there any room to "resubjectification" as
Foucault put it at the ends of his days^^? Is not, any stylistic practice that speaks of a process of "self-invention"? I think that the expression "aca entre nos" should be seen as indexing such stylistic intervention in the process of resisting masculine subjection, at least in its most orthodox form. It also index the existence of a social space in which men can become intimate.
VI Acd entre nos and the negotiation of intimacy
If, as I and others have argued, it is true that so many practices among men in
Mexico are conditioned by the notion of''rajarse" and the fears derived from the enactment of such an act in particular communicative events or moments, how are we to account therefore for possibilities of intimacy among men and the ability of Mexican men to establish intimate relationships? According to Paz, Mexican men cannot confide in a friend without feeling simultaneously that they have "given in" or surrendered some part of their masculinity.
Men's emotional "confessions" to each other are a phenomenon linked to the broader conceptualization of the male self and to an ideal (and rational) masculinity that
" Foucault describes the word "subjectification" : le processus par lequel on obtient la constitution d'un sujet, plus exactement d'une subjectivite, qui n'est evidement que I'une des possibilites donnees d'organisation d'une conscience de soi. (Foucault 2001: 1525) Didier Eribon gives great importance to this notion in his book Reflexions sur la question gay (1999) and brought my attention to this aspect of Foucult theory. 220
is expressed through linguistic and non-linguistic means. To "open up emotionally" much like ''rajarse" is the manifestation of a speech economy, or rather, of an economy of silence that is part and parcel of a psychological economy of desire with high social stakes. Silence is frequently recognized as one of the methods employed by men to assert their power over a situation or a person (Gal, 1991; Sattel, 1983). But silence also functions to reaffirm a certain poetics of masculinity among men. Through silence and lack of expression, men often signal the limits to which they are willing to go in a conversation while simultaneously affirming their positions of power in their relationships. In the same way, men often dismiss and devalue the expressive behaviors of others (mostly of women) as signs of weakness and in the process assign themselves the leading role in determining what communicative strategies are or are not valuable.
Silence functions as a performative practice that activates the codes of normative masculinity and enables men to distance themselves emotionally.^^ This is not to say that talking always guarantees emotional connection and communication. Seidler (1989), for instance, has noted how males tend to utilize a language of modernist, scientific, bureaucratic and economic rationality to construct their power and their identities, to mobilize social institutions, and to marginalize others who lack mastery over that kind of language (and who have in fact also been proscribed from learning it at all). Men use this modality of speaking to distance or alienate themselves from emotions, pain, and
I am connecting here implicitly, the conception of silence as a poetic of manhood (as told by Herzfeld) and as an expression of an economy of desire (as set out by post-lacanian psychoanalysis in Irigaray and MacBride [1994]) with Judith Butler's reflections on the performative character of gender identity (1993). This is possible, because men's poetics, according to Herzfeld (1985), involve the performance of an ideological project of masculinity. This ideological project as an ideal-ego takes part in the configuration of a psyquic economy. affection.
Male intimacy in Mexico, therefore, can be said to be conditioned by the politics
that regulate the act of "rajarse" (breaking down) but perhaps not in the absolutist and
unidimensional way described by Paz. The fear of "rajarse" does not control with
absolute certainty the openness or closure of the self. But insofar as that fear is an
indicator of an idealized notion of masculinity, it is also an element that must be
continually negotiated, disputed, and resisted by male subjects within their emotional
lives. A negotiation and resistance that speak of a way of "resubjectification".
It is common to see men (as well as women in some cases) trying to convince
themselves and to convince others that a particular actino they took was not an act of
"breaking down" {una rajada). The meaning of the act itself, or of what posible actions
constitute it as such, are continuously debated and in the process so are the social values
and the gender and moral identities that in turn assist people in apprehending the
metaphoric and corporeal dimensions of their subjectivities. The applicability of the term
"rajarse" to a given action is conditioned or excused by factors of age, economic status,
or social and affective commitments. Questions of responsibility, loyalty, and agency are
also conditioned and negotiated through these arguments. Social values that support
hegemonic interpretations of the act of "rajarse" (and hence the gender differences that
such an act index) are disputed in multitute of shifting contexts. It is precisely in function
of that negotiation that the act of talking or confessing "aca entre nos" (between us)
becomes posible.
The construction of intimacy in everyday life involves a certain organization of social links through communicative acts, primarily acts related to speech (Giddens,
1992). Aca entre nos is one of those phrases that once it has been uttered functions to construct a sociolinguistic context that prescribes specific gender identities and social bonds. When a man tells another man (or possibly even when he tells a woman) the phrase ''aca entre nos" the phrase instantly creates a socio-emotional space that allows for a range of expressive possibilities almost always entailing intimacy: closeness, openness, and affection. The phrase "aca entre nos" (between you and me) addresses the listener as an accomplice in an act of affective connectivity. The phrase is a linguistic resource that bets against the odds of ''rajarse" by forming a sideway alliance with the listener. It is a way of appealing to the listener's need for intimacy to construct a new socio-emotive context where it becomes posible to expose emotions and hence to deepen social bonds. For men, this new context holds great potential for the transformation of normative gender practices. Thus, "aca entre nos" tends to appear as a moment of
"rupture" (of the normative self that is called upon to remain "closed"). In such a moment, men dare explore other possibilities of being thus transgressing the alleged naturalness, universality, and even the desireability of the prescribed social ideal of masculinity.
VII Aca entre nos: intimate confessions and the production of knowledge
(Fieldnote, October 14, 1998)
I am not sure how to start writing about what I am feeling at the moment. I am deeply moved, touched, surprised, and at the same time excited about what I think is 223
confirmation of a methodological intuition I have felt for a long time. All of this was brought about by running into Pedro today. Pedro is an interesting person because he seems to embody through his everyday actions the values that define the ideal of masculinity in this community, albeit with a certain degree of ambiguity. He is handsome and the confidence he derives from his good looks helps him establish rapport with people. His line of work exposes him to many different people and on account of his charisma he is usually surrounded by men all day long. In these informal gatherings, the men comment on everyday situations, hold discussions, and take positions on a variety of issues. Always careful to uphold his viril image, Pedro usually injects comments that reflect his competitive nature, drive, courage, and his self-control and work ethic. One example of this appeals to the "hardcore" values of masculinity was his comment on a given ocassion about how crying at funerals was "something that is not done anymore. "
When Pedro plays baseball, he is given to displaying gestures and imitating moves of professional players that although rarely result in improved scores for his game usually assist in reaffirming his image among the men in the game. Pedro manipulates a fine sense of humor to add to his charisma; he is usually attentive and courteus with women and children, sometimes displaying gestures of tenderness towards them that I have rarely seen manifested among men in this region. Through interviews with other men in
Pedro's community, I learned that many of them perceive Pedro as highly compelling and intriguing. At the same time, I was able to elucidate at least two aspects of Pedro's persona that "do not speak well" ("no hablan del todo bien") about his standing in the community. These are: his social linkages with men who "move drugs" (small-town drug 224
dealers) and getting a woman of the community pregnant whom he has yet to marry. If the first issue caused several men to distance themselves from Pedro, the second issue provoked a strong reaction among many of the women who used to like him. A woman named Alicia told him: "Beware of the fact that men also suffer social embarrassment, they also get burned on account of a pregnancy, because if a man does not stand up to his responsibility, then he loses a whole lot of credibility...you can be sure. " Given all this complexity, Pedro became a difficult subject for me to understand and grasp through my investigation. In fact, aside from my observation of his behavior and commentaries in social settings I had seriously doubted that I would be able to engage him one to one in open conversation as I had the opportunity to do with other men like Ventura, Rogelio,
Chalo, Juan or Irving; or Joaquin. I also erased from my mind the possibility that I would ever have with Pedro the kind of affective friendship that I developed with men like
Joaquin (who took me in that interesting trip down to the river). This afternoon, however,
I was gladly shaken out of all these assumptions. As I was making my way down from my house towards the main street, I passed as usual in front of Pedro's house. As I passed,
Pedro was in the front porch organizing boxes related to his business. I said hello and he reciprocated the greeting in his usual laconic style. I had not advanced more than fifty yards when I noticed a car pulling close along the sidewalk where I was walking. It was
Pedro calling to me from his pick-up truck. He asked if I wanted a ride. The circumstansces were somewhat ackward, because the center of town was merely 200 yards away and it would have been perfectly fine for me to keep walking. I accepted the ride nonetheless, realizing that it was an opportunity to connect with Pedro that may not 225
come up again. I also thought of the fact oh how impolite it would be to reject the offer from such a central character in this community and that given what I had observed about Pedro's competitive nature, I might even offend or embarrass him. When I jumped inside the truck, 1 noticed that Pedro was carrying a six-pack of beer in the front seat.
Pedro had already opened one can and offered me another. For many of the same reasons mentioned above, I accepted the beer. In addition, it is a strong cultural value in this region never to reject a drink offered socially, unless one has a highly compelling excuse such as taking medication of having taken a temporary religious vote of abstinence. To reject a beer because one is on a diet is considered one of the most
"faggish " things ('joteria ") one can possibly say. In any case, I have long been aware of the fact that beers are usually an excuse to engage in moments of masculine intimacy.
Some people would go as far as saying: "other than for drinking, what other reason would a man have to get together with other men?^^ " Alcohol, as I have noted many times, plays a critical role in helping men drop their inhibitions and hence in achieving emotional closeness. A beer is also usually exchanged as a gesture of goodwill among men, even among strangers. I recall one ocassion in which a man blocked my car by parking too close to me. When he realized what he had done and that I needed to get out, he apologized, offered to move his car immediately, and offered me a beer. Of course, I did not think about each one of these fine points when I accepted the beer that Pedro offered, but I had incorporated enough knowledge about these topics throughout my years of fieldwork to recognize quickly the opportunity before me and make the right
Drinking coffe, as shown by Jose Pedro, can play the same role. 226
decision. I noticed that Pedro was restless, almost nervous. As expected, we reached the main plaza quickly, but jumping out without finishing my beer would have been yet another sign of disrespect, so I sat in the truck a bit longer. Pedro then told me that we could continue talking on the outskirts of town, at a place by the side of the road that local men like to frequent to drink and hang out together. I agreed that it was a good idea. When we got there, Pedro turned off the truck and asked me what I thought about the people in this town. I answered with positive but vague statements. Then a sudden silence enveloped us, made all the more ackward by the fact that we were sitting close to each other in the truck. Pedro stared at me, with a strange combination of intensity and sensibility. Looking straight into my eyes, and placing his hand gently on my shoulder, he said: "-Here between us ("aca entre nos")... and I say this because I know that you are someone that can be trusted, because I have seen how you are, what you talk about. In the same way in which you observe people here for your study, I have also observed you...and I wanted to tell you, how can I say, Guillermo, well...that I am like you."
I became very disconcerted. His tone of voice was deep, sincere, as if he was finally making a confession that he had long considered. Ifelt an emotional connection emerging between us that I was not sure how to assimilate or treat. A connection I had already intuitively perceived he wanted with me, but it was an intuition that I could not be sure at.^^ Pedro continued:
-"I am like you. But you know what? Around here it is very dijficult to show that side that
" In my field work 1 use to write all this intuitions as an exercise into intersubjectivity and the value of emotions in the creationf of knowledge. To my surprise I had many exemples of how these intuitions were true. Specially regarding people's feelings, but also regarding people's hidden affections and homosexual desires. I will elaborate this aspect in the next chapter. 227
one has inside."
I was not sure what he was referring to. Was he talking about my precise-imprecise
bisexuality, or my comfort with sexual diversity, whatever one wants to call it? Was this
confession a platform to express attraction? I found myself unable at that moment to sort
out all these competing interpretations. After all, here was the man who embodies the ideal of masculinity in town, and he was talking to me in this personal manner. And, most importantly, what was the meaning of his words? A bit ackwardly, I began to talk. I only
remember that I ask: "Are you concerned that people would make fun ofyou?" In spite of how trite my question seems now in retrospect, Pedro did not seem to be moved from
his intention to express whatever he had in mind:
-"Ifeel that there is a way of being buried inside me, a way offeeling things that is very
different from what people generally know about me. I am the kind ofperson who is
moved by sunsets, who enjoys the singing of the birds in the trees, even feeling a light
breeze brush my face. And I have often wondered, do other people feel the same way I
do? For example, I get deeply upset when I see animals being mistreated. I mean, I get
upset! I even feel like crying. But do you know what? Around here, you can't express
those feelings. Even if that is how you feel, even if everyone else feels the same way as you do, you can 't express it because people would make fun of you. Around here you
have to be "cabron " -manly, do you understand? A man must learn how to hold all of
those feelings down.
"I understand, " I said.
"I like you, Guillermo; Ifeel that I can talk to you about how I really feel inside. I have 228
always wished to meet someone like you, because it is not always easy for me living here.
Around here you have to always demonstrate that you are "macho"—that you are tough, that you almost have no feelings. You have to comply with that way of being, even if deep inside you feel differently. But being a man who, how should I say, who is tender and affectionate...no, that is not possible. Look, I am going to tell you something I have never told anyone: the fact is that I am very angry at my father. I feel resentment towards him; it is a wound that although not visible, I have inside me. My father never showed us any affection; never a hug, or a kiss, or saying "I love you. " I really would have liked to receive a kiss from my father; up to this day I do not know what a kiss from a father feels like. He believed he met his obligations as a father because he worked and provided for the household...but he came short, because that's not all that a father must be. It is not all that a child needs. That's why Ifeel resentment. When my mother got sick, yes, it is true that he worked hard, but I never felt that he was really there for us, because that situation was very difficult for all of us and it was almost as if he was not feeling anything about it.
That affected me a lot. Even today I still carry that with me and when I think about it, I get mad at him.
I noticed that Pedro's eyes became watery as he spoke. He continued:
- "But don't believe for a minute that my family was alone in having this kind of experience. I see that the same thing happens in other families, in many cases, it is actually much worse. At least in my family we had brothers and sisters that supported each other. You know what I mean? We held each other up.
I responded: - "I too have noticed many of the things that you talk about. I have also heard many men ofyour age talk about having the samedifficulties with their fathers. And I am going to tell you something that might surprise you: in the same way as you feel, many men have also told me that they wish they could talk about these feelings in the open without risking being ridiculed.
- "No kidding?" Pedro responds.
-"Not at all... " I say.
- "Orale... " he says. He looks at me and smiles as if la had revealed something new to him.
- "Have I bothered you with my things?" Pedro asks and then answers himself. "No, I know that I haven't. I know that you are different and that's why I approached you to talk about these things. The good thing is that this won't be the only nor the last time we get together and talk...do you agree?"
- "Of course I do...of course." I reply.
- "Listen...do you want to go watch a boxing match on closed circuit...they usually charge a cover charge, but don't worry, I'll cover us, it is in Daniel's house, do you want to go? "
-"Sure, let's go. "
We begin driving towards Daniel's house. Pedro opened another beer and offered it to me with a complicit smile. When we arrived to our location, Pedro made his entrance in his usual self-assuredand manly manner. In a moment he looked at me in complicity.
That experience with Pedro impacted me profoundly. I have not stopped thinking about it 230
ever since it hapenned. I think that Pedro's confession moved me so much because through it I was able to get in touch with an unconscious desire on my part as a researcher that had to do with the need to validate my own intuition about male intimacy.
Here was this man who holds around him the quintessential aura of male virility, confessing to me his deep feelings about a dimension of his emotional life that he supresses and denies publicly. As he calls it, a "wound" that he cannot show on account of the censorship produced by the politics of gender. I am compelled to make a confession of my own: Now that I am writing aobut this, Ifeel that the most personal dimension of this research project has been precisely the "discovery " that my own sensibility is not that different from what other men experience. Or rather, that other men are not so different from me, except that in my case I was able to break the barriers of that emotional censorship and made a commitment to transform the politics of gender that regulated my emotions. I realized that it was somehow the presentation of my self in everyday contexts that gave Pedro the confidence to provoke an encounter wherein the subjectivities of one another could be exposed as we each feel them. I surprised looking at me carefully. That is, fractured, fragmented, and heterogeneous. Ironically, I was observing Pedro to know the Other in his normative expression of "manhood" and that
"other" was observing me in order to asses whether I was the right person to reveal what it has entailed for him to construct such image of "manliness. " Pedro constructed his own "knowledge " of me to in turn expose himself and thus find complicity and echo -in other words, to establish inter-subjectivity. I have constructed an investigation to acquire knowledge of the Other; in order to understand his subjectivity and find a mirror to look at my own reality; and to share those truths with other men in order to break the silence.
Ifeel that this investigation has changed me as a person.
After this event, I noticed how in small ways Pedro's behavior changed after his confession. This effect is not surprising: it has been well documented how the research process changes both the investigator and the research subjects. As a matter of fact, my presence in Pedro's community brought about changes in many other unexpected and small ways. I noticed that several men other than Pedro also observed me. Many others speculated about me, asked questions, and sought out my company. The process of gathering "knowledge" about these men entailed an interrogation of the prevailing gender politics that attempted to keep silent, or at least make seem natural and universal, "what it means to be a man."
The gesture initiated by Pedro to make his confession — that "between us" space
("<3ca entre nos") that he called out to show me his "wound" — signaled the invention of a metaphorical space of complicity for the encounter of subjectivities and for a process of
"resubjectification". In that space, a sui generis knowledge of men as gendered subjects becomes possible. The "between us" space marks a path and a methodology for the production of knowledge about men and "manhood." At the same time, the "between us" gesture marks a space of intimacy. Confronting the obstacles and the exigencies of normative "manhood" and its prescribed closures of the emotial lives of men, the space of intimacy enabled by this social gesture can in turn intervene in facilitating various modes of resistance to the dominant forms and discourses. VIII Acd entre nos: researching masculinity and the regulation of the ethnographer's manhood
A curious phenomenon afflicts me: whenever I start immersing myself in research dealing with questions of masculinity, I also begin to have frequent and intense dreams.
Ocassionally, I have been known to bite my nails; to shift between the two extremes of eating compulsively or lacking an apetite; to range dramatically in my emotions from excitement to depression; to suffer heartburn or be drawn to bouts of melancholy. At moments like this, I always feel the impulse to make sacred in some way that magic moment whenever a new idea gives me the possibility of understanding my own life and the lives of others like me better.
Between you and me, I have to admit that writing about masculinity has been a painful process for me. At the same time, it has also brought me a lot of joy. These feelings, and the process of talking about them, subject my own masculinity to scrutiny.
After all, the act of revealing emotions of suffering or affection is fundamentally implicated in the politics of gender that define and set the horizon for affective possibilities of subjects in the first place and hence the possibilities and modalities for social interventions (Gal, 1991; Sattel, 1983). To speak of masculinity, and consequently to enter that critical terrain called deconstmction where things considered essential become destabilized, historized, and contextualized, is a process that demands a personal commitment and vulnerability on the part of the researcher. Among the areas of a researcher's life that are suddenly illuminated are: relationships with parents and 233
romantic partners, social status, the sense of personal comfort and self-sufficiency, the sense of invulnerability, and the tacit agreements one has made with the imagined community of men (homo-sociality). Essentially, all the important dimensions involved in being a person.
The joining of forces, so to speak, between an expressive economy that regulates gendered identities and the practices of homo-social relations in everyday life represent an almost unsurmountable obstacle in advancing anything other than the dominant version of masculinity. Unpacking and un-doing this compulsory perspective can at times entail feelings of shame, guilt, and disorder. The personal lives and subjectivities of the male ethnographers are not exempt from the same dynamics. For me, the decision to take on the study of masculinity has represented as well a commitment to reconfigure my own subjectivity, to commit myself politically and emotionally to specific values and to expose and in some cases denounce the oprresive and violent dimensions that privilege men in society. In some cases, it has entailed an explicit refusal of my "share" of power, as these rationings are deployed by men and to men within an unspoken homo-social contract. In other words, my personal and political commitment to feminism has meant that I am constantly "breaking apart" (mjdndome), as it is said colloquially in Mexico.
The connection between this act of "rajarse" and the transformation of masculinities is of fundamental importance to those of us interested in gender studies. A close examination of "rajarse\ as a socially constructed practice, it faciliates a deeper undestanding of the ways in which power dynamics structure everyday life, and restrict intimacy among men. At the same time, locating, naming, and expanding the range of signification of ''rajarse" makes posible conceiving alternative gendered relations and the possibility of transforming the prevailing dominant forms (Lancaster, 1992). Certainly, as
Pedro and some of the other men in my study have noted, the possibility of being labeled
'yoto" (fairy) and the fear derived from this stigma, serve as a powerful regulatory mechanism against the alternative possibility of expressing one's emotions. The threat of insult and mockery, the fear of retaliation and violence, the fear of being ostracized, the fear of being pitied, as well as the threat of blackmail, represent for many men too high a price to pay. The discourse of homophobia functions to police the symbolic borders of
"manhood" and hence the openings and closures that define such a concept. Within this regulatory framework, sexual relations between men are simply unacceptable. But in the same vein and for many of the same reasons, so are possibilities for emotional closeness with women and the possibility of "opening up" to other men in non-sexual terms.
The discourse of homophobia also functions as a formidable barrier and control mechanism within academic institutions as well. Regulatory frameworks that limit the possibilities of expression by men and women who choose to study homoerotic practices also circulate widely in the spaces allegedly designed to produce and diseminate knowledge about gendered subjects. This contradiction can at times be more than one can bear. "Between you and me", I have to admit, that as an ethnographer interested in these subject matters I have been the target of multiple instances of homophobia when it came time to divulge the results of my field investigation. My response has been to persist, ever more diligently each time, in presenting information about practices and subjects that many find objectionable. The personal investment that I have in the topics of masculinity. male subjectivity and identity, and the possibilities for intimacy, in no way detracts from a political positioning of these issues. What I designate as "political" in my work is precisely a commitment to articulate a form and a kind of knowledge that can contribute to the transformation of prevailing sexual and gender politics both inside and outside academic settings. After all, knowledge production, as revealed by Pedro own's insights and my own research process, can be considered as way of "resubjectification", of resistance, that is made possible by, and facilitate, intimacy, homophobia notewithstanding.
Finally I would like to bring attention to another aspect of Pedro's experience: the way he manages masculine behaviours (his body performance, beer consumption, homosociality, among other elements) to creat a space to speak in a different voice.
Masculine identity can be dealt in such a way to bear and to allow spaces for male intimacy, but also spaces for men to resist pervasive dominant masculine discourses.
This assertion is valid too for eroticism and/or love between men who, for many reasons''" do not suscribe to the "homosexual" or "gay" identity as I will show in the next chapters. Even if they are in some way too, subject to homophobia.
The reasons are multiple as 1 show it later, and include among others: the class, urban and ethinic dimensions of Mexican gay identity, but also the own personal subjectivity and experiences through life. 236
CHAPTER 4. MALE INTIMACY AND HOMOPHOBIA: DIFFERENT
SUBJECTIVITIES, POWERS, AND RESISTANCES
I The multiple forms of subjectivity in male intimacy: fieldwork experiences.
Gonzalo and Mariano. Mariano a friend of mine, a dentist, divorced father with custody of his two children, who worked for several years in the small town of El Eden, confessed to me one day that for a long time he maintained a "very intimate'' friendship with Gonzalo, the brother of his friend Cesar, whom 1 had had the opportunity to interview when 1 was conducting research on the topic of homophobia. Quite different from Cesar, w ho everyone identified as "yo/o" because of his effeminate manners and to whom many men in town came to ask for sexual favors. Gonzalo looked and acted
"masculine." He always dressed in cowboy clothes because he worked at a cattle ranch.
According to my friend the dentist on several occasions Gonzalo and him took long walks along the river and had long conversations, all within the framework of their friendship. Nobody suspected them or attributed any erotic content to their relationship.
Nonetheless, amidst many typically male shared activities like attending public/ze.vto.v, getting drunk together or helping each other in chores, they also found the space to get away at isolated sites in the countryside and engage in sexual games with each other. The relationship continued on and off after my friend finished his work as a dentist in the small town but it stopped abruptly Vv'hen Gonzalo got married. According to my friend,
Gonzalo said: "now that 1 am married we have to have respect tov^'ards marriage, so we won't continue doing these things." My friend the dentist said he accepted this verdict on account of the "respect" he felt for Gonzalo, even though he would have much preferred to continue the relationship in the same terms. They eventually became '^-ompadres'' when my friend agreed to be the baptism godfather of Gonzalo's first child. At the time of the baptism they once again experienced a time of close bodily proximity and Gonzalo gave some indications that he was interested in renevv'ing the erotic liaison. But on that occasion it was the dentist who refused. As he stated: "now we were ''compadres'' and that is a sacred bond established before God, a spiritual union, and even though many people would not have a problem with that, 1 do....I don't like to mess with spiritual things." He told me that Gonzalo accepted reluctantly the new boundaries and told him with a smile: "If 1 had known you thought this way 1 would have not asked you to become my ''compadre" but it is alright with me, anyways." Later on, discussing with my friend the dentist the implications, meanings, and identity categories that could be invoked to understand his relationship with Gonzalo, he told me:
" Guillermo, 1 think you get it wrong, it is not like you suggest...hovv' can 1 explain it?
For men like Gonzalo it is not a matter of being homosexual. In small towns in the sierra many people don't even know what that word means. I heard a man once say "hombre sensual" when he meant to say "homosexual." [I had the same experience with Don
•lose]. Young people know and use the term, but it is not used as you would think. It is more or less a matter of sexual desire {''ganas"), something that emerges out of conviviality; it is not something you talk to other people about, nor even among ourselves we talk about it. It is mainly a very special friendship that two men keep to themselves and between them. To the world, we are "just" friends, that's all. The important thing is never to create a scandal, never to broadcast what is happening. For most of the men it is a given -that they will get married, they will have children. Only if you are a "70/0," or
"effeminate," things are treated differently. You can have as many encounters with men as you'd like [he laughs], but people will talk about you. Furthermore, ever since you are a small boy, things are different for you if you are that way. Your whole life is different, but otherwise, everything remains normal, just as it is for Gonzalo, you see?"
Andres and Enrique. Andres and Enrique present a different story. In this instance, they are "'compadres'" who sustained a long-term erotic, and not simply affective, relationship. Enrique comes from a small sierra community, but both men live in the city of Hermosillo. I met Andres when he approached me at the main plaza one afternoon to ask me if I had ever "been on TV." It was true; a few days before, 1 had been interviewed by a local channel on the subject of discrimination over sexual orientation. We began a conversation that eventually led to him telling me the story of his relationship with his
"compadre" Enrique. Andres was 28 years old when we met. He was married and had a young daughter. He had completed high school and now was employed at a large coffee processing plant; he had held the same job for almost 9 years. It was at the plant, during a
Christmas holiday party, that he first noticed his co-worker Enrique. By means of glances, jokes and "covert hints" ("insimiasiones disfrazadas''), Andres let Enrique know that he was "up to it, that 1 enjoyed fooling around ("e/ cotorreo"). According to Andres,
Ei^nrique signaled back that he was interested. After that moment and their initial sexual encounters, a "very strong friendship grew" between the two men. Enrique was engaged 239
and shortly after he got married. "It was better that way,"' said Andres, "his marriage made it easier for all four of us to share times and things." In fact, when Bnrique had his first child, this have him and Andres the opportunity to "seal" their friendship by becoming "compadres" and for their wives to share in the social aspects of their relationship. It also gave them the opportunity to continue exploring their erotic connection from time to time under the framework of their friendship. Andres told me that not long ago his godson had been very ill and everyone feared that the boy would die. Andres made a promise to San Francisco to make a pilgrimage to Magdalena
(approximately 180 kilometers) in return for the favor of good health for his godson. He said: "and yes, San Francisco delivered the miracle; a few days after I came back from
Magdalena. the boy began to get better." Such an act of devotion and affection won the heart of Enrique's wife and of the rest of the family. Nowadays, says Andres, Enrique's wife receives him always with great pleasure and is very attentive to him: "when 1 stay late talking to my '"compadre" or playing dominoes with him, his wife is the one who sets up the bed for the two of us to fall asleep together."
Intrigued, 1 ask him: "But do you still have sexual relations?"
"Yes, of course," he says. "It is no problem."
I ask: "but do you think that your wife and his wife know about it?" He replies: "I think that they suspect it; no, I take that back. F am pretty sure that they know. But they make no fuzz about it. Afterall, they know that we are really good friend and that no harm will come of it to anyone.''
Ventura and his comapnions. 1 have explored in greater detail in another chapter the story of Ventura. Here 1 want to make a brief reference to a short anecdote he told me.
One day while 1 was helping Ventura work in the garden of his house watering and planting, we began the usual conversation that eventually led to his confessions (always whispered and followed by giggles). The majority of stories revolved around the time when he worked as a ranch hand or as a cook serving large groups of cowboys in Sonora.
Ventura is a married man, has several children and appears very masculine. He is easy going, friendly, and funny; it is not uncommon to find him surrounded by friends and acquaintances who enjoy his humor and conversation. Ventura told me that when he worked at the ranches he always managed to find "'someone to be with'" {''con qiiien f-sYar'") or to "have relations with" {"'con quien tener relaciones"). In one instance he shared a bed with the son of the boss {"el patron'') for more than three months. This was considered a privilege since the rest of the men had to sleep in barracks far away from the main home in the ranch. Ventura was granted this favor because he had known the family for a long time and had proven himself to be an excellent worker. Starting with one occasion in which he initiated genital contact with the young man while they slept, the relationship between them developed to the point that they had sexual contact almost on a daily basis, including oral sex and penetration. According to Ventura he was always the one penetrated. He insisted on making clear, however, that the young man also shared many other forms of physical affection towards him, caresses, tender gestures and such things. In other words, he told me: "we became really good friends in spite of our class differences since the young man was refined and 1 was, well, a common person [he laughs]."
In other ranches he had experiences with cowboys: mutual masturbation primarily. According to him these types of sexual exchanges are "a lot more common than people think, even though no one talks about it." At one point I dared ask him:
"Ventura, with how many men from around here have you had one type or another of sexual encounter?" He stopped shoveling dirt, remains pensive for a few moments and replies with a mischievous look: "You know that I have never counted? L.et's see, do you have a piece of paper with you? Let's count right now." A very strange and intriguing moment unfolded: Ventura started counting one by one, by full name and enhanced by details of each encounter, each male sexual experience he had had in the area. He found this exercise amusing. The count came to 51 encounters, inclusive of both light sexual exchanges such as kisses as rubbing and heavier sexual activities such as oral sex and penetration. Fifty one encounters in the 30 years he had lived in this region and in his 47 years of life. The majority of the men Ventura had been with were men who still lived in the community and had occasion to maintain social relations with him over time. He told me this group of men included neighbors, friends, co-workers. In other words, men that he interacts with socially on a regular basis. Similarly, the erotic acts exchanged were not exclusively "sexual" in nature; they span the range of affection, intimacy, camaraderie, and in some instances even "falling in love." Ventura's experiences also included a range of sexual roles played by the men involved. Ventura himself said to always prefer being
the "receiver" -but he applied this principle equally whether the reception was of
penetration or of oral sex. In some instances, however, especially in cases of mutual
masturbation, Ventura said that both men allovv'ed themselves a freer range of expression
through caresses and kisses. Some of Ventura's sexual partners had migrated to
Hermosillo, to the border towns, or to the United States; some had married or were
already married at the time of the encounter. All of them, Ventura clarified, '"were men,
real men, not "/o/o.y." And he added: 'M don't like when men act like jotos, their little
voices breaking, like women...no way, if I wanted that 1 might as well be with a
woman."
He turned, looked at me and asked: "I have been a real "/wto." haven't 1?'" And he added: ''It's just that I like it, why not tell the truth...] like the whole fucking scene." He
immediately asked that I destroy the piece of paper where we had made the count. He
said a piece of paper like that "could fall in the wrong hands." We decided to burn the
paper. 1 remembered the time when 1 first met Ventura and asked him whether he considered himself a "homosexual"' or "/o/o." He answered: "No, can't you tell I behave
like a man? Besides, I am married." I followed up with another question: "Ventura, are there other men like you around here, who are married, who act masculine but still enjoy
having sexual relations with other men?" He answered with a smile, as if enjoying the opportunity to reveal a knowledge he had held to himself for a long time: "well, yes, the
locksmith, the one W'ho works on the road repair crew, that one you see on his tractor every morning, the other one who works as a clerk at so and so's store..Then he stopped and said: "look, we are better off walking down the street and 1 will point them out to you; in X street this person, in Y street, this one and that one..." Utterly surprised 1 asked him: "how do you know ?" His answer: "because 1 have had something to do with them or someone that I have been with has had something to do with them and they have told me about it." I pushed the point and asked again: "Ventura, you tell me you are not
"'jolo''' because you are not effeminate and you are married, but do you feel you are different from other "men"? His answer once again surprises me:
"Yes, 1 do. 1 feel that 1 am different, because as 1 said, I really enjoy doing it. For me, it is not just something that happens because of the circumstances, or only at one moment in your life. For me it is different, 1 really like it. It is true that I have also enjoyed being with women, well, I used to enjoy more long ago. not so much anymore [he laughs], 1 even got married. To tell you the truth, there was a time when 1 suffered a lot, because I did not want to feel this desire, yes, 1 had a very hard time with it. But, how can 1 say it? 1 also realized that 1 was different because I was never attracted to girly type of men, nor ever got involved in any scandal, nor have Iever felt like 1 am a woman, nothing like that. 1 have not even been what you call a "refined" man, but just the opposite [he laughs]... 1 have been average, rough. I have always liked men who look like real boys."
He lowers his voice and adds: "Yes. I enjoy when a man makes love to me, but the thing
1 like the most is to feel that love, that friendship and tenderness...yes, to feel something really special like that, to kiss and cuddle, all that..." Ventura's narrative is revealing in several ways. First, it reveals the extent to which males in this region have engaged in acts of sexual intimacy with other men and the variety of reasons or motives that lead men to seek this experience. Secondly, it manifests the different kinds of subjectivities and identities from which men engage in these types of relationships (men, /o/oi\ effeminate, masculine, or like Ventura, men who are "men'' but feel that they are "different."). Third, his story underscores the range of
forms of contact and affective dimensions that these sexual encounters entail. Most
interesting, how'cver, is the way in which Ventura lives his intimate relations with men from a position of being "a man" and not a yet that form of masculinity that he defines for himself also marks a dissident position in relation to the dominant model of
"manhood." Ventura likes "other men," but not simply as sexual partners, he also likes to
love them and to be loved by them. This feeling or need has been a source of pain for him as well as a source of pleasure. Me had to learn to "accept" it and to integrate that need within a lifestyle that includes his roles as father and husband. In other words, Ventura
has crafted a subjectivity and an identity that is simultaneously unorthodox with regards to the dominant codes of masculinity yet it does not necessarily involve a "homosexual" or "gay" identity either. He is not "gay" yet he lives with the self-awareness of a
"difference" between him and other men.
It is important to mention that Ventura's subjectivity is not the only kind accessible to men in this region. There are males in these rural communities that live their experiences of intimacy with other men from clearly defined positions of social stigma.
In fact, some men have experienced the stigma of being effeminate even though they may have never had a homosexual life. In every community, one can find characters who have
been singled out and marked as "jofos," "punales", "piilos", "homosexuahs" o
"maricones,'" even though the men in question themselves may never self-designate in those ways. Some men, indeed, have accepted such designations; but when asked directly many of these men prefer to call themselves "homosexual" rather than the more aggressive and derogatory terms in common usage.
There are also cases in these communities of men who have been publicly singled out as homosexuals not because they are effeminate but because they have been
"indiscreet" with their sexual practices. Some men who have found themselves in this situation look and act masculine, but in the majority of cases they are single men. Even though there are married men who participate quite liberally and sometimes relatively openly of homosexual activities, the fact that they are married and in addition to that
behave masculine grants them a more ambiguous position than what is usually possible
within the social categories identified with a "homosexual identity." That is, they are able for the most part to maneuver their subjectivities outside a categorical identity and
hence outside the structuring everyday life implications associated with a predetermined
sexual orientation as "gay" or "homosexual."
Epigmenio. There are also instances in these rural communities of young men who
initially prompted to a homoerotic experience out of a felt sense of "di fference"
eventually move on from the forms of affective intimacy in male friendships to what is
often called a "discovery" of their own "homosexuality." Some of these men leave their rural communities to migrate to Hermosillo or to the United States and eventually adopt what is considered a "'gay lifestyle.'" 1 met a man, Epigmenio. who had had that experience; he was a close friend of Irving, a young man that I had interviewed extensively. When Irving and Epigmenio were growing up they were considered by most people simply "good friends." They both decided to migrate to Hermosillo to attend school. In Hermosillo they lived as a couple for several years. After a number of personal circumstances and problems in the relationship the two separated and Epigmenio got married and had a child. Not long after, with the idea of shaming him into reforming his sexual preferences, his oldest sister "outed" him at a family gathering where she expressed openly that her brother "liked men." Contrary to his sister's plan, most of
Epigmenio's brothers, who still lived in the small rural community, embraced him with supportive comments such as "1 love you and it makes no difference to me, you are my brother and your life is your own decision," etc. The whole outing experience resulted in
Epigmenio obtaining a divorce, positioning himself as a "homosexual" among his family members, seeking and developing a "gay identity" and a "gay lifestyle" and eventually migrating to the United States, where he moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.'''.
It has been my purpose in documenting the wide range of experiences of male intimacy mentioned above to question any attempt-theoretical or otherwise—to mark only one possible direction for the identity and subjectivity of the "homosexual act" between men. My polemics are simple: the emergence of a "gay" or "homosexual"
This narrative raises questions about how the discourses of gay identity . increasingly mediated by television, will impact the lives of young people, especially as these discourses and their mass dissemination create and foster representations that seek to define relationships and exchanges of erotic intimacy between men. discourse among Mexico's urban and middle-classes to name and classify "homoerotic acts" and homoerotic relations must not preclude other forms ofexperiencing homoeroticism or of living homoerotic practices from the position of other subjectivities, other identities, and hence other implications in the dynamics of power and resistance constituted around "homosexual" dissidence. The homoerotic experience is not monolithic. There is no such a thing as one "homosexuality" with different names -but only different modes of organizing affective, corporeal, and sexual intimacy among persons of the same sex. Each one of those different structures of intimacy has different and diverse implications on the subjectivities, identities, and relationships of power and resistance of the persons involved.
It seems to me that faced with this wealth of information about the wide range of possibilities for engaging in homoerotic practices one could help us to resist the academic temptation of making a history of the "homosexual identity" or the "homosexual subjectivity" and claiming it to be valid for everyone, everywhere or even for the
Western modern countries, as Eribon puts it (2004). Steeped into this dominant model of
"gay" structuration, it has been difficult as well to understand and imagine the rcinge of possibilities that power and resistance may take in relation to "homosexuality" other than the established forms consistent with "coming out" and adopting a "gay lifestyle." If the term "homosexual" was understood as a complex phenomenon and diverse set of homoerotic practices that transcend the mere designation of a "homosexual identity" as it came to be established in Western discourse since the end of the 19''^ century, then we might avoid many of the problems that 1 have alluded to. If we proceed along the lines 248
that I am suggesting then it also becomes imperative that certain key terms of the
discourse of "homosexual identity" be revised and attuned to specific cultural contexts. 1
am thinking particularly of terms such as "homophobia" and "closet."
if we are able to affirm that "homosexual acts" are and can be complex, diverse, and
heterogeneous acts, then we might be in a better position to re&te the argument that suggests that at the core of what we can call a "homosexual subjectivity" there is always a regulatory and homogenizing violence enacted by a system of homophobia. Moreover, that such a social system constitutes a constant and common producer of shame and
stigma in all Western sexually-dissident subjects. Sometimes this argument is upheld in the service of affirming or rescuing a resistant "homosexual subculture" throughout different places and times. This is a commendable goal and it seems to be the position
favored by some contemporary researchers on homosexuality such as Didier Eribon
(1999). 1 have attempted to demonstrate something different without simultaneously abandoning a desire for opening spaces that affirm "resistance." My argument is directed to those notions of identity that foreclose the possibility for diversity within practices of
How might we talk about a person "in the closet'" when the "homosexual experience" as affective and erotic intimacy is not always apprehended as a totalizing experience of a man's subjectivity or as the diacritic difference by which a man thinks himself homoerotic? Furthermore, how does one step "out of the closet" when the homosexual act is not always experienced from the position of stigma attributed to the terms '^joto, ""sodomite," or even "homosexual" but rather within the complex and disputed space of male identity, of "being a man"? Although sexual and genital experiences and to a lesser extent also affective and corporeal experiences may be kept secret, this secrecy does not necessarily translate into a secret about a "truth" of one's "being" or in other words, into a "tnith in itself lodged into one's sexuality." Even though the closet implies the notion of hiding something and of secrecy, not all secrets or hidden relationships involve the construction of a "homosexual closet" as the term is commonly used. In order for that kind of "secret" to produce that kind of "closet" the person must first be in a position to think his/her life through the lens or the technology of the power-knowledge system that has constructed the subject position of a "homosexual" in the first instance, as Foucault has observed. homoeotic acts. There is no such a thing as a homogeneous or homogenizing homosexual experience for all persons, anywhere, who engage in homosexual acts. The homosexual
"experience" of which many researchers speak of and set to study is always tied to a particular set of subject positions within a given field of sexual and gender dynamics; not a universal field that homogenizes these subjectivities.
II What is homophobia? Different powers, different resistances.
Up to now, 1 have been talking of sexual and/or affective relations among men.
This space of male intimacies certainly has been crossed historically by many discourses, identity categories, subjectivities, as well as powers and resistances to these powers. One of these categories is the word ''homosexuar\ as well as the word "'gay". Certainly, there are many others Spanish words that mark the gender and sexual field some have fall in disuse, like nahuil6n'^\ others have incorporated from psychiatric jargon, and some others
have been pushed by social movements, intellectuals and epidemiologists, like "gay",
''males who have sex with other males", "heteroflexible" or even "homoerotic relations".
I am going to discuss these words, and the politics of meanings they involve in the last two chapters. In this chapter, nevertheless, I want to insist on some issues that through the different data 1 have been showing: 1) the fact that the sexual and affective intimacies among males are diverse in meanings, subjectivities involved and social positioning in the sexual and gender system, as to preclude any "stable homosexual experience" that
Although present among old people from rural towns and in the memories of some gays, as the only Gay group of Cd. Juarez'name witness; "Nahui". 250
could foreground a "homosexual subculture", •'community" or "identity" for all those who have taken part in a sexual and/or love intimacy with people of the same biological sex; and 2) the fact that homophobia is not a stable, unchanging, homogeneous, one-piece structure that runs through "gay peoples" as a common experience oiinjure (es Eribon call it) and sustain a common "homosexual subjectivity" in modern western cultures, but a historical and cultural phenomenon, that should be studied in relation to the sexual/gedner regime in which it takes place; and 3) that "masculinity" or "manhood" should be accounted as a place of resistance of "homophobic" powers though the various explorations of their contradictory, disputed and heterogeneous meanings. That resubjectivation does not involve necessarily the assumption of a "homosexual" identity, and it takes place within the politics of manhood,
(Field notes, October 13, 2000)
Today 1 had a touching conversation with Manuel, the young man who lives in
"The Other Plain. " He is a young, twenty-three year-old man, with a robust and hairy constitution and a copperish complexion. He looks very Mediterranean. This was my fist extended conversation with him. I met Manuel through Ventura and Chalo. He is somewhat sensitive even though he carries himself in a guarded, almost imsociahle manner. He is masculine in his demeanor hut when he speaks, a slight hint of restrained
"femininity" can he detected in his gestures and through his voice. His manner of speech is brief with a sharp, almost-angered tone. Yet, in this tone, Manuel lectures about life all the time using profound phrases. Ventura explained one day to me that Manuel is like this because he is a "cholo "—.something that Ventura described as "coming from a 251
religions background other than Catholic. " Nonetheless, while attempting to explain
Manuel, Ventura also smiled and said "it seems to me that he also likes to...although I think he doe.sn't. " This statement made reference to Ventura's perception that Manuel seems different not only because of his religious practices hut also because he may be attracted to men.
Manuel later confirmed that he belongs to a small religious congregation that, together with four other groups in the area, and over a period of twenty years, have ruptured the almost exclusive presence of the Catholic Church. The rupture, however, may be rather minute given the small number of these groups followers. Manuel added that he does not feel persecuted or ill-treated because of his religious beliefs although his mother and brother at times do argue with him and suggest that his religious endeavors have taken away from his participation within the household. This participation refers both to the quality as well as to the time spent with his brother and mother with whom Manuel lives.
And these types of comments coincide with my observations that point to a basic culture of respect towards religious differences even though this does not necessarily imply that one is free of jest or sporadic discussions initiated by both Catholics and non-Catholics.
Nevertheless, it seemed to me that while religious difference does account for Manuel's present sensibilily and his way of portraying himself his difference was addilionaliy tied to a gender and sexual differentiation that was not being addressed openly.
Today as I spoke at lengths with Manuel I was able to get inside that secret world, "the reserved, put away world" as Manuel called it. The way he explained it, this "reserved" lifestyle does cause him pain hut "thanks to the power of God" he has been able to face it and he can even "talk about it" to me.
The conversation occurred when 1 went to look for Chalo, Manuel's brother. I knocked on the door and when Manuel came out he told me that Chalo was not home. Neither was their mother. Their father died several years ago and, according to both Chalo and
Manuel, he died from complications from a severe beating he took while engaged in a street fight. Yet, other town folk say that he died from complications due to alcoholism.
As Manuel opened the door, he was very courteous and invited me inside the home to have a cup of coffee. It was clear to me that he wanted to talk. I gladly accepted. The house in which they live is made out of cinder block covered with cement. It is painted white. The roof laminated, is hammered onto wooden beams. Unlike the old houses that are made with adobe and that are built with a hallway that leads to a corner ser\>ing as a dinning and kitchen area, this house imitates the floor plan of newer and more affluent homes. As you enter, you find a small porch area that is used to sit down and perhaps look out onto the street or talk to neighbors or visitors. In the case of families of .small means, the area doubles as a living room.
The first real room is the kitchen-dinning area that, like all kitchen-dinning rooms in these localities, it is the area where friends or closer acquaintances are invited to sit down. It is also the room where the family gathers to eat and to spend time conversing. It is clear to me that Manuel's family has few means in relationship to the town's standards. It is also obvious that they possess few things: they had an old metal dish cupboard fUled with all kinds of things pilled up inside. They have another one. a. wooden cupboard that seemed to be newer. Yet some of the same things were kept in the wooden cupboard—plastic cups, medicine bottles, remembrance objects, electricity bills, etc. They also had a square table covered with a flowered vinyl tablecloth, an old stove, and an older refrigerator that still worked well. On the table I saw a number of dough balls covered with a white linen. These halls would eventually become large flour tortillas made in order to fulfdl the tortilla orders that Manuel's mother lakes in as a way of adding to the family means.
There are no inside doors and the other two rooms are separated by curtain. Inside the mother's room, there is a black and white television. The brothers ' room has two beds, one old dresser, and boxes and plastic bags used to keep their clothes cmd other belongings. The bathroom is rather rustic and the walls are not covered with plaster.
While he prepares the coffee, Mcmuel asks me whether I prefer to drink my coffee in the bacli court, a hack patio which I can see from where I am seating and which contains plants, flowers and some fruit trees. 1 also can see that it has an old latrine, a washboard and a wooden stove where the tortillas are cooked as well as other foods that require a lot of fuel to cook: beans, corn, tamales. Through usage of these wooden stoves, the families save on gas. I decide to remain in the kitchen in order to have more privacy.
He reaches for a chair and begins confessing that he was curious of meeting me because he had heard "very good things " about me. He adds, "people say that one ccm converse with you with ease. " They also say thai "you are ve}y discreet and that one can talk ahou! anything with you. " It was not hard to get to the subject held in common by men while engaged in intimate, confidential conversations: the subject that they feel that they
"are different" but that "it is not easy being different" in a community "because of the
(existing) machismo. " The difference being addressed is a sensibility, a way of thinking, of seeing the world, of feeling. It is an inner world that is kept to one's self and that is seldom shared due to the threat and pain of mockery, aggression, and even stigmatization.
When I asked Manuel why he was "different. " he replied:
-/ don 7 know, that is 1 have always been like this, always, since 1 was a child, maybe because I was the youngest sibling. I don 7 know. But 1 have always been like a bit more tender. Maybe when I was very small nobody said anything about it but then my behavior started to bother my brothers and they started telling me things, that 1 behaved like a girl, that 1should behave well, that 1 should speak well, that I should walk well, things like that. And I don 7 know why.
-What specific things did they you?
-Well, they told me a lot of things. Sometimes they told me I was .spoiled, for example, but then they started to tell me that I behaved like a "faiy "(joto). For example, if ffell down or cried, they would say, "you are a cry baby, you behave like a fary. " If I cried because they would take one of my toys, they would say "there 's the fary, crying. " To tell you the truth, it hurt me a lot. At first I didn 7 understand but later it began to hurt because I felt that I was being pushed aside, that my brothers didn 't want to play with me. They didn 't pay any attention to me. that is, maybe because I was smaller and they couldn't play with me. They played games for older kids, tougher games, games like that and 1 couldn 7 play the way they did, I became a nuisance. I understand that is normal, that is, it happens.
But I don'/ know, Ifeel that I then began to withdraw more and 1 became that, a withdrawn child, I played like that, by myself. Then (Manuel pauses and his eyes are fdled with tears, he touches his nose and he rubs his .shirt sleeve against his eye. He then justifies himself by .saying:) the truth of the matter is that I had never talked to anyone about this, ever. Also, 1 was not allowed to go out, out in the street to play with other kids.
-Why?
-I think because of the same thing, J don't know, that is, I did go out a few times but then a kid said .something like "damn fairy " (pinche joto) and then my older brother got angry and beat him up. heat the kid up. My brother then took me inside the house and told my mother not to let me go out anymore. 1 think that it was so that kids wouldn 7 say things to me, maybe it was for my own good, so that I wouldn 7 be hurt. Yet 1 didn 7 understand why. because all the kids always say those things, that about being a 'fairy. " They tell each other, "you look like this or that."
Yet if 1went out my older brothers would tell me "go home, get inside. " I don't know. 1 think that did hurt me. not going out. But that has already passed. -Andyour dad, how was he with you?
-You see, my dad was no! well. Now 1 understand something, something that I've learned to understand now that 1 participate in church. Now 1 understand that he m'us not well, he was sick. He was an alcoholic, you know, that is a sickness. Yet people here, they don't kno w about such things. My dad was very violent, a very angry person. He was always grumbling and shouting just about for anything. He was very machista.
-What do you mean by machista?
-Well yeah, that is, he got drunk, he liked to pick fights, he never hit my mother or anything, well, one time, hut my mother reached for the hose and heating him up with the hose. He never heat her again. But he did gel angiy with my mother if she worked as in washing other people's clothes, because he would say that people would then talk about him, that she was embarrassing him because people would then say that he coidd not support his family. He woidd say that others said that he was not a real man. that he was a kept man /un mantenidoy. a goat /un chivo7 whose wife was washing somebody else's breeches. He said things like that, and 1 remember one time that he came home drunk and my mom had been washing other people's clothes and he took the clothes and threw them on the floor. Listen, it is bad that I say this because it is said that children should never judge their parents but, God j'orgive me, since my dad died we started living better, a calmer life. I don't think that any of my brothers, except Chalo, remember him well, hut at home we don't talk about it anymore. It is better this way; the same for my mother, she mis.ses him because now she feels alone. Yet I hated him for a long time, 1 hated him forever (Manuel pauses as if he can'/ talk because of all the emotions going through him.
He then continues). 1 am going to tell you something that I have never told anyone. One time, that is why 1 say that people here in town are mean, well, there are very mean people in this town. One time, a man from here saw me that I was going to the hills to gel some wood. I was older then, about 13 or 14, but I was rather withdrawn as I told you. I seldom went out with other kids. Out there in the hills, an older man from here, from this town, married and eveiything, saw me in the hills and came close to me, and he began to grab me like this, to caress me, to touch me, that is, I didn't kmnv what to do. He wanted to take my shirt off but 1 did not want to. I went home. 1 never talked about this because I told myself ifl talk about this Fm going to get the spanking. I don't know. I was afraid they were going to say it was myfaidt or something like that. It was going to be wor.se.
But since 1 was the one who had to fetch wood, 1 would go by myself and that man, who lives over there, up there, he would follow me and I was very afraid and I couldn 7 tell anybody. And he would do the same things, he would touch me, grab me. he would tell me to touch him down there and that if 1 didn't the he would tell everybody that I was the one looking for him. 1 didn't know what to do. 1 simply would come back home. One time
J think someone saw or something or someone talked and told my father. 1 don 7 know how he heard that "/ did it with men, " that is what he heard, and he came home like a madman and he told me that he "didn 7 want fudge packers putos in the house, " that he didn 7 want potheads, pilferers, or catamites. And he scad that he preferred to see his sons dead than to see them like that, bringing him shame. I remember that I hid and he pulled me from under the bed and then he grabbed a cuarta fa small whip as in those used in herding] and he started hitting me eveiywhere. My mother woidd tell him to stop hut he was like a madman and ] cried a lot. I was frightened, I was very much afraid and my brothers got scared too. My father then grabbed a rope and he send he was going to hang me from the roof. He threw the rope over the roof beam and he then made a knot. At that moment, I stopped crying. It was as if I couldn 7 cry anymore. I thought that I was going to die and then I stopped feeling. I didn't feel anything. I couldn 7 see anything either, it was as if everything was spinning about me, 1 was dumbstruck [atarantado]. Yet my mother had gone to fetch my older brother so then my brother and mother were able to stop dad and told him, "are you crazy? My brother even told him. "why don 7 you hang yourselfr He doesn 7 hurt anybodyand you do. You hurt all of us. " So they grabbed him and pushed him and my mother kicked him out of the house. My father cried and then he did leave the house. But within two days he came back and he was even more drunk.
He sometimes took to drinking and lasted one or two M'eeks, drinking without stopping.
That time he came while 1 was asleep and he hugged me and he told me to forgive him. I remember he was crying but I didn't feel anything by then. (I see tears running down
Manuel's cheeks. He is crying hut in silence.) 1 think that I died that time, that I have already died one. It is only through the love of the living Christ that I rose from the dead and now I feel I have forgiven him. (Manuel makes a long pause and I decide not to interrupt this emotional moment that Manuel is experiencing.)
-And how do you feel here, in this town? Do they bother you or say anything to you? -No, they don 7 have a reason to do so. Now that I am older they don 7 say anything. 1
have always respected people and I don V like people to interfere with me. 1 don 7 meddle
with anybody. Of course if you meddle with people then they want to meddle with you or
they start telling you things. I don 7. Moreover, I prefer not even to walk by where people
are gathered. }Vhen I go to temple I walk through there, through the hills. 1 cross the little
mountain and go down the glen cahada. And I just go that way. without having to cross through the groups of people that gather by the store or at Pedro's business. You know,
many goodf br-nothing men hang out there.
-Have they said something to you?
-Well, they do not shout at me because, because they are not going to do that. But 1 know that people are that way. They think things, and maybe they even talk behind your back. I don 7 knoM', people here make fun of others and they talk about others. 1 think there are
people here who say things about others simply out of malice. That is why I prefer not to
give them something to talk about and 1 walk through over there.
-Do you have any friends?
- Yes, when I was in secondary school and then when / worked at the manufacturing
plant. I did make some friends without getting loo involved with people. Then 1 got tired of the plant although I earned good money and had even been promoted. But I got tired of doing the same things and I started selling. You see, that is what 1 do. And that is how /
met my best friend, the best friend 1 have had in my life. He understands me. I can speak 260
about everything with him, about how I feel. J have talked about all this only to him, and now to you. He 's not from here, he 's from another town. But he is like me, more calm, more serious. Oh. you know him. Do you remember I said hello to you one day in the street while I was riding a bicycle with a young man? Well, that's him // observe the enthusiasm Manuel has in talking about his friend and I proceed to ask him. a young man of his age, quiet an evert if not wit a cowboy allure, normally masculine the town standards].
Do you care a lot about him? (ilo quieres mucho?)
-Yes, we are like brothers, more than brothers. Sometimes he sleeps over, like when it is getting late. Chalo sleeps in one bed and he and I sleep together. Sometimes we even hug.
(He pauses and 1 interpret the pause as though he has something else to say. 1 speculate about the possibility of a sexual relationship, but he continues). We are very comfortable with each other. We like being with each other and a day doesn 7 go by without him looking for me or 1 fi)r him. He also doesn t .speak to anybody, he doesn 't meddle with anybody. He is like me. One day 1 asked him if he thought it vvav wrong that we loved each other so much and he said that he didn't. Yet he is planning on getting married some day and he said I should do the same thing. 1 always tell him that I don't want to get married but that I do want to have a child. I love him a lot because it was through him that I learned about the living Christ. He was already, that is, his family already practiced this religion and he was the one who taught me the word of God. The truth of the matter is that I have a lot to be grateful to him. But one day we said that no matter what happens, whether he gets married or whatever, that we are going to continue being
friends the way we are now.
I then ask him if he thinks he could be happier in a city like Hermosillo, which is bigger.
He just said "no M'ay". "I do not like Hermosillo, is so big, people are different, I feel lonely there, I feel much better in my town. I am from here, in spite of everything 1 like people here better".
Manuel actually married with a woman form his religious community, but even before that happened I tried to ask him about "homosexuality" and he just refused; ''why do you ask me about that", as if 1 were reproducing the same stigma. Certainly after his marriage he kept his intimate relashionship with his friend.
(Field notes, May 19, 1997)
Cesar told me today a part of his personal history that has impacted me very much. It says a lot about the types and the levels that violence can acquire when this violence targets men who do not evidently conform to the ideal of "manhood" in these towns. And
1 though these towns seems so peaceful and quiet.
A fter seeing each other in Tucson, Cesar invited me to the town where he lives. El Eden, located about 120 kilometers from Los Corazones. in another region of those (Sonora) mountains. In order to take advantage of the fact that 1 was beginning my fieldwork. I decided to go to El Eden to talk with Cesar. It is true, as our friend Ignacio once suggested, that merely walking about with a person like Cesar, who has gestures and a way of talking considered "effeminate, " can make people talk in a town such as this, a town that is well-known for being particularly conserx'ative and religious. Yet this didn 't matter to me. Furthermore, Cesar, at 44 is quite important in that town and he is involved in so many public agendas thai he is forever surrounded by people, including public officials and young people, women and men, seeking his help, hi fact, it has been veiy difficult to find moments to converse with Cesar. Sometimes he is with the local priest, who. by the way, has been close to Cesar since his arrived at El Eden. Sometimes he is in political get rallies since elections are coming up. Sometimes some young man asks him for assistance in getting through a bureaucratic procedure, etc. But today we were finally able to talk.
He came to pick me up, he took me to his house, and he introduced me to his family as though I was somebody important. Although his father is rather distrustful and reserved,
/ was surprised to see the authority that Cesar has over both the domestic and public spaces about him. And I was surprised to see the sense of security with which he engages people. We then went to his "studio, " a place he keeps and a place where only he and people close to him enter. His family never enters this studio. In a joking tone Cesar tells me. "if walls could talk you would here that the entire town has passed through my body, jajaja, well, not all the town, but [can assure you that three generations of men- belonging to the same family, jajaja. 1 am going to .show you something. Look. " Cesar shows me an album containing pictures of men— some men are half-naked, some are naked, others appear dressed and posing for him, some are from this town, and some from other nearby towns. "They are little friends, " he jests. I can't help but be surprised about the dissolution (soltura) with which Cesar speaks about his sexuality. 1 think that he precisely wants to show me that, his achievement, his accomplishment: his personal conquest of respectability and personal trust. I ask him if it was hard for him to reach this position in town. 1 also ask him if he .mffered aggression in "being how he is. "And I put it in these words avoiding the insertion of my own categories.
-No, man, if I were to tell you. When Iwas a child, it was a diff erent thing. 1 mean, not as a small child but a bit later, when I noticed that the "little tone " (quiebrecito) in my voice was becoming noticeable and also the way 1 walked. Then my father started grumbling at me, he started on me. You know, people here are fanatical about religion. Of all the towns around here, this is the most fanatical. Yet the young people are changing. Now, on the streets, well, yes, other children started saying things like "you are a fairy. " or you "look like a fairy " and they get upset about any old thing and they use it as an excuse to begin pestering you. But I didn 't give a shit me valla madre. 1 wasn V the only one and besides, they really like following me and being with me. so it didn V matter that much to me. h4y brothers, to tell you the truth, have never said anything to me. But my dad started with "we must discipline this boy and do it in a timely fashion. We must do it so that he won 7 become a fresh one. " "im fresco " that is the expression they use here to denote "fairy. " They use it .so that it won't sound as had. I think it has to do more with a father's pride, no? What is at stake here is that the family must not feel embarrassed, that is all. For example, when siblings fight, a mother immediately runs and closes the curtains so that people won V know. That is what is important—keeping up the image. Othenvise, people might say that this is a family without principles, like the families at the edge of town, the so-called gente de a tiro, people of few means.
It wasn't that we were rich, that wasn't it. We were just regular folk. But 1 attribute all this to fanatics, to ignorance, to pride, and also to machismo, although that is mere hypocrisy. So as 1 was saying, my dad started taking me with him to work, making me do hard thing, evidently so that 1 would become a man. They were all things I did not like to do. He would make me get up at dawn in order to go work and he even started making me shower with cold water real early in the morning. That did make me feel had. It hurt me, it made me feel despised; he was very hard on me (Cesar pauses and I realize his eyes are fidl of tears). One time he saw that J coiddn V push the wheelbarrow (no podia con la carrucha) and that 1 dropped it. And then he did say "that's enough, 1 hope you start loosing this thing of being a fairy (Joto), cabron. and he grabbed a whip and he whipped me all over until he got tired. Then he dipped me in freezing water and I would cty. But if
I cried, he wotdd whip me some more. Then, they started taking me to Hermosillo, to a doctor. It was in the middle or towards the end of the sixties. I have no idea who recommended that to them but they started taking me to this doctor and he said that it was evidently a hormonal problem, that 1 was low on mascidine hormones. So they started giving me hormonal shots. They gave me lots of shots. What do you think of that?
But, of course, it didn't work. [ only got hairier, jajaja. I got hair before other kids. Yet that ii-a.v it. Then the doctor send that there M'ere treatments with electrical shocks. Did you know that? And they finally stopped taking me there. They never gave me the shocks.
1 felt very had then, veiy very bad. 1 felt like I had a bad sickness, that it was probably a had one. 1 fell had and, at the same Ihne, I knew that 1 was nol the only one in town. I even knew of other men that were not like me. I mean "kitchen "jajaja [a .spatial term he uses to denote effeminate]. They were men who looked like men yet, they still did their wretched things (leperada.s). That is. they played measuring it, they masturbated, they did it with the female donkeys (las hurras) betM'een themselves, and nothing happened. How could this he, 1 thought. I re.sped people, 1treat people nicely. I help out, and that is simply the way I am. I guess in time my family got u.sed to what 1 am and they saw that people respected me. And now. my father, I just say hello to him, but that's it. Now that he is old I don 't take or drive him here and there, I mean, it 'sjust not in me. He lived according to his ideas and I live according to mine. And quite often I show him that / may be whatever but that people respect me whether it is because they need me or for whatever reason. But I have them in the palm of my hand. You know, what are they going to say about me if they themselves had had something to do with me, jajaja, the grandfather, the father and the son have sought me. Of course, not all at the present, yet each one in his own time. And you know what's funny? Sometimes one ends up being the
"man. " Imagine they want me to fuck them. It is pure hypocrisy; they are all hypocrites.
One time I was in another nearby town and I had had a meeting with the mayor of that town. They wanted nie to help them with economic matters that were not clear to them. So when we got out of the meeting the municipal clerk from my own town walked by us. They had this thing against me because 1 belong to the other political party. So as he was walking by, he said something like "what a fresh day we have today, " (que fresco amanecio el dia) or something like that but in a loud voice and looking at me. He was really trynng lo call me "fairy" (fresco). But then the mayor stopped him and told him.
"listen cahron, Cesar to us is a person who has always delivered and we respect him. If you were not taught to re.spect people, while you are in this town you are going to have to do it. If you don't, 1 am warning you. next time 1 will have you locked in jail. " The other just didn 7 say anything. He didn't say anything and then he left. That time, they even guarded me with another car until the next town. As you can see, not everything has been bad while living in these areas.
(Field notes. March 23. 1998)
Alberto comes from one of the town's "distinguished" families. He is blond, like everybody in his household and, although they are more middle class, they are considered "high brow. " They hang out with the "select" group of "original" families as they are given to call themselves. They do so to denote that they are descendants from the old families who founded the town in the seventeenth century, the non-Indian families.
According to different versions, like the one of my friend Sergio, over the last few years people "behave more evenly, they mingle at dances, they talk to each other more normally, they look at each other differently, they are friends. It didn V use to be this way.
I 've told it did not use to be this way. I've heard that through the seventies there were dances where some people could not attend and people would look at others as if they were precisely that, another thing. " 267
Evidently, the economic crises of the eighties, mass education programs, as well as the means of communication, have created this sense of "being more even " than before.
Nonetheless, as even Sergio admitted, "they retain a certain aura (cache) that they continue to profit from. " That "aura " is like a type of dintiction in terms of customs, in terms of how they behave in public, in terms of how they relate to each other in their homes. As one of the young men from one such family says, "it's not just because I say so
(no es por nada) hut it is something quite subtle. Notice that we even walk in a different way, that is, in comparison with poorer people. " ! think of Bourdieu and his notion of habitus and social class. I also think of his arguments ofhexis as it relates to social differentiation and the corporal experience. An)>way, Alberto is a friend of a family that I visit every day. / have coffee with this family every day. 1 met him there, in one of the reunions they have in order to play bridge or backgamon, games which are part of the distinction amongst these families. It has become a distinction became nobody else knows how to play them.
For a month now, we converse each weekend when he returns from Ilermosillo. He has been working there for only three years. Alberto is 36years old, fair-skinned, green eyes, tall and robust. He is a professor and he worked in the town of Los Corazones from the lime that he graduated until recently. One thing that is immediately noticeable in Alberto is that he is a man who manifests .self-assurance. When he arrives at a place, he greets people loudly with his deep and strong voice. He also engages people on the streets quite easily. And broadly .speakingycm can tell that Alberto has a slight elegance in his pace, a sort of refinement that could he considered a bit "femenine " by the town's standards. The same can he said for some of his gestures, his forms of reacting and even his clothes: rather than wearing ranching, cowboy-type clothes, he wears city clothes, that is, sweaters and "casual" shirts, pants, shoes. When he walks by Pedro's store, by the area where the men gather, Alberto sways by and with a strong voice he says "good morning" or "provecho". They, in turn, respond, " thank ycm" or "good morning." The men who gather at Pedro's are not only that "original, " they merely carry a different expression of gender than Alberto. They portray a rougher aspect of mascidinity. Their apparent moments of interaction with Alberto are limited to courteous statements that re-affirm the distance between them—of class but perhaps also of gender. I have never heard negative, after the fact comments uttered by these men about Alberto whether expressed in similar or in different contexts. Yet, a number of Alberto's family members are known in this smcdl town for being kind and cordial "with the whole world. "And this is part of
Alberto's capital ("pesa a su favor").
This afternoon Alberto and I had a conversation within the context of the town's plaza where a dance was taking place. A fter cordially greeting a person who is widely known as being a "Joto " in town, Alberto initiated the conversation by asking me to giiaratee him absolute discretion. He proceeded then to share experiences and information regarding some of the men in town. With the joy of having found a new accomplice,
Alberto said that he was going to tell me "what gives" "que ondas " with the men walking about us. If Alberto would say "one" it would mean "he only likes dick," "two, "
"jala como mayate " (he cooperates as a trade) and "three " if he "likes cotorreo y es buena onda. " His proposal made me laugh. Yet. I readily understood that this game was Alberto 's way of sharing knowledge he possessed hut had not been able to share with others. To my surprise, he mentioned a lot of numbers and all in relationship to
"masculine " men. Some of them cheerfully said hello to Alberto whether or not they were in the company of friends, girlfriends or wives. At one point, a man of about 27 years of age and dressed in ranching, cowboy-type clothes, approached Alberto. I stepped aside in order to give them some privacy but I was able to detect that there was some bantering going on between them. I also noticed that Alberto was clecn-ly, yet discretely, propositioning the man sexually but only to the point where his friend said, "'bad boy, bad boy, maliciala, mallciala not here, M'e 7/ talk later. " And then the friend left smiling.
These words were veiy revealing.
As we sat on a bench I asked Alberto if it has been hard for him to live "the way he is" in this town or even at home. He replied: "no, not at all, not at all, nobody has ever said anything about it at home, absolutely nothing. They don 7 ask, I don 7 say anything. Of course they know or imagine it, but as I am telling you, not my siblings, not my parents.
Have you noticed how we are with each other? My father is veiy loving and so is my mother. They still kiss each other in front of us. Maybe it's because of this, I don 7 know.
In town my family is known for being this way, the children kiss mom and dad, and we kiss each other. We have cdways been very loving, veiy relaxed, very light-hearted and very demonstrative with each other. How can I put it? At home we don 7 live this machista ambiance. And in terms of the town, nobody has ever said anything to me. I've made myself respectf ul and I've cdways been respected. I believe that as long as you respect people, they will respect you. They may talk, I suppose people talk or think things. Yet, don't people talk or think about just anyone? I know this happens in all small towns.
It is the same thing in all small towns. But you can not live giving credence to what others think or don't think. Isn 7 this true? You can not loose sleep over that. Moreover, if you are subtle and respectful you will have no problems and you will have friends. In fact, the men who like you will have no problems in approaching you and talking to you in the streets. They will say hello to you like they do with everyone else. There won 7 be a
problem. Of course, if you are going around creating havoc, being "faggish, " or simply making a spectacle of yourself de 'jota "people are going to shy away from you. They do so while arguing that they are going to "he burned, " they are going to loose face. Yet the truth of the matter is that they are embarrased. I too would be embarrased to he seen with someone like that. And by simply being the other way men and women will be friendly to you, they will say hello. If they are married, nobody will get jealous or anything. They will consider you as simply being one of the townfolk and they will say hello. Besides, how can I explain this to you? Around here, we are all relatives, compadres or friends. We owe each other favors or whatever. So people can not go about offending each other. Can you understand this'? If we do so. we can be offending somebody else at the same time. That is, the offense can be fall someone else in the family and nobody profits through such acts. I have always tried to be a helpfid person. I've strived to help others in whatever which way I can. And I think that also works in my behalf because people are really very gratefid. "
I remain quiet pondering about the things that Alberto has said to me. It is true that the issue of class appears to weigh in Alberto's case. Yet I also see another type of difference apprecialum. I see how comfortable people seem about him. I see how he walks into !heir- homes and says hello to both the children and the adults. Some of these people are even his compadres. 1 also see the respect and love adult men have for A lberto as well as the ways they manifest this affection in public. It is true also that he was married in
Hermosillo had a child and then divorced in good terms. This does not erase his
"difference. " In terms of his gender presence, his refinement or .slight "femininity. "
Alberto is not the same as most of them. Neither is what is known or supposed about his sexual behavior.
(Field notes, June 15, 2002)
Francisco is a young, 25-year old I met two years ago as a result of hanging out in an area in Hermosillo known for its gay ambience (de "ambiente "). He is tall, of fair complexion, an athletic body, masculine demeanor and good-looking. He is a factory worker employed in one of the many multi-national assembly plants in Hermosillo. He was attending the university but was forced to leave after his widowed mother lost all their savings. She had invested their money in a type of savings plan, the "savings box " that is so popular among common folk. But then the plan went bankrupt.
On a number of occasions, we spoke superficially without really starting a friendship.
Yet, in time, Francisco found out that I was not only very familiar with the town of La
Griela but also, the type cf'work in which Iwas involved. His family still lives in La Griela. h is under these cireumslances that we began a closer relationship (una relacion de eonfianza).
Today, I ran into Francisco by the outskirts of Hermosillo. He was asking for a ride to his hometown and it was then that we had the opportunity of conversing more fully.
Francisco said that he "doesn 't want to frequent gay areas in liermosillo any more. " He then explains that it had been a long time since he had gone to this part of town. In fact, he adds, he seldom goes there. Yet, he continues, when he was there yesterday it dawned on him that this is not what he wants. 1 then ask him what is it that he wants? And he seems confused.
- "I don 7 know. Sometimes 1 wish I were like everybody else, marry, have a family, and so
I feel had when J go to a place like that, like the bar. But then, I go hack again. You know.
I feel disillusioned. Ifeel that this stuff is not going to do me any good. Ho w can I explain this? 1 don 7 think I am going to find anybody worthwhile. 1 don't know. Do you remember that guy you saw me dancing with at The Secret fthe only gay disco in
Hermosillo]'? Well, that time I was completely drunk, for reals. And 1 thought that this guy was different. I really liked him (me caia a toda madre). We would fool around bien machin. We woidd go out and everything, hut then, some of his other friends .started meddling and saying shit and stuff so 1 said, fuck it. I'm done with this. It's all gossip.
It's all people that you can't trust. That's why I say 1 don 7 want to be part of this stuff.
And yet, I tell myself what if Iforce myself to marry even if I am not in love?
- Well, maybe you will meet someone you will fall in love with. - The truth of the matter is that I like broads a lot. But 1 like them sexually, not in a way that I would fall in love with them. I don't know, I don't feel the same with a guy, it's like
I have a much better fit with a guy. But this is the problem. When 1 have a sexual fling with a guy, I feel like this isn't getting me anynvhere and then I feel bad.
- Does your family know'.'
- No and they will never know. Never. What for? That is. I am going to tell you something. I was always a gentle child, rather quiet, but 1 was always just like this, like you see me here. That is, I was not a (aguish sort of kid. None of that. I was gentle, kind of quiet. I guess because 1 didn 't have any borthers or sisters. Nobody ever called me any name, I mean just like everybody, the normal thing. When I grew older 1 remained the same, although Twent to church a lot, I helped the priest, mom even thought that 1 was going to be a priest myself, jajaja. What do you think? And look at what I'm doing now— although there are many priests who like to fuck. The other day 1 met a priest who was quite young but 1 didn V know he M'as until 1 .s^aw him walking out of the seminary. Yet. as
IV1YLV saying. I vi'av a very calm person. I never didfaguish things. I don't like that.
People who are like that. 1do respect them but you are not going to see me with them.
And of all places, not in my hometown. No. man no, no, it's just not worth it. That is. I will say hello to them but they are not my friends. Your reputation will he burned and then, you 're fucked. People will then go around saying that you are like them or that you are fucking them. 1 know, that is, I have known guys that you can 7 even tell and than this has happened to them. And it's fucking worst in the town. That's because people talk. I feel like my mom has an idea hut then I say to myself, no, it can V he because you know, 1 am quite a bastard. Yet, doesn 7 it strike you funny that sometimes .she asks, "don 't you have a girlfriend? " And, "why don't you have a girlfriend? " And, "don 7 you plan to get married? " So, the other day 1 told her, "you want me to get married? Because if you want me to get married III just find somebody. It's not that big a deal, and then I'll he married, if that's what you want. " So she said, "no, no, hut don 7 become an old bachelor, you don 7 want to end up being alone." Then I rubbed it in and told her, "no I am not going to get married. " To which she scad, "what, are you going to be a priest? " I only date priests but if you turn 25, people want you to get married. If you do not marry they start thinking that maybe, just maybe you like, you know, men. I am going to be sincere with you, but this is just between us, yes? Because I know what's going on with you, yes? The truth is that I don 7 tcdk to anyone about this, to no one. You never know if you can trust someone hut the truth of the matter is that sometimes I really get down and that and then I drink for days. .Just drink like that until Ifcdl asleep. There are times when
I need to have a large caguama beer, for reals, because I feel very sad deep inside. I don 7 know, I think a fucking whole lot about fucking. And sotnetimes I say, " why am I like this, God?" A friend of mine told me one time that the problem is that you don 7 accept yourself, that is. 1 don 7 accept who 1 am. He came up with stuff like that but don 7 you think that that is it. Maybe, but I don 7 think so. I don't feel bad if I have a little fuck,
1 have no problem with that. Because everybody, at one time or another, has a little fuck with another man. Yet .sometimes I meet someone and I like him and then I do it with him and I feel bad. Another pcd told me. "you know what is the problem with you? That you don 7 let yourself he loved. " He told me this and sometimes 1 think about this, that is, when I am looking at men. and J think that I would feel real good with a mate and all, but
I wouldn 't like for him to he effeminate. And Iwouldn 't like for hi?n to he participating in the ambiance or any of that shit. Iwouldn't want him to go about in faguish things, or for him to have faguish friends. I would want him to be discreet and for us to be good pals.
That is, I would want for us to treat each other as friends, none of this jealousy or arguments, none of that. More like friends, you know? Real funky. And maybe down the line he will get married and maybe I will get married but we can still have our thing because nobody is going to know. Yet 1 do feel that I have a hard time opening up to someone, I have a hard time falling in love. Since I can not trust someone then 1 can not say what it is that 1 feel. You know, like 1 am more crusty, more rought, maybe because I am from the rural lands. I am not machista, definitely not machista, hut you don't go about saying what you feel. You are embarrased, you feel ridicule and then you are going to say these things to a guy? I don't know, even if ffelt it, I am not affectionate like that.
- Yeah, now I under.stand you. Do you think that it is that we are unacustommed to seeing two wen caring for each other, to see them living as a couple?
- Maybe, it could be.
- Maybe things will change with time and society will he more accepting of things like this, no? - Like it is done in other parts of the world, no? Where is it? In France or somewhere there they can even get married. But in Mexico, well, we are a long ways from that.
Ill The discourse of "homophobia"
The term "homophobia" was couied hi the United Stated by a researcher by the name of K. T. Smith. The term appears for the first time in an article published in the journal Psychological Reports in 1971. A similar term, "homoerotophobia" had been previously coined by W. Churchill, an activist and an intellectual, in his book dealing with homosexual behavior between males of different species. Nonetheless, the term
"homophobia" is made popular by Weinberg who. in his book Society and the Healthy
Homosexual defined it as "the fear of being with a homosexual in an enclosed space; the hate expressed by homosexuals against themselves."
The term "homophobia," through its two components, "homo" and "phobia" has been widely discussed and debated. These commentaries and debates point not only to theoretical differences but to political positionings as well. 1) In terms of the prefix
"homo," many discussions have centered on whether the prefix should be used as a short form for the term "homosexual" or whether the ethymological meaning of "homo,"
"similar," should be recaptured and emphasized. If we take the prefix "homo" as a short form to "homosexual" then we have a definition similar to Weinberg's first notion. Yet, if we take the position of recapturing the true meaning of the prefix "homo" as "similar," we then encounter more of a psychoanalytical concept, one where the other is the object of the "phobia" because he or she is similar to the self. That is, the "other one,'' the one who passes as a "homosexual" reminds the self of its own repressed "homosexuality."
Weinberg's broader definition, in fact, does not exclude this psychoanalytical focus. 2)
Regarding the term "phobia," discussions center on both its restrictive and broader uses.
That is, the term can be used to denote an irrational fear, a fundamentally personal pathology. On the other hand, the term has also been used to characterize all the kinds of behaviors, attitudes, notions, stigmas and violences that usually correlate to actual deeds.
Within these discussion fields a number of terms have risen in order to differentiate various aspects of this phenomenon, among them: general homophobia, particular homophobia, collective homophobia, institutional homophobia, individual homophobia, cognitive homophobia, emotional homophobia, psychological homophobia, and homo-negativity (see, for example Borrillo, 2000; Welzer-Lang ,1994). These terms have managed to unveil the social and individual, the emotional as well as the cognitive aspects of the violence and rejection practiced against "homosexuality and homosexuals.'"
Yet, in spite the defllciencies and criticisms within the debates, the enormous importance of the term cannot be ignored. For the term "homophobia" has managed to turn around an important aspect of the opression exercised within the field of sex and gender: "the homosexual is not the sick person. The sick person is the individual who thinks that a homosexual is sick." Or, as the French homosexual movement has upheld, the term "homophobia" points to the fact that "it is necessary to cure those vv'ho think it is necessary to cure homosexuals" (Dutey, 1994:177). The term "homophobia" is now integrated into the sexual politics in Mexico
where it appears to be gaining more and more space both within the means of mass
communication as well as within the individual consciences. The concept of
•"homophobia" has become an important one in the fight against oppression, segregation
and discrimination exercised against men and women who have expressed a homosexual
orientation in that country. More and more, members of the gay population in Mexico
(those who define themselves as gay), along with the press and the television stations, are
using the term "homophobia" and, in doing so, a social movement is being generated-
one aimed at changing the social and sexual fields of power. The change and efficacy in
the continuing use of the term can be detected through activities such as the establishment
of the Citizens Commission Against Mate Crimes due to Homophobia shaped during the
1990"s. This Commission was instrumental in the creation of a national law against
discrimination that includes discrimination due to sexual orientation and which was
adopted in 2003.
While 1 recognize the important role that the concept and the use of the term have
played at a political level, I also acknowledge the absence of academic debates on
"homophobia" within the field of anthropology in Latinamerica and particularly in
Mexico. This academic silence contrasts the significant body of knowledge produced
since the 1970's dealing with the diverse ways in which people think and socially
organize homosexual relationships. It seems to me that while anthropology has shown a
cultural sensitivity towards recognizing various sexual cultures, it should also
acknowledge the cultural diversity in the construction of the forms of violence traversing 279
the sexual field. If we take the anthropological assertion that the ''homosexual" or "gay" identity and identi fication does not refer to a universal subject, how can the notion of
"homophobia" as defined by Weinberg be applied universally? How can we imagine the existence of a universal fear towards "the homosexual" or even a universal hate of
"homosexuals" against themselves if this type of identification is in fact a particular social and historical construction? Are there common elements in "homophobic" violence that allow for generalizations? And if there are, what are they and where is the evidence?
We can certainly imagine simmilarities between countries with a common cultural tradition, especially those with a similar religious backdrop as it is true with the groups associated with "Western thought." Yet. even the term "West" continues to define a rather wide geographical and cultural space.
In Mexico and outside the academic realm the use of the term "homophobia" has coupled the restricted definition of the term "phobia," an irrational fear, with the use of
"homo" as a short form of "homosexual," While ignoring the aspect of the prefix "homo" that means "similar" or "likeness." the term "homophobia" has then evolved with a meaning of "the physical or verbal violence manifested against homosexuals." At its best,
"homophobia" has been used to represent biased beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and overall prejudices against "homosexuals." It is time to move forward, not only in using the term for political purposes and promoting the eradication of violence but also in understanding a phenomenon. And this phenomenon is intricatelly tied to the specificities of every society's sexual and gender field as well as to its sexual/gender politics. It seems to me that the restrictive reading of''homophobia" is not only inadequate but it also veils the complexity of the violence that is attached to a generic and/or sexual dissent. And while the dissent can be encapsuled in a term like "homosexual," it is much wider and complex than the term itself, a fact proven by the this term's shamefullness and shamelcssness corrolaries. In other words, 1 believe it is necessary to now analyze the complexities of power constructed in relationship to the stigmatized referrent
''homosexual." Moreover, this analysis needs to incorporate the politicized sexual and gendered contexts as lived within the specific society as well as the lived homoerotic realities that go beyond the limits of the "heterosexual-homosexual" dichotomy. For this dichotomy lies at the root of the original Anglo notion and term "homophobia."
Weinberg's definition of "homophobia" pretends to stabilize and provide clarity and coherence to the term "homosexual" while at the same time reducing the diversity of the homoerotic reality and the violences traversing it. Given the "homoerotic" realities in
Mexico, that is, the fact that actual homoeroticism is not reduced to the ''homosexual identity'" reality, the question remains what does the prefix "homo" in the word
''homophobia'" refer to? And if you take the "phobia" portion of the term, which ''homo" realities are the object of the negative constellation of beliefs, prejudices, attitudes, and behaviors in Mexico—or at least in the northern communities of Mexico studied? I believe that taking steps in understanding the mechanisms for sexual violence will also help us gain knowledge on the forms of resistance and transgression created by the subjects themselves. Furthermore, the knowledge will help us understand the ways these subjects have acquired in order to survive their ''dissidence", their resubjectivtion processes, their reverse discourses, as Foucault puts it. This knowledge can then help us
imagine diverse ways for localized political action.
IV Getting to the bowels of the "monster"
My fielwork experiences attested to the "homophobic fence'" (cerco homofobico) descibed by the Mexican author Carlos Monsivais. In Mexico, this fence is a complex system of power relations between 1) the terms used to construct otherness; 2) the meanings associated with such terms; 3) the applications of the terms; 4) the conduct that mobilizes violence; 5) the types of violence; 6) the forms used to resist violence; 7) the distribution of the social capabilities for resistance; 8) the social regulation of the activities that promote the stigmatization of the parties involved. However, the stories in this chapter attest to the fact that other issues are not only at the root of the formation of this type of violence but also of the possibilities for resistance to such violence. These other issues include, 9) age; 10) class or social status; 11) family type as an internal regulator of gender; and 12) religious beliefs or the forms through which religion is lived.
Other elements that assuredly condition the number of power relationships traversing the
homerotic body and deed and which need to be further researched include. 13) the urban or rural living condition; 14) the ethnic group; and 15) the sensitivity and ethics of the
police force as it relates to the different forms of "homophobic" aggression. The
reflections that follow are an attempt to contribute to this body of knowledge although by
no means do 1 pretend to encompass all factors or discuss all possibilities. Nonetheless, 282
these reflections are based on my fieldwork experiences and particularly on the fieldnotes already presented.
hi the first place, it is important to note that my fieldnotes denote the fact that being treated or being suspected of being ''less of a man" or being the object of the
"fairy" stigma was prevalent among all the men 1 encountered, regardless of their gender identity or their sexual orientation. In Rogelio's narrative, as well as in the description of the children at play in Chapter 2. we can detect the fact that, at one time or another, all of these men have been accused of being or looking like "fags" or "'feiries"," ("jotos",
"culones" or "maricones)."
The characterization is usually assigned if one does not dare, does not show valor, shows doubt in taking a decision, does not show temerity, etc. And these experiences are particularly prevalent during an individuaFs childhood. Seldom, and mostly in gest. do they occur in adult life. Yet, as described in previous chapters, to be accused of "seeming fagish" may be an everyday experienced in the masculine socialization of children, one that is powerful enough to cause fear and reiterate adherence to the project of "becoming a man." This childish fear to be characterized or de-qualified for being a "fairy" then appears to be a long-lasting fear in many men. It is a fear, an anxiety that has not necessarily been rationalized nor reflected upon. Like the masculinization process itself, the fear is not brought to the conscious levels, it is not talked about nor is it an object of social refiection. It is a silence only understandable through a patriarchal ideology that naturalizes gender identities while erasing histories and experience. Some of the men I interviewed had forgotten they had been subjected to these experiences as children. They had even forgotten that these experiences had caused them pain and that they eventually became a constant challenge in their childhood. It was through the interviewing process that these men were able to recall the pressure they had experienced in childhood and adolescence to cover, to suppress, attitudes and expressions deemed as "weak, painful, tender, amiable, cheerful, fearful, cautious, generous, or compassionate." f or these behaviors would have characterized them as "faguish."
It seems to me that this use of a stigmatization and violence for being or seeming
'•faguish'" or "less of a man" needs to be conceptualized as the basis or the backdrop of the "homophobic" violence observed in the communities I engaged vv/hile doing my lleldwork. I would venture to even say that this stigmatization is a backdrop to the
"homophobic'" violence experienced throughout Mexico—at least in the non-indigenous
Mexico, h is a violence that is directed to all the male children, pubescent boys and adolescent males, one directed precisely during the most important periods of male socialization. In order to enter into a young adulthood or adult life an individual then has to go through the transformation of this masculinizing violence. Now, while this
"homophobic" violence tied to the masculinization process is directed to all male individuals, it finds a particular target in the children, pubescents and adolescents deemed
"effeminate'" because of the particular visions of gender. The verbal violence of one's mates from similar age groups, whether at school or neighborhood play, stigmatizes those who may deviate from the virile model sought and obligated to pursue. As attested by my fleldvvork observations, beginning with a certain age, an age when one's "soft" manners are not confused anymore with child behavior, the father of a boy assumes the principal role of masculinizer. The mother in these instances then plays, for the most part, a passive role, one of complicity at times, of resistance at other times.
The pedagogy of masculinity used by the father consists of a series of practices that carry the body as its principal focus. The objective is for the child to abandon its sensitivity and for him to acquire another one, one that manifests gestures and attitudes of a "man."
Getting up early, taking cold showers, working at hard chores are all strategies of virile
•'orthopedia."' The verbal and physical violence produced by whippings achieve the dual function of punishing the transgression and of inducing behavior change because of the fear of further pain. Emotional rejection is another form of violence that runs parallel to physical violence; a rejection expressed through the father's gestures of despise, or the gestures of peers; in the use of the stigmatized word "fag" assigned in desperation because of the lesser physical abilities, or appearance; or the exclusion from peers and games.
The violence against "effeminates" or "lesser men" becomes a telling example for the other children, siblings or acquaintances. This public exercise of violence is socially tolerated and sends a threatening message to those who dare to transgress the order of gender identity. The other body becomes the vivid expression of what must be despised in one's self. And while this violence is directed to all children, the "effeminates" or
"les.ser men" are its target. Nonetheless, this emotional violence additionally touches the other children, the "non effeminates.'" As a result of this particular pedagogy of masculine socialization, children leam to harass other children, and they learn that the violence and stigma of "fagishness" is a mechanism to exercise power and to differentiate men. They also learn that its use can bring punishments or rewards. And they are further taught that the culprits of this violence are the children themselves: because they are "like they are" they deserve punishment. Children also learn to become the "tormentors'" of the others. They themselves become vigilant of one another in their own process of masculine socialization using the term "fairy" to threaten and punish. It becomes obvious then that the child who is the tormentor of other children has already been a tormentor of himself, of his own human expressive possibilities.
Another form of violence observed is the sexual violence against "effeminate'" or
"lesser men" or "weak" children. Children deemed "effeminate"'—although not only these chidren—tend to be targets of sexual harassment and violence as a result of the process of making them "vulnerable" and objects of punishment, violence, and eventually power.
This form of violence fmds its greatest ally in the "culpability" induced in the child because of his lack of compliance with his assigned gender role. Although the violence against a child is said to be due to his "effeminate"' nature, this "nature'" can be interpreted by adults as a sexual difference that makes the child even more vulnerable to sexual violence. And this sexual violence against the "effeminate" or "lesser men" children is a component of the violence rooted in the social interpretation of gender dissidence. If we were to abide by the restricted definition of "homophobia," this violence could not fall within the expression because we can hardly talk about •'homosexuality" or "homosexuals" in childhood or even in puberty terms. On the other hand, a culturally sensitive dellnition of the concept "homophobia" could encompass it.
My ethnographic experience taught me that "homophobic" violence during childhood is, above all, a form of gender violence directed to all males, one that finds a pedagogical example in the "effeminate or less of a man'' children. It is not a violence that emanates from dissidence, from a sexual orientation or much less from
"homosexuality." The fact is that children tend to engage in a diversity of homoerotic games during infancy and puberty without these activities calling for the disciplinary gender violence. What worries adults during childhood and puberty is the presence of the
"effeminate" child, the "lesser man," the "weak" child. This dissidence from the ideal of
"manhood" generates anxiety, not only among the victims but also among the victimizers, children or adults, men or women. And, as we will discuss later, this anxiety lies underneath all forms of violence. Nevertheless, it is important to address another issue: not all the individuals observed reacted with violence and not all families practiced gender disciplinary violence against effeminate children. This is an issue that needs to be understood before any further generalizations can be made.
As we can gleam through the testimonies presented earlier, Manuel's brothers opt first for the insult toward the "effeminate child." Later, and with the complicity of the mother and father, they opt for isolation, perhaps as a "protective" measure. Nevertheless, at a given moment, the father, drunk and "sick" as he was, even thinks of the ultimate punishment: death. Manuel's parents have very little formal education and have very few means; but above all, they posses a dynamic of domestic violence that emanates from a father-husband with severe mental problems and a strong anxiety due to his incapacity to construct himself according to his ideal of manhood.
On the other hand, Alberto's family reacts in a very different manner. His brothers don't insult him. The father doesn't submit the son to disciplinary violence. And everything appears to be resolved in a silence toward his sexual-gender dissidence that is interpreted as respect for Alberto. This is an educated family of median income but good community standing, well regarded and recognized. 1 believe that the fundamental difference in the family reactions is the result of the internal dynamics of gender, mainly the deportment of Alberto's father: this is a family where affection is easily expressed, and expressed in a physical manner. The father is an affectionate man, physically accessible, loving toward his mate, sons and daughters. A common trait among them is their Catholic upbringing, although 1 don't have enough information about the manner in which they practice Catholicism.
Between these two extremes, we can place the experience of Cesar, who lives in a traditional Catholic town, within a family and community that places great value on appearances. In this case, while the brothers remain at the margin of verbal or physical violence, the fether appears intolerant and anxious toward his son's "effeminate" deportment. The mother appears as a silent figure in the story and as an accomplice of the father. The preponderance of the father in this brutal masculinization and exemplary punishment reflects his dominance in the familial setting and the existence of orthodox gender ideologies in this agro-pastoral family. The middle class status, the median access to education and health services, provide access to other modern forms of violence when the traditional techniques to form "manliness" through corporal punishment don't yield results; the intervention on the body to transform it through hormonal therapy. If the
"soul" resists turning "masculine," the possibility to submit the body of the boy to electroshock shines in the horizon of this modern and urban vision (of the sixties and early seventies).
In the configuration of violence, the ideologies and gender practices of family, education, class and social status play an important role. The rural-urban differences in the infancy of these individuals yielded different technologies of promoting "manhood" and different types of physical and emotional violence. Yet, age is another element that is important to highlight in our understanding of "homophobic" violence. As previously discussed, puberty and adolescence suggest the possibility that the subject may engage in sexual experiences. This is the visualization of the subject with "sexual desire." This transformation of the sexual status of the subject brings altogether the possibility of new forms of vigilance and violence linked to his erotic desires. The history of Manuel and, indirectly that of Cesar, shows us that expressions of sexual actitivity with other men- deemed passive because of the individual's effeminate ways—generates major forms of anxiety and violence, especially for the father. The uncertainty and anxiety become larger because the "femininity" displayed during childhood becomes complicated through sexual behaviors deemed "scandalous." The individual then becomes "a young man who people say goes with other men." He attracts the term "puto." And fear gives way to anger, to rabid violence, and even to the possibility of subjecting the rebelious body to death.
According to many authors (for Mexico see Guttman [1996]) fatherhood is an expression of "manliness" and certainly, this is the case for fathers such as Manuel's and
Cesar's. 1 draws on this ethnographic evidence to venture the hypothesis that this
"manhood" is for many men, a construct mediated through the body, the gender identity, and the sexuality of his male children. And even, that this relationship is the backbone of his own sense of "manliness" derived from his fatherhood. My hypothesis is that the son is conceptualized as an extension of the self; and if this extension possesses a body, a gender, and a desire deemed dissident from his own perception of "manhood." it becomes not only a challenge but a threat to his own "virility." It perhaps represents a reminder of a fragmented self, of the unstable or incoherent construct of masculinity. After all, the relational, social, aspect of masculinity as a social construct is manifested in the experience of "shame," in the "loss of status," in the "eyes of others." 1 suggest that the father becomes blindly violent, even considers murder, because of the fear, because of the threat that his own "manliness" is being (re)constructed in relationship to the subject and in relationship to his (perceived) lack of power within the family as an organization.''''
The complexity of the "homophobic fence" can also be observed by looking at the transformation of violence in its adult manifestations. During adolescence and adulthood the violence aimed at socialization tends to disappears. The insult "joto" aimed at
'''' I am sure that more evidence is needed for proving this hypothesis. I am already working on the analysis of ethnographic data related to the sexual and reproductive conceptions and practices of three generations of men of the sierra of Sonora. transforming the subject disappears; but the term "joto'", as a pedagogical tool for others,
remains. The implementation of verbal and physical violence acquires other characteristics during youth and adulthood due to different reasons: 1) youth and adulthood mark the end of the socialization effort and the beginning of the social right to autonomy and individual liberty. Society as a whole acknowledges a basic right for being an adult and, with some ambiguity, the right to be a male (in the sense of biological male). 2) The individual has constructed by this time his own status: a profession, an economic capital, a social capital of friendships and influences that, in many instances, need to be understood within their specific strategic initiatives of resistance and accomodation. 3) The attainment of adulthood makes the subject less of a victim and less immune to threats or to physical aggression as the victimizer can now easily become the victim. 4) Adulthood also signals the possibility of receiving the ''respecf accorded to citizens and the call for the authorities to intervene, all of which requires the projection of an "image of respectability,'" an essential element in the integration of the subject to his community.
Adulthood involves another position within the "'homophobic machinery" in these communities. The term, 'Yespect"', I believe, summarizes this position, one in which the subject can be the target of violence simply because of his social trajectory of sexual and gender dissidence. On the one hand, ''respect" warrants no violence, including violence of affection and community integration, without implying an obligation to relinquish one's identity (that is precisely what is respected). On the other hand, respect does require the observance of "discretion," the appearance of "normality" as much as possible, and the effort to "not scandalize.'' That is, "respect" also implies not making public, to the eyes of others, personal preferences and escandalous transgressions of gender
(travestism).
"Respecf implies a tacit covenant between the subject and the community that accepts for the subject to live his desires and gender transgressions, but with "discretion." attempting as much as possible to make this deportment as "non existent" as possible.
The subject must "disguise" and "keep to himself these actions, "limiting" them to the dark, the llelds, or the bedroom. Although in general, is to these places where the members of the community at large confine their sexual and romantic expressions, the institutionalization of same-sex couples and their confessions of love affords a silence not granted to other individuals, although it may be integrated to a certain degree to "good freindship" as some of the narrative point out. It is not casual, then, that in this order of things, friendship and camaraderie, becomes the social form adopted by this other type of relationship.
A term that sums up this community policy of gender and sexuality, of "respect" and "discretion" is the one used by Alberto's friend: to use malice ("maliciar").
"Maliciar" is to have malice, to act with malice, with cleverness, intelligence, sensibility to the surroundings and its dangers, even with the awareness that the others have malice, that is, consciousness of the evil that actions can carry. "Discretion" reflects the knowledge, the awareness of malice. "Malicia" means then the consciousness of a gender and sexual order that limits the possibility of affective and sexual intimacy among males. 292
through its violence: mainly in the case of adulthood, the presence of symbolic violence: the spoken one, the male dictum, the stigmatized identity, the concept of being a lesser person. Ultimately, the violence of being despised, of being labeled as im puto escandaloso and, after this, being denied ''respect.'"
It is interesting to note that the individual who is respected, can be the subject of continuous demands to demonstrate that he is still deserving of respectability; he is more discrete than the common man, more amiable, more supportive, etc., as Irving points out
(previous chapter). A way used by society to show "respect and affection" to these individuals considered "different" is to use diminutives when referring to them:
"Panchito. Tonito, Ricardito"" etc. It isn"t that all individuals who are given "respect and affection'" are addressed with diminutives. Yet, many of them are, particularly those who are single, a little effeminate and have taken their sexuality to the limit of concealment; even those who appear to live in abstinence. The diminutive can be interpreted as a form of caring, but also. I think, as a form of infantile characterization. To make the subject infantile like in this society is a manner of perceiving him as "asexual'" or to "veil" his sexual desires. The diminutive is the expression of the politics of "respect"' and
"discretion'" that pretends, through the use of a name, to symbolically erase the sexual life of an adult. This symbolic erasure, however, is not intending to necessarily erase the practice.
Another axis of significant distinction to understand the life possibilities of subjects with homoerotic desires is the gendered distinction of "effeminate male." Non- 293
effeminate men that during youth or adulthood experience the importance of their homoerotic desires, find themselves in a different situation than the subjects who from their infancy were labeled by their "effeminateness" or perceived "lesser" manhood.
Although non-effeminate men were also targets of homophobic violence during their masculine socialization stages as all the boys, they will not be objects of the same distinction when they are adults, regardless of whether or not they participate in homoerotic relationships. Francisco's story is revealing in this sense. He did not endure cold water showers, whippings or medical treatments or the threat of electroshock, although he did witness the violence imparted to others and, as such, he suffered the
''violence of witnessing," the violence of threats, on top of the common masculinization violence applied to all men.
The violence of being a witness appears to show its most damaging effects precisely in the witness's distancing from the "fairies," from the "effeminates," "the ones that show it." because of the fear of "being socially burned'" (quemarse). The term "being socially burned" intimates that the person and his reputation are altered by the proximity to someone that although "respected" is the object of social distinction because of his supposed sexuality. The proximity to such person could give the impression that the same sexual and maybe gender transgressions are shared. The individual fears being the object of distinction because of his real but hidden sexual desires toward other men. He enjoys the anonymity and the absence of the stigma, but he endures the fear of violence that he has seen applied to others. In contrast with the "effeminate" he has not gone through the 294
ritual that allows him to reach the covenant of "respect". He may even reject this covenant.
On the other hand, the same violence experienced as a witness of the violence against other children and pre-adolescents who appeared "effeminate," of witnessing the categorizations of sweet, delicate, tender, weak, compassionate, etc.. as well as his trajectories in "becoming a man," can push an individual away from his own feelings and
"effeminate" deportment. As we mentioned earlier, the child who witnesses violence against the "effeminate" is the victim of the emotional violence of threats and ends up canceling those elements of his personality that can arouse aggression and, in turn, also make him a victim. The emotional health of Francisco, his difficulties in matters of love with another man, his difficulty in accepting his own amorous desires and the difficulties in expressing it, have as a background his socialization in the violence of the pedagogy of masculinization. Francisco doesn't want to be associated with "effeminate" deportment, he wants to be a masculine man, but he can't develop the relationship he desires because of his personal difficulties to accept his feelings, because they are deemed "feminine."
Francisco is embarrassed about this aspect of his self.
The condition of Francisco tells us of a history of violence and of the effects of this violence in his adult life which doesn't fit well in the most common definition of
"homophobia." It is not that Francisco is a homosexual who hates himself, to utilize
Weinberg's terminology. His situation is more complex. Francisco is a "man," he is
"machi'n'" as he says. He even accepts his sexual desires toward women—which 1 was able 295
to observe on several occasions in dances and night clubs—as well as he accepts his desire toward men. But his emotional and social life is trapped in contradictions built by his journey in a particular sex-gender system and his position within it. It is not so much the erotic desire what he hates but a series of feelings which he learned to consider
"effeminate'" or 'less virile." This issue is important to consider and value, the resubjectivation work men engaged in some kind of intimacy with oher men have to realize in order to be able to create and sustain such intimacy. It is a process of partial resubjectivation that inolve a kind of "reverse discourse" against machismo, the dominant forms of masculinity, as well as the act of "rajarse". Especially in thoses cases where intimacy reaches love and or erotic levels.
What about those other men, masculine men, married adults or single youngs, who engage in someway of affectionate and /sexual intimacy with other men? What do we know about their "homophobic experiences"? Actually I think that we know very little simply because in as much as their intimacies are handled secretely, in depth interview possibilities becomes much more difficult. Nevertheless, we know some facts:
1) they know intimately honphobic dynamics, as every men, as part of their masculinization process, although some of them may be more perceptive; 2) they know that they can pass by without any problem the homophobic violence, because of their masculine identity (vs/hich may involve in some way a degree of "heterosexual" capacity or interest too), and as much as they abide to it, but also as they keep secrecy; 3) they have to deal and signify in harmeless way their sexual and loves intimacies, in order to keep guilt and self-consciousness at bay. That is they have to experience in some way or another a resubjectivation process regarding sex and affection intimacy with other men, create reverse discourse to resist machismo or homophobia, and to learn to negotiate, play and resist domiant ideologies of manhood. This subjectivation process I should say does not mean a full critic or consciousness of machismo or the sex-gender system (as it does not happen necessarily with gay or lesbian people either). Actually, many times, 1 thini<, it involves a practical mastery and explotation of sexual and gender ideological contradiction, as well as the intricacies of homphobic terms, meanings and playful and performative ways of resisting them. Certainly, there are who may succumb to dominant ideologies and in spite of their own desires or deeds ends up by hating their homoerotic needs projected onto other people. Self-violence, and violence to others are in fact a possibility and a reality. In the middle, as I will elaborate in chapter 7, there are those who have to live their desires and pleasures in the semi-unconsciousness of alcohol.
In conclusion, the various forms of violence that 1 have been able to detect during my field work have led me to assert the need for an anthropological focus in studying the violence that affects the generic and sexual dissidence as well as to question the prevalent definitions of the term "homophobia." This definition not only constructs "homosexuals' as its only target but has a tabula rasa approach to the politics of sexuality and localized gender, including the different categories of sexual identity and the different terms of the stigma. V The terms of stigma: a complex field of regulation
The terms "rajarse"' (to give up) and "aca entre nos" (only between us) index a vast and complex terrain where prohibitions, threats, stigma, violence, as well as ambiguities, try outs, explorations, transgressions, adventures and contacts can be found.
Both terms suggest possibilities of openings and expectations of closings among males.
Both terms are part of a social conception and regulation about the idiosyncrasy of subjectivities and bodies according to their biological sex.
The stories presented in prior chapters, show that in addition to the term "rajarse," or giving up, other terms of stigma such as "pufial, loca, maricon, fresco, joto, culon, biscocho'" are used as part of this social conception and regulation of "manhood." We are talking here about a diversity of terms immersed in the politics of gender which are not interchangeable, hi fact, each of them highlights an area of particular regulation in the conduct of males. To attend to this diversity of meanings, emphasis and areas of regulation will permit us to better understand the logic of this violence that is usually covered by the umbrella term '"homophobia".
As it has been pointed out above, the terms "biscocho, culon, rajon" are physical metaphors of the undesired subjectivity deemed inconsistent, ambiguous, weak, vulnerable, exposed, frightened, indecisive, insecure, and without limits that can be anticipated or trusted. These are metaphors that have a gendered and sexual subtext since they are associated with the absence of "manliness" or with the notion of having "less manliness." This absence or reduced manliness can also be expressed in certain contexts by the term "fairy" (joto) or "hombrecito a huevo" as Jose Pedro states. It is important to emphasize, however, that in certain cases a homosexual orientation among those who are the target of the stigmatizing allusion is not necesarily assumed, even when the term
'Tairy'" is used. That is. consideration of a "masculine deficiency" does not necessarily imply or suppose a homosexual practice or identity. On the other hand, the terms "puto, puiial" clearly allude to a "liking," a taste for and to a sexual practice, that in vulgar terms is always defined by images of being penetrated anally: "he likes prick, he likes to be penetrated, he likes to be zipped" etc.
The issue of "liking" to be penetrated or to be attracted to the penis of another male is particularly important in its definition because these activities are unsettling and despicable in the mind of those who use these terms to hurt. These terms also suggest "a lesser manhood or absence of manhood" since the liking and/or the attraction to the penis of other men translates into an act that is interpreted as "submission" to another man.
"disposition" tovv-ard the service of the other, lack of control, and materially, through the penetration, the opening of one's body to the other. If we add to this a dominant sexual vision of the penis as a symbol of manhood, and of penetration as an act of masculinization, we can understand the connotations of loss of virility for someone who prefers and likes to be penetrated, that is, an action of "submission" to another man. This 299
is why the terms "puto'" and "pufial" are the most incisive, the most violent, in the
language of stigma in these communities and 1 believe, throughout Mexico/''^
The terms "maricon" and 'ioca" emphasize another aspect of supposed "absence
or reduced manliness:" the "effeminate" deportment, the gestures, voice, the attitudes of
one who is expected, because of his biological sex, to display signs that connote
"masculinity." In the mountain communities of Sonora as well as in Hermosillo the term
maricon is not very common. It is used less frequently than in the central and southern
Mexico. Yet. I must mention that the term is emotionally loaded and particularly violent
since it denotes the liking for "anal passivity,"and the assumed unstable subjectivity.
Furthermore, the passivity and unstable subjectivity are additionally suggested by the term "loca," that indexes a wild feminine deportment, an "obvious transgression of
masculinity" that is considered "vulgar" or "scandalous" by the dominant sex-gender
system.
The term "fresco" is more commonly used in northern Mexico, particularly in the
Sierra of Sonora. It is less vulgar, to the point that women often use it when referring to a
man, in contrast with other terms that are considered too crude, and not suitted for women. "Fresco," nevertheless, can be very damning like other terms within specific contexts. It can be too, a term used among males "no frescos" who are kidding around as a way to prick someone's pride when virile deportment is not exhibited. I recall two
friends who were repairing a car and one of them was not able to unscrevv- a bolt with the
But also, this allows us to understand that one way of eliminating that kind stigma in anal sex in interpersonal relations, is creating a safe place, a place of camaradeship, or equahty as "men", before engaging on it. I will elaborate on this point on next chapters. 300
pliers, and the other one told him "let me see, fresco, give it to me, 1 am going to show you how.'" This is something that can be said as a joke among friends in the context of making fun of each other's virile superiority or as a way of making fun of one's inability to reach some ideal behaviour expected for men.
Among all the stigmatizing terms mentioned, the term "fairy" (joto) may be the most colloquially used throughout Mexico. It is a term that while it can signify any of the three forms of "absence or lesser manliness" previously mentioned, its specific meanings and emotional loads of stigma depend fundamentally in the contexts in which it is used.
In childhood it is the predominant term of socialization. Yet, the terms maintain an underlying unity: the stigma due to the "absence or lesser manliness," be it in the demonstrations of certain subjective capabilities, the liking or attraction for the penis or penetration, or effeminate mannerisms. If an element covers these terms it is precisely its symbolic proximity with the "feminine" and what it appears to be a renunciation or transgression of a personal and social ideological project that has been naturalized as
"being a man." This renunciation, this transgression, is what in other terms is meant when the issue of "deviance" is discus,sed or when terms such as "falla," fault, are used''''.
Nevertheless, it is important to consider that even though these terms take part in the regulation of the masculine identity, the tenns in themselves bring different emphasis and
"And that fault?"' esa falla?) This expression is sometimes used by men when faced with a confession of sexual desire by another individual. "Fallar" means to err as well as to fail in carrying out an objective. The term indexes a certain "loose morality." In addition, "falla" is also a crack, an opening of the earth, as in fault line. Heterosexist ideology is clearly at the base of this term—the normal, the desired way is heterosexuality. At the same time, the term "falla" indexes the symbolic dualist order mentioned in the previous chapter-closed-open, right-wrong, etc. conjure diverse images of the meaning of transgression. Even when the terms maintain an
underlying proximity they are far from being synonymous or interchangeable. In Mexico
one does not call another "rajon" o "culon'' while making reference to his homosexual
experiences or to his ''feminine manner" in voice and gestures. It would sound absolutely
absurd, silly and inappropriate. Equally, it is inadequate to call someone "puto'" just
because he lacked the courage to jump from a tree. This would be considered excessive
aggression and the use of the term would be uncalled for.
The terms, then are not interchangeable. Understanding this fact is important in
realizing that the concepts regulating "manliness" are diverse in their regulation areas, emotional charge, and assumptions about sexual practices or orientation. One can be very
''culon". a big ass. while being perfectly "normal" sexually in the eyes of the community, even when passing as a "coward" or a "hombrecito a guevo."' One can be "puto" and be very much a "man", and even be a "loca" in a moment of drunkenness but "never crack,"
(no rajarse) as Miguel made clear. This absence of similarity and equivalence among terms obviously does not eliminate its diverse stigmatizing uses. But it does signal a complex field, as much in the exercise of violence toward those who shov^/ a renunciation or dissidence in their "manliness", as in the practice of compliance, transgressions and
resistance. 302
VI Homophobic violence as a regulator of masculine subjectivity: a theoretical synthesis
The multiplicity ofterms should appear suspicious, why are so many terms used?
Why the abundance of words? What is so difficult to learn and describe with one single term? Why doesn't a single term, as is the case in "man," exist to name the "Other"', a term that may be able to conjure up all the disgraces and fears of men, and at the same time, a term which can bring them to "order", to the display of the desired and socially expected manliness?''^ The explanation has to be found in the socially constructed character of "being a man." The signs of "manliness" are social conventions with no fixed meanings, but established by differentiation and relatedness to other signs. In this context "manliness" is a contradictory fact, unstable, disputed, fragmented and heterogeneous, always in process of "taking root" from multiple attempts, challenges, examples and contexts of expression. There is no one term for "otherness" because
"unity" is only a reflection, a cultural fiction created by difference. The function of the
"others" is to serve as a mirror for a "one" always in formation, yet always paradoxically present. And "the others" are useful in order to establish the symbolic frontiers of
"manliness" and the affiliation to an ideological project of being a man.*^^
Borrillo suggests that behind this "linguistic disproportion lays an ideological activity that consists of naming in a number of ways that which seems problematic and sending to the realms of the implicit that which pretends to be natural or evident" (Borrillo 2000: 6). This symbolic relationshing between "the self and "the others" is codified in the culture and language of Mexico through the expression "es de los otros," he is one of the others. This expression is used to refer to one who is "not a man-man" but rather one "que se le hace agua la canoa, es puto, joto, maricon. choto, raro," that is, one who is considered as moving sensously, seeming faguish, effeminate, strange. Trapped between the grip of the demands for "manliness'" and the impossibility of
its complete, total and absolute realization, the daily process of "becoming a man'" is a
process that covers the multiplicity of the actions that permeate the life of the subject and that of many other subjects around hun. Studies about the relationship between masculine subjectivity and militarism, racism, colonialism (Gibson, 1994; Bederman, 1995; Mosse,
1996; Alonso, 1995), domestic violence, homophobia, sexual abuse, crimes (MacBride,
1995; Lancaster. 1992; Welzer-Lang. 1994; Newbum and Stanko, 1994; Seidler, 1992;
Kimmel and Messner, 1995; Miedzian, 1995; Trevisan. 1998) mental health, labor risks avoidable accidents (Bonino, 2001; De Keijzer, 1998; Calvario, 2003) speak to us about of the dimensions of risk embedded in a process of masculinization characterized simultaneously by the instability and ingrained demands of virility.
As observed through my lleldvvork experiences, one point that traverses the stigmatizing terms as well as the diverse forms of violence previously discussed, is something that could be synthesized with the term "homophobia" but only if we
understsand this homophobia not merely as the hate and violence toward
"homosexuality"" and "homosexuals." This "homophobia" would need to be understood as a technology of regulation of gender identity, and in regarding the subject of our study, specifically, of the masculine identity. This technology of regulation is just as ingrained
in the social fabric as it is in the fabric of the subject: in his subjectivity and in his body in the form of ideas, values and anxieties. 304
The concept of "phobia" is pertinent because it indexes an anxiety, a fear that embodies the masculine identity and experience. As we have discussed earlier, through the actions of the fathers of Cesar and Manuel, homophobia implies an anxiety, a fear turned into violence, against what the diverse terms of the homophobic stigma designate: the transgression of gender identities and, in the case of men, the transgression of a dominant model of "manliness."
Certainly, when we talk of violence we talk about actions. Homophobia also involves practices, socially regulated and validated, that in a greater or lesser degree intend to end this fear, this anxiety.*''' Yet we must not forget that this anxiety has been previously created during a process of gender socialization. And as much as it is part of common socialization process to all men, we can state that such anxiety is something common to all men, an element of culture that we have had to fight, attempt to resolve, confront or assume, in a number of ways.
We are afraid to experiment with other possibilities that are not contained within the ideal of "manliness" and that may be considered as lacking of virility or less virile.
The topic of anxiety is central to psychoanalysis. Freud described it more as the unconscious, unfulfilled, desire tied to an individual's primary anxiety, that of a fear of castration due to the unresolved Oedipal complex. It is the Self s identification with the Father that allows resolution of this fear. Lacan (1977) suggests that anxiety is lodged into the Self through a sense of absence in the mirror stage. It is a sense of impotence. The desire is the desire of the other precisely because one expects a unity with the other, the image of completeness. Kardiner (1945), on the other hand, suggests that anxiety is a product of cultural activity in relationship to childhood activities, including threats, punishment, etc. This anxiety becomes a central element in the basic personality structure which additionally contains a system of projection that includes social regulation. In this work, I have followed the reading of "group anxiety" elaborated in Changing the Subject (Henriques et al. 1984) which posits the notion that anxiety needs to be understood within the context of the social power relations in which it is lived. Furthermore, they argue that the management of anxiety continuously motivates the renegotiation of power relations. In other words, in dealing with anxiety, we are dealing with desire, cultural threat, loss of power, projection and represion of desire, as well as renegotiation of power. See the article by Tony Jefferson (1994). We are afraid of opening up, of'"rajarnos." The perspective of desiring another man or
loving another man, as the most extreme and concrete expression of "femininity" and the surrender of the personal project of''manliness," synthesizes for many, these deep and personal fears, as well as the deep root of their own homophobic violence.
'fhe personal history of our own fear is part of the history of our desire, and this can not be understood without the social context of signification that conditions it. As a culture we have inherited a series of discourses about our body and eroticism as well as the pleasure that constructs, marks, censors, disciplines them and maps journeys and possibilities. Social discourse about sexual and gender existence (which are intimately connected with economic and political discourses, a link not explored here) plot possible scenarios for the confirmation of our subjectivity. But these scenarios or fields are not innocuous. On the contrary, they are fields of power.™ Social discourses about sexual and gendered existence index regularizations of power. To assume determ ined positions of subjectivity in the field is to enter into the relationships of power. Furthermore, in order to give an account of the fear and desire at the personal level, we must give an account of the socio historic processes that organize a power structure over the sexual existence of people (Foucault, 1988; Jefferson, 1994: Hallway, 1989; 1 lenriques et al,
1984).
This is the other element present in the dialect of fear and violence: the social relations of power. The fear of experiencing attraction or accepting it, the fear of the
This conexion has been widely discussed by many feminist scholars, including those writing from a Marxist, radical, or socialist position. The conexion has also been elaborated by authors such as Freud, Reich, Marcuse, and theoreticians of radical homosexuality such as Mieli (1977) in Italy, possibility of experiencing erotic pleasure with our same ones, the fear to experiment other emotional and gestures, expresses the fear of loosing power and even more, to be the object of power: the power that others vindicate over us. It is the fear and anxiety of social punishment. This happens because since childhood we know what is coming to us if our polymorphous and perverse sexuality blossoms free and happy: censure, admonition, punishment, derision and ridicule. It is not necessary to have experienced these situations for fear to emerge: it is sufficient to witness how power is acted upon others. We fear power but we also desire power. If we comply with the social norms it is not only due to fear, it is also because we desire rewards, awards, praise, the personal satisfaction of being that is called in our society "normal." It is then the desire of power over others and the fear of the power of others over our own dignity and sense of aspired worth what, as part of the cultural action over our personal desires, leads us to limit our eroticism and to chanelize toward what is called "normal sexuality" or simply "being a man." As Connell states: "Las relaciones de poder de la sociedad se vuelven un principio constitutive de las dinamicas de la personalidad al ser adoptadas como proyectos personales, sea reconocido asi o no. Lo que se produce a nivel social es un proyecto colectivo de opresion" (Connell, 1987: 215).
The organization in our culture of our erotic potential, the organization and regulation of our libido in our erogenous zones and our impulses of desire during our childhood and later is, at the same time, a process of organizing our subjectivity, our structure of perceptual dispositions, thoughts, emotions and action. This subjectivity expresses itself as a psychic economy and as an acquired status in the social order. Subjectivity is in this sense, consubstantial to power relations, concomitant to the
organization of social distinctions (in terms of Pierre Bourdieu: that which differentiates
and provides distinguished status).
The relationship between power and eroticism is a two-way relationship. There is
a psychic economy in social relationships of power, an economy of desire: subjectivities
capable of liking or disliking, of e.Kpressing solidarity or marginalization; of privileging
unity and similarity or highlight disagreements and differences; of expressing fear,
anxiety, phobias or sympathy, affection and tenderness. Likewise, the organization of our eroticism responds to the effects and possibilities of the social power that we confront
first in the family and later in other social instances such as school, church, the street and
state institutions.
The emotional and cognitive inversion in the repression and organization of our
erotic potential~as part of the construction of a subjectivity that will yield power-is of
such magnitude that we tend to forget that we are afraid. In the same manner in which we
tend to forget that time of our childhood or adolescence when our feelings and pleasures
were directed to the same sex without much adoo. Only once in while a dream, a lapse, a
joke, a look or hysteria may betray us. There is much to study about the basis of erotic
and gender anguish experienced daily, of the boredom, disgust, that deep feeling of alienation, of malaise, of lack of ease, restlessness and vertigo that exhausts our culture and our historical moment/'
Regardless of how repressed, the existence of an anxiety of power and the fear love, desire and experience of pleasure with persons of the same sex, transport us to a construction of masculine subjectivity very distant from the appearances or supposed ideals of "manliness." The fear and anxiety, in fact, at times goes to extremes as in the case of the inability to embrace lathers and sons. The hegemonic ideal of masculinity, as analyzed by Connell (1995), when internalized produces fear and anxiety because the ideal is based in the constant repression of a sine qua non dimension of life, the polymorphous and perverse Eros. This anxiety is augmented in the social dynamic because it signals an object of power when not complying with the norm.^^ And because anxiety increments spirally, many other anxieties can subsequently organize, as documented by Irigaray (1991) and Lacan (1997).
The subjectivities that are constructed according to a social ideal of masculinity, and 1 focus on them because they are the ones that commit more crimes and misogynous and homophobic violence (McBride, 1995; Newburn and Stanko, 1994), are always precarious, contradictory and permeated by anxiety. Its existence requires a constant reactivation and actualization. 1 say actualization on purpose. The masculine and feminine gender identities posses a performing character that needs to be actualized in
" This topic has been elaborated through a number of classic writings such as Fromtn (1956, 1969). Marcuse (1964). Reich (1985) and, more recently, Lorde (1993). See Bibliography. " Anxiety as it relates to masculinity has been explored by Giddens (1992), VlcBride (1995), Pleck (1987), Seidler(1989). daily life and every day in order for them to exist. They mainly need to be actualized in situations that endanger its supposed coherence and unity (Buttler, 1993). situations that threaten to reanimate our desires and affections which we thought were dead, but that existed actively in our subconscious.
I believe that a review of the concept of homophobia as we have presented it here takes us irremediably to consider that everyday homophobic violence is an actualization of the masculine identity considered normal. Even in the extreme cases of murder the violence is an actualization of a "normal" masculine socialization. With this in mind, homophobia implies the actualization of a gender identity (particularly masculine, of the hegemonic ideal of masculinity) that feels threatened its borders of identity. A situation is perceived as threat precisely because there is fear of the social effects of power that result when another subjective position in the sexual field is assumed, a position of lesser value that socially is identified with the "feminine,'" "the lesser man," the lack, the "castration.'"
What is then the answer to anxiety? Psychoanalists tell us repression, separation and projection. The joke, laugh, the accusation, the strike, despise, mockery, the sending away, silence, arrogance, or the simple action of labeling correspond to different ways to suppress or project the anxieties of the psyche. And these processes of condensing or displacing account for processes of signification that are loaded with metaphors and metonymies. To call someone "fag" or "tomboy," "homosexual" or "lesbian" or
"heterosexual" is to metonymize him or her. It is to take a part for the whole, it is to create an otherness and mark the frontiers of subjectivity (with its corporal dimension). It 310
is a desire to suppress what is fluid through its projection in another/scapegoat that when it becomes the symbolic depository of tiie "irrational," "feminine," "incomplete" acts as a mirror that confers to the aggressor the spurious illusion of totality and completeness.
There are metonymies that tend to confer power and others that tend to create situations of oppression.^'
The daily practice of creating differences as in "they," "the homosexuals, fags, bisexuals. putos, pufiales, leandros, maricas, tomboys, machorras. lesbians, tortilleras" etc., and "us" the "heterosexual" men and women who are "normal" is a homophobic practice that penetrates the anxiety to actualize the borders of subjectivity, conferring the illusion of unity and completeness according to a social ideal of masculinity. The most v isible forms of violence and the most physical ones do not escape this logic. To strike the other previously constructed by society as vulnerable and undesirable is the result of a projection of internal threat found in the other: "the stranger," the "weird" one. The strike intends to suppress, it pretends to suppress the self before conceding and visualizing one's self as vulnerable, incoherent, dependant, wanting. The other reminds me of the artificiality of my construction. The other with a body that resembles mine, offers the
This reflection owes much to the theories of K. Silverman regarding the relationship between semiotics, subjectivity and power expounded in his book The Subject of Semiotics. Metonymy has been studied in its relationship to racism at its intersections with sexism as well as racism in terms of cultural production, especially in literature. For an excellent essay that includes valuable theoretical sources relating to homoeroticism and cultural production in Latinamerica see D. F>oster, Cultwal Production and Homoerotic Identites: Theory and Applicalions. 311
possibility not only of a corporal isomorphism but of one that is wanting. The homophobic murder is the reification of an internal terror/ '
The commentaries of Ivan, a 23 year-old young man originary from Hermosillo, who exhibits feminine mannerisms, is occasionally a transvestite, and with whom 1 was able to chat occasionally, eloquently express the need to objectivize one's anguish and to affirm a power that may help in the construction of the "masculine" image. He told me one time, "the Hrst time that 1 suffered a physical aggression, a person struck me because
I didn't want to be with him, because I rejected him sexually. Later I saw him with his girlfriend, and when he saw me he said, 'how much I hate putos' and he hit me."
Regardless of whether or not the reason could have been the earlier rejection or the need to shut him up for fear of being exposed by Ivan, what takes place is an action of power over the despicable other toward Vk/hom exist an ambiguous relationship of desire and fear.
When the object of violence is a family member or a loved one, similar processes, although more complex, occur. It is not only the "Individual I" who is confronted at the level of desire and at the level of other crucial dimensions of masculine and feminine subjectivity; the personal sense of honor, shame, dignity or "decency." It is also the
"Collective I:" the couple, the friend, family, community, the club, nation, region and religion. The "I" feeds from power and its affiliations with those collectivities, at times
Bibliographic references dealing with the construction of the Other in its relationship with the construction of the modern Self are abtindant mainly because this process, 1 dare say, is one of the most important ones of our time. Some of the well-known authors dealing with this topic are Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, Fanon, Spivak, Ferguson, Anzaldua, Butler, Scott, Benhabib and Cornell, Said. 312
"imaginary" as Benedict Anderson (1983) calls them. The feeling of dishonor, shame, damage inflicted by the homoerotic revelation of a member of the collective is derived from this feeling of threat to the "Collective I" from which we derive our power, and in relationship to which we organize our subjectivity. This is such because the "Collective
I" to whom the "Individual f is affiliated in order to construct the self, has a tremendous gender underpinning.^'^
Now, it is necessary to keep in mind that these daily reactivations of gender identities, of the borders of subjectivity at the personal level, are socially supported by a diversity of institutions and social instances; laws, rules, police edicts, television programs, government programs and public institutions. The reactivation is also supported by norms of etiquette, a number of other social conventions, political and commercial propaganda, instructional documents, questionnaires and credentials. There is a social technology that institutes and reactivates gender identities as well as the ideal of "manliness'' and its psychic and desiring economy. The fear of and anxiety about the
"loss or less of a man" is reproduced as well as the love and erotic pleasure with persons of the sex, supporting then, directly or indirectly, actively or passively, homophobia. It is the same technology that promotes the constant subordination of women and the ever- present possibility of violence against them. For these reasons, homophobia needs the analysis of the interpersonal relation, the inter-subjective experience in order to be
The topic of gender and sexuality in relationship to imagined communities is briefly analyzed by Anderson (1983) by anthropologist like Alonso (1995), but profoundly elaborated by so-called "'Third World Feminists,"' among them Anzaldua (1990), Mohanty (1991), Moraga (1981) and O'Malley (1986). See Mexican intellectuals like Mufliz (2002). My own master's thesis explores the relationship between nationalism, modernity and sexuality in two Mexico-U.S. cultural projects (1994), 313
understood because ultimately, structural, institutionalized homophobia reproduces itself through the practices of persons with flesh and bones; that is, homophobia can not be disarticulated from the transformation of the social technology that reproduces and sustains it. This last reflection helps us imagine a number of actions that can be carried out in order to change the homophobic regime.
To understand the structural causes of gender and sexual violence is to understand that homophobia and misogynic actions are the product of the forms through which subjects are organized. It is understanding how gender identities are constructed, and, above all understanding that these are actions of a dominant model of masculinity based in the repression and despise of the pleasant, affectionate and amorous dimensions as well as other important emotional dimensions. These other repressed dimensions include the capacity to express fear, to express pain, to express vulnerability, need, tenderness, compassion etc., and the privileging of values such as strength, invulnerability, emotional self-sufficiency, rationality: and an institutional net that normalizes and supports it.
VII Respect: the social regulation of the public "homophobic" insult.
Without undermining what has been stated before, and particularly without pretending to take away political importance from homophobia, I believe we should not loose sight of the existence of individual and social forms of resistance to homophobic violence. After all, the anxiety and fear of being called a "fag" a ''puto," as well as the resistance to the effects of the stigma of these terms are part of the reality of men, and should be part of anthropological studies of "homophobia," and of the anthropological studies on the politics of intimacy.
As we will see in the following field notes and reflections, these forms of social contention and individual resistance are linked to values and forms that regulate community life, more specifically, of the small mountain villages in which I have conducted my fieldwork. In the city of Hermosillo, like in other cities in Mexico, homophobic violence sometimes translates into crimes, and recently has found resistance in an organized manner through the pressure of gay groups. I have never known of any such crime in the rural communities I have been working.
(Field notes - February 4, 1998)
This aftenwon after leaving ihe artisan shop of cowboy hoots and having ordered a pair of hoots and talked amply with Javier about his business, 1 stood next to three young men before crossing the road that cuts across Los Corazones, becoming its main street. One of them was older, about 21 years old, while the other two appeared to be 18 and 14 years old, approximately. They were waiting for a ride to a nearby town. The youngest one asked for a ride to a car passing by car which did not stop. As the car moved away, he shouted trying to be funny and venting his frustration "fucking... faguish monkey, " pinche chango joto. 1 don't know if it was someone who identified as such, or if the purpose was to offen—perhaps, as the use of another term suggests. The reaction of the adolescent surprised me, given the sobriety prevalent among the members of these communities, although at times it is "in jest" as the informants indicate. The older youth who was next to him told him in a serious tone: "you are not going to learn to respect
until they bust your muzzle[hocico], cabron? until they bust your muzzle. " The younger one retorted "why are they going to bust it, eh? " The middle young man advised,
"because of a lax mouth [boca floja], " and the older one sarcastically challenges him
"keep on doing it and you will see. "
The situation plays the mobilization of the stigma "joto," as well as the value of
respect when confronted with an insult. It is about a value, taught by the two oldest to the adolescent who does not practice it, because he doesn't know about it or because he doesn't abide by it, in his desire to appear funny or maybe to express anger. The older
boys lecture him about how the lack of this value in the adult world brings violence.
Respect can also be learned through punches by doing violence to the part of the body
that emits the insult, the mouth. The older boys shov*/ they are different from the younger one when they show him that they have incorporated a value: respect.
On this occasion, the insult "fairy," joto. far from attributing the one who emits it an aura of "virility,'" brings a warning about possible violence and places him in a
comparative position of moral inferiority and "inappropriate manliness." The term
muzzle, used to name the mouth of animals, indicates the antisocial, irrational, animal and uncivilized nature of his action. The term "lax mouth" on the other hand, subtracts
"virility" from the action: a "lax mouth" is someone that doesn't control his boundaries,
someone "open, lax, without control of his boundaries." These terms stigmatize and
index "an inadequate manliness." "Respecf and the everyday demonstration of this value are highly regarded by men and women in these communities. It is a value that in the case of adult males participates in the configuration of his moral personality and as a result in the configuration of his "manliness." A "man-man" as Pedro says "is someone that respects and is respected." The lack of this value translates into a "less of a man:" in being a "talker," a "mitotero", or someone with an "inadequate manliness," animal, savage, antisocial: big muzzle.
I believe it is important to attend to this value in order to understand the possibilities of social and individual contention of homophobia. This social contention, at the same time, participates in the dynamics of gender. There is another form of the reproduction of the masculine identity that doesn't need the construction of the Other and his stigmatization; on the contrary, it happens because of the acknowledgement and respect of the other. As I respect the other, without insulting, stigmatizing or reproducing the homophobic violence, 1 can also reproduce my sense of "manliness." Respect becomes an important handle to detain the spiral of anxiety and violence, particularly among the adult males of these communities. The next field note shows us the manner in which the mobilization of the value of "respect" in the masculine subjective and social dynamics modify and paint the homophobic politics of sex and gender in these communities. "Homophobia" that at first sight or as a result of partial information about masculine socialization during infancy or the hermetic image that males project, could appear to be overwhelming and omnipresent. This is something far from being true.
(Field note - December 5, 1999) During these festive days there are a lot of people in the street, from the town as well as visitors. On that morning an interesting situation arose in Pedro's store. As usual, there were many men, about six eating standing and chatting about various topics: the dance, drinking or specific anecdotes. In a moment we noticed that a man about 27years old was approaching. He walked with a cadence and "effeminate " gestures. His city dressing also distanced him from the virile cowboy model of the town. He had an earring on one ear. And several silver rings on several fingers of his hands. The truth is that when I saw him arrive I thought immediately of the reaction he would cause. 1 sensed a form of silence, common among these men when an unknown person penetrates their circle. The man approached the shop and approached Pedro to place an order. He spoke in a so ft tone of voice and a soft entonation,that is, in a way that would be considered delicate,
"feminine " by the standards of the town. Pedro treated him like any other client. While he was being helped he asked fi)r directions to a little area in the region known for its beauty but seldom sought by tourists. Pedro gave him directions on how to get there.
Immediately another one of the men that hung around the place added details and suggestions to avoid getting lost. He asked him if he was traveling with family, maybe to see if he needed to warn him about possible dangers, and the young man answered " no,
I come with my friend, " in the same soft tone of voice, calmed, "effeminate, "but. at the same tim, serious. Pedro gave him the purchase, the young man paid, and as he does with all clients Pedro thanked him. Yet also as Pedro does with all of those foreign to the area, he said: "best wishes...have a good trip". This expression is used by people from these parts and I have perceived it as very caring, particularly because I can sense its sinceriiy. 1 believe these good wishes for the trip say much about a community history in which journeys were long, difficult and dangerous. Among close friends and family members it is not unusual to hear the men even say: "God bless you. "
The young man goes away and I wait for the beginning of comments and Jokes about his
"effeminate demeanor, " as probably would happen among certain lower class groups in cities throughout the country and as I have witnessed. To my surprise no one says anything. The silence is prolonged. While the young man walked away, another man originally from the town, but who lives in Hermosillo, passed him. came into the store and asked "what about this guy? " Pedro, serious and laconic answers without giving much importance to the question: "some guy that comes to the festivities. " No more comments. To my .surprise, respect rides.
1 believe the field note reveals the everyday practice of the value of respect vis a vis the other different in terms of his presence and gender. The young man is not the object of a different treatment; on the contrary he is the object of the cordiality given to visitors and foreigners. The respect to the other is part of the masculine values that undeniably not all men abide by, but that mobilize both the practices and politics of gender. Besides this value, other values of "manliness' work toward this respect: courtesy, hospitality to strangers, and not talking badly behind people's backs (i.e. to tell others in their face 'iike men do"). This last value is not antiquated, on the contrary, in different moments I witnessed how a fevi' youth were admonished by other men when they talked about someone who was not present: '"and why don't you tell him when he is in front of you? Why do you wait until he is not present? Don't be culon, cabron".
Sometimes an extreme value that is sought after is: "not to say anything about anyone unless it can be proven." The value of the proof is also something that is considered "'masculine." In front of the argument without proof, the libel without proof the "talk," is the affirmation of value because it has "'proof" For example, Sergio told me that they had told him in the factory that one of the cousins of El Cabezon had "talked about him," called him a "lag," that they had seen him and a friend "together." He told me that he had gone looking for him so he would '"face him" and so "in front of him" he would repeat what he had said and prove it. He sent notice to the cousin of El Cabezon through the same intermediary and as he said, "'the guy is culon and if he sees me he hides, takes another route, he is embarrassed, but vv'hy is he talking if he is going to end up looking bad? Now I have told everyone that the guy avoids me and does not show his face." The paradox in this story is that, as Sergio says, it is partly real because he and his friend used to "'have fun" during their adolescence.
Gossip needs to be confronted, that is, the gossiper should be "faced," and proofs demanded. In this manner, the subject shows his desire for respect, his valor and, above all, he will demonstrate that he won't take it, that he is not one to be abused without protestation. To confront, demand respect etc., is to send a public message of fidelity to the norms of "discretion and respect'' that leaves he Vv'ho is the object of "talks" with a clean image, and the one who "talks" with the stigma of being a "talker,'" someone not to be trusted, a "lax mouth."
VIII "Everyone is owner of its body": body, autonomy and resistance to homophobia
(Field note - August 14, 2000)
This morning something happeiied that illustrated the meaning of respect and the limits to homophobic violence in the community. I was in the group of men that meet at Pedro's business listening as always to their comments and anecdotes. In this occasion Ventura was also present taking a break from the work he does in the plaza. As usual, Ventura ate and talked at the same time making all the present ones laugh with his stories and harmless imitations of community members. At this time Ramon walked by, a guy I know little about, hut whom Ventura has described as one who takes advantage of others and envious of his good relationship with Ramon's and Chalo 's mother-in-law. Well, Ramon was walking on the other side of the street and he came by where we were, he addressed
Ventura and shouted: "Hey Ventura, so you and Chalo are getting on with it. " he says signaling with his hand at the same time.
The statement took all those present by surprise. A grave silence fdled the place. Pedro stopped working. Disconcerted. Ventura asked:
--What?" - "Don 7 pretend. Yon and Chalo are fucking(estdn cidiando). No? "
I didn 7 know what to think. It is true that Ventura is very inclined to kid around and that his personality might invite for similar embarrassing jokes. But it was also clear that I had never heard a joke like this in the town, and by the grave faces and silence of the other men. that was not being taken as a joke. Ventura, then serious and decided tells him:
'"Come here and repeat in front of me what you are saying. Come because 1 am not sure if I heard you well, " he says while walking toward Ramon who keeps on moving away.
The men in the group begin to say:
- "don 7 let him Ventura, fuck him (chingatelo), don 7 let him. "
- "f uck him Ventura, don 7 let him go. "
Pedro tells him:
-" Ventura, go after him, go after him, don 7 let him get away, don 7 let him insult your respect (que te falte al respeto), fuck him. "
Ventura then crosses the street toward the plaza, calls one of the two policemen that are sitting on a parked patrol car and tells him: "Ifey. grab Ramon and take him to the police station. I will wait for you there. Arrest him for injury and defamation. The policemen start the car and drive toward Ramon who is walking fast. They call him and ask him to get in the car because they are going to take him to the police station due to a complaint. Ramon has no alternative hut to get in the car.
Meantime, Ventura walks toward the police station while the men in the group reassure him:
- "You are going to fuck him. "
- "We are witnesses of what happened. "
- "If they need me I will testify'" says Pedro. "It is time that they give a lesson to that pendejo so he shuts his big mouth. "
Ventura walks toward the station and asks me to accompany him. Ramon is already sitting in the commander's office. Ventura goes in and I wait outside, but I can hear everything that is said.
The commander is 36 years old, blond, with broad shoulders, cmd thick and strong arms and legs. "He is a bull, " a friend told me once when describing him. He has blue eyes, a blond moustache and a serious demeanor that extends to his blue jeans and long sleeve shirt, cowboy hoots and hat. The commander is a handsome man, with a reputation o/' honesty, tranquil, peaceful, good negotiator of town conflicts, but also decisive cmd
"entrdn. " that is, capable of engaging in a fistfight if necessary. He has a good reputation in this area. In other words, the commander is highly respected and estimated because, by far, he is a man that represents the values of "adequate manliness in the town. " The commander, cahned and serious, behind his desk, asks Ventura to explain why he requested that Ramon be picked up. Ventura tells him what had happened. Ramon attempts to interrupt and the commander tells him to he quiet and that in time he will have his turn to speak. Ventura ends his narration stating that he has proof and witnesses of what has happened. The commander asks Ramon: "What do you have to say? " Ramon falls apart into explanations a bit incoherent and attempts to minimize the importance of the event:
- "Oh well, it was only a joke."
Ventura answers:
-"I am not your friend and don't engage in jokes with you, and besides a friend would not joke like that; to no one this is a joke. A friend would never tell me such things in front of others. "
Ramon then retorts:
-"Shhh, so what can you do, it is true, don't pretend, many people say you are a puto; I did not tell anything that was not true... so why do you get upset. "
The commander then intervenes and tells him:
- "Look, the problem here is not if Ventura is a puto or not: the problem here is not
Ventura's life, but you. The problem is that you are not re.specting him. What the fuck you care if Ventura is or isn 't? Who in hell are you to care how Ventura fucks? And why do you have lo he talking about his life, he it true or not? Why do you have to go around talking, like a mitotero. shouting in the street? Then, raising his voice he tells him: "Que te valga verga, do you understand? "
The commander speaks in an angry tone of rapprochement: "You better understand clearly that each one is the owner of his body, eh? Each one owns his own body, and can do as he wishes, as his damn desires want, is that clear? If he likes to be taken or he likes to take it is something that should mean prick to you, do you imderstand me? Anyone can make of his own ass a kite if he wants to, and as long as they don't ask for yours or force you, it is not of your prick business, understood? Now, this is not the first time that you go around "tcdking. " so I see that you need a scare; I am going to fine you, but it better be a warning, one more like this one and you are going to be locked infiyr a few days, eh? The fine is for lacking respect, for injuries, for damage to the morale and public order. " The commander gives him the ticket and tells him that he has one day to pay the fine. And he warns him that any retaliation or later insidt to Ventura will cost him a larger fine and incarceration.
Ramon leaves serious and overwhelmed. After him Ventura starts to leave shaking the hand of the commander, who tells him: "we are here to help, you know " and in low voice
"I am so glad that you brought him here. " Ventura leaves the office smiling and tells me:
"I f ucked him. "
In my opinion, this field note illustrates the existence of a series of values, attitudes and practices, even institutional, that regulate the circulation of homophobic stigma and others stigmas in these small communities. The very men, as exemplified by the reaction of Pedro and group of friends that meet in the store, and who tend to present a harsh image of "manliness,"' demand that respect is uphold in public life independently that they may also speculate about Ventura's life. It is not a matter of truth, but a matter of public order, a matter of how relationships among adults are regulated. Above
Ventura's sexuality is his right to be respected, not to be abused and offended in front of the others. The right for his sexual life to be kept as a private matter, even when it is not approved or is considered negatively, as long as he has not made it a public issue through scandal. This is why the men in the group demand that Ventura claims the respect owed to him, that he '"fucks him," that consequences are applied, that the order and value held in esteem by all be reconstituted. The ''talker" must be punished because of his lack of respect, even for his lack of "manliness", notewihstanding he wanted to make a point on
Ventura's sexual heterodoxy. On the other hand, through the pursuit, Ventura gained in respect and in a "viril" image.
The commander, on the other hand, makes explicit the values that regulate the life of adult males: the right to be respected, the right to individuality, the right to pri vacy, the right to their own body. Way above the discussion about the veracity or falsehood of the identity of Ventura as a "puto," is his right to privacy. His right over his body that makes him equal at least to the rest of the men, "everyone owns his body," that allows autonomy over practices, "he can do with it vv'hatever he dam pleases." Even a supreme affirmation of corporal autonomy and desire that legitimates the right to sexual choice; "anyone can make of his ass a kite.'' Within the proper reservations; "as long as they don't ask you for it or force you.'" Certainly, Ventura enjoys the right to reclaim the loss of respect, as long as he has not abused the respect he owes the community, and he has maintained his relationship and sexual life within "discretion" (not to make scandals). To respect in public the autonomy of the other over his body, his privacy, his right to sexuality as long as it is not scandalous, is a value that is encased in an image of''self-control,"
•'tightness," and "seriousness." Not to do this makes the other a "talker," a "mitotero" as the commander said. It makes him someone who is "less of a man." This attitude of respect, that not necessarily means approval of the sexual life of the other, can become an important element in the masculine deportment. In front of the other, who is different, instead of being afraid, alarmed and give way to criticism, to the "talk," one has to remain calmed, respectful, distant, serious; this is, '"in control of oneself," as a demonstration of supreme individuality and personal security. "It is his thing" is an expression that synthesizes this masculine value which possesses an effect of democratic civility more and more common.
IX "It is his thing": respect, sexual ambiguity and the performance of masculinity.
Although the literature doesn't account for it. many men develop an intuition, a knowledge that permits them to navigate ambiguities, contradictions and instabilities of the patriarchal system and its ideologies in such a way that they are able to resist, evade, transgress, and accommodate to stigmas and their effects in different contexts of life.
This will be explained in more detail in the third section. These strategies of resistance, adaptation and transgression take diverse forms. At times, they exploit the ambiguities of the masculine subjectivity; at times they take advantage and circulate important community values like "respect;" and at times they withdraw to the value of "discretion'" in order to escape the more visceral violence, as we have seen in some of the field notes presented earlier.
An eloquent manner of resisting is playing with the possibilities of applying or not the terms, exploiting the dissonance that exists between the profound equivalence and the concrete designation of different realities. The following field note is revealing in this sense:
This afternoon I took my car to a radiator shop in Hermosillo. A man about 31 years old helped me, manly like all the mechanics that I have known, and qidtefriendly. that is, talkative and relaxed. There M>ere very few customers, mayhe because the time of the day and the heat. Another two men, who worked in the shop, walked around the area, busy in their own duties, which did not impede them from interacting among themselves and with the two customers present. The man who was assisting me, a diligent man in blue jeans, work boots and long sleeve shirt, according to the custom of many men in the region and in spite the heat. The man is handsome and, excluding regionalist biases, I can say that it is not unusual to find handsome men in Hermosillo occupying positions of mechanics, gas dispensers, masons, etc. While he diligently worked hammer in hand, the radio is tuned to a mariachi music station and begins to play a bolero sung by Alejandro
Fernandez, a young singer characterized by the refinement of his physic and educated voice, not very common trails among mariachi singers. The mechanic in question stops hammering and enthusiastically ciy [grita]: "listen, play it louder, that's it. " The other mechanic, the younger one. does as he is told and asks: "do you like this.?" to which the
first mechanic responds while concentrating on his job: "un chingo. " Then he adds addressing me in a virile and strong voice like his deportment. "Compa, to this guy, I'll give them to him, I don 7 give a fuck, I will give them to him [a este hato si se las day, vale madre. si se las doy]. " His young co-worker asks "what will you give him? " "My rear end and whatever else he wants, " answers the mechanic with a firm voice. He then smiles and begins to sing. The incredulous young c-oworker asks "really? " "1 don't give a fuck, "(vale madre) he replies, "the cabron is rete chulo; he has everything, a good voice and he is handsome " he retorts without stopping his work with the hammer. The young partner smiles and tells the other mechanic: "what do you think of this guy? " The other one. older, without much ado answers: "It is his thing, as the saying goes, anyone is free to make a kite of his ass. " His last words were lost between ihe radio tune and the accompaniment that the admirer of Alejandro Fernandez made.
His trade, cloth, mannerisms, the homosocial world in which it unfolds, the cry of enthusiasm, even his taste for the mariachi, everything in the mechanic speaks of his
"manliness," including the words that he uses to qualify his confession of wanting a man: not giving a fuck, cabron—not to talk about the gravity of his voice and tone. The young man smiles and asks, all the while captive by the restlessness that a confession of such nature creates, and particularly when delivered in such a manly manner: direct, decisive, relaxed, self-assured and frank. The dissonance between the content of the confession, 329
the homosexual desire and its virile Forrn make him doubt: "'Are you sure?" and to seek
certainty, referents of Judgment: "what do you think of this guy?"^''
The anecdote portrays two different subjectivities confronting the confessed
homosexual desire: restlessness in the young man, sign of his own anguish, the lack of
worry in the other, older, who also embodies a conception of the right to privacy in
sexual matters and physical autonomy: "it is his thing" and "everyone can make a kite of
his ass." The discretion and respect, as well as the absence of restlessness, also connote
manliness. It is probable that the younger man thinks everything is a joke, that the
mechanic is kidding around, that he is not speaking seriously. It is probable that he is
right, but the message is still the same: the masculinity assured in the field of gestures,
public presence, mobilized with dexterity can create the suspension of the terms of
stigma, even in the case of transgression at the level of sexual desire. The comments of
the older mechanic, the comments of "it is his thing," is a performance of maleness which
is up to par to the performance of the subject. And the younger mechanic appears to learn
the subtle aspects of the politics that regulate male identities and the confession of the
desire of intimacy. In some wat, this is a daring aspect of male socialization too among
" On many other occasions during my fieldvvori<. experiences 1 was able to hear comments made by different men that mobilized the terms of stigma against them, thus suspending the negative charge of the term. For example, when I asked a man while we watch a rodeo in t.os Corazones, if he had ever participated as a rider, he answered me: "no way, 1 am too bizcocho for tliat," A friend of him challenged him: '"don't be a culon,"' (big ass) to which he answered laughing "1 am not culon; 1 am very culon."' The clear confession in an assured manner of what can be understood as cowardice has the paradoxical effect to immobilize its stigmatic connotations, and also its regulative effects of "'manliness." Inget to master this playful meanaing gain in "manly" aura, as they are considered '"seguros de si mismos", as well as "too vagos", that is "too experienced as men"' as to be fearless of homophobic imputations. certain groups of men: to learn to respect and to learn not to have fear or to keep quiet in face of "unexpected or uncommon'" events.
"Resubectivation'', "reverse discourse" are all present in the mechanics behaviour and words. Maybe he does not posses an organized discourse to characterize patriarchy or to resist it, but there is discourse of resistance in practice and in his body, in his performance, in his words and masterfuil play with meanings, and in his practices. He is not vindicating a "gay" discourse, "a right to be homosexual or gay", he is not resisting by defending a particular truth of his subjectivity, but by mobilizing and destabilizing dominant ideologies of manhood and of homosexual desires and homosexual identities.
It is true that we are talking about forms of resistance and mastery of meanings of a stigma that are based on the "masculinity" of the subject, his assured position within the sexual and gender fields as "manly," and even "very manly." This positionality allows the participants to conjure the action of confessing the homosexual desire as something that is incredible, but above all, it allows those present to characterize the individual who is saying it as "very manly." The mastery of this situation is such that the subject shows an absolute sense of security, a supreme control, overall courage and an overcoming of the homophobic anxiety. I, the curious anthropologist continue to ask myself: what is the
"homo" that is the object of phobia in Mexico?" It is disputed field, I tell myself 331
PART II (INTERLUDE)
CHAPTER 5. "MEN" AND KNOWLEDGE: EPISTEMOLOGICAL
REFLECTIONS ON THE STUDY OF "MEN" AS GENDERED SUBJECTS
I Introduction. "Masculinities" in Studies of "Masculinities."^'
Some feminist writers have pointed out that feminism, as a philosophical tradition, originates in the systematic verbal articulation and analysis of women's discontents. This verbal articulation of thoughts and feelings implicitly denounces the power relations operating throughout the social body and the bodies of women, their subjectivities, concepts and words.
Feminism has mounted a revolutionary intervention in a system that limits the possibilities for conceptualizing and understanding reality, including women's ability to conceptualize and understand the reality of their situation of oppression, segregation or domination. Women, and feminism as an intellectual and political movement, have struggled to achieve recognition of their ability to produce and acquire knowledge. They have produced a knowledge that we may call sui generis, given its self-reflexive nature: a knowledge that highlights the technologies of power (its discourses, relations and material operations) operating in the fields of science and academia, technologies that hinder or prevent women from being recognized as gendered subjects and that also
naturalize their oppressed condition. In other words, they have highlighted the
" The terms "men" and "masculinities" are between quotations marks to index that their meanings are not transparent, a nd o n the c ontrary t here is a dispute o ver their m eanings a nd o ver the p ower to h ave t he legitimate meanings (Bourdieu 1990), I argue that this dispute should be part of the objects of study of what 1 prefer to call "gender studies of men". complicity between certain dominant epistemological rules and patriarchal power, which prevents women's realities from being known. This complicity has been attributed to the
"masculine" nature of "modem science", in which the values and definitions of objectivity, objectivization and rationality are also definitions of the "masculine" and of being a "man". Historical research, however, has pointed to the simultaneous emergence on the cultural horizon of the modemity of this association. First feminist philosophers, and later, analysts of masculinities have demonstrated the historical connection between epistemic and socio-political regimes that uphold masculine domination (Bourdieu,
1998).'^
In this context, this chapter explores a fundamental question: what are the epistemological consequences of such a connection for the study of "men"? Can we, in other words, analyze men as gendered subjects within an epistemological framework that feminism has denounced as incapable of articulating women's situation? My goal in posing the question is not only to take the debate one step further, but to stress how important it is that we in Mexico and Latin America make a clear commitment to engage with feminist thought on the gendered nature of the production of knowledge in research on "men", "masculinities", including their affective and erotic intimacies, and the cultural politics that condition them. We must be willing to elucidate and lay out for the academic community our epistemological premises, our theoretical work, our research methods and our techniques; but also, as Bourdieu states in his study on self-reflexivity in
I think Foiicault's work, without affiliating itself to a feminist tradition, nor to the "gender studies of men", explores this link in depth, particularly when he shows the technologies of power at work in the construction of the "homosexual" in the psychiatric and medical discourses (see Foucault 1976, Eribon 1999). 333
science (Bourdieu, 2001), we must be willing to analyze the analysts of the objects of scientific research and to examine the relationship between the trajectories of researchers' lives made habitus (including masculine habitus^^) and the particular methods of intervention in given scientific fields. All in all, we must be willing to commit to debating the operations of our own involvement in the production of knowledge, both in the context of feminist philosophical debate and in feminist ethics.
In this chapter I hope to contribute to that exercise of self-reflexivity by examining three topics: 1) the relationship between men and knowledge in the framework of feminist discussion, 2) men's knowledge and realist constructivism, and 3)
" The concept of "mascuhne habitus" refers to a habitus (Bourdieu 1988, 1998), that is, to a set of dispositions of thought, perception, feeling and action, which works as a matrix of practices. Those dispositions are built through the internalization and embodiment (hexis) of social discourses about "being a man" "or "masculinity", orthodox or heretical, as part of normal gender sociahzation. In the concept "masculine habitus" underlie the existence of a sex/gender system, as well as a subject that happens to be the major locus of a mascuhne pedagogy since birth: the subject bom with male genitalia. Such a commitment is particularly necessary in the fledgling field of "masculinity" or "men's" studies, which in Latin America suffers from certain defects: works plagued by generalizations about "men", most of which are lifted from Anglo-American work, with no solid basis in research (either from Anglo- American or Latin American studies), and which avoid writing that is intimate and introspective, as seen in the Anglo-American essays; an absence of reflection on the process of the production of knowledge itself (ideas are presented without showing what operations were involved in their production, although it is stated that they are based on research) or else there is a small section that refers to a process invested in the language of "hard science"-that is, positivist logic (heaven forbid anyone should doubt the "objectivity" or "rationality" of the researcher, or think that his emotions participated in the production of knowledge)- which in fact obscures the real process involved in its production. There are even academic meetings in which, in my own and others' experience, an arrogant few who masquerade as learned assault, mock, undermine and eventually silence the knowledge of other men and women present-including the knowledge acquired about the complexities and strategies used in the production of knowledge-by claiming legitimate possession of the "legitimate" episteme, theory and method. 1 believe we are witnessing very "virile" performances in the academic field of "men's" studies that make no linkage either to the feminist tradition (including that of Anglo-American pro-feminist men)-which highlights the personal dimension involved in the production of knowledge-or to the feminist tradition that questions modem science as "masculine" science. This very "manly" hermeticism is reinforced by a silent but gradual exclusion or unease about the study of forms of gender and sex dissidence of biologically male humans as regards the definition of "manliness" or "masculinity"-an exclusion that is justified under the pretext that they belong to the subfield of "gay and lesbian studies". In Latin America, this approach to the study of "men" and "masculinity" will become "men's" studies in the most patriarchal sense: as a category that synthesizes and naturalizes the relationship between biological males, men/masculinity and heterosexuality. 334
the importance of focussing on the meanings of the terms "man" and "mascuhne" as the objects of investigation instead of falling into them (according to Bourdieu's theory of realist constructivism), in so far as they participate in the politics of meaning of the reality we seek to examine.
II Feminism, Women and Knowledge
Feminist exegesis of women's knowledge, education, oppression and liberation has a long history and has incorporated a variety of emphases, themes and theoretical and political analyses. From Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz's "Respuesta de la poetisa a la muy ilustre Sor Filotea de la Cruz" (Foster, 1994), through Mary Wollstonecraft (see 1998) and her vindication of women's capacity for reason and their right to education at the end of the 18"^ century, to postmodern feminist criticism of the gendered subtext of modem science, women and feminism have transformed and refined their critical vision of the situation of women and knowledge.
The feminist philosopher Rae Langton, for example, demonstrates in her essay
"Feminism in the Epistemology: Exclusion and Objectiflcation" (2000) that feminism has shown at different times that women have been "excluded" from knowledge and have been "damaged" in different ways. The author's examination of these forms of exclusion and damage is, in my view, a synthesis of the different emphases and revelations that the worldwide feminist movement itself has provided vis a vis the situation of women and knowledge at different points in history.^' More precisely, Langton's text identifies five
I should point out that this is a personal opinion, rather that a statement of Langton's. possible forms of exclusion of women from knowledge. I will now proceed to summarize and comment on those five forms:
1) Firstly, says Langton, women can be excluded from knowledge when women's life is made invisible by different bodies of knowledge. One example of this is when woman is converted into terra incognita or is subsumed into the generic "male." In these cases, women and their specificity remain unknown;
2) Secondly, women can be excluded in so far as society denies them the possibility of being the subjects or owners of knowledge. Because they are women, it is assumed that they do not "know"; it has even been said that they lack the capacity and sometimes the right to "know".
3) Thirdly, women can be excluded from knowledge if they are denied knowledge about themselves, as women in a patriarchal society. Betty Friedan (1975) identified an example of this type of exclusion when she referred to the "problem without a name": the way "women's discontents" become invisible due to women's social situation of oppression and subordination, which has no place in "knowledge" because of the absence of a feminist perspective that might question the state of things considered "natural" or
"normal";
4) Fourthly, women may be excluded from knowledge as knowing subjects, that is, in so far as they are not recognized as subjects who produce knowledge, because they lack credibility in their discipline or in society due to the fact that they are women. In a society with certain predetermined concepts about what constitutes knowing and producing knowledge, sexist associations between women and irrationality, unruliness. nature, emotion, the body and subjectivity lead to a series of attitudes and practices that
devalorize women's cognitive activities;
5) Finally, as Langton points out-and this point is closely linked to the last one-women
can also be excluded as producers of knowledge by the very concept of what is
understood and valued as knowledge. On this point, a feminist critique is crucial, the
author says, above all in relation to the uncritical use of notions such as "objectivity" and
"knowledge". This last point is particularly relevant because it refers to a fundamental
issue: epistemology and women's situation. Due to its bearing on the subject of this
chapter (men, knowledge and the production of knowledge by men as gendered subjects),
it deserves fuller examination.
In the theories of various contemporary feminist philosophers, the issues of
objectivity, objectification, truth-construction and the role of reason and the emotions in
the production of knowledge are crucial. This is mainly because certain epistemological premises and theories contribute to the objectification of women and the maintenance of
the reality that feminist philosophers seek to explore, a reality that is based on the
oppression of women.
Langton gives an example of this process: let us suppose that a man looks at the social world objectively; that is, he follows the norms of what Haslanger terms
"Supposed Objectivity" (1993). Let us suppose that in this world there exists a gender hierarchy. This man will observe that women appear, in general, to be sexually submissive. Following the norms of objectivity (supposed aperspectivity), he assumes that such circumstances are normal, and following another norm (that of absolute 337
aperspectivity) he concludes that this is a genuine rule. Following the norm of
epistemological neutrality (another norm of "Supposed Objectivity"), he attributes that
rule to women's nature and, finally, following the norm of practical neutrality, the man
ends up structuring social arrangements to accommodate that nature. According to
Langton, one of the possible results of this procedure could be that he dominates women
in sexual relations, thereby maintaining and legitimizing reality as he sees it.
This connection between the norms that regulate objectivity and the process of
objectification leads feminists like Mackinnon (1987) to postulate a close link between objectivity, objectification and social dominance. That is, between a given epistemology
and ontology, and society's oppression of women. Objectivity functions as an
ideological tool by which the beliefs and categories of the subject who produces
knowledge become self-confirming. Beliefs, when made into categories, govern one's
perception of reality, but reality itself is the product of the beliefs and categories of the subject who wishes to know. The beliefs of the subject who knows and his/her categories of analysis produce reality in and of themselves, and are part and parcel of power relations. In these cases, therefore, objectivity becomes objectification and domination.
Ill Epistemology of the "Point of View" and Constructivist Epistemology: Two
Feminist Approaches to the Study of "Men" and Knowledge
The study of men from the perspective of gender cannot ignore the above series of epistemological critiques and analyses without contributing to what feminism has so often criticized: 1) ignoring the existence of a feminist body of knowledge and 2) reproducing an epistemology that, as feminist philosphers point out, tends to exclude and damage women. In addition, feminist critiques also give rise to a series of questions and challenges for men's studies.
Various questions emerge from feminism's analysis of modem epistemology and its masculine subtext. Should we infer from feminist analysis that men are never excluded or damaged with respect to knowledge? Has the epistemology of modem science allowed for "men's" knowledge? Can we expect an epistemology that excludes women from knowledge by objectifying them and naturalizing their socially constructed situation to help us understand men? What is the relationship between actual men and an epistemic model that contributes to the exclusion and domination of women? What is the link between epistemology and gender? What epistemic hypotheses would allow us to examine males as gendered subjects?
An erroneous reading of feminism's critique of women and knowledge would be to assume that, unlike women, "men" are never excluded or damaged as regards knowledge. As Langton puts it, this argument would have it that:
1) "men"^^ are never excluded as objects of knowledge
2) "men" are never excluded as possessors of knowledge
3) "men" never lack or are deprived of knowledge about themselves
4) "men" are never excluded from being producers of knowledge by reason of their lack of social credibility (because of their gender identity)
5) concepts about knowledge and the production of knowledge never exclude "men".
The quotation marks indicate the non-transparent, debatable meaning of this term, a central facet of my argument in this essay. 339
This belief that "men", unlike "women", are never excluded or damaged with regard to knowledge can be traced to a confusion and assimilation of the epistemological operations that have, as Langton demonstrates, functioned to exclude women from knowledge, under the assumption that these epistemological operations are the expression of the "male standpoint.
The concept of the male standpoint posits the existence of a "point of view",
"position of knowledge" or "epistemic position" of "men" (or more literally "biological males"), whose production of knowledge would thereby exclude women in the multiple ways mentioned above. This concept attaches a capacity for knowledge to the fact of
"being a man" or the "condition of manliness"-that is, to one's biological sex or gender construction. In its most conservative, sexist (not feminist) version, this capacity is seen as a biological given, arising from the anatomical and physiological characteristics of human males (their brain function, genes, etc.). From this perspective, male practices, including their cognitive practices, would derive from their biological condition as
"men", their intrinsic nature. In the feminist version, the "male standpoint" refers not to biological nature, but to a second "nature": social experience. That is biological "men's" experience of socialization according to the social role of "being a man" creates in men a
1 should mention, before proceeding with my analysis, that the feminist movement has constructed different epistemological models (see Frye 1983, Harding 1987, 1990, Hallway 1989, Harstock 1987, Collins 1990), and different critiques of the epistemology of modem science, as well as different ways of linking science and feminism's political interests (Butler J. and J. Scott 1992). The epistemic approach of the "standpoint" and the constructivist approach are the two most important. As I will show, the "standpoint" approach is inadequate to explain to complexity of "men in relation to knowledge", in part because of its lack of discussion of language and the processes of signification in the construction of experiences, identities and social relations, aspects that constructivist criticism has begun to question. "particular social experience" which determines their "standpoint", a vision of the world,
an "epistemic position" which excludes women from knowledge in numerous ways.
This second position, even though it acknowledges the socially constructed nature
of "being a man", thereby raising the concept of gender, is nevertheless, from a
constructivist perspective, debatable on various levels: 1) even though it posits that
"being a man" is socially constructed, it does not problematize the relation between
"men" (biological males) and the "manliness" of subjects socialized "as men", as if the concept "men" were transparent and clear in and of itself; 2) it establishes a relationship between "being a man" and "having a male standpoint" since it posits "experience" (of masculine socialization) as a homogeneous and consistent reality, without acknowledging the heterogeneous character not only of male socialization but of the meanings given to those experiences by the socialized subjects themselves; 3) this underlying concept of
"experience" supports a term, the "male standpoint", that sustain a homogenizing notion over "men's" capacity to understand, know and hopefully act in the world. The notion that the categories "men" and "experience" are realities that exist outside their signifying contexts eventually silences the complexity of reality, by essentializing "men" and marginalizing "other men" from knowledge and any possibility of cognitive dissidence.
All of the above reasoning is necessary to question the epistemological perspective that assumes the existence of a "male standpoint". How does one define
"men"? As those who have a male standpoint? Or should we assume that all biological
"men" develop a "male standpoint"? Are there any biological "men" who do not develop a "male standpoint" via their experience of socialization in patriarchal society? Are those 341
who do not have a "male standpoint", but who are biologically male, "men" or not?
These questions unsettle the stable, transparent character of the ontological condition to which the term "men" refers, as well as the epistemic position to which it supposedly gives rise: the existence of a "male standpoint". They therefore contradict the affirmation that "men", unlike "women", are neither damaged nor excluded from the processes of producing knowledge.
The idea of the "male standpoint" underestimates the social and subjective processes involved in the experience of "becoming a man" in a patriarchal society (the same could be argued of the idea of a "female standpoint"), insofar as it does not problematize the relation between two different realities: 1) the dominant discourses of gender that legitimize masculine differentiation/domination and that establish symbolic coordinates for male socialization, subject formation and gender identity (as well as the dominant models of perception that structure "good science") and 2) actual males (and their specific lives) as social subjects in a patriarchal society.
To paraphrase Haslanger's analysis: from an objectifying epistemology based upon a reification of "men" (which avoids problematizing language itself, in this case the meanings of the term "men"), and applying a supposedly "objective" criteria (such as the possession of a particular anatomy and physiology, or "the experience of being a man"), the way "men" regularly behave (under supposedly "normal" conditions), is understood as being either 1) an expression of the "nature" of the thing itself, "men") or, 2) an inevitable consequence of their "experience as men" in a patriarchal society. 342
Once this "nature" or "essence" is established, a power relation is established over the actual beings who are expected or supposed to behave in a certain way: "men" who do not demonstrate that normal behavior become "suspect in nature", and are pressured to adapt their social behavior to "men's nature" or else be excluded from the concept of
"men". The process of objectification and the supposed objectivity within the framework of realist empiricism, which does not see reality as a product of cultural and historical forces, ultimately affirms a reality that has actually been constructed under the influence of unquestioned conceptions and categories that collude with a system of social differentiation (in this case gender), and that are used as guides to knowledge. The dominant ideology of patriarchy that naturalizes human behaviors by attributing them to sexual difference is thus legitimized.
The epistemological theory of "standpoint" has similar consequences: sex is seen as destiny for "men", a destiny inextricably linked to an epistemic regime of knowledge which, in addition to homogenizing them (by means of the "standpoint"), defines them as colluding with a regime that, as feminists have demonstrated, excludes and damages women. Both of these approaches essentialize "men", and portray them as victims of their biology or products of social experience, incapable of breaking free of the epistemic constraints of patriarchal society; in other words, of breaking with a certain way of understanding reality that has been constructed by the relations of power and knowledge in which they are immersed. This impossibility of breaking free of the epistemic constraint leads, according to this argument, to men's inability to stop colluding in society's domination of women as a gender. 343
The epistemic constraint in relation to males and knowledge is not bom out, however, by the testimony of many men as seen in the growing number of written or oral narratives emerging from consciousness-raising groups, community workshops on gender, research interviews, and the organizations and cultural productions of gay, bisexual and heteroflexible men,^"^ or even, for that matter, the comments of ordinary men. I refer to the voices that articulate a complex, ambiguous (and usually painful) passage through machista society; a dissonant sensibility; alternative conceptions of what it means "to be a man"; a constant battle over the meanings of "being a man"; a repressed awareness of the performative nature (Butler, 1990) of the expected (and desired) identity; and also, of course, a "feminine" or "effeminate" dissidence and a heightened perception of the symbolic domains of gender, involving intimate bodily and emotional experience of the relation between the possibilities of knowledge, power and resistence
(seeNuilez, 2000; Seidler, 2000, 1989, Kimel and Messner, 1989; Prieur, 1998; among others).
Needless to say, the technologies of power operating in the sexual domain work to deny these "men" who resist orthodox notions of sex and gender any epistemic capacity for knowledge about "men" or "manliness", either their own or those of "men" close to them, by discrediting their condition as "men" (because they are dissidents). As an ideological corollary, such men are also denied any "ability to know", according to andocentric and homophobic logic.
The term heteroflexible refers to those who prefer to be heterosexual, but who are flexible and open to erotic and emotional desires and encounters with people of their own biological sex. Another issue that I believe to be clear is that the epistemic foundation of the
"male standpoint" cannot account for the diversity of "men" themselves-their voices,
stories and knowledge about themselves and their condition of "manliness", which are
mostly communicated in day to day private relations amongst themselves and in the
privacy constructed by the interview process in anthropological or sociological research.
Such knowledge, voices and stories are generally presented in an ambiguous and
contradictory manner.
Both Langton's discussion of the way in which women can be excluded from
knowledge by the processes of objectification concealed in orthodox notions of
objectivity and my own analysis of males and knowledge, including my critique of the
model of the "male standpoint", reveal the foundations of the current epistemological
debate in social sciences between empiricist logic and the constructivist paradigm.
Feminism itself has enriched constructivism by making visible the ideologies of gender
that have permeated western culture-its values, concepts and paradigms, its common
sense and its institutions, including those connected to the production of knowledge.
There is an interesting link, therefore, between feminism's critique of the dominant
scientific model and constructivist arguments, especially those arising in sociology and
post-structural anthropology.
Reviewing these fundamental axes of difference and constructivist and feminist
constructivist critiques of positivism and neopositivism leads us to an important and basic
question which is not always adequately answered: what is the ontological condition of
"men"? I believe that a constructivist reply to this question allows us to re-envision the 345
relation between "men" and knowledge, and also "men's" capacity for knowledge as gendered subjects. It also allows us to see that this capacity for knowledge necessarily leads us to question our understanding of how knowledge is produced and how gender is involved in its production. We must, inevitably, take a personal, gendered stance on the way in which we produce knowledge through our practices in research and academia.
IV The Study of Social Reality: A Constructivist Epistemological Framework for the Study of Males as Gendered Subjects
Epistemology analyzes what human beings understand by "knowledge", the possibilities for knowing and the nature of the "production of knowledge", or the
"process of knowing". In as much as the process of knowing always refers to a reality- however one defines it-epistemological analysis necessarily involves an ontological element: a discussion (and concept) of "being", the nature and qualities of "being", the reality we seek to know. There are two central questions in epistemology: what is reality? And how can we know it?
The debate surrounding these questions is a complex one that goes back a long way. It includes a wide variety of topics and approaches, the details of which fall beyond the scope of this essay. Some themes in the debate do, however, bear particular relevance to my analysis, since they are linked to the paradigms, theories and methodologies I propose for the study of "men" as gendered subjects and for the study of the social processes involved in "becoming a man". These themes center on the relation between the subject, concepts and reality, and on dominant notions about this relationship: 1) 346
objectivity and what has been called the process of objectification of social reality, 2) the supposedly transparent, referential relationship between language and reality, 3) the existence of a neutral standpoint, produced by a separation between the subject and reality and 4), the centrality of reason as a guarantee of the subject's objective relation to reality.
1) The Objectification of Social Reality
Briefly, by objectification of social reality we mean the process by which social reality becomes a "thing", outside history. Social reality as perceived by the subject appears as a "thing" which has an "intrinsic nature". The subject who knows assumes, therefore, that s/he has to conform to the "nature of things". Regular occurrences in social reality are understood as the expression and confirmation of that "intrinsic nature".
Critiques of positivism have pointed out that this process of objectification has political consequences: once the "nature" of the "real" is known, knowledge serves to legitimize
"reality as it is" and thus the social and political operations which seek to permanently adjust the real to "what nature decrees".
This process of objectification is based upon the supposition that reality is what
"is", that it is clearly external to the subject and that what "is there" is an expression of its
"real nature" or "essence". The study of this objectified "reality" naturally involves a so- called "objective" attitude, one which pertains to the object itself and not to the "way" of thinking or feeling of the subject seeking knowledge. Objectivity supposedly involves an impartial, rational, unemotional, value-free approach to the object of study. These characteristics of objectivity are supposedly the result of knowledge and truth. 347
For a long time, this interpretation of objectification and objectivity was the basis for the production of knowledge in the social sciences. Such knowledge claimed to be scientific because it was considered objective, directed at an object that the subject could analyze from a point of view that was considered "universal", "neutral" reason,
"unprejudiced" by the social circumstances of the thinking, acting subject.
In opposition to these epistemic and ontological positions naturalizing reality
(which we have grouped under the headings of objectivity and objectification), there are other interpretations of social reality and the process of knowing that stem from a rich tradition questioning realist empiricism and modernity. Let us now turn to those other interpretations.
The process of objectification and the objective stance are far from being positions of "neutrality" and "universal reason". In fact, objectification and objectivity involve a series of choices, intellectual operations and judgements which reveal that the knowing subject is socially positioned; for example: 1) the denial of any historical dimension to social reality and the resultant refusal to explain or understand current social reality as something that has been transformed over time (versus "nature"); 2) the refusal to accept that the body and the emotions furnish ways of knowing, and instead valuing (indeed privileging) "impartial reason"; 3) the resultant invisibility of the overlap between reality (which is objectified, assumed to be external to the subject) and the subject, which is manifested in the very categories of thought that the subject uses to refer to reality, categories that influence social action, and 4) the interest that the subject has in whether reality remains the same or gets transformed. Objectivity, if defined as a point of view that is not socially situated, does not exist. The objectiflcation of reality, as part of this process of objectivity, involves a choice.
Social reality is not a "thing" that possesses a "nature" or "intrinsic characteristics", but rather the result of particular social and historical forces. Knowledge of the real should not presuppose that reality has a "nature" or "defining essence", but should focus instead on uncovering the social and historical forces that have produced it.
The regularity of an occurrence is not an indicator of its "naturalness", but rather of the social components that have contributed to its permanence-components we can seek to examine. Social action can be explained socially, that is, in terms of the social forces that make it possible. The knowing subject should not assume that s/he has to accept "the nature of things", but should make the process of acquiring knowledge a process of questioning and investigation of the elements that participate in the constant construction of the real. In this way, knowledge both reveals the mechanisms of power that construct reality and also offers possibilities for transforming it. Since reality is a social and historical construct, the subject is connected to reality in various ways. Firstly, the subject is also a social and historical construct. Secondly, the concepts s/he uses to define social reality are themselves products of society and history. Lastly, the actions and relationships that the subject establishes in the process of producing knowledge are also social and historical relationships. The subject who seeks knowledge is socially situated, with desires and interests, and s/he is inextricably linked to the power systems that constitute social reality. 349
2) The Referential Nature of Language.
Underlying the concepts of objectivity and the objectification of social reality is a
vision of language as a transparent medium that links reality to the referent. Thus there is
an underlying "presentist" premise according to which, although the individual cannot be sure of what happened in the past nor of what will happen in the future, s/he can trust his/her knowledge of the present, the here and now, the perceptual present of the world as s/he experiences it. According to this notion, the subject can know in the present because s/he has an unmediated access to reality, which s/he can name by means of speech acts.
This concept of language has, however, been questioned by philosophers and linguists.
Derrida calls this belief in the possibility of knowing reality in the present a "metaphysics of presence". Derrida criticizes this approach on the basis of its underlying concept of language. For Derrida, the perceptual present, our experience, involves a process of signification. The relationship between reality and concept is not transparent. That is, language is not a transparent medium that links concept to reality, but is in itself a social and historical construct. The signified is not the essence of reality, not intrinsic to the
"thing", but rather emerges within a signifying system of differance, namely, by difference and deferral of meaning. Language involves concepts for understanding and ordering reality. This approach to the relationship between language and reality does not deny that reality exists, but merely that it exists for human beings outside the framework of meaning. Emest Laclau provides an interesting example of this in terms of a football.
It is not that this spherical object does not exist, but rather that it is only a "football" by means of a process of signification and not in and of itself. Language exists as a series of 350
social discourses that refer to concepts or aspects of reality which in turn dictate ways on
acting on reality and therefore the possibilities for changing it. Far from being merely a
means to refer to an object that exists "out there", language is a way of distinguishing
"objects" within reality, understanding their relation to other "objects" and thus of tracing
ways and means to know and act towards them.
3) The Separation Between Subject and Reality
According to the hegemonic discourse of logical empiricism, objectivity and objectification necessarily imply a separation between the subject's desires and reality.
Although this is never stated, it is assumed that the subject occupies a "neutral" or
"universal" role. The very concept of objectivity refers to a radical split between subject and reality: the subject is supposed to be capable of relating to reality in such a way that his/her thought processes and feelings do not come into play.
The subject, however, is always a specific social subject, culturally formed and historically conditioned. The subject who wishes to know is socially situated, both in
terms of identity and cultural baggage as well as in terms of the conceptual framework
and paradigms with which s/he approaches reality in order to know it. It is not feasible to expect that the subject's thoughts and feelings have nothing to do with this process, since the categories of thought and choices of object of study are inevitably part of any process of knowledge production, and the subject constructs him/herself precisely by those very categories and choices. That is, the subject is connected to reality by means of language, since the concepts with which s/he claims to describe social reality in order to know, order and classify it are the very concepts which serve to order his/her understanding of 351
him/herself within that reality. They serve to situate him/herself and as a basis for action.
The subject also accesses him/herself via language, the same language used to know
reality. His/her definition of reality is consciously or unconsciously, directly or
indirectly, a definition of him/herself as social subject. The concepts s/he uses to
understand social reality are the concepts that allow him/her to understand his/her social
actions and relations, and therefore his/her position in the social world. A social world
that is, as we have already stated, produced by social and historical forces, and organized
by power relations.
Bourdieu's analysis of the representation of reality and power is pertinent in this sense. For Bourdieu (2001, 1990), the categories we use to know should be scrutinized, and should themselves become objects of study, if we are not to fall into them ourselves, since these categories are part and parcel of our construction of reality. They serve to delineate differences and the resultant distinctions of social power. Thus reality involves a struggle for signification, a struggle for the power to signify social reality, the right to legitimate representation. The system of representation which is set in motion in the process of research means that the researcher participates in the configuration of relations of difference in the social reality in which s/he him/herself is immersed.
Furthermore, the acts of knowledge are inscribed in a particular social process that bring the researcher into contact with other subjects and social institutions which invest meaning in the very act of knowing and in reality itself. The subject who seeks to know is a subject who takes part in social structures of meaning regarding acts of knowledge, reality and the legitimacy of the knowledge produced. Therefore the subject does not 352
exist in a vacuum from which s/he constructs his/her objective perspective, but in one or more social positions. In producing knowledge, s/he also produces him/herself as a socially positioned subject, someone "capable" of producing knowledge, especially if s/he operates within certain institutions and disciplines.
4) The Centrality of The Subject in Reason
The concept of objectivity and objectification also presupposes that the subject has access to reality through reason and that reason is what makes objective knowledge possible. The individual is defined by his/her capacity for reason, according to
Descartes' rationalist stance: I think, therefore I exist. The subject is defined by his/her capacity for reason, as an essence that permeates his/her individuality, the nucleus of his/her individuality and identity. Reason provides the individual with stability, homogeneity and internal coherence. This centrality of the subject to reason makes it possible for him/her to know objectively, to construct objective truths and, indirectly, to have dominion over nature and therefore freedom.
This importance of reason to the subject has been questioned, however, by various different disciplines: sociology, linguistics and psychoanalysis. The most sophisticated critique of this modem concept of the individual comes from the field of psychoanalysis, which argues that the individual is not centered in reason, that is, consciousness; therefore, the subject is not homogenous, coherent or stable. For psychoanalysis the "I" does not possess a rational essence; it is not a given, but is constructed by conflict and negation. 353
Lacanian psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on the conscious and unconscious processes of signification, has enriched the critique of the reason's supposed centrality for the subject. According to Lacan, the subject is constructed by a series of lacks or losses and eventually learns to equate subjectivity with sign. At the same time, two processes of signification take root in the psyche: the unconscious and the conscious.
When s/he speaks s/he not only enunciates the product of conscious logic, but also the products of another logic, that of the unconscious. Under these conditions, the production of knowledge is not the product of purely rational activity, but that of a complex interplay of desires, emotions, rational choices, and unconscious and conscious interests, whether the subject accepts this or not.
In view of psychoanalyst's contribution, the examination of how meaning is produced should include a consideration of the psychic processes of desire that bolster our approach to reality, our choice of object, our conceptual and methodological choices- in other words, we need to consider the ways in which our emotions and desires participate in the process of producing knowledge. The lack of attention to such factors does not imply that they are not in fact involved, but rather that they are ignored or silenced, in ways that can serve certain power interests in academia. Contemporary theories involving the concept of self-reflexivity in research, in both meanings of the term
([1] reflexivity as critique of the socio-cognitive conditions involved in the possibility of knowing reality and [2] reflexivity as attention to the emotions, interests, choices, values,
An author that explores this links between semiotics, psychoanays and post-structuralism is Kaja Silveman (1983) 354
and personal or institutional difficulties which the researcher encounters in his/her work)
also echo these ideas.
V The Ontological Condition of "Men": A Constructivist Vision of Gender
Identities
Feminist theory from the outset has emphasized the socially constructed nature of women's condition, by drawing a distinction between "gender" (even though this concept is sometimes prefigured in an ambiguous way in "pre-gender" literature) and "sex", a binarism that dramatizes the difference between biology and culture. Nevertheless, within feminism there are different approaches to "woman"-and by implication, "man"- as social construct. These differences stem from different notions of social reality.
Constructivist feminism allows us to conceptualize the issue of "men" and knowledge from a different viewpoint. Indeed, as a result of its critique of the concept of "woman" as the universal subject of feminism, constructivist feminism poses certain basic, fundamental questions for the study of males as gendered subjects: when we talk of
"men", what do we mean? To what are we referring? What is the ontological condition of "men"? How should we conceptualize our approach to that reality? What epistemological and theoretical premises should inform our approach to the reality called
"men"? From the constructivist point of view, as we have already mentioned, we must necessarily take the concept of "man" itself as the object of analysis and attempt to understand how it is involved in the construction of the real. Following constructivist critiques of language, we can theorize that the term "man" is not simply a means to refer 355
to a reality out there that possesses the "essence of man", but is a concept used to effect differentiation within reahty, based on a particular set of criteria and within a signifying system. It is part of the struggle over what Bourdieu calls the power of legitimate representation of social reality, which is a form of political struggle, since social distinctions are organized on the basis of those representations-in this case, representations of gender.^^ In other words, from a constructivist perspective, "man" is not an essence of something, nor a signifier with a transparent signified, but a way of understanding, a way of constructing reality, a series of meanings attributed and defined by society within the framework of a network of meanings with power implications. The term "men" refers to a cultural fiction (Butler, 1990); a convention of meaning that has produced and continues to produce a series of effects upon bodies (particularly biologically male bodies), subjectivities, practices, things and relationships. In other words, it contributes to a material reality, the reality of a society whose predominant mode of thinking about itself is via those very concepts (which have become diacritical perceptions of meaning). The concept "man" exists within a contested convention of meaning and produces material effects that are then utilized as evidence of the
"naturalness" and "transparency" of the concept itself, a circular logic that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.^'
The questionable nature of the term "men", used uncritically by many academics, is particularly evident when we analyze the concept from the point of view of those subjected to the power of that gender distinction: those who occupy subordinate positions and whose identity as "men" is always begrudged, even though they are biologically male, because of their particular sexual or gender characteristics: effeminate, sensitive ornurturing males, gays, bisexuals, heteroflexibles, transvestites, etc. The "masculinity" or the "masculine" are not essences of things or people, but ways of signifying objects, qualities, bodies, actions, subjectivities and relationships. Crying is not innately masculine or feminine, except within the framework of certain conventions of meaning and certain polemics. This is According to constructivist thought, then, the meanings of the term "men" (as of any term) are not fixed, even though there are social institutions that attempt to fix them by means of a dominant discourse. Rather, they emerge in their relation of difference with other terms and in a chain of signifieds that defer its meaning, following Derrida's semiotic notion of the term difference. Thanks to this process of difference, the meanings of the term "men", far from being predetermined, are ambiguous, elusive and even contradictory.
A central facet of constructivist studies of social reality (as seen in post- structuralist sociology) concerns the construction of the subject and his/her grasp of selfhood within given processes of signification. In opposition to the view of pre- discursive "experience" as the basis for a "point of view", the epistemology of constructivist realism defines experience as an act, both a material action and an act of signification at the same time, that contributes to the construction of subjectivity, understood as a matrix of action: a collection of norms of perception, thought, feeling and action, that acquire a corporal residence, what Bourdieu would call a "hexis".
Thus it is important to consider whether the complex links between the social meanings of "manliness" (with all its ambiguity and heterogeneity) and biologically male babies, who are social subjects submitted to a process of socialization to turn them into
"men" or make them express what is presumed to be their "natural manliness" arising from their biology. This is a complex relationship in a history of socialization that does why studies of masculinities are so interesting, because they attempt to elucidate the way in which gender significations are negotiated, assigned or contested in particular communities of meaning and particular contexts. If we do not understand the initially symbolic character of gender, we run the risk of reducing studies of masculinities to a mere cataloguing of "masculine" things, quahties, attitudes or relationships. This is the origin of many of the familiar generahzations in what is known as "men's studies". 357
not culminate in perfect harmony.^^ By virtue of the characteristics of the processes of signification and the process of socialization itself, people socialized in conceptions of
"manliness" (because they are "men" and so that they "become men") do not necessarily
always coincide in their practices, bodies, concepts and relationships to dominant notions
of what it means to "be a man". Thus there is a difference between these beings who are
pressured to call themselves "men" and who are socialized according to gender concepts,
and dominant discourses of gender that lay out what "men" are "supposed to be" (in order to be included in the symbolic construct called "men"). The drama of that gap is the drama of "men's" condition as gendered subjects in patriarchal society. It is a gap that has been encapsulated by the postulate of feminist psychoanalysis that "the penis is not the phallus". There is an intriguing gap or slippage here between concept and reality that is very productive in epistemic terms. When realist constructivism questions the role of language by examining the categories of analysis, it is capable of revealing both the artifice of the real and its fragmentary and incoherent nature.
This line of argument allows us to affirm that there is no such thing as "men", in the homogenous and transparent sense in which the term is commonly used. We cannot speak of a "male standpoint" in general in our society, even if we consider "men" as gendered subjects, since the process of constructing "men" as gendered subjects is not a homogenous or consistent process. There is no "male standpoint" in reality, regardless of whether we refer to biological sex or gender. Instead, there are enunciations that acquire
We see here how a central ideologeme of patriarchy contradicts males' experience of socialization. If "men's" "masculine" behavior is a natural consequence of their biology, why should human males be in need of disciplinary masculinization? (Niifiez 2000). 358
a certain regularity in social practice (whether verbal or otherwise) and that permit us to speak of a dominant discourse of "being a man", a symbolic domain of "manliness" or the "social ideal of being a man". This last involves a series of expectations as regards perception, feeling and action; it is a discourse integrated in a technology of power that operates on subjects in the construction of their subjectivities and bodies.
Victor Seidler (1989, 2000), the philosopher and sociologist who has studied masculinities, comments that the definitions and social ideals of masculinity coincide in interesting ways with modernity's dominant concepts and values regarding objectivity, reason, the emotions, nature, the body and language. They even coincide with the modem ideal of the individual centered in reason, in control of his/her emotions, capable of relating to the world objectively and of analyzing it by means of a supposedly
"universal" reason. Any subject with a penis and testicles who is socialized according to this ideal is pressured to incorporate its characteristics and to repress, deny or ignore features associated with the "feminine" (certain emotions and forms of attention to the body, etc). Consequently, beings socialized as "men" according to the concepts of manliness or masculinity not only become unaware that they are gendered subjects (they assume they are "naturally men"); they also, as different authors have demonstrated, construct themselves via a series of repressions and losses relating to the "feminine" which are silenced by the dominant notion of "the naturalness of being a man".89
These arguments advanced by constructivist and post-structuralist social theory lead us to re-envision and re-articulate the central point of this essay; the issue of the
Literature on this subject is abundant. Badinter (1995) explores in detail this process. MacBride (1995) explores the subject from a psychoanalyst and feminist perspectives. 359
relationship between "men and knowledge" in the context of feminist debates and concerns. I believe it is possible to affirm that "men" as gendered subjects are excluded from knowledge and damaged in different ways:
1) "Men" are excluded from knowledge as gendered subjects in traditional bodies of knowledge, especially when they are described in terms of predetermined "natures" or as
"universal" beings,
2) "Men" can be excluded from knowledge, as possessors of knowledge, when they are deprived of certain ways of knowing-through their emotions, their dynamics of desire,
their bodily experiences, and to the extent that they are coerced into acting rationally and
despising/repressing their symbolically "feminine" dimensions,
3) "Men" can be excluded from knowledge if they do not recognize themselves as gendered subjects; when they cannot see a connection between their discontents (like risk
behavior, for example), their "problems with no name", and their gender construction;
4) "Men" can be excluded from knowledge when they are deprived of credibility as
beings capable of producing ("objective") knowledge, incapable of "objectivity" because
they are considered symbolically "feminine": men in a heterodox position with regard to
sex and gender. There is an unequal distribution of power between "men" that we may
call an "epistemic injustice" (to paraphrase feminist thought) among "men" themselves.
That is a different legitimacy in relation to the production of knowledge, because of their
particular position in the sexual and gender system.^''
Didier Eribon says that if, as Foucault think, a society defines itself by what can be said and thought in it, we can assert that gay and lesbian visibility came to modify deeply what in society could be said, seen and thought. According to this author the homosexual movement and the proliferation of gay culture represent, along with feminism, not only one of the strongest criticism of the sexual and social order, but also of the 360
5) "Men" can be excluded from knowledge by the very concept of what counts as
knowledge and by what is understood by reason and objectivity. The experience of
"men" themselves and their knowledge about their experience as "men"-meaning
gendered subjects-or about their socialization as gendered subjects is often excluded
because it is considered "subjective" or "not masculine".
There are subjugated knowledges^' among "men" about themselves as gendered subjects: knowledge about pain in relation to their fathers or mothers, knowledge about fear of revealing a sensitivity that society rejects in men, knowledge about the heterogeneous and contradictory nature of masculine subjectivity, knoeledge about their capabilities for intimacy, knowledge about the performative nature of masculine identity, and so on. These accounts and awareness of their own subjectivity, identity and practices are typically excluded from knowledge, especially if they involve forms of knowledge that are objects of repression and denial in society, since they do not fall under dominant definitions of what is meant by "knowledge", or what it means to be a "man". We are witnessing a very interesting emergence into visibility of the intimate power relation
(Lancaster, 1992) between being a "man" and the knowledge available about being a
"man" as a social construct. Dominant definitions of "manliness" and what counts as
"knowledge" collude to produce a silence, and exclude from knowledge important dimensions of "men's" life relating precisely to their construction as gendered subjects.
Such silence and imprisonment is, of course, very "masculine". epistemic order in contemporary society (Eribon, 1999: 49). I should add that "gender studies on men" and the reflexive and social movement that have been generating, have taken part and can continue to take part in this sexual, social and epistemological criticism. " 1 owe this term to the Mexican scholar Ana Amuchastegui (2001), who speaks of "subjugated knowledges in practice". 361
In the context of these reflections, we must necessarily ask how we can break out of that circle of silence. How can we produce knowledge about "men" as gendered subjects, as social constructs, when we have ourselves been socialized in a culture with orthodox discourses about manliness?^^ Or, to use Bourdieu, what are the socio- cognitive conditions that make it possible to produce knowledge about "men" as gendered subjects?^^
I believe that the answer lies in part in the research on "men" and masculinities that points to the heterogeneous, unstable and contested character of the prescriptions for
"being a man" and the socialization of subjects according to those prescriptions. Thanks to these insights, we can assume that there is no uniform relationship between actual
"men" and dominant epistemic or gender regimes. Such relations are, rather, heterogeneous and ambiguous; they contradict themselves and each other. Unfortunately for patriarchy, certain of us "men" were not perfectly socialized in dominant ideologies of gender, and as a result, in certain social and historical circumstances, we have been able to glimpse the contradictory nature of masculine identity, its dimension as cultural artefact, and the social pressure not to speak of it, since a central ideologeme of patriarchy is to assume its supposed "naturalness". Needless to say, we are only able to
And also, of course, how can women produce knowledge about men? These are issues that need to be explored. The answer to these questions would be lengthy and complicated and I cannot claim to have found it. That should be a collective task (in the subfield of studies). We can, however, affirm certain things: firstly, that the cognitive conditions, symbolized by the concept of gender, have been laid by feminist tradition, but also by a tradition in social sciences that has called into question the "fabrication of social reality", the fact that it is a construct rather than "natural". As regards social conditions, our task is much harder. We might perhaps start with the origin and social trajectory of the habitus of the people involved in research, in order to elucidate the social processes that constitute the matrix of practices of the habitus. In any case, it is clear that the ignorance or claims to impartiality of some men with regard to the way in which their research relates to themselves, does not help us to advance our knowledge. articulate and develop this knowledge thanks to the epistemologies, theories, organizations and social movements that preceded us. There are those among us who have "cracked out", (rajado) to put it colloquially. Articulating those subjugated knowledges, and the history that informs our academic habitus in masculinities studies, will allow us to begin breaking the silence, but also to account for, with academic honesty, the way gender dynamics are present, inform, and shape our research work on
"men" as gendered subject.
By questioning the relation between the concept of "manliness" and the reality of
"men", as well as the complexity of the link between them, realist constructivism uncovers the instabilities and fractures in the real, as well as the awareness of those fractures attained by certain subjects. Such awareness tends to remain outside
"legitimate" knowledge about "men". But these types of insight are only too familiar and intimate for those of us who by vocation (and sometimes for emotional survival, to understand our own history) study "men" from the perspective of gender, because they were also once totally subjugated within ourselves. 363
CHAPTER 6. ACKNOWLEDGING PLEASURES, DECONSTRUCTING
IDENTITIES: ANTHROPOLOGY, PATRIARCHY AND HOMOEROTICISM IN
MEXICO
I Introduction.
In previous chapters, I have tried to present, through a variety of ethnographic notes, the rich and complex sexual and gender field in which erotic and affective intimacy among men take place. It has been my intention to show the different ways of living and understanding the "homoerotic experience" beyond the already known and theoretically discussed by many author "homosexual or gay identity or subjectivity".
Informants from the sierra villages and form the city of Hermosillo (most of them immigrants from the same villages) with their sexual and gender practices, and subjectivities, come to complicate and contend any homogeneous characterization of
Mexican (or Western) homoerotic experience. On the contrary, I argue that this characterization has its own history as well as their ideological implication for the sex/gender system.
In this chapter, I engage in a series of reflections on what I think is the major theoretical discourse on the Mexican homoerotic experience. I have termed it, "the dominant model for understanding male homoeroticism in Mexico" (DMUH). I refer to a dominant common-sense and anthropological discourse on homoerotic relations among men, a model that is based on binaries such as "penetrator-penetrated", "active-passive",
"man-fairy", "dominant-submissive." Even though this model "makes sense" in terms of 364
understanding certain homoerotic relationships, it is inadequate for understanding many others; furthermore, it presents a theoretical and methodological obstacle to acknowledging the wide variety of pleasures, meanings, erotic explorations, daring and identity transgression that occur in erotic events among men.
1 believe it is necessary to open up debate on this topic in order to gain a theoretical and political understanding of 1) the way our models of comprehension render aspects of reality invisible and become complicit in systems of domination, in this case patriarchy; 2) the political nature of erotic experience, which articulates intimate forms of knowledge and practices that challenge dominant ideologemes of gender and sexuality
(Nunez, 1996); and 3) how we might usefully re-envision male homoeroticism in terms of studies of masculinities, and in so doing deepen our insight into masculine subjectivities, the identity politics in which they participate, and their virtually always ambiguous and contradictory insertion into the sexual/gender regime.
II From "Homosexual" Ethnocentrism to a Cultural Geography of Homoeroticisms
At one time, the concepts of "homosexual" and "homosexuality", as well as other classificatory categories of sexual existence^"^ constructed within the framework of modem nineteenth-century discourses on sexuality, were accepted as "objective",
"scientific" terms to refer to any individuals involved in homoerotic relationships, no
The term "sexual existence" is used differently here than the term "sexual identity". The former allows us to see the subject's sexual life as being constantly defined and transformed. The term "sexual identity" establishes a narrative closure, constraining the subject's sexuality within certain parameters that essentialize and reify him/her. Sexual identity is a political fact (in a broader sense), the result of complex technologies of power operating on the subject's sexual existence. This is how I will be using these terms. For a more detailed analysis, see Niifiez 2000: 32. matter what their cultural differences. Men who engage in homoerotic practices on a
ranch in Michoacan, a New York suburb or a wood in Java could all be designated as
"homosexual" by academics, even though the culture to which they belonged might
interpret those practices in a different way.
Some decades ago, this type of interpretive procedure came under severe criticism, and was rightly termed "ethnocentric". Its ethnocentrism consisted in using concepts from a modem, western medical discourse to study the homoerotic behavior of people from other cultures and periods in history, without considering how the meanings of homoerotic bodily pleasures have different implications in different societies: the sensual "native" might be made into a shaman, interviewed on TV or stoned in public, to give three examples.
Studies of homoerotic experience took an important turn with the rise of a post- structuralist paradigm alert to the systems of signification by which social reality is constructed. Foucault's "archeology" of modem discourses of sex and the modem constmction of sexuality, provided a model for students of anthropology and sociology to begin examining the various concepts of homoerotic in other cultural settings. It became accepted in academe that the concepts "homosexual" and "gay" refer to different signifying fields than those connoted by Mexican terms such as berdache, cochon, joto, or eromenos which are used to refer to males who enjoy sex with other males.
Having dispensed with the ethnocentrism of previous studies on homoeroticism, anthropologists anxiously seeking the "exotic", set out to uncover the particular social relationships and meanings that stmcture sexual experience among biological males. In a 366
fascinating display of voyeurism and linguophilia, anthropologists and their readers have learned that among the Sambia of New Guinea, fellatio amongst males of different ages is part of a ritual system of masculinization (Herdt, 1981); that homoerotic relations in ancient Greece were stratified according to age and seen in a pedagogical and political context (Foucault, 1986); that in some North American tribes, males with homoerotic or
"androgynous" preferences are granted special status allowing them to "marry" another male and carry out important religious and ceremonial activities in society (Williams,
1986); and that in Nicaragua, a man can have sex with another male without being stigmatized, as long as his role in anal sex is the "active" one of penetration (Lancaster,
1992).
I find anthropological descriptions that are "sensitive to native categories" more credible than the fantastic extrapolations that see "gays" in the Stone Age; however, I do not find them altogether convincing, though their simplicity is appealing. Being an inquisitorial anthropologist, I wonder, when I read such accounts, whether the Sambia, once masculinized, might not continue exploring their desires outside official masculine rituals;^'^ whether two adults in Classical Athens might not have "had a fling" under the shade of a fig-tree; if there might not be two brave Navajo warriors who indulge in pleasuring one another while out hunting; or whether somewhere in Managua two good- looking butchers might not fool around with each other from time to time, without identifying themselves as "active" or "passive".
It should be mentioned that Gilbert Herdt explores these homoerotic possibilities among the Sambia in a later work (1990), as part of his study of the complex impact produced by rituals of masculinization upon the organization of desire among males. 367
My goal in exploring this issue (regardless of whether it has the incidental effect of stimulating the erotic imagination of the readers) is to stimulate the anthropological imagination to reconceptualize the different forms of homoerotic experiences and our representations of them. I wish to focus on the anthropology of the homoerotic itself in order to question its tendency to privilege only the dominant discourse, a discourse which eventually silences other ways of understanding and engaging in such erotic events within a single culture.
The fundamental theoretical and methodological stance that I propose in this essay is the following: the anthropology of homoeroticism should not merely register social convention, assuming that it accounts for homoerotic reality, but should aspire to examine the sex-gender system, that complex interplay of ideologies, identities, powers and pleasures that "construct" or "are constructed by" individual sexual existence. In
Bourdieu's terms, anthropology should attempt to examine the field of sexuality and the power struggle between different agents in society over the "legitimate" representation of sexual existence.
Ill The Anthropology of Homoeroticism in Mexico^^
In Mexico, the historical trajectory of studies on homoeroticism is more or less the same as the one outlined above. After a brief period of ethnocentric abuse of the term
"homosexual" in works on the condition of Mexican men and machismo in Mexico, the
I will limit myself here to the work of North American and European anthropologists who are widely known in academic circles around the world. 368
seventies saw the emergence of anthropological studies of homoeroticisms that were more sensitive to local categories in the area of sexual existence. This heightened awareness did not necessarily mean that ethnocentric categories and approaches were abandoned, for while pioneers of homoerotic anthropology like Carrier, Taylor and later
Alonso, or popular authors like Herdt and Almaguer all acknowledged the need to pay attention to the local sexual system and avoid ethnocentrism, their texts show a rather lax use of terms like "homosexual", "homosexuality", "gay" or "heterosexuality".^^ Carrier, for example, frequently uses expressions such as "Mexican homosexuality", the
"homosexual world" (Carrier, 1995: xi), and he translates the word ambiente ("scene") as
"gay" (Carrier, 1995: 47). Likewise, Taylor uses expressions such as the "social life of homosexual males" and "homosexual subculture" (Taylor 1974, 1986). Similarly, authors like Carrier, Alonso and Almaguer speak of "heterosexual" men, an identity category that is virtually unknown in Mexican culture, and whose very inclusion in these studies betrays an inadequate problematization of sex/gender ideologies and identities in work on homoeroticisms m Mexico. 98
Annick Prieur's study of transvestism and prostitution in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl (1998) is an important exception. 1 believe that what is needed is an ethnographic and historical study of the identity categories of homoeroticism in Mexico-the uses and pohtics of meaning surrounding the terms "fairy", "pansy", "fag", "(joto, maricon, puto) and others; the appearance of the term "homosexual", its popularization, the way it constructed new ways of representing homoeroticisms, its impact on the construction of new identities and life styles; and the appearance and dissemination of discourses about "gayness", especially from the eighties on. The definition of "heterosexuality" is another topic that needs exploring. "Heterosexuality" as an identity does not exist in Mexico, or only, I would hazard, in a very non-mainstream way. What does exist is the identity category "man", which signals a "naturalized" relationship with "heterosexual" desire and a more ambiguous one with regard to homoeroticism. What is lacking is research that would allow us to recognize the diversity of positions of subjectivity and identity, as well as the contradictory and negotiated nature of their meanings. 369
Despite these theoretical and methodological inconsistencies, anthropological studies of homoeroticism in Mexico have refined the characterization of the "Mexican sexual system" in a way that is more attentive to cultural particularitites. In general, authors coincide in contrasting the features of Mexican homoeroticism with those of the
Anglo/Northern European sexual system (which Almaguer terms "western bourgeois"), and placing it in the context of the Latin American sexual system, with its
"mediterranean" influence.^^ This difference between the systems reproduces, in
Almaguer's view, the Freudian distinction between the "choice of sexual object" and the
"sexual objective", in which the former concems the biological sex of the person who is the object of desire, and the latter the act that one wishes to perform with a person, regardless of their biological sex (Almaguer, 1993: 257).
There is a broad consensus among anthropologists regarding the importance of the following issues:
1) In Mexico, sexual intercourse among males is seen as being organized according to the role played by each partner in the relationship: one is either the "active penetrator" or the
"passive receiver".
Other anthropologists of Latin American homoeroticism whose work is relevant are Lancaster on Nicaragua (1992) and Parker (1991) on Brazil. This criterion was first identified by Joseph Carrier (1972, 1976, 1985, 1995), although it was prefigured in Octavio Paz's famous work El laberinto de la soledad, and in Ingham's study on culture and personality in a Mexican village (1968), cited by Carrier. Both authors base their conclusions on an analysis of colloquial speech: puns, insults, jokes and wordplay. Carrier and subsequent authors such as Alonso, Almaguer and Prieur used these linguistic arguments to support their own studies. Carrier, however, attempts to go beyond the cHched analysis of the meanings of the word chingar (to fuck), by referring to fieldwork data and data from several quantitative studies, which in my view do not support his conclusions but on the contrary demonstrate an ambiguity and fluidity that the "active-passive" dichotomy cannot account for. 370
2) Differences in erotic roles involve a "gender stratification", since the "active" role belongs to a "masculine" subject and the "passive" role to an "effeminate" or "less masculine" subject.
3) Differences in erotic roles corresponding to different gender identities are learned through terms that designate different social types: the "active" partner receives no special name; he is simply a "man" (although the "passive" partner may covertly refer to him as a mayate [that can be translate as "trade" according to Chauncey's Gay New York
]"). The "passive" partner, however, is given derogatory names like joto, maricon, puto
["fairy", "pansy" "fag"], and other less common terms.
4) This nominative differentiation indicates that the "active" partner is not stigmatized
(he may even gain prestige), while the "passive" one bears a heavy stigma and becomes a power object. Indeed, since erotic relationships are constructed by means of this series of dichotomies in terms of gender and stigmatization, homoerotic practice itself can be seen as a relationship of power/pleasure. In the erotic act, the "fairy" is dominated and the
"man" empowered.
"" On this point also the difference between authors is merely one of emphasis and details. Carrier claims empirical proof of the correlation between "passive/active" and "femininity/masculinity". His work is questionable because of its biased selection of sources, but his actual data shows such ambiguity and flexibility that it is surprising he fails to be aware of them. Carrier's intention reminded me of Foucault and made me wonder to what extent Carrier constructs "social types", in this case the "passive" one, as the object of analysis. Nothing in the life of this "type", to summarize Foucault, "can escape his passivity in any way". In the case of Mexico, Alonso (1993) and Prieur (1998) have stressed this aspect the most. Carrier holds that "active-passive" relationships (which supposedly coincides with the "man-fairy" dichotomy) are the product of lack of availability of women as sexual partners due to gender constraints (i.e., "men" have sex with "fairies" [jotos] because there are no women available). Alonso, however, argues that "faries" are also objects of masculine desire and suggests that penetration probably involves a particular intersection of power and pleasure for males, since emasculating another man becomes the supreme validation of masculinity. Lancaster also explores this "intimate aspect of power" (1992) for the case of Nicaragua and draws similar conclusions, which reinforce this view of the Mexican case. 371
This anthropological characterization of sexual relations among biological males is sometimes complemented by researchers' passing observations about the small but growing "gay" community in urban, middle-class settings. However, there are different interpretations of this phenomenon. While Almaguer points out that in the
Mexican/Latin American context there is no cultural equivalent of the modem "gay man"
(Amaguer, 1993: 257), Carrier acknowledges the presence and influence of "gay" identity in sexual culture in Mexico when he mentions the existence of "internationals"
(people who have no particular preference for "active" or "passive" erotic roles).
According to Carrier, Mexican "gays" decided to be both active and passive in order to be "politically correct" (Carrier, 1995: 193). He nevertheless declares that the majority of men who have sex with other men in Mexico have not been affected by the "gay" liberation movement because most of them still prefer anal sex and many still prefer a particular sexual role (Carrier, 1995: 194).'°^ Prieur's study on transvestism points to the presence of a gay identity and community in Mexico City (Prieur, 1998). Ana Alonso, responding to Carrier, comments that she found no "internationals" in her research on gender ideology and the Mexican Revolution in a rural community in Chihuahua. She merely found "passive" and "active", machos and jotos (Alonso, 1993: 119).
In the passing comments on "gay" identity, what is referred to as "the Mexican sexual system" is in reality a type of "dual homoerotic system": one of Hispanic
(mediterranean) origin, structured around the "active-passive" dichotomy, and the other
It is worth mentioning that Carrier shows no convincing data to support these claims. Furthermore, 1 feel that it is extremely limiting for the study of "gays" (or "homosexuals" or "faries" [jotos] to focus on the existence or absence of anal penetration. 372
of Northern European and North American origin, based on the interchangeability of erotic roles and the notion of being "gay". The first, "traditional" system is the dominant one; the second, "modem" one is said to be the product of foreign influence and limited to urban and middle-class settings.
This notion of a unified "Mexican sexual system" is open to the charge of ethnocentrism. Might there not be men in Huasteca who have erotic encounters after dancing to the music of a son in the village, without penetration necessarily taking place?
Or two macho cowboys from Chihuahua who enjoy each other's bodies after watching a rodeo? How can the old "active masculine/passive feminized" model account for the taxi-driver who gets transvestites to penetrate him in some grungy hotel in the Colonia
Guerrero, Mexico City?'"^ How can it account for the forms of solidarity, confessions, emotional intimacy, and affection between males from Guadalajara, Monterrey, Durango,
Jalapa or Hermosillo, in and through their homoerotic relationships, regardless of "gay" or other identities, as I have been showing so far?
IV Phallocentrism, Patriarchy and the "Other Homoeroticisms".
In the following section I propose a critique (which does not claim to be comprehensive and is intended to promote discussion) of the "traditional sexual system" in the dominant model of understanding of homoeroticism, from two angles: firstly, its
This dual characterization is particularly clear in G. Herdt. For Herdt, Mexico is one of the "developing" countries, not only in economic but also sexual terms, since it is changing from a traditional unegalitarian model permeated by power dualities to another more modem, egalitarian and non-hierarchical one. Annick Prieur refers to this type of relationship (1998). I too have come across anecdotes of transvestites attesting to how frequent this behavior is. failure to understand areas of homoerotic experience not included in its binary premises, and secondly the way it becomes complicit in the sex/gender ideologies that structure the patriarchal system. I will limit myself to aspects of the "traditional sexual system" since it has received the most attention, though I realize that there is still much research to be done on the characteristics, meanings and socio-political features of "gay identity" in
Mexico.
1) Homoerotic relations are structured based on "penetrator-receiver" roles.
There are three fundamental problems with the assumption that homoerotic relations are based on "penetrator-receiver" roles. In the first place, it envisages homoerotic relations as being exclusively about anal penetration, which is completely false, since there are innumerable examples of homoerotic relations without penetration
(in fact, judging from my research, they constitute the majority). Secondly, it erases in one phallocentric stroke the kisses, nipple stimulation, comforting hugs, fondling, acts of tenderness, muscular mass, brushes, looks, genital stimulation, fetishist games, etc., in other words, forms of bodily contact (to say nothing of emotional and intellectual contact) that are of crucial importance to the organization of desire and the sensation of satisfaction and pleasure that individuals experience (whether or not there is penetration by one or both partners). Thirdly, it renders invisible the fact that in cases where penetration occurs in homoerotic relations, it is not usually restricted to one of the partners only (and we are not talking of individuals identified as "gay").
These three points are borne out in numerous narratives. The following is merely one of many I collected. The speaker is Martin (28 years old, masculine-looking, a high school graduate who works as a line supervisor in an assembly plant), who sometimes
has homoerotic relations that he terms cotorreos (fooling around, having fun). He is describing his experience with a 26-year old man, also of rugged, masculine appearance, who works as a laborer after dropping out of high school. Neither of them considers himself "gay", just "men who like a bit of fun". The interview took place in a public park in Hermosillo, at night.
-"I said to him, 'You know what, if we don't do anything, I'd be just as happy, because
I've had a great time talking to you.' He told me about his wife, the fights they used to have, and I gave him my opinion. We had an amazing talk, really fantastic. He said he felt the same, that he would be cool with whatever happened, it would be OK if we didn't do anything. But then, you know when you really get to know someone you start wanting to touch them, well, that's what happened. At one point (this was the best part) he put his hand on my knee and then he took my hand. I don't know if he wanted me to touch him
"down there ", but I took his hand and kissed it. Then, because it was getting cold, we stayed in the car and I put my arm around his shoulders and we gave each other a hug.
It felt so fucking good to be so close to him... man, his smell... his body, right there... well built, solid... [he says, as if remembering the pleasure]. I started kissing his ear and he put his head back. I kissed his neck and I could see he 'd closed his eyes, he was loving it... I thought: I bet your wife has never ever kissed him this way. After a bit I unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his nipples. We unzipped our pants. I stroked his penis and it was like he 'd never done it before... I don't know but I grabbed his hand and even though he resisted a bit, you know, I could feel the tension in his muscles, he gave in and touched me there too, and we carried on, it was incredible... we kept going for quite a while, like over an hour, I don't know... then after a while we got out of the car. We were up in the mountains, boy was it cold, but we couldn't feel it, we were hugging each other standing up. I asked htm to turn around so I could see his ass (the guy thought it was hilarious I wanted to look at him from behind). It was gorgeous; he had really cute buns... (He says with a smile). He never said anything about penetration and to tell you the truth I didn't either, sometimes you just don't feel like it, although I would have liked to do it with him. And then we were done. It was amazing... Then on the way back, it was like nothing ever happened, neither of us said anything about what we 'd just done, we talked about other stuff, but always... at one point I took his hand because I had this special feeling for him, and he let me, he even laced his fingers between mine, for a bit... and then we got back... I tell you, this guy was real macho... real manly... and when we said goodbye we were totally cool with it, like, 'See you later, man, thanks' and I said,
'Yeah man, seeya, thanks again, bud.'
I include this transcription of one of the many narratives I recorded during my field work, not to appeal to some fantasy of the reader's, but to show how inadequate it is to categorize homoeroticisms on the basis of the "penetrator-receiver" dichotomy, and how reductionist that kind of interpretation is in terms of representing the diversity of homoerotic experience.
Having pointed out the limitations of that dichotomy, I will move on to a discussion of its ideological implications. In the first place, I believe that the privileging of the phallus seen in the DMUH is more than a mere oversight that can be remedied by 376
simply adding on these "other" homoerotic experiences. We cannot remove this particular problem by simply extending or improving the description,for it stems from a failure to really problematize either the ideological implications of these analytical categories, or the political field to which such hegemonic concepts of sexuality contribute. To privilege the penetrator-receiver dichotomy in order to characterize homoeroticisms in Mexico is to collude with patriarchy by reproducing dominant idologemes of sex and gender that envisage human sexuality as a genital and orgasmic event. I do not mean that these phallocentric concepts do not influence the attitudes of many people, whether they are involved in homoerotic activities or not; I mean that by categorizing homeoerotic events in this way, we pre-empt any possibility of recognizing the complexity and diversity of bodies, subjectivities, meanings, and politics.
Secondly, the classification of individuals according to their erotic roles metonymically reduces them to their sexual organs (the penetrator becomes the "penis," the receiver the
"anus"), a metonymy that reproduces dominant idologemes about bodies, desire, and sexist (homophobic) and patriarchal gender identities. When a homoerotic individual
(the "passive" one, who is socially stigmatized as the "fag") is reduced to an "anal receptacle", the homoerotic body is apprehended as an "orifice" and homoerotic desire as
Of course, we are still a long way from recognizing the diversity of homoerotic landscapes, as well as the meanings and identity processes in which they are inscribed. The ethnographic data currently available stresses only certain groups: the urban, working-class transvestite sex worker studied by Prieur; the more or less effeminate, "urban" homosexual depicted by Carrier (who unHke Prieur does not delimit his subjects clearly and sometimes appears to suggest that they involve "men who seek out men"); and the "macho-fag" relations in a rural community in northern Mexico described by Alonso. For my part, (Nunez 1994) 1 have Studied homoerotic relations and the identity processes of those who come to identify themselves as "homosexuals" or gay (although I insist that these definitely do not include all those who have homoerotic relationships). the "penile desire for the anus" As we know, a central idologeme upholding
patriarchy's economy of desire is that "desire cannot be more than desire for the
phallus"-the phallus being the supreme symbol of the system of gender distinction and
the institution of masculine power.
Finally, we should point out that the "penetrator-receiver" binarism overlooks the
homoerotic practices and relations that day by day (and night by night), exemplify the
many modes of transgressive insertion into the order of sex and gender. It renders
invisible the disputes, resistance, and constant subversion of the ideological and power
claims of the patriarchal system.
2) Erotic differences imply "gender stratification": the "active role" is performed by a "masculine subject" and the "passive role" by a feminine or less masculine subject".
Another problematic concept is that of "stratification by gender" in homoerotic sexual acts, whereby the "active" role is carried out by a "masculine" individual and the
"passive" role by an "effeminate" or "less masculine" one. There are several problems
with this notion. Firstly, it prevents us from seeing that there are numerous erotic
relationships between "totally masculine" individuals which are not "stratified by gender". Many individuals who participate in homoerotic exchanges are "normally"
masculine in their mannerisms, their walk, clothing, bodies, attitudes, and occupations.
In my ethnographic work I have interviewed people of traditionally "masculine"
occupations-butchers, truck drivers, laborers, bus drivers, police officers, prison guards,
A desire which is understood as an "uncontrollable" urge of the penis, that the penis is in charge of "putting in order" (Niifiez 1997). cowboys, construction workers, soldiers, garbage collectors, autobody workers, mechanics, thieves, executives, extreme sports fanatics, soccer players, baseball players, farm workers, boxers, and soldiers, etc. All of these typically "masculine" figures enjoy pleasure with other men without necessarily falling into either active or passive roles, a dichotomy which is based on phallocentric criteria. Therefore, their erotic role is not dictated by their gender identity, or vice-versa. The notion of homoerotic gender stratification ignores the fact that there are relations stratified by gender that do not include penetration; furthermore, it overlooks the fact that there are relations stratified by gender that do include different erotic roles, but not in the sense laid out by the DMUH; in fact, to the contrary-"effeminate" individuals may take an "active" role vis a vis the
"masculine" individual, as many transvestites whom I encountered during my field work have attested. Annick Prieur (1998) has documented the same phenomenon.
Lastly, the assumption of gender stratification fails to mention that even in those cases that reproduce the penetrator-receiver, "masculine-feminine" dichotomy (we would never claim that such cases do not occur) individuals are not uncritical bearers of the binarisms of the symbolic order. Rather, they live out their relations with men through gestures, language, and erotic behavior that they experience in a different way. In fact, even in a relationship as polarized as the penetrator-receiver type, leadership during the encounter is usually in the hands of the individual that the DMUH calls "passive" ,
"effeminate" or "queer", and not the "active" one. The following quote from one of my interviewees reveals that the terms "active-passive" are not limited to one meaning: "/ don't know why they say we're passive, when we 're the ones who do everything; we pick them up, we convince them, we get them to go with us, we seduce them, we fondle them, sometimes they just lean back or lie down, and we kiss them, we touch them, we take off their clothes, etc., we even make them come. I've never felt at all passive, just the opposite (Ivan, 31, "effeminate " single hairdresser in the city of Hermosillo. The interview took place in his home).
It is important to note this speaker's understanding of what it means to be "active" or "passive", because of its significance in the configuration of the identity of both partners, since, as I will show later, his interpretation is a vehicle for notions of power that do not coincide with those contained in the "active-passive" dichotomy.
My fifth and last point is that the penetrator-receiver dichotomy does not account for the fact that many "masculine" individuals, regardless of whether they participate or not in relations that are stratified by gender, with or without penetration, establish erotic relationships that do not fall within the "active-passive" duality, and that break hegemonic prescriptions of gender. According to my ethnographic data, different
"masculine" individuals do not limit themselves to acting out the prescriptions of the symbolic order in their erotic encounters; rather, they participate to a greater or lesser extent in a negotiation of bodily contacts in which they resist certain caresses and
experiences and dare to experience others: they allow kissing, but not contact with the buttocks, or the reverse; or oral stimulation of the nipples and the buttocks, but no kissing. Such discriminations among forms of contact have to do not only with particular
erotic preferences, but with ways of managing bodily pleasures, sensations, desires and 380
fantasies, that are repressed in the framework of their sexual and gender identities. This view is supported by notes from the field like the following remarks from Javier (a single man of 44, a manual laborer of "masculine" appearance, who calls himself guys, a camp term roughly equivalent to queer,used in certain homoerotic circles in Hermosillo.
The interview took place in a garden in Hermosillo at night).
"This kind of thing happens a lot [that the man who is seduced performs erotic acts that contravene ideologemes of masculinity] ... You pick up a real macho-looking guy [un batote]'^^ in a bar, or on the street, or at a dance, the kind of guy that when you look at him you think no way, he's not out looking for a good time [cotoueo] like you are, but when it really comes down to it they 'II let you do all sorts of things, like kissing their ass; some of them will let you kiss them on the mouth or they just see you as masculine and interesting because no matter how masculine and "heterosexual" [he emphasizes this word] they seem, anybody can be attracted to or admire another man. So anyway, like I was saying, you 're with them and they like you and they feel like doing stuff or having stuff done to them that they've never done. For example, the guy I told you about that I met on the street; he was half drunk, a tall guy, a construction worker. He had huge great hands [he demonstrates the size with his own hands] and bushy eyebrows. Real
Camp is an English term to describe aesthetics widely present in gay or homosexual circles. It is an aesthetics that expresses in a particular form of humoristic speech: the camping, which in the Spanish of Mexico could be equated with "jotear" (see Niifiez 1994). The term queer refers to a theoretical approach that we have echoed in this text. Jagose defines queer in this way: The word queer refers to those gesture or analytical models which dramatizes the incoherence in the expected stable relationships between gender, sexual desire and sexual chromosome (Jagose 1996: 3). The term "guys" is defined by Acosta Felix, Andres, 2003. Lenguas en contacto. Un glosario de creatividad lingiiistica, Hermosillo, s/e, [edicion de autor]. Bato is a term used in Northern Mexico, and South-western USA to mean "guy". The feminine counterpart would be "morra". "Batote" means a big or imponent "guy". 381
tall, like 6'4", square jawed, real good looking. Well we started fooling around, first I fondled him, we hugged each other, I kissed his "chichis " [tits, meaning here nipples], but he didn't want to kiss mine. He let me kiss his mouth but he kept his lips shut, but after awhile I realized that he was looking at my penis, pretending not to at first, but he was obviously curious and after a bit I took his hand and he started masturbating me, with me helping him at first and then all by himself, even when I wasn't masturbating him at the same time... you know, sometimes even when you don't actually penetrate them they just like to feel your body behind them, just have you right on the edge of entering them and then, well, sometimes, you know... curiosity killed the cat....
The active-passive dichotomy and its assumptions about gender stratification silence these kinds of encounter and erase the erotic experiences of so-called "masculine" subjects, experiences which far from ratifying a dichotomous gender stratification, contravene the dominant ideological assumptions about masculine identity.
I believe that the conceptualization of homoeroticism based on the active-passive dichotomy establishes silences that are not filled by simply broadening the previous characterization. We need to undertake a full examination of the complicity with patriarchal ideologies of sexuality and gender that this concept of homoeroticism inadvertently reproduces. The principal form of complicity is that the gender dichotomy of active-passive, which also underlies the "man-fairy" dichotomy, imposes a siege of silence on characterizations of homoerotic practices that reveal the fragmentary,
'Thereis still a lot of work to be done on these assumptions governing the use of the body and the territorialization of desire in the body. I believe that they are "assumptions" rather than clear prescriptions and that they derive from discourses of masculinity and manliness: not "blabbing"; the "rear" as feminine; orifices and feminine; the masculine body a something as closed and hard; manliness as control of emotions and desires; femininity as lack of control; the penis as a symbol of virility, etc. 382
inconsistent, heterogeneous nature of masculinities, as well as obscuring the possibilities for desire between bodies and subjectivities, thereby safeguarding an important ideologeme of patriarchy: namely, that "masculinity" is an expression of the male body's innate nature, and that it functions as a predictor or indicator of heterosexual, phallocentric desire. It safeguards the supposedly consistent nature of the trilogy of prestige-biological maleness, masculinity and heterosexuality.'"
Homoerotic practices often involve a disruption of this central ideologeme of patriarchy, installing ideological disorder in individual experiences of the body, pleasure, and desire-both newly discovered or rekindled. Such experiences reveal once more the inconsistent, unstable and fragmented nature of masculine identity, in the face of patriarchal social conventions of unicity and homogeneity.
3) The "active" partner receives no special label; he is simply a "man", although the
"passive" partner may call him a mayate (trade). The "passive" partner is referred to by derogatory terms such as joto, maricon or puto (fairy, pansy, faggot).
The first problem with this division of homoerotics into "men" and "fairy" is that it is based on false phallocentric and gender assumptions and is thereby incapable of describing forms of homoeroticism that do not fall into either of its categories. To give an example of the problems inherent in this type of "either-or" labeling: who is the
"fairy" and who the "man", when one masturbates the other and kisses his buttocks, and both of them are "masculine"? Such a relation obviously evades the dichotomy.
"' This trilogy of prestige (Niifiez 1999; 57) functions as Judith Butler says as a "cultural matrix" in which gender identities have become unintelligible but at the same time it means that other identities "do not exist" or "can not be thought" (Butler 1990). The second flaw I see in this dichotomy is that it ignores the perceptions and meanings attributed by the individuals involved, notably their use of names and their strategies for resisting the dominant ideologies in which they have been socialized. Many individuals in practice choose either to resist any assigned identity, beginning with the one connoted by the word joto (fairy); or to redefine the terms joto, hombre or mayate (fairy, man, trade) used in the dominant ideology, thereby overcoming the symbolic dominance of the man-fairy dichotomy.
I have documented numerous examples of the first form of resistence. During my field work I noticed that in Sonora some men frequently use the term cotorreo (a good time), in expressions such as tener un cotorreo, me gusta el cotorreo (to have some fun, I like fooling around), to refer to their practices, themselves, other men with homoerotic tastes, or men who want to engage in such activities at that moment, without necessarily implying a preference and certainly not an identity. ''Que ondas, no tienes ganas de cotorrearla? " (Hey man, wanna have some fun?) is used to invite someone to have a homoerotic experience. The term cotorreo functions to avoid the field of binary sexual identities and stigma, by putting homoerotic practices in the realm of adventure, shared achievement, fun, even mischief The significance of the practice is shifted from the realm of "homosexuality" and the dichotomies to which it is constrained by patriarchy to a much less threatening and more manageable symbolic terrain, closer to "masculine" solidarity, friendship and "male bonding". Calling this desire cotorreo resists patriarchy's power to name and categorize it. When I have asked some men who situate themselves within the field of cotorreo about their identity, they respond with questions, blank looks and a certain irritation at breaching the tacit agreement that "you don't ask that sort of thing, you don't talk about it, because silence protects us from the stigma of classification". When I insisted on the daring question, "Do you consider yourself a fairy (joto)l Gay?" Saiil (married, 40 years old, engineer, "masculine", interviewed in his car outside a park in the city of
Hermosillo) replied: "I never label myself. I do what I do, whether I do it with a woman or a man. You're the same person, period." Another interviewee, Noe (27 years old, married, in administrative work, goalie on a soccer team, "masculine", interviewed in a park in Hermosillo at night), responded as follows to my question about his identity and practice: "A fairy (/oto)? No... I like women too... but I also like men" [smiles]. [N]o, it's just kidding around (elpedo es tranquilo) , it's just for fun {cotorreo)... Everybody does it, man [...] I do it because 1 like it, if I didn't, if it made me feel bad, I wouldn't do it... There's no reason for anyone to know".
In these cases, the term joto is used in such a way that individuals are beyond the reach of its nominative power, and thus of the effects of its power over them. For example, only effeminate individuals are defined as joto, not "masculine" ones, even if the latter have homoerotic relations, which might or might not involve anal penetration.
But also the terms "man" or mayate (trade) can be resignified in such a way that individuals can use them to describe themselves or homoerotic practices that, strictly speaking, subvert the dominant ideology. Let us return to Saul's narrative: -My friend's friend was my friend too. We used to fool around at parties and work meetings. I was going home the next day and so they had thrown a party for me. I'd had a few beers, maybe six or so. The guy is round about my age, he must be roughly 35. He says to me: "So you 're leaving..., and so is the hottest ass in Guaymas. " I answered him back: "And the longest prick too. " "I'd have to see it to believe it," he replied; jokingly, of course, just fooling around, like buddies, but I sensed something. That's why I used to go and work at Guaymas, but this was my last time there.
Other times, I could sort of sense something, but that was it. The guy was married like me..., and desmadroso.
After the party was over I drove everyone back home. I deliberately went a certain way so I could drop him off last. He was sitting up front, next to the driver's seat. Then he said: "So, you 're leaving then...I'm going to miss you. " "I could leave you a souvenir, "
I said, joking and testing him out at the same time. "What sort of a souvenir? " he said.
"A kid, " I said, laughing. "You 're shittin' me, " he goes. "I didn't know that about you." "Oh, what the fuck, I'm a trade [mayate], " I said, turning to look at him... "Well, so am I, " he said. "Well, let's see who's more of a trade, " I said, laughing.
Up till then nothing was clear, it was just word play, but there was something underneath it all. We were getting close to his home and I said, " What now? Shall I drop you off or carry on?" I was looking sideways at him and driving at the same time. "Oh, you fuckin' shit..., go on then, " he said. I headed outside the city and pulled over on the side of the highway but he said: "Not here, they might see, carry on, I'll tell you where. " 386
We got there, got out of the car, and not a fucking thing, neither of us did anything.
"Screw this, " I thought. "I'm leaving tomorrow. " I took off my shirt and unzipped my fly. "Hey asshole, I didn 't know that about you," he said. "Know what, asshole?" I said. "Either say yes or no, but don't make me feel bad". So then the guy takes off his shirt and pants and hat and boots. When I saw that I did the same. We stood face to face and neither of us made a move... The guy had had quite a bit to drink too. "Screw this, "
I said. I grabbed the back of his neck and we kissed. We both penetrated each other, but not too far because we couldn't do it... but we did feel each other up (cachoreamos) a good while. The next day I left Guaymas. (Nunez, 1994: 217-218).
This ambiguity and negotiation of erotic identities in the terrain of homoerotic experiences is used to manage desire and sexual pleasure with persons of the same sex.
Javier, one of the interviewees previously quoted, put it this way:
- "No way, man, trade (mayates) don't exist, those guys who pretend to be macho ...we all know that's just a way for them to do something they like and get away with it without being called anything, that's why they pose as mayates
Actualy "trade" exist, but in an ambiguoos and contested way. The resigniflcation of the concept "man" can exploit the term's intrinsic ambiguities and contradictions in order to include homoerotic practices which can even be seen as "very masculine". This kind of resigniflcation can be seen in the following conversation with Francisco, resident of a town in the mountains of Sonora (45 years old, married with children, masculine looking, an extrovert whose work history includes being a cowboy, mining and construction work. The interview took place at his home in a town in the mountains of Sonora in the afternoon). The speaker has a history of homoerotic relationships. When I asked him if he considered himself "homosexual" or a "fairy", he immediately rejected the terms and stated firmly, "Absolutely not, because I "m married, I like women, and as you can see, I don't act like a fairy". I repeated my question. "So, what do you consider yourself to be?" He looked blank and said, "I don't understand you". I explained that some people use certain categories such "heterosexual", "bisexual", "homosexual" to classify people's sexual behavior. He had never heard of the words "heterosexual" and
"bisexual". After explaining them to him, I asked if he thought one of them "made sense" in his life. He paused, smiled and said, "Maybe I'm... What did you call it? ...
Bisexual?" I smiled too, because strictly speaking it was true. Then he said in a serious, firm and forthright tone, "Listen, Guillermo, I'm a man, very much a man." "How do you mean?" I asked. "What does being a man mean to you?" After a silence, he explained:
- "Listen, for example, like I said, I'm a real man, a real man, Guillermo. I know how to be a good friend. We could have a great time together, no problem, but if you invited me to do something, doesn't matter what..., and I felt like doing it, I'd go along with it... No kidding, I'm not scared of anything, I'd stick with you to the death, I wouldn 't rat on you..., but whatever we did together stays strictly between you and me. If you go blabbing about it, I'll kill you. "
"No matter what the proposition is? Even sex? " I asked, intuiting his intention. He smiled again and said, "You know, one time I was out with a guy, having a few drinks near the river, and got to talking about being open-minded, broad-minded, about respect 388
and loyalty to friends. Gradually we opened up and eventually he made this indirect hint
about having a bit offun. Then I told him what Ijust told you: I'm a real man, a real
man, and if we do anything, don't forget I'm trusting you. It's got to stay between the two of us, OK? Cause if you go telling anyone I'll kill you. I said several times, "I'm a
real man ", and the guy, well by that point he was my buddy, goes, "Hey..., I'm a real
man too, bud, and I like having friends like you. " And then we went ahead and did it"
[he says smiling, indicating that they had sexual relations].
We can see how both in this narrative and the previous one, the narrators have redefined the meanings of the identities "man" and "bugger", exploiting their contradictions, ambiguities and multiple meanings. By so doing they are laying out new routes of significations for themselves and their practices that subvert the dominant categories of identity.
The characterization of homoeroticisms in Mexico by means of the dichotomy
"man-fairy" (or bugger-faggot) effectively overlooks the complex processes of negotiation, accommodation, resistance and subversion that individuals undertake in order to account for their homoerotic practices and their meaning in their lives. What is overlooked in this dichotomized DMUH remains absent from the symbolic order. This absence has important political and ideological consequences that uphold patriarchal technologies of power, since on the one hand it silences the fact that there is a real struggle for the power to represent social reality in the field of sexuality and gender relations, and on the other, it silences the cultural and political nature of the definition and assignation of identities. When the dispute about sex and gender identities becomes invisible, and when
their ambiguous, contradictory, cultural nature is silenced, then patriarchy's entire system
of categories fails to be seen for what it is-an artifice, a cultural and political fiction,
subject to dispute and change and not merely a simple reflection of natural, immutable
realities. From the point of view of academic politics, it is problematic that
anthropological studies should reproduce rather than question the categories of
hegemonic discourse, thereby becoming complicit with patriarchy.
This theory that erotic relations among men involve a hidden power/pleasure dynamic contains various flaws. 1), it is based on inadequate, dichotomous characterizations of existent homoeroticisms, thereby overlooking innumerable relationships that are based on egalitarianism and generosity, relationships from which
individuals derive experiences not of domination or humiliation but rather of pleasure,
affection, self-esteem, happiness, camaraderie-experiences that in my opinion function as
emotional empowerment and a source of personal growth. As we saw in the narratives included earlier, homoerotic encounters tend to be preceded by conversations, emotional closeness and revelations about each other's (often dissimilar) lives, confessions that involve a degree of trust and a certain level of emotional intimacy in each partner, but above all complicity about the pleasure and desire that both of them are pursuing, pleasures prohibited by society. 2), it ignores the fact that power is not unequivocally derived from a predetermined position in the social order, but is a social relationship constructed by individuals by means of a complex interaction involving desires, meanings, material and social resources, etc. There are many elements in individual 390
relationships that could give rise to domination, as well as to generosity. But power
circulates in an ambiguous and contradictory way, just like pleasure, and it is inadequate
to see the power/pleasure dichotomy as stratified by erotic and gender roles. An extreme example of this complexity is seen in homoerotic relations mediated by money or other material objects. In such cases, although the "active" subject receives money and is not stigmatized, the "passive fairy" can be seen as "powerful" in his ability to buy the availability of the other's body. We should remember that individuals engaged in homoerotic relations are not only marked by sex and gender signs, but also by class, ethnicity, status, etc., and that all of these factors are organized in a very complex way in terms of corporality and subjectivity, and thus in the definition of power relations. 3)
Even in the case of dichotomies such as "penetrator-penetrated","active-passive", "man- fairy", individuals tend to interpret power relations in a completely different way than the symbolic order. "Passive" individuals usually derive a sense of power that does not coincide with the phallocentric vision of power. Their reading is not that of the symbolic order, "I was acted on by the phallus", but a very different one: "I managed by dint of my persistence, my attractiveness, my powers of seduction, my capacity for persuasion, my
"powers", to get the other man to confess his homoerotic desire for me by means of something very visible: his erection or ejaculation".
It is not coincidental that some individuals who are seen as "fairy" or "passive" from the dominant viewpoint describe their sexual activity using a verb that expresses their power: "I picked him up" (echdrselo). "Picking someone up" involves making them participate in your desire, extracting a confession from them about their homoerotic propensities, despite the assumed disinterest demanded by patriarchal ideologies of masculinity. Of course the "active" individual could read things in a different, phallocentric way, assuming that he was the one who "humiliated" or "dominated" the other by erotic action, but it is worth asking why we should only take the "active" partner's reading into account.
I believe it is important to point out that the DMUH privileges a concept of power and eroticism that erases other visions and practices of power that do not derive from humiliating others, but rather from producing pleasure in others. These alternative practices afford individuals an internal, personal empowerment, resulting from recognizing their own ability to produce desire and pleasure in the other. Of course what the DMUH also silences is the fact that even in the type of homoerotic relationships closest to its central dichotomy, the individuals involved are hold values of dignity, respect, egalitarianism, and may decide to continue or discontinue the erotic relationship if it attacks central aspects of their self esteem.
The characterization of homoerotic relations as relations of power/pleasure in the
DMUH has various important ideological implications that should be pointed out. In the first place, it represents the "fag" as an object of "masculine" power, whose position derives from his desire for anal penetration, and whose oppression is merely the consequence of his desire or even his "desire itself, since, homoerotic desire is defined as an essentially masochistic desire, a desire for abjection. Regardless of whether masochistic desire is legitimate or whether it exists in homoerotic or other relationships, this representation reproduces a stigmatizing vision of homoerotic desire as "unhealthy" 392
or "sick", a move which in turn allows the individual stigmatized as a "fairy" to be held responsible for his oppression. Thus it is implied that his subordinate position in society derives from his body and his bodily desires and not from an arbitrary system of social differentiation.
The interpretation of this desire is based on another ideological premise of patriarchy that is reproduced without question-namely, that the exercise of penetration by the penis expresses a position of power and a relation of domination. This assumption is usually backed up by references to sexual conceptions of power that exist in Mexican culture, as seen in the semantic studies of the verb chingar (to fuck). However, it is important to mention that the fact that dominant ideologies conceptualize power through metaphors of sexual penetration does not mean that all sexual relations are therefore necessarily power relations. The penis is indeed seen in certain dominant discourses as a power symbol, the supreme sign of gender difference, but that does not mean it is an instrument of power in and of itself. In other words, the penis is not the phallus. The link between them is more complex and has to do with the process by which an individual with a penis is socially constructed as possessing or claiming to possess the cultural signs of masculine power. The central drama of masculine identity arises precisely from the disparity between the corporal and the social symbolic, between having a penis and having the phallus. The condition of masculinity is unstable, fragmented, contradictory and ambiguous; yet society demands (and the individual wishes) that it be unified, consistent and homogeneous. 393
The fact that the penis participates in a relation of power does not stem from its condition of being a "penis" and "penetrating", but from its condition as part of the body
of an individual with a masculine identity who makes sexuality an exercise of power, and
who has a phallic, patriarchal vision of sexuality. But the penis can belong to bodies with gender identities that are capable of engaging in erotic relations of auto-gratification and generous gratification of other people.
This confusion of the penis with the phallus seen in concepts of homoeroticism colludes with patriarchal ideologies that naturalize masculine power as deriving from the body. It
also silences configurations of sexuality that reveal other, non-oppressive visions of erotic relations and of power-ways of being a man and of living one's sexuality that resist or subvert the logic of phallic, patriarchal power.
V Conclusions
I believe that the studies of native (including Mexican) homoerotic experiences, which have emerged in recent years to form a geographic encyclopedia of perversions all, suffer from a serious flaw: they privilege the "nominative form", the comprehensive model of the dominant discourse, and treat it as the one and only form of homoerotic relations in a given culture. The "nominative homoerotic form" is the predominant explanation given to "curious foreigners" who ask about relationships between people of the same sex (Murray, 1997), but it completely fails to encompass the diversity of practices, meanings and subject (or body) positions in which homoeroticisms take place.
This generalization of the nominative form is inappropriate, in my view, for several 394
reasons: firstly, because it confuses social prescriptions with complex reality; secondly, because it accepts the dominant discourse without question and ignores the power games it constructs; and thirdly, because by accepting the dominant discourse it draws a veil of
"normalcy" that obscures the true nature of patriarchy as fractured, contradictory and unstable.
All this is due in part to the concept of culture that was in place in the seventies and eighties, when the theoretical and methodological framework for early anthropological studies of homoeroticism was being laid out. These studies tended to assume a prescriptive, normative definition of sexual culture. As a result, the study of sexual culture and sexual relations between men became the study of sexual scripts, of the social norms sanctioned in relation to sexuality, or sexual conventions on sexualness."^ The problems with this definition of culture are that it does not register the complex interplay of discourses, powers and forms of resistence that permeate the sexual field' '^-in addition to the cultural one-and that it privileges the norms of the dominant sexual discourse (Bourdieu, 1988; Niinez, 1994).
' Gilbert Herdt, author of one of the books that examine homoeroticism in different cultures, defines sexual culture as "a consensual model of cultural ideals on sexual behavior in a group. A sexual culture suggests a world vision based on sex and gender norms, emotions, beliefs and symbolic interpretations of the nature and goal of sexual encounters" (Herdt, 1997: 17). feel that Prieur's work for the most part avoids merely reproducing the dominant discourse, and explores in some detail the game of significations in which the partners participate. However, Prieur studies a fairly unrepresentative homoerotic group: one which has little formal education and is socially marginalized and self-destructive. Even homoerotic characterizations of these individuals tend to emphasize the dichotomies of the dominant discourse on what it means to be a "fairy" (Joto). 1 beheve this characteristic of her research population causes Prieur to fall back into aspects of what we have called the DMUH in describing them. This fact should lead us to question more deeply how our research subjects do not enunciate the "truth" of homoerotic relations, but only their particular way of interpreting such relations, which stems from their particular insertion in the field of social signifiers and distinctions, which in turn stems from their particular cultural, individual and group history. 395
If we simply reproduce the dominant discourse on homoeroticism in a culture, we fail to acknowledge the other homoeroticisms present, for the simple but profound reason that although the hegemonic discourse is ontoformative (it tends to construct reality), the relationship between hegemonic and non-hegemonic elements is more ambiguous than we assume. As the popular saying goes, del dicho al hecho hay mucho trecho (there's a big gap between words and deeds) especially when what lies in that gap are bodies and nerve endings, unconscious desires, visual stimuli, unstable identities, and analytic, creative individuals capable of exploring, transgressing and exploiting the contradictions of the dominant discourse.
I firmly believe that anthropologists of homoeroticism must make the categories of the DMUH their object of study; we must attempt to understand anthropology's contribution to homophobic patriarchal technologies and its impact on the organization of intimate erotic encounters. We should also broaden our investigative horizon to acknowledge the diversity of pleasures, bodily encounters, organizational criteria of homoerotic practices, ways of constructing and deconstructing identities, personal meanings, and relations of pleasure and power. We have to construct this new approach together and there is a great deal of work to be done.
In conclusion, my critique of the DMUH, together with my ethnographic research and my discussion of different theoretical and conceptual models, shows that the multiple variants of homoeroticism that fall outside the dominant model offer many lessons on men and on a) the various ways of positioning oneself in the field of gender and sexuality and of relating to hegemonic discourses on them, b) the fragmentary, inconsistent, 396
unstable, ambiguous and heterogeneous nature of masculine subjectivities, c) the processes of imposition, resistence, accommodation and subversion that men undertake in the construction of their gender identities, d) the importance of the body and its sensations-not only its meanings-in the processes of subject and identity construction, and e) the importance of desire and pleasure for understanding masculine identities. It also allows us to see the field of homoerotic relations as a space in which patriarchal ideologemes of sex and gender are constantly being challenged; a space of human encounter that is open to the experience of bodily sensations, emotional intimacies, relations between different subject positions, desires and pleasures that promote the unlearning of dominant conventions of masculinity and the formation of new ways of being a man. 397
CHAPTER 7. WHO ARE THE "MSM"? SEXUAL IDENTITIES, SOCIAL
CLASS AND THE STRATEGIES IN THE FIGHT AGAINST AIDS
I Introduction
(Fieldnote, August 25, 2003)
Listening to the morning radio show on my way to work, I heard an interview with a government official supposedly in charge of migrant farm workers' issues. The radio host was rather superficial. Sometimes Ifeel I cannot stand the extreme conservatism that predominates in this city any longer. Nonetheless, as a researcher I sense there is an opportunity here to engage in critical work. The timing seems right. Given all I have learned recently about how widespread homoerotic practices are among men in the military and the recent news stories about the rise of HIV infection in the armed forces,"''
Ifeel a personal sense of urgency to address the issues of AIDS and "men who have sex with other men " (MSM) in my own work. The ridiculous and misleading comments of this so-called government expert irritated me to such a degree that I have trouble remembering now the precise words he used. In any case, this is my recollection of what he said about the phenomenon of the high incidence of AIDS among migrant workers:
In 2003 there were various articles in national newspapers in Mexico, particularly in La Jornada, on the issue of human rights violations among soldiers who had been diagnosed with AIDS or HIV. These reports triggered other commentaries on the lack of information about the epidemic in the military and on prevention strategies for the army. "Look, we [the government] have tried to discourage single men from becoming migrant farm workers. We encourage men to travel with their families; when they migrate by themselves they can get into a lot of trouble—we see problems with alcoholism, as well as
with prostitution, drug addiction, violence and, of course, AIDS. You see, the AIDS
problem is also related to the fact that we have many homosexuals; I mean, many of the
migrant workers are homosexuals and hence we see a high incidence of AIDS among them. "
I am stunned by these comments.
A government official declares without the slightest embarrassment that the issue of homosexuals is a "problem" and he associates it automatically with AIDS. Such common prejudice would be enough to irritate me in and of itself, but what seems extraordinary to me is his assumption that there are many homosexuals among the migrant workers. This is a striking assertion. How does the official know this? Was
there a study to count them? Were they asked about their homosexual identity?
Obviously not. The official is making assumptions based on HIV infection rates, which he presumably confuses with AIDS. Having the virus is the same as having AIDS and the same as being a homosexual—a prejudice that is both unoriginal and archaic. But maybe he knows something more? Maybe he bases his assumptions on epidemiological
information? This is important. I strongly doubt that Sonora is being "flooded" with homosexuals who have decided to come and pick grapes in the baking heat. What would induce "homosexuals" from states like Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz, where most of the migrant workers are from, to come and do this type of work? What does the official 399
understand by "homosexuals"? People who engage in homosexual practices? Are we back to the assumption that everybody who engages in homosexual practices is homosexual? What happened to the Latin American sexual model as described by North
America anthropology? Did it disappear under the cultural influence of the US media? It is the official's own middle class that is undergoing the most cultural change."^
I suspect that categorizing the sexual existence of these migrant workers as
"homosexual" is a distortion. Recalling the tales of Federico and of the many other men who have spoken with me about the sexuality of soldiers, migrants, cowboys, etc., I feel somewhat frustrated. It would seem that the Anglo-Saxon model for understanding sexuality is being revived before we have acknowledged that the DMUH is inadequate.
In this context, I feel that my discourse will sound even more bizarre. I feel terribly marginalized in the debate.
When I get to the office, I mention what I've heard on the program to a friend who is an AIDS activist. I ask him if he understands what the official means. He replies calmly:
"Those guys are very 'machistaHe must know from the infection rates that the workers are having sex among themselves, or with the male prostitutes from the Cost, and since he can V use the word 'mayates' [trade] on the radio he says 'homosexualsIt's a load
Nunez (2000) and Caceres (2002) have commented on the middle-class nature of this identity category, which is linked to outdated medical-psychiatric discourses. Caceres mentions that in certain sectors of the middle class there is a notion that both partners in a homoerotic relationship, regardless of their role, are "homosexuals". The official's mis-attribution of certain identity categories to groups and social classes may be a case of classism. 400
of euphemistic crap and they do it because they want to sound knowledgeable "What do you think about it?" "I don't know. Nobody really knows, there is no research, nobody knows anything. I don't think that these guys are 'homosexuals'. They wouldn't call themselves that, no way, just imagine a bunch of orange or grape pickers from
Veracruz in drag, in high heels and stockings, ha ha, no way. I think what we are seeing here is what is known as "men who have sex with other men". The people who receive help from our organization, the people I've met, are very poor, extremely poor, and I don't believe that they would be broad-minded enough to say they are 'homosexual' or
'gay' or anything like that."
I agree. But this makes me think that we are dealing only not with sexual identity but with social class. Not only are more poor people getting infected with HIV nowadays, but they are also people who do not identify themselves as homosexual even though they engage in homosexual acts. Is this why they don't feel vulnerable? But isn't that why the concept of MSM was introduced in Mexico, to make visible a segment of the male population who don V identify themselves as gay, and educate them by means of public health campaigns? What happened to that concept? What does it mean now to activists and intellectuals who can influence public health policies? I feel there are opposing class visions of sexual identities that we need to explore.
II The Literature on MSM: How Public Health Invented a Group.
An obligatory reference on the concept of MSM is the anthology SIDA y sexo entre hombres en America Latina: Vulnerabilidades, Fortalezas, y propuestas para la accion. Perspectivas y reflexiones desde la salud publica, las ciencias sociales y el activismo (ONUSIDA/Cayetano Heredia University, Peru, 2002), which offers a synthesis of current debate on the topic. Given the importance of this book and the influence it might have on the development of public policies, I would like to provide a detailed overview of the arguments made by the different authors, and to point to what I believe are their fallacies as regards the phenomenon of homoerotic relations between men and the transmission of HIV.
The concept of MSM involves certain assumptions about sex/gender identities and sexual relations between men in our culture that I believe it is important to analyze in detail. In the face of the AIDS epidemic, it is even more important and urgent that anthropologists analyze this phenomenon. As we know, certain notions of gender and sexual identity are closely related to the absence of a perception of risk of infection among men since, for example, "masculine men" who do not identify themselves as
"homosexuals" do not consider themselves to be part of the population at risk, even when they engage in risky practices.
In the book mentioned above, the expression "men who have sex with other men" is treated as if it were a stable concept. However, a careful examination reveals a wide range of much more ambiguous terms whose instability contradicts the initial premises.
Thus we find phrases such as "sex between men", "unprotected sex between men", "gay men and other men who have sex with men", "masculine homoerotic relationships and 402
practices", among others.There is great ambiguity and contradiction between the original meaning of the concept of MSM and the way it came to be used later, contradictions which have become dominant in public health debates around the world.
Tim Frasca, an American journalist and AIDS activist living in Chile who has studied the topic since the 80's, mentions that the category of the MSM began to emerge in epidemiological reports as a statistical category. This occurred, he adds, because early on in preventive work it became clear that many men engage in homosexual practice without considering themselves "gay" or associating those practices with any other aspect of their individual identity (2002: 141)."' The category was created by statisticians in order to cover cases of men who had been infected with HIV through a specific practice: sexual relations with other men. Manzelli and Pecheny, researchers at the University of
Buenos Aires, comment that the category of "men who have sex with another men" was proposed by epidemiologists in order to incorporate a number of diverse identities and not just homosexual identity; "the expression MSM attempts to define a category of people by a behavioral choice and not by the cultural identity of a social group or an individual" (2002: 111). In another words, the concept of MSM arises out of behaviour
Using a gender term to refer to the sex of a partner in a homosexual relationship is a common error that should be corrected. There are practising homosexuals who are feminine or effeminate, others who are masculine and others who are androgynous. Not all homosexual males are mascuHne just because they are men. These gender differences are relevant in understanding homoerotic relationships and risk perception, as we will see later.
'" It should be pointed out that it was not AIDS prevention workers who discovered or publicized the existence of males who had homoerotic encounters without identifying themselves as gay or homosexual. Their existence was already voxpopuli on the so-called "scene" in Mexico. The "natives" know about it long before anyone else. But in the academic world it was the anthropologist Joseph Carrier who brought the issue to light in his research on Mexico (see Carrier 1972, 1976, 1985, 1995). This occurred in the mid- seventies, almost fifteen years before epidemiologists and activists became aware of the phenomenon. or a sexual practice. Men who have sex with other men, according to Manzelli and
Pecheny, are not a social group with a cultural or personal identity. That is, there is no individual or group socially identified as MSM; rather, it is an epidemiological category
(and I would add, one used by activists also).
However, Manzelli and Pecheny introduce a striking notion of the permanence, regularity and social definition of individuals according to their sexual conduct: the concept of MSM defines a "category of person". Unlike Tim Frasca's position, in which the category is a statistical tool for grouping men who have been infected through erotic practice, independently of their identities, Manzelli and Pencheny see the concept as defining a category of persons according to their choice of sexual behavior. Or, as they put it elsewhere: "a diversity of identities, not just one identity, the homosexual one".
This reading of the concept of MSM as an umbrella concept grouping multiple identities is backed up by these authors with another argument: "Studies all over the continent show that there is a enormous variety of situations in which men have sex with other men—a practice likely to transmit HIV: the middle class, urban homosexual who has adopted the gay identity model [...]; the man who hides his homosexual preferences; the bisexual who, whether married or not, seeks out homosexual relationships; transvestites
[...]; masculine-looking gigolos who share the world of masculine prostitution with transvestites, without necessarily acknowledging themselves as homosexuals, etc."
(2002: 112).
Despite the authors' attempt to emphasize practice as the defining element in the concept of MSM, their argument effectively consolidates not a series of "situations" or practices, but a series of identities and social groups: "homosexuals, gays, bisexuals, transvestites, and gigolos"; as well as a vague "etc". Although maybe we are meant to include other males within the same category, since the authors make the following comment about the diversity of identities within the concept of MSM: "In some cultures, for example, the man who takes the active role is not considered by society to be homosexual—or some equivalent term." [2002: 111], A wide variety of documents written by public officials, epidemiologists, activists and researchers use the category of
MSM as an umbrella term to designate a variety of identities, and groups communities.
Dr Pedro Chequer, advisor of ONUSIDA for the Southern Cone, speaks of programs aimed at "men who maintain sexual relations with men" (2002: 6). It is not irrelevant that he uses the verb "to maintain" instead of the verb "to have", since he refers to individuals as regularly engaging in a given practice—sexual relations with men—that continues in time as usage or custom, which implies a group existence and a social identity.
This reading is confirmed elsewhere when Dr Chequer, citing the Health Minister for Senegal, declares that "men who have sex with men are a vulnerable group" (2002:
6). Likewise when he refers to the need to "encourage research on gays and other MSM in order to combat the vulnerability of this part of the population" (2002: 7). These statements assume that "gays" are among the MSM, but are not all of them: that gays, and others whom Chequer does not name (we could imagine the identities and names listed by Manzelli and Pencheny) are a group, but also that the MSM are a separate segment of the population. Following this definition of the term MSM as a "population" (rather than a practice), Caceres and Pecheny state in a joint article that "men who have sex with men represent, in theory, a small fraction of the general adult population" (2002:
15). We might ask, to what theory do they refer? An epidemiological or an anthropological one? Further on, apparently contradicting what Caceres stated in his own article earlier in the same volume, the authors claim, citing the work of various researchers, that "while sex between men is fairly frequent in the region, male homosexual conduct usually does not imply a homosexual or bisexual identity (Parker,
1991; Caceres and Rosario, 1999; Carrier, 1995; Lancaster, 1995)" (2002: 27). One might certainly assume that the authors are referring to the following: (1) that even though in theory the MSM are a small fraction of the general adult population, they are not a small fraction of the male population, or (2) that the MSM are indeed a small fraction of the male population, but they are a "fraction" that has many sexual relationships among themselves, even though, for some of them, that practice does not imply a homosexual or bisexual identity.
The term MSM has come to mean a group, a segment of the population, a category that covers a number of different identities rather than just a homosexual one.
The authors appear to agree on this last point. The concept of MSM defines a group of men or a variety of identities among men that includes, but is not limited to, gay, homosexual or bisexual identities. So who are the MSM, apart from those who identify themselves as gay, homosexual, or bisexual? How useful is the concept of MSM for understanding homoerotic relationships in Mexico and Latin America? Ill Men Who Have Sex with Men" And The Dominant Model for Understanding
Homoeroticism.
If the term MSM describes population groups and is not merely a statistical tool for categorizing HIV infection in men who engage in sexual activity with other men, is important to understand its underlying assumptions about homoerotic relations and sexual culture. The AIDS activist and researcher Jose Toro-Alfonso, from the Universidad de
Puerto Rico, attempts to answer this question by referring to various other authors: [in
Latin America] "the essence of urban Anglo-Saxon homosexuality is reproduced in the imagination on the global ghetto, while in our own societies we observe and describe other sexual cultures affecting the life of other men who have sex with men [ Femandez-
Alenay and Sciolla, 1999; Murray 1998; Schifter 1997; Schifter and Madrigal 1996]"
(2002: 90). Elsewhere he specifically refers to "literature on homosexualities in some developing countries" (such as Harding, 1998; Perlongher, 1999) showing that the gender polarization we observe in sexual conduct among men is reproduced "even in the context of the sex industry". He then cites Murray (1995) "who makes a detailed argument that sexual conduct among Latin American men is based on traditional sexual roles where the
'man' is the one who penetrates and the 'woman' is the 'penetrated'" (Toro-Alfonso,
2002: 89).
The series of dichotomies such as active-passive, masculine-effeminate, dominant-dominated, which we have previously termed the Dominant Model of
Understanding Homoeroticism, or DMUH, is reproduced not only in the work of Latin
American academics but also in the assumptions of some AIDS activists and researchers. 407
Toro-Alfonso states that; "Caceres (1999) [mentioned earlier] describes men from Lima,
Peru; Gonzalez y Liguori (1998) describe Mexicans; Schifter [1998] describes Costa
Ricans; De Moya (1998) describes men from the Dominican Republic; Parker (1997) describes men from Brazil and Ramirez (1996) men from Puerto Rico: all of them refer to homosexuality using the discourse of effeminacy and sexual passivity. Men who have sex with men, whatever the national term for them—cacheros, bugarrones, fletes, or bugas—still subscribe to the hegemonic discourse on homosexuality by limiting themselves to active penetration and domination" (2002: 89).
The Chilean anthropologist Gabriel Guajardo, a researcher and AIDS activist, also reproduces this view when he states, on the basis of his work in the community, that in
Latin America "we speak of a gay world that is traversed on the one hand by popular sex/gender relations and systems, and on the other by rationalized discourses on sexual identities" (2002: 73). Elsewhere he cites Caceres (whose research is based on that of the
American anthropologist Gilbert Herdt)"^ who asserts that in Latin America, class and homophobia combine to produce two alternatives ways of understanding homosexuality:
"on the one hand, a medical or psychiatric model traditionally used in the middle class, where any sexual contact between men implies homosexuality", and on the other, the model seen in "poor urban criollo environments [where] there still exists a traditional view of homosexuality based on gender roles, according to Herdt's classification (1997)"
(2002: 73).
Although Herdt, author of a seminal work on the Sambia of New Guinea, is widely cited by Latin American authors, he has never done any research in Latin America. The remarks he makes about Latin America, in his work on homosexuahties across the world, are based on authors such as Joseph Carrier, whose pioneer work was critiqued in the last chapter. 408
Thus, according to the authors cited above, the concept "men who have sex with men" evolved in our countries into an umbrella term to designate the personalities we know so well: homosexual, gay, or bisexual identity categories, and the local categories within the traditional dominant discourse on homoeroticism that we have called the
DMUH in Mexico (active vs. passive, mayate ws.joto, masculine vs. effeminate). Faced with the reality of this usage of the term MSM, some activists are asking themselves whether it contributes anything new to their campaigns. Others are asking in consternation, "Is this why the term was appropriated, to designate the jotosl Why not just say so? Why not start education campaigns for gay?,, jotos, and mayatesl Why bother with this supposedly new scientific term? Is this just a politically correct strategy?""^
The DMUH obscures the fact that homoeroticism transcends patriarchal identity categories and sex roles. Guajardo in fact suggests this when he writes of "a permanent possibility for discontinuities, uncertainties, and risk" (2002: 65) with respect to
"categorizations of identity, relationships and sexual behavior". This author adds that "a specific situation of MSM is seen in the case of institutions where men are confined without the possibility of sexual or emotional relationships with women, for example in jail or in the army" (2002: 65). Guajardo even acknowledges the existence of "identity dissonance in the face of binary macro-codes - for example passive/active - that is seen to a certain extent in masculine prostitution" (2002: 65). He cites Perlongher's statement that homoeroticism occupies "a diffuse locus between axiomatic obedience to the rules of
'" A comment made by an AIDS advocate in a forum in Mexico City. 409
the code and a certain roaming pseudo Hbertinism that sizzles on the back streets of cities at night" (2002:65).
As an ethnographer, I believe that if we paid more attention to those "diffuse loci" and that "roaming pseudo libertinism" and the "back streets of cities at night" we might have a better understanding of sexual life, especially men's sexual life, and the way homoeroticism transcends familiar, standard identities—whether of popular or Anglo-
Saxon origin. In the context of ephemeral opportunities between "masculine" or non-
"masculine" men, homoeroticism resists dominant discourse on sex/gender identities and subverts binary codes. Although it does occur in the well-known cases of prisoners, soldiers or sex workers, it is not limited to them. We need a better understanding of the forms of transmission of HIV in our countries, where class, gender and sexual identities are interwoven together. We need to be able to make sense of the high percentage of cases of infection or illness whose modes of transmission are unknown because they do not fit our assumptions about homoeroticism or identity categories. An example of this is given by Dr Veriano Terto, a health researcher and a well-known activist in the Brazilian homosexual movement, who is involved in the struggle against AIDS:
In Brazil, 18% of AIDS cases among men are still listed as "cause of transmission unknown"; and the difficulty of understanding who they are and what is happening with them may be the result of the limitations of our epidemiological tools and the complexity of defining the homosexual world in epidemiological terms. It may be that within that 18% there are men who engage in sporadic or ongoing homosexual practices but whose social identity is heterosexual (2002:170).
My argument throughout this thesis and in particular in this chapter is aimed at underlining exactly that fact. In order to understand the homoerotic experience, we have to pay attention to its terms and meanings instead of imposing our own. When we think in terms of the concerns raised by Dr Terto and in the hght of my own theoretical premises and field work, it becomes obvious that, at least in the case of Mexico, our first methodological problem is that we need to stop using the term "heterosexuals" for people who neither know the word nor identify with it. Thus, studying the concept of what it means to be a "man" opens up the possibility of legitimizing and negotiating homoerotic encounters in which there is a risk of infection. In the following section, I present an attempt to classify that dissident reality on the basis of my own ethnographic information.
IV Escaping, Resignifying and Resistiting the DMUH
Homoerotic experience is varied and complex, since homoerotic encounters are much more open and fluid than the global models assume. In these encounters, many men re-encounter their bodies erotically; they resignify terms of sexual identification; they dare to experiment with roles and pleasures that apparently contradict the dominant gender model; they resignify their sexuality using non-stigmatized cultural frameworks such as male friendship, adventure or freedom; or they frame their sexual encounters as relationships of camaraderie, friendship, play, "drinking buddies", or "partying".
It is important to mention that although the dominant terms and paradigms are certainly present as cultural references (they are some how known by the subjects), they do not necessarily come into play. At times the homoerotic encounter does not follow the model, but remains simply an encounter "among men"; sometimes the model only scripts the relationship at the beginning, but not during the entire encounter, since the individuals involved resignify or resist the categories, identifying themselves in terms of "manliness"; at other times individuals transgress or resist sex/gender expectations in practice, but not in their discourse; and at other times the categories of mayate-joto, or mm-joto, or gay-gay are reproduced. There is a lot of research to be done on this issue, but my fieldwork leads me to believe that there are various factors at work in the construction of this "complex" homoerotic reality. These include how well the individuals know each other, their sex/gender characteristics, the practical aspects of their encounter, their desire for and experience of physical pleasure. In order to avoid reproducing the DMUH or the Anglo-Saxon model for such encounters, I propose the following classification of homoerotic reality:
1) Some erotic encounters are constructed from the outset without reference to the categories of gay or DMUH. These men experience their homoeroticism as "men".
They may be friends and coworkers, men who are fond of one another and trust each other, who share sexual experiences either occasionally as part of an experiment or in a more ongoing way in certain specific situations in which they are physically close. They may be friends (particularly, but not only, adolescents), members of the armed forces, college roommates, relatives (cousins and so forth), or acquaintances in certain situations—farm workers, migrants, minors, ranch or construction workers who are temporarily housed together, or prison inmates. I have many field notes on this type of situation. The following is an illustration: 412
(Field note)'^°
Joaquin, one of a group of soldier friends I met through Carlos, talked to me about the relationship he had with his best friend in the army, what he called his CUAS
[Companero unico a seguir, a military term used in Mexico for a soldier's designated partner on exercises]. They went through the rigors of boot camp together, all the
"shitwork up in the mountains" on duty against the drug traffickers, the loneliness, the dearth of affection, the "carrillas" [a term that may come two signify two things: rude jokes or rude work] etc. All of those experiences made them quite close, he said. "Your partner becomes your soul-mate. He would give his life for you and you would do the same ". Joaquin commented that when the soldiers were out on campaigns for months at a time, sharing tents and going everywhere together, it was normal for them to go off and masturbate or even to do so as a group, "because you feel like it, because you feel horny, because you 're wasted, because you need it, because you trust the guys Other soldiers would go off in pairs and "people would know what was up and they would just mind their own business and carry on drinking inside ". "Mindingyour own business " [es su rollo] was the slogan offriends in the military and it was used as a formula to express respect and complicity.
After having known Joaquin for several months, I asked him explicitly if he was
"doing it with his buddy", and he said, smiling, "Not any more because we got split up, he went off to military school [...]. The way it started out was we were sitting in a tent
Since the people involved are members of the armed forces, they requested that I not give any information on the context of the interview nor the conditions in which it took place. The names are, of course, fictitious. talking and after a few beers one of us said, "Let's jack off", and we started out doing it on our own, but then he said, "If you help me I'll help you, you 'II see it's not the same
Regarding whether penetration occurred, he said, "Yeah, we used to feel each other's ass
[he smiles], just buddies, like, but we never went beyond that, the deal was he would get right to the edge 121 and then finish there and then I'd do the same thing. We never talked about it. It was just between the two of us. We were just drinking buddies. We became such good buddies that he got a tattoo on his shoulder like mine and we agreed that when one of us died the other one would die too. See? This one here", he said, showing me the tattoo on his shoulder.
2) Some encounters seem to start out following the usual dominant model, which is then resisted or resignified: this is the case in encounters where one man initiates and/or facilitates the encounter by approaching another who is not, who does not identify himself as gay, homosexual or mayate (if anybody is rude enough to ask, he answers,
"I'm a man"), and who at first may assume that the other is gay, a joto or a hooker.
However, this pattern will probably be transformed during the encounter or in succeeding encounters. Some of the elements that may contribute to the transformation of the initial assumptions of the individual who is picked up may be the masculinity of the individual who initiates the liaison, the camaraderie that may arise between them, and the presentation of the individual who initiates the encounter as somebody who is not associated with any stigmatized identity and who also has heterosexual desires and
In Spanish the verb used is puntear, meaning to put the penis at the rim of the anus, without penetrating all the way. The interviewee would ejaculate at the edge of the anus, a practice fraught with obvious risks. 414
relationships. As a result, the individual who is picked up becomes "open" to experimentation with emotional and physical sensations that are not governed by the identity positions in place at the beginning of the encounter. The terms of identity are suspended and are not usually verbalized in the encounter (the conversation hinges on other topics).
(Field notes, July 18, 1998)
Raul, who is from Hermosillo, has been a friend of mine for some years. We know each other very well and he is aware of my research work. Raul is masculine looking, although that does not prevent him from having "gay "friends and frequenting the "gay " scene in Hermosillo. His sex life has included relationships with women. Raul prefers masculine-looking men, whether gay or not. He often tells me about people he's picked up, experiences he describes as adventures full of surprises and challenges. On this particular occasion he told me that he had met a cowboy who came from a ranch close to the border during the Dairy Expo, which is an important event in Hermosillo.
This is how Raul describes the encounter.
"I saw him standing there watching the dancing, in his cowboy hat; he was stocky, medium height, very tan, great looking guy. I walked over to him casually, making sure it didn 7 look as if I was making a beeline for him, so he wouldn't get scared, the way you do when you 're trying to catch a bird. Then I got talking to him, the typical thing, have you got the time, where are you from, how come you 're alone, etc. He says, I'm not from around here. He seemed like a real nice guy, but he was serious, and kind of withdrawn. Later on he made it clear that he is 'mellow', no drugs, although some people think he's in the drug business just because he has a fancy pick-up truck, but he bought it when he was working in Tucson. I think he told me all that because he didn 't realize at first what my intentions were. Later on I revealed them. I gave him this long poetic speech, ha ha, and he must have said to himself, 'This guy may look real macho, but you can tell he's AC/DC [este por mas machin que se vea, corre para tercera]. And then he invited me to go take a pee, you know the way those small-town guys do: 'I'm dying to take a piss, wanna come take a pee with me?' Ha ha. So anyway, I gave him the hint, and the guy understood and then I asked him, 'What are you going to do?' 'Nothing much'. 'Come and have a drink with me round the corner then' and so on. After we'd gotten in he said, 'So, you like dick?' And he grabbed my hand and put it on his crotch, still playing the macho guy. He had a hard-on. 'Yeah', I said, 'but I get ojf with women too': and the guy seemed shocked and he said, 'Oh yeah?' 'Yeah', I said, 'you got a girlfriend?' 'I'm screwing a gal', he said. Ha ha, he sounded like such a red-neck. Then we got talking about other things and we started making friends. I mean, he talked about his work, about the trips he makes to Tucson to work in construction and then he goes back to the ranch and so on. Nice guy. That night we started making out and at first I took the initiative and he just let me hold his dick, but then he hugged me and he got so
The expression "the typical thing" refers to a conventional pick-up ploy. See my book Sexo entre varones: Podery resistencia en el campo sexual, which deals with these conventions and other aspects of the homosocial "scene" in Mexico. turned on that he started groping me and then he got really crazy because as we were going at it he asked, 'So, do you bring your woman here?' Like it made him feel horny to think that I had sex with women in the same bed. I said, 'Yes, and we do it in all kinds of
positionsI said that deliberately to make him horny. We didn't actually fuck that time, but I gave him a blow job and then we carried on talking as if nothing had happened and then we said goodbye. A few days later, we bumped into each other near the post office and we agreed to call each other that night. So we went out again, but this time it was a bit different because even though we started out the same, me rubbing his dick and him pretending to be real macho, he grabbed mine and masturbated me, 'to help me out' -
real nice guy. See, what happens as you get to know each other is that you become friends. And anyway, I believe the guy liked the fact that we talked about other things
like baseball, disappointments we'd had with girls, trying to get a raise at work, stuff like
that. And then, listen to this, we saw each other again like a week later and we went to a
hotel because we didn't have anywhere else to go, and that time I kissed his buns and he
let me and when I least expected it I realized he was open to anything so I slid in close to
his ass-hole and he let me stay there a while. I didn't go all the way but I got really
excited, and then the guy gave me a blow job, and I'd felt like he'd never done that
before. It was a fucking struggle, it was like he didn't want to let me, but either curiosity
or pleasure got the better of him. After that we went out again. And then it was like he
got freaked. He had a beer with me and I gave him my telephone number but he never
called me. And after two months he calls and it was like nothing had ever happened, he
gave me his cell phone number and we've seen each other several times now. It turns out the guy is married and he's even got a daughter. The thing I like about him is that he's really masculine and he's not into the gay scene. I think he's one of those guys that dares to do this once in their lives or once in a while but they feel really guilty about it. Like he never imagined what he was capable of doing. Who knows. "
3) Some other encounters, however, may apparently reproduce one or several of the
DMUH dichotomies; nevertheless, the erotic act is a transgressive one. This could be when a couple of men hook up in a working class bar or when an effeminate man gets off with a masculine one on the street; where one of the partners, the one who initiates the encounter in this case, positions himself as a "gay" or [receptive partner, "bottom",
"bitch"] by using inviting body language or propositions that place him in the symbolic space of "passivity" or "homosexuality". In this case, during the process of the physical encounter or friendship, the symbolically "active" individual (the ''mayate", the "top" or
"masculine" one, or "man") dares to experiment with bodily contact, sexual practices
(being touched, touching, receiving or giving caresses, etc) that transgress to a greater or lesser extent the ruling sex/gender premises of his identity position. A very well documented example, which of course is not the only kind, is that of the masculine men who pick up transvestites and ask to be penetrated by them. The body and its nerve endings and/or the fantasies and desires that have been long incubated or repressed, but are finally expressed (almost always under the influence of alcohol) lead to a surprising physical experience that transgresses the dominant ideological assumption that sexual practices are predetermined by one's sexual orientation, gender or sex. This type of encounter is typically constructed under dominant identity categories; however, it does not conform to the particular erotic practices supposedly associated with those categories.
Of course, many of these encounters end up reproducing dominant categories because the jotos or "effeminate" partners wish them to, even despite the desire of the "man" or mayate. The following quote from Gildelbrando is very revealing. Gildelbrando, who is tall and pale-skinned, comes from a rural area in Sonora (he refers to it as "a two-bit town in the sticks" [un pueblo perro]), but he is well educated and an intelligent, lucid and playful speaker. Nevertheless, maybe due to his socialization as an effeminate men in a poor rural environment, for him there are only two categories, men and fairies, hombres and jotos. Real men will have sex with anything, including faggots. Recently he has begun to consider mayates (trades) as an intermediate category, men who are "just" mayates, who fall in love with jotos and have lasting relationships with them, but are masculine. Gildelbrando told me the following anecdote, which demonstrates both the reproduction of sexual dichotomies in poor rural areas as dominant discourse on homoerotic relations, and the possibilities for transgressing those dichotomies:
"I'll tell you [he says to a group offriends including myself], I once met a man, a mayate, and he wanted me to fuck him, even though I was a joto. I said, 'No way! I'm a little Spanish rose [soy rosa de Castilla], I'm just a joto, I can't get it up [he can't get an erection] so I can't do it with a man.' The really funny thing is that this guy says to me,
'How about if I screw you so you can get it up ?' In other words, this is so funny, the guy wanted to screw me so I could get an erection so that I could screw him!"
Homoeroticism is a reality in the sexual life of males in our society and deserves 419
investigation, acknowledgement and understanding. It is experienced, signified and embodied by the participants in many different ways in their hves. Thus, the challenge for the researcher is to determine what cultural, cognitive, and emotional elements make these transgressions possible in a homophobic social environment. How emotionally healthy are the men involved in these types of encounter, and what risks do they incur to their physical health?
We might expect to find two easily identifiable poles on a spectrum: men who have these experiences in a semi-conscious, inebriated state, and those who consciously enjoy and accept their erotic affairs and manage to integrate them into their lives on a more than occasional basis (without this necessarily meaning that they adopt a gay or other identity). In between these two poles one might situate men who indulge momentary weaknesses and pleasures and are led to repeat them. Without wishing to generalize, it is important to underline the role of alcohol in these experiences, since being semi-conscious or having apparently "lost control" becomes an excuse, even a recurring excuse, for engaging in erotic experimentation and transgressing social expectations for "manliness". Silence and non-verbalization of the encounter is another possible strategy.Other individuals may resort to homophobic violence in order to resolve this dissonance and restore the symbolic borders of "manliness", in its most orthodox sense. When we consider the importance of homoerotic contact in men's lives, we find a wide range of attitudes, from the notion of homoerotic contact as an
Del Toro (2002), Bronfman and Minello (1995) offer much interesting data on the role of alcohol and other drugs in the construction of sexual relations among men, particularly in "non-gay" men, showing how it contributes to the failure to practice safe sex and to HIV transmission. unrepeatable adventure, after which the discourse of the overriding importance of heterosexuality (that is, heterosexism) is reaffirmed; a mild interest in homoerotic relations; or homoerotic relations as the main practice during a whole life or stage in a person's life. In between the two extremes of anonymous, impersonal sex and loving relationships between long term partners, we find friendship, camaraderie and complicity between men who get to know one another or get drunk together, as in the above- mentioned examples. The individuals who transgress dominant perceptions and conventions are unrecognizable within the mentality of the dominant sexual discourse, in the anthropology of homoeroticism and in public health policies, all of which use dominant categories of perception and thought.
When individuals with male bodies and masculine behaviors and gestures not only take pleasure with other males, but do so in a way that transgresses the way that male bodies are supposed to be and the criteria for masculinity, they overturn the sexual ideologies that render both people's bodies and their sexual and reproductive conduct foreseeable and predicable. Their transgression has no name because it occurs beyond the scope of terms that are provided or appropriated by patriarchal sexual systems, such as heterosexual,yoto, homosexual, gay, bisexual, mayate, etc. By calling themselves simply "men", they broaden the semantic field of the term and thereby also the social construction of manliness itself, as well as the possibilities for intimacy. It is interesting to note, however, that these transgressive men do in fact figure in the life of many people, in the form of jokes, and even in dreams, as some non-gay men have commented. 421
V Jokes: a Field of Signification that is Symptomatic of the Complexity of
Homoerotic Reality
In my ethnographic work, I have recorded many jokes and popular songs, which,
if we follow Freud's theory of the relationship between jokes and the unconscious,
become clues or symptoms of a culture that surreptitiously acknowledges homoeroticism
as a fluid phenomenon that escapes dominant models for understanding sexuality and gender identities. This fluidity allows it to escape the way in which homoeroticism has
been understood, as "homosexuality"—an identity which, although scandalous to some,
has in fact been appropriated and redefined (albeit with difficulty) in patriarchal
ideologies.
The following jokes are ones 1 overheard in my ethnographic work in Hermosillo,
in homosocial spaces frequented by lower middle-class "masculine" males of heterosexual preference but without a heterosexual identity. I should point out, however,
that two of these jokes were also told to me in La Mesa, a village in the Sonoran
mountains. All three jokes refer to compadres ("buddies", best friends), a symbol of
male friendship, complicity and trust, a space where intimacy is possible.
Joke #1
So there were these two buddies, right? And one says to the other, "Hey, man. I've got
something to tell you, buddy. Don't get nervous, I just wanted you to know that, well, you
really turn me on, buddy".
"What? You 're kidding, man!" "No, I'm not, but don't worry buddy, it's true, and I thought, well, we trust each other so much, and anyway, what's wrong with it?" 422
"No, man, I tell you ... "It's no big deal, we 're both men, what's the fuss? And you know what, buddy, I really feel like doing it with you. " "No way, man." "We could take turns, man." "All right then, " the other guy says. And then they go off to a dark spot and take their pants down and right away he starts screwing him. "Hey, man, slow down, will you? Don't be in such a hurry. " And then the guy who is leaning over him starts biting his ear while he's fucking him and the first guy turns around and says, "Hey, man, what the hell are you doing, don't be a goddamn pervert!" [jsin maniacadas!] Joke #2 There were these two guys out drinking, and one of them puts a huge bottle of beer on the table and says in a big gruff voice, "OK, man, we 're gonna suck this down!" And the other guy says, "And the beer is to give us the nerve? "
Joke #3 "There was this guy who was a real bastard, lazy, a womanizer, a sex maniac, he'd screwed just about everything, women, faggots, donkeys, goats, you name it. He was a heavy drinker, really masculine-looking. Anyway, he was really mad. He had tried everything: dope, cocaine, the lot, and life wasn't any fun any more, so he said to himself, 'Well, now I've tried everything and I'm not interested in living any moreSo he picks up a gun to shoot himself and just then his compadre comes in and sees him and says, 'What are you doing?' And the guy says, 'Look, life just isn 't fun any more. I'm pissed because I've tried everything and I've decided to hell with it, I'm going to blow my brains out'. His friend tries to talk him out of it but the first guy has made his mind up and so the friend who wants to save him turns thoughtful and he says, 'Now, don't take this wrong, but since I see you 've made your mind up and I'm not going to take you out of it. 423
there's something I'd like to tell you ...I've always had a thing for you, you really turn me on'. And the first guy says, 'What do you mean, are you crazy? Can 't you see I'm a real man?' 'Yeah, yeah, I know that, I am too you know, but the truth is, don't take this wrong, the truth is you got really cute buns and ...'
'What the hell are you taking about? Are you out of your mind?'
'What's the problem? You 're going to die anyway. Nobody's going to find out, it 'II just be between the two of us. And since the worms are going to eat you anyway, why not a human, don 't you think? '
The first guy thinks about this for a bit and the other one keeps on trying to convince him. 'Come on, man, do me a favor. It can be your last favor for a friend before you die', and in the end he convinces him, and the first guy says, 'All right then, what the hell, life's no fun anymore, come on, let's do it'. So the friend starts screwing him and they 're going at it and then the friend finishes up and says, 'Well, thanks very much.
Now you can go ahead and kill yourself if you want, here's the gun'. And the first guy says, 'Are you kidding? I'm not going to kill myself now, my life's only just begun!"
These three jokes share several characteristics. They are all about masculine- looking male friends who establish the possibility of having a homoerotic relationship. In all three cases, we see a recurrent theme of emotional intimacy and trust, semanticized in the term compadre (translated here as friend, buddy, or man) which is used to make the encounter possible. We also see how desire can arise in this space of everyday intimacy in lines such as "I've always had a thing for you". The notion of one of the men desiring the other is never articulated in the dominant terminology of sexual or gender difference, but rather as a relationship between masculine men whose sexual identity is not in question. The voices and language of the characters, as articulated by the narrator of the joke, accentuate their affinity to the model of "virility". In fact the sexual proposition or confusion is codified in terms of relationships between men: doing someone a favor, a gesture of solidarity, sincerity and cooperation in order to satisfy a friend. This codification contradicts the dominant interpretation of homoeroficism as "homosexuality" or "gayness", which are associated with the feminine, and thus explores the erotic dimensions of friendship among "men".
The normalization of the possibility of desire and an erotic relationship among male friends is achieved in the jokes by the persuasive argument of the "friend" or compadre; it is he who introduces the tension which is displaced and then resolved in an ending that is either absurd or surprising. In Joke #1, the normality of a sexual relationship between the friends is never questioned, but rather the "abnormality" of eroticizing an ear that is seen as being "perverted", a behavior that is excessive, disorderly and crazy. In Joke #2, alcohol helps overcome inhibitions and eases the expression of the homoerotic desire that underlies the two mens' close friendship. In
Joke #3, the discovery by a "macho" man of the pleasures of anal penetration revitalizes a life (and a sexuality) that had become boring and meaningless.
A central facet of this type of joke is the normality with which the initial homoerotic desire of one of the friends is presented: the desire to have sex with a friend because he "feels like it", because he "fancies" someone, because they "turn him on" or, 425
in the case of other jokes, because the speaker is simply in need of sex due to his lack of access to women; he is either shipwrecked, up in the mountains, or in jail. Naming the existence of homoerotic desire for someone "similar", another masculine man who is a close friend, is a subversive act of daring that is at the same time a release in the joke.
Naming that desire gives it life, allows it to be acknowledged as something that exists, that is present, that is a possibility and a reality both in individuals and in society. The humor lies in the resolution of an anxiety regarding an unconscious or conscious desire that is confronted and named in public via a joke in which the speakers recognize themselves as potential actors. The relief is afforded by the joke's non-threatening resolution, which has an element of justification, in the collective guffaw that I witnessed many times in the listeners.
The discourses of anthropology, medicine and common sense fail to portray male homoerotic experience that does not follow the accepted models. There are aspects of the life of "men who have sex with other men" (MSM) that are not encompassed in the
DMUH or in the model of gay identity; nevertheless, that dimension of homoerotic life emerges into representation through jokes, popular songs and, on a more private level, anecdotes among friends and acquaintances or recollections of the participants, as well as in literature, film and recent research work.'^"*
1 refer to certain short stories in works such as El vino de los bravos by Luis Gonzalez de Alba (1983), De amoves marginales: 16 cuentos mexicanos, compiled by Mario Mufioz (1996), and the narratives and chronicles of Joaquin Hurtado anthologized in his texts Laredo Song (1997) and Cronica Sero (2003); and also to box-office hits such as "Y tu mama tambien", a movie which culminates in a sexual relationship between two urban youths who have gone a series of heterosexual adventures together as part of masculine sexuality's ongoing search for erotic conquests. VI Understanding Homoerotic Reality
In order to understand male homoerotic practice, it is important to understand homoerotic desire. The model I am proposing is based on a particular critical framework.
In the first place, I share the psychoanalytic approach that sees Eros, or libidinal energy, as polymorphous and perverse (Freud, 1962). Erotic and emotional desires are socially constructed via a series of complex processes that involve the territorialization of the libido in the body, the construction of imagination and the entry into the symbolic order.
The individual is constructed as lack and as desire by means of a series of losses and repressions. Homoerotic desire is part of the desire of all individuals and it exists on a par with heteroerotic desire; that is, we may assume that human nature is intrinsically bi- erotic, even though sexual identity involves a repression or loss of conscious contact with one of those two dimensions.
In our society, the construction of male subjectivity and male gender identity and sexuality involves a strong social pressure towards heterosexualization and masculinization (Dorais, 1999). Male subjectivity is identified with the symbolically masculine, and with a sexual and romantic preference for members of a sex that is ideologically constructed as opposite and complementary. This process of subjectification, to use one of Foucault's terms, involves the construction of subjectivity and also a subjection to patriarchal social order. That subjection is instilled in the subject as a particular psychic organization, a conscious and unconscious dynamic, a process of repression as well as a constant process of sublimation, projection and rationalization.
Homoerotic desire in many patriarchal and heterosexist societies is the object of constant 427
denial, but also, and because of that very fact, it attracts constant projections, sublimations and rationalizations.
Within this theoretical framework, we need to examine the way that specific sexual identity systems configure desire and particularly homoerotic desire in different ways. In Mexico, unlike in the Anglo-American model, there is no polarity between heterosexuality and homosexuality (since the term heterosexual does not exist). The concept of a "man" in Mexico is primarily a concept of a gender role rather than an attempt to enforce a single exclusive desire: a "man" is not "heterosexual" (since that is a non-existent identity), but rather someone who possesses the "autonomy", "ability" and
"freedom" to satisfy his sexual desires, which are assumed to be intense and constantly present.Similarly, the term joto does not designate simply a dissident form of desire, but rather a gender dissidence, an "effeminate" subject. Thus the terms mm-joto do not represent mutually exclusive identities, as in the case of the polarity between heterosexuality and homosexuality. They may be used in an inclusive way with regard to desire, but an exclusive way with regard to gender identity.
This feature of gender and sexuality in Mexico makes possible the existence of something the DMUH rarely refers to: the masculine "man" who is capable of fulfilling his homoerotic desire with another man (masculine or not), in a way that transgresses his gender role but that falls outside the identities of "joto" or "gay". This is possible because the configuration of the sex-gender system in Mexico does not create a clear and
Curiously enough I have heard men in Sonora refer to themselves boastfully as real "putos" (faggots), meaning that they have "been around", had a "lot of sex", even though they mean sex with women. In this case the word "puto" play with anotherconnotation of this term of stigma, its association with being "homy". 428
absolute distinction between homoerotic experience and "manliness". On the contrary,
since "manliness" is constructed as a high level of sexual activity, bodily autonomy, and
values such as adventure, exploration, knowledge of the world, etc, the acknowledgement
of homoerotic desire or the experience of homoerotic pleasure are always possible at different stages of life.'
VII AIDS Statistics in Sonora: Social Class and Sexual Practice
(Field note: September 5, 2003) Ruben, a friend who is an AIDS activist, has just sent me the report on AIDS cases published by the Department of Public Health for the state of Sonora. This report contains the cases reported from the very first one identified in the state in 1986, up to July 31, 2003. In total there are 957 cases, with an infection rate of397.1 per million inhabitants. A number of things in the report catch my attention: 1) the high percentage of agricultural workers, particularly given that they are not a high percentage of the population overall. In terms of occupational groups, they represent the largest number of cases: 17%, well above sex workers who are only l.lVoof all cases or students who are 2.1 %, even though students constitute a sizable segment of the population of the state; 2) the high number of cases in the areas where the agricultural workers live: the town of Estacion Pesqueira has a rate of3440.4 per million, which is much higher than the state average; 3) the high incidence of AIDS in the mountain towns in which I worked: of the eight towns in the Sierra that appear in the report, five feature in my ethnographic work. One of these cities has an infection rate of 1136.4 per million; 4) the
This vision of the Mexican sex-gender system is based on the hypothesis (which various sources show to be increasingly the case) that as educated urban youth in Mexico pick up the North American concepts of "gay" and "heterosexual" from television series, they become more tolerant, accepting and respectful of "sexual diversity". This exposure to the North American sexual system is transforming the concept of male sexuality to exclude homoerotic adventures among men of heterosexual preference. The young middle and upper class most influenced by this cultural transformation seem more hkely to reproduce the gay- heterosexual dichotomy seen in North American society. 429
high percentage of males - 88.7% - and the large number of sexually transmitted cases - 69.5% of the cases; 5) the high percentage of working-class cases, based on their occupation and limited access to health care: 65% of the cases were treated in medical centers without either state or private health insurance. 51.4%of the cases are unemployed, day laborers, sex workers, prisoners, blue collar workers and "others " who do not fit in the standard occupation categories and are probably "underemployed"; 6) finally, the report lists a population category whose risk factor is "bisexual conduct": the figure for this category is 17.5%, as opposed to 24.2% for those of "homosexual conduct" and 27.8%for those of "heterosexual conduct" (one assumes exclusively heterosexual). For 12.1 % ,the risk factor listed is the use of IV drugs and for the remaining 14.9%) it is listed as "unknown A significant absence, as we saw in Dr Terto's difficulty in categorizing those who do not fit within given identities; 7) it is also striking that 80.2% of the cases are between 15-44 years old. Looking over the figures for Mexico and Latin America compiled by Caceres, who points out that of the seven epidemiological AIDS regions in Latin America, Mexico stands out as having "the highest percentage of cases in which the mode of transmission is known, since they are MSM", with 54.5% of cases in Mexico in 2001 as opposed to 13.6%o reported for Central America. 128 Bearing in mind Caceres's statements about transmission categories and "false heterosexuals", something seems to be happening in Central America. I am suspicious of these figures and I call my friend Ruben again to ask how the Health Department establishes a risk factor. He tells me: "The person in charge goes about it in a very intelligent and cautious way.
Obviously the men who come in aren't going to describe their sexual life to the first person that asks them; people aren't used to talking about that sort of thing so it's much more likely that they will say that they had sex with women who are infected. The woman
The seven regions that Caceres uses in his illuminating article are Mexico, Central America, the Latin Caribbean, the non-Latin Caribbean, Andean America, the Southern Cone and Brazil,
See Caceres' article (2002). at the Public Health Department is a very intelligent psychologist who leaves that category blank until she has been in touch with the person for two or three months and they've come to trust her. By that point people are a little more likely to talk about their sex life and the information is filled in. So I believe the information is very reliable. "
But I still think about that 14.9% who are listed as "risk factor unknown It leads me to various conclusions: 1) there is a high percentage of cases in rural areas among people who work on the land, including the towns where I have worked; 2) there is a high percentage of working-class men; 3) "homosexual" behavior is high up on the list of risk factors, but "bisexuality" is even more so, although it is an identity I believe to be rarely known or used in Sonora or in the rest of Mexico. Based on my research on homoeroticism in Hermosillo (the city with 35% of the cases) and other towns where I worked (which were among the few listed and the ones with the highest infection rates), I am convinced that there is a link between those figures and the type of male sexual experiences documented in my ethnographic work, which have led me to critique the models for understanding homoeroticism in Mexico. Do the statistics include the type of men I interviewed during my research, whose homoerotic life occurs outside known categories and who resist or resignify "gay" sexual identities? I have to acknowledge that my research has focused on a particular class segment of the population: the people
I interviewed were all lower middle class or lower class or else of rural origin. Is there a class factor in their non-alignment with the sexual identities of the DMUH or gay identity? Does that non-alignment have any connection to their high risk of infection? 431
It is true that the ethnographic method I used does not permit me to make important statistical correlations between social class and sexual identity; this deficiency is common to all ethnographic work, but it leads me to think of scenarios that would otherwise have been impossible. How can my ethnography help to understand this data?
Is there a correlation between social class and adherence to certain identities? How does one interpret the high percentage of migrant agricultural workers among the cases reported, except through such a relationship between class and sexual culture?
VIII Social Class, Cultural Capital and Gayness
One aspect of the dominant categories of perception, thought and action within the field of sexuality in Mexico that has not been studied is their link to cultural capital
(Bourdieu, 1990) and different social groups and classes. Some studies of homoerotic relations in Mexico have correctly pointed out the association between gay identity and modernity, urbanization and globalization. Local terms for MSM such as joto, choto, maricon, and mayate, etc. are associated with "traditional" working class urban or rural populations. Of course the reality is more complex than this, and in fact the use of such terms, while it does denote certain cultural tendencies in Mexico, does not necessarily imply deep parallel transformations in terms of signifying homoerotic practices and people. In a society that is constructed by the media—television, magazines, newspapers and radio—sexual categories and meanings are broadcast throughout the nation. In isolated rural communities in the mountains of Sonora, some adolescents and adults are familiar with terms such as homosexual, ^ayjoto, and others. It is important to find out
what meanings they attribute to these words and how they affect their lives.
There has been virtually no systematic research on the meanings of sexual
categories and their distribution in the population in Mexico. My research, however,
suggests that for a large proportion of the population, whether urban or rural, the concept
of "gay" has come to mean a way of understanding a new and often unfamiliar
phenomenon; a new and different vision of what was formerly seen in a prejudiced way.
Being "gay" has come to mean a "lifestyle", a societal perception of "men who
like other men". A "gay" man is seen as being a middle class professional who is
respected because he is respectable: he is not loud or vulgar, he does not dress as a
woman, he is intelligent, he behaves according to conventional notions of politeness, he
causes no public scandal, he keeps his sexuality private, he is confident, a bachelor, he
dresses fashionably and he is a young adult. A man who does valet parking outside a
"gay" bar in the city of Hermosillo said to me in 1994: "Gay men come here and I don't
mean jotos, no, they are gay. I take care of their cars; they are very responsible,
respectable people". This class dimension in the categorization of sexual identity is seen
in various jokes I heard in Hermosillo, which dealt with the same opposition between
"gay" and "non-gay".
Joke #1 Pepito comes in and says to his dad: 433
"Dad, there's something I have to tell you, but it's very hard for me to say; I hope you won't be disappointed in me and that you will still love me because I am still the same person. " "All right, Pepito, out with it. What is it you want to say?" his dad says in a gruff voice.
"Well, er", Pepito says, hesitantly, "I want you to know I'm 'gay'". His father replies,
"Tell me, Pepito: Have you got a car? Do you have a career? Do you have money?
Are you independent?"
"No Pepito says.
"Well then, you 're not gay, Pepito. You 're a 'puto'!" [faggot]
The joke presents a new connotation of the term "gay", a lifestyle that is much more dignified and prestigious than the one designated by the terms joto, or puto (faggot).
It also underlines the class difference in terms of those last two terms, which people associate with the world of prostitution, poverty, transvestism, drugs, decadence, the arrest reports section in the newspapers, and scandal. Being "gay", on the other hand, is associated with a middle-class urban lifestyle that is heavily influenced by American culture. It connotes a young, single man, with a successful career, money, a car, and independence.
There is another dimension to this difference, a dimension which is seen as now versus then, tradition versus modernity, in the pair of terms joto and gay. This dimension can be seen in the following comment by Luis, a gay friend of mine from Hermosillo, describing an older man who is "effeminate" and works in the city center as a street vendor: "Poor guy, he grew up at a time when if you were a joto, your only future was 434
being a bar-tender in some dive or living in the red light district". It should be pointed out that the social respectability and association with economic power now seen in the term "gay", which is of foreign origin, versus the term joto, was formerly associated with the term "homosexual", as we see in a joke from the end of the '80s in Hermosillo as told by "non-gay" men:
Joke #2 There was this joto and he says to the other, "Oh honey, I don't want to live in Mexico any more, I'm going to go back to France "Why, honey? " the other one says. "Well, because everything's so different there. When I was there, I used to be 'Frangois
I'homosexuel'
"And here? "
"Oh, here Fm just Pancho 'elPuto'".
This joke underlines the importance of words in the representation of sexuality and the construction of social identity and power. The term "homosexual" is associated with being cosmopolitan, educated, modem, and is a term of denoting respectability, which is pursued and longed for by the individual, who finally has to face the degrading term puto, which springs from the homophobia of Mexican sexual culture. I should add that the character is represented as effeminate by means of his lexicon and his camp tone of voice. These last two jokes, which stage a confrontation between different class associations of certain terms and identities, arise from a particular social and historical period in Mexico. They describe a historical juncture when the homophobic stigma of 435
vulgarity is overthrown by a segment of the population who seek respectability and who have been publicly demanding it for at least 25 years. By this I mean the decision of a middle-class group in the 70s and 80s to go public about their sexual and romantic preferences, thereby confronting patriarchal society in Mexico, with the help of the symbols and discourses of the intemational gay and lesbian liberation movement. This process began with the foundation of the Front for Homosexual Liberation in Mexico
City in 1971 by a group of intellectuals and spread to medium-sized cities in Mexico in the 80s and particularly in the 90s.'^^ By that point, a gay identity had developed and become more visible. It largely followed the consumer models and symbols of intemational gay identity: saunas, discos, specialized magazines, TV programs, dress styles, music, bars, the importance of the body and physical exercise, demonstrations, activist groups, etc. In Mexico there is a clear association between gay identity and a certain social class: gay men are young professionals or college students, who have cars and can be independent (i.e. not live in their parents' home), they have fashion sense and dress well—in other words, they are middle-class.
The association of gayness with the middle class is more than a symbolic one, since to be identified as gay, one must possess both a certain cultural capital bestowed by social success - a success that is largely due to class - and economic capital, which allows one to be a consumer of gay culture. The purchase of certain products and services heighten the sense of belonging to the gay community and reproduce a sense of
For an excellent introductory essay on the history of the gay and lesbian movement in Mexico, see Porfirio Miguel Hernandez Cabrera's thesis (2002). A pioneering work on the Homosexual Liberation Movement in Mexico is Gina Fratti and Adriana Batista's Libemcion Homosexual (1984). gay identity: discos, bars, restaurants and cafes (much of "gay hfe" takes place in this type of public space in Mexico), clothes, gyms, films, theater, saunas, spas and other places for recreation, programs on satellite TV, paraphernalia, internet chat rooms, tourism, books and magazines, videos, music, course and workshops and even trips to the
Meccas of the international gay movement and gay culture—^New York, San Francisco,
Amsterdam, Montreal, Paris, Madrid and Toronto—or the national Meccas: Mexico
City, Tijuana, Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta.
The cultural and economic capital necessary for the acquisition of a gay identity also guarantees a higher level of access to information and education about sexuality and health. The spaces, products and services of the gay community afford access to arguments, symbols, discourses and ways of living as a gay person without fear or guilt; they promote a sense of legitimacy, human rights, support networks, activist groups and provide places for men to express themselves politically, seek answers to particular situations and obtain information, education and awareness about AIDS.
This last point should be emphasized: in comparison to other homoerotic forms of experience, being "gay" offers a measure of personal protection, a more politically aware, confident, informed attitude to sexuality. "Gay" men are more likely to possess the cultural competence to use condoms and the money to buy them, in comparison to other sectors of low-income people that engage in homoerotic practices. I am thinking of a sector among urban jotos, and marginalized transvestites and transsexuals, whose life is characterized by self-destructive practices like addiction to drugs and alcohol. But what about other forms of homoerotic life that do not reproduce either the gay identity of the middle class, nor traditional pairs of oppositional sexual identities such as joto-mayate, active-passive, etc.—in other words, what about relations among males who define themselves as "men"? What is the class dimension of this category? What is its relationship to AIDS and to attempts to combat AIDS?
IX Social Class and the Other Homoerotic Experience: the Case of the Migrant
Farm Workers
(Field note: May 18, 2002)
This afternoon I saw Federico, the high school teacher I met ten years ago in an old bar in the city center on my last research project. I hadn't been back to the bar in a long while, ever since it was closed as part of the "moral cleansing" of the area undertaken by the municipal government. That, and the closing of the movie theaters, caused gays in Hermosillo to seek out other meeting places in the north of the city. The bar was re-opened eventually, even with the same bartenders, and apparently some of the old clientele have started reappearing there.
Federico was pleased to see me and invited me to sit down at his table. After the initial greetings and enquiries about one another's lives, he began giving me an "update", as he put it, about his sex and love life, "for your next book and for your own enjoyment, because you do a lot more writing and talking about sex than having it", he added. I laughed, for there are often generous informants who are always willing to talk about their lives to someone who's a good listener like me. I don't understand why an 438
anthropologist cannot confess that his job is pleasurable. I should add that Federico is a handsome, masculine-looking, professional man of 38. He's a good story-teller and often uses a rather affected voice to make me laugh.
Since he split up with his partner, Federico takes every opportunity to pick up people he is attracted to. He says that this happens at least once a week.
Of all the things that Federico told me, I was most struck by the issue of the migrant farm workers. Federico mentioned to me in a very camp tone of voice, that he is now working on "migrant affairs to describe his discovery of the possibility of erotic encounters with migrant farm workers who work in the countryside around Hermosillo.
"I know what you 're thinking, and you 're wrong, some of them are perfectly nice people.
Some of them look pretty grungy, it's true, but how can they help it when their living conditions are so lousy? They 're incredibly exploited and Ijust give them back their dignity, like Mother Theresa [he says in an affected tone, and then laughs]. No, seriously, Fve met some really nice people, really sweet guys, really kind and honest.
Some of them look pretty filthy, but there are others who get all clean and showered and changed on weekends and go out for a beer, right here in fact."
"I hope you won't be offended if I ask this, but are they prostitutes?" I ask, with a smile.
"No, absolutely not. Well, I suppose there must be some who are. Let me explain. These guys are very lonely; they're a long way from their families and their friends and their home towns. They feel very, well, lonely. Besides that, the work is very hard, very demanding, and very badly paid, and many of them live in extremely crowded conditions;
I can tell you this because they 've said so to me and I actually saw one of their barracks recently because I dropped somebody off there. But when you talk to them, you can tell that they are not used to living that way, I mean, they are poor people, but at home they were treated well, they were somebody, you understand? Here nobody knows them, and they are discriminated against for being outsiders. What I'm getting at is that they have a real need to be treated well, to talk about what's happened to them, to have somebody respect them like me, like a teacher, in a way, somebody to give them advice or simply listen to them, they just want to be treated with respect, you see. At least, that's what I have come to think after talking to them and from what they have said to me themselves. "
"So, if you want to have sex, how do you go about it, how do you actually pick somebody up? "
"Just like anywhere else, they are only from the south of Mexico, not from another galaxy, ha ha. You just never know. For example, last weekend I came in here looking really sharp, to cool down in the air conditioning, ha ha, and I sat down at the bar and I could see a young guy looking at me in the mirror. What? I thought, and I turned around and saw this guy sitting at a table with another man, a really mean-looking guy with a nasty face, who looked as if he'd had a really hard life. But the young guy looked great, slim, medium height, light-brown skin and kind of a nice face. Unlike his companion, he looked clean, kind of an ordinary guy, but respectable-looking, he had chinos on, clean sneakers, and a shirt from Milano [a popular department store], he looked great. I stared at him discreetly and I could see that when his friend was looking away he would turn around and look at me too, nothing too obvious, but he was letting me know he was interested by the way he looked at me. To tell you the truth, I am pretty cautious, and I said to myself, 7 don't know about this one, he could be a hustler, who knows what he's up to, with friends like thatThis carried on for a while, occasionally I
would turn around and see him looking longingly at me, as if he really wanted me to go
talk to him. Then his friend got up and went to play pool with some other guys and he
raised his beer glass to me as if he were toasting me. So I did the same thing and then he invited me to come and sit down with him, so I did. And when I was at the table he was
really polite, shook my hand, as usual I asked everything I could about him, and he told
me that he was from a village in Veracruz and that he had come to work on the grape
harvest here in Pesqueira. He just really wanted to talk to somebody different, somebody outside his work crew, according to him they didn 7 even speak Spanish, that's what he
said, they were Indians from Oaxaca and the rest of them couldn't speak Spanish well.
He was just such a nice guy, really pleasant and cheerful and happy to be having a
conversation. And he also said that the place they were living was a real shit hole, that
the work was fucking awful, that they weren't being paid what they 'd been promised, that
he missed his family a lot, but there was no work back home so when they came out
recruiting people for the harvest he decided to sign up. So we talked for a really long
time, like an hour or more, we were getting on like a house on fire, of course his friends
kept coming up from time to time but he kind of let them know that he was enjoying
having a conversation and didn't want to be bothered. Anyway, let me tell you, this guy
was attractive and macho-looking, not like a pansy at all, but you know, as soon as he
looked at me I could tell there was something underneath all that, you know? Just
something going on in his brain, ha ha, you understand? Of course, he must have felt the same thing about me. He's not a baby, he's been around, I thought to myself, he's 24 years old, but I think he must have sensed something in me, or maybe he was just eying me up, and with good reason, because the competition wasn't up to much, ha ha. "
"And? Did you just talk?"
"No, of course not, I trusted him and so I asked him to go out for a walk with me. It seemed as if he were expecting me to, but he asked me to promise that if it got dark, I had to swear that I would take him back to where he worked, and I said yes. Then he said goodbye to his friends quickly, told me to wait for him outside, he grabbed his bag, which only had talcum powder and lotion that he had just bought because where they were working they don't have anything like that, and he left the bar. Once we were out in the street, one of his friends came out, one of those guys who looked like he 'd come from another planet, I mean way down south, oh, I'm pretty prejudiced, aren 71, but good- looking, although it's not as if there aren't any good-looking men down there, but this one was really good-looking, and he came out to watch us and stared after us with this mournful look. I wondered if it was his husband and I was breaking up their marriage.
Ha ha. Anyway, my guy didn't seem to give a shit and he came along with me and as we were getting into the car I asked him, 'Shall we go to my house? We 11 be more relaxed there', and he goes, immediately, 'Yeah, that's a good idea'. And we got there and started watching TV, we didn't talk any more because we'd already talked so much. I think it was pretty clear what was going to happen, because I said, 'Come over here, lean on me.' And I gave him a hug and he let me and I stroked his head as we were watching videos. It was that easy and I thought to myself, God, the poor guy must need this so much. And then things started heating up and I kissed his forehead, Ijust kept kissing him and he closed his eyes like he was enjoying it and then we took each other's shirts off and I kissed his nipples and he seemed mesmerized and his whole body went completely relaxed and he wasn't protesting at all. At one point I asked him, 'Hey, are you sure about this? You don't have any problems with it? You wanna have some fun?' And he said, 'Who doesn 't?' You 're right there, I thought. It was weird though, because at the beginning he seemed to be playing the macho role a bit, you know like I was the fairy, but not in a mean way, he just left it to me to take the initiative, you know? I just took things slowly, no pressure, I didn't kiss him on the mouth at first, as you know for some of them that's like off limits, right? Like falling in love. And then I started nibbling his feet and he trembled with pleasure, and then I started masturbating him but he didn't touch me, he just let me do everything until I hugged him. Oh, by this point we had taken all our clothes off and I hugged him and I said, 'You hug me tooand so he starts hugging me and stroking me and he kissed my neck, my breasts, and at some point my lips came close to his and he didn 't resist at all and we started kissing and it was fantastic. Anyway, to cut a long story short and not make you jealous, ha ha, I masturbated him and at first he, like, didn't want to touch my penis, but the weird thing was that all of a sudden he looks at me and he looks at my penis and it was like he just made up his mind and then he started giving me a blow job. Wow, I thought, I was completely thrown, I wasn't expecting it, but he was really into it, although it felt like it was something new for him.
Oh God, I'm not going to tell you any more, that's enough! I don't know how you do this, but you manage to get people to tell you everything. That's enough. I have no idea how you do this, I think you must have put something in my beer or else hypnotized me like Kaliman, ha ha. Oh my God, this is awful; I am going to be in your next book
"Well yes, and I'm going to need your photo for the front cover, ha ha. Don't be ridiculous, I've already said that I want to use this information for my research, I am very interested in it. Honestly. This is all confidential. So don't keep me on tenterhooks any longer, tell me what happened, I'm interested to know if you had anal sex or not, and how? I'll tell you why in a minute".
"What a bastard you are, ha ha. You 'd better dedicate the book to me, ha ha. Well, we didn 't actually fuck, but I'll tell you what, when we were in the shower and I hugged him from behind I could have. I didn't because that wasn 't what I'd intended, but I could have done, in fact, I was right on the edge ofpenetration. And then he wanted to fuck me but he never asked for a condom, I mean he wanted to do it just like that, bareback, which really struck me. I thought, what planet is he living in? "
"Why did that strike you so much? "
"Oh, I don't know, that's just such an obvious thing for me, and besides, in my experience with soldiers, they almost always have condoms with them or they ask you if you do ".
"Well, actually, that's exactly why I wanted you to tell me about this; I'm interested in understanding more about what's happening with the use of condoms".
"No kidding. I'm glad you said that, but you should know I always, always use protection, but now that you mention it, what struck me was not just the business about the condom, I don't know how to say this, but I was struck by the way he went about the whole thing, the way he was so easy to pick up, you know what I mean? In other words, the guy didn 't look gay, I don't think he even knows what the word means, and he's not a faggot or anything, you know? But he had this fling with me and he gave me a blow job, it's true he was pretty drunk by that point, but who knows. Now that you mention it, I asked him if he 'd gotten off with any other guys out there in the barracks. "
"And what did he say? "
"He said no, no way, but that some of the guys were laughing and joking [sacando cura], because they had found a couple screwing out in the fields. And I don't think they had brought their condoms, they barely speak Spanish, he said. And now that really is enough, let's change the subject, let's talk about soldiers now, ha ha."
"So what happened? Did you take him back to the countryside where he worked?"
"Oh, of course I did, and we had another few drinks, and he said to me that they were going to be moved to the area near the coast and we left on good terms ".
"One last thing. I'm struck by how surprised you were that he was open to having a fling with you. Did you ask him anything? "
"Not exactly, I didn't ask if he was gay, because that's not really what you ask, they might get mad with you, or whatever, it would have seemed completely the wrong thing to say. The important thing for me is that he's up for it and that we have a good time together, right? I mean, I think that the golden rule is that when you have a relationship with somebody like that, somebody that you can see is not gay, but who is masculine, who is kind of macho, somebody that you can see won't do it right away, the golden rule is never to ask that. It's irrelevant. I think the person might feel uncomfortable, or even get 445
offended, J would say, if he isn 't very educated, because suppose he had had the courage to give you a blow job or a hand job, it just happened and it's over with, you understand, it was just because it felt good or because he was feeling horny, or maybe because he wanted to experiment a little and he got up his courage and then you add the beer on top of that, or whatever, it's like it's a gift and as they say, you don't look at a gift horse in the mouth, you understand, you don't put it into words, that wouldn't be right, maybe the last thing he wants is for you to remind him, it's just between you and him, a secret, something nice, especially if you carry on seeing him. Silence is a kind of respect. Now, if he's like a student, then you might realize you could talk about it, he would be more open-minded or more open, if you get what I mean, because you could ask him something like, 'Do you consider yourself gay?' especially if you 're interested in more of a long- term relationship, right? Oh man, that's enough, no more interviewing, ha ha, no more."
Federico's story is the only ethnographic data I have about migrant farm workers.
This information is interesting to me for two reasons: 1) because it demonstrates the assumptions that underlie those experiences (the silence about the practice and about identity, silence which functions as a form of respect) and the way that these behaviors are understood as being a momentary indulgence, being homy, a whim, or a loss of inhibition due to alcohol; 2) because it provides an example of the overlap between sexual experience, transgressive behaviors, the class and gender identity of the migrant, and his risk of infection. The worker's class status, his cultural and economic capital as a rural day laborer, mean that he is positioned within a system of sexual categories that forecludes any possibility of identifjang himself as gay. The categories that are available for his class—-joto, or choto in Veracruz—connote femininity, passivity and blatant homosexuality that are not relevant to him, in terms of subject positions. The term mayate, on the other hand, as it is used in the DMUH, is inadequate to account for his transgressive sexual activities. Silence, as part of a relationship of "typical" masculine camaraderie, becomes the symbolic space that the subject occupies. Lastly, it should be said that this symbolic space does not include models of perception, thought or action that allow men to protect themselves from HIV infection.
"Gay" identity carries a class connotation; it is an identity associated with the middle class. Only certain members of the upper class adopt it, and only when it does not endanger other kinds of capital, whether economic, political or social (the upper class is supposed to be more conservative). Likewise, "traditional" identities such as joto, choto, mayate, etc., connote and express a particular economic and cultural capital of the lower urban or rural class. These working and peasant classes and other social groups, including the underemployed and the unemployed, are excluded and exclude themselves from "gay" identity because of their lack of ad hoc cultural capital and because of their lack of economic capital.
This juxtaposition of lower-class and sexual identities leads to a number of differences in the experience of homoeroticism. In the first place, obviously, there are differences in positioning in the fields of sex and gender and, in the second place - something that frequently goes unnoticed by AIDS activists and analysts - in terms of the economic, social and cultural resources that allow survival in a homophobic environment.
By resources I mean the arguments, discourses, support networks, connections, symbolic associations, access to health education and information as well as information about rights, etc.; I also mean the lack of safe and respectable spaces for recreation that would lead to a diminished level of violence, the lack of access to condoms and to medical services in general, the lack of the kind of cultural capital that would enable one to understand one's situation of oppression and therefore emotionally and socially resist one's interiorized homophobia, the lack of awareness and access to institutional resources and materials for resisting HIV and AIDS. This issue has been commented on in passing by some authors. Guajardo's work supports my position, since he argues that factors such as low self-esteem, conflicts about acceptance, alcohol and secrecy all hinder the practice of safe sex. Likewise, Toro-Alfonso also mentions issues such as sexual abuse in childhood and its connection to risky sexual behavior, the number of sexual partners, a higher likelihood of the individual working in the sex industry or having problems with alcohol and drug abuse.
To sum up, in Mexico, the sexual identities joto or "gay" imply more than just a way of conducting sexual relations (Jotos are passive and are international; that is,
"active" and "passive", as Carrier says). These sexual identities imply codes, practices, meanings, styles, ways of meeting and picking up people, spaces, and possibilities for different approaches to sex and love, all of which are heavily imbued with class connotations. Being a joto is to be positioned in a field traversed by social forces; it is a different way of living and of understanding sexual difference, which is constructed as a meaningful social distinction in our patriarchal society. The migrant farm workers are even more vulnerable to infection, thanks to their particular class and gender identity.'^®
As Gonzalez-Block and Liguori point out (1991), poverty is a structural factor in terms of vulnerability to infection and the spread of the epidemic because it limits access to information, health care and the acquisition of the cultural capital that leads people to take better care of themselves. The class status of the migrant farm worker impacts his whole life: his emotional, sexual and social relationships, living conditions. As the studies of Bronfman and Minello show (1995), migration has an impact on daily life and in particular on sexuality. The life of the migrant farm workers leads to loneliness, emotional need (especially when they are despised or discriminated against because they are from another region, ethnicity or country) and a liberalization of sexual mores since the workers are no longer necessarily subject to the rules of their community of origin
(because they are outside it); all of which makes homoerotic experiences possible.
In this class and age-group (mostly young migrant workers), "manliness" means minimizing risk and demonstrating boldness and daring in search of adventure or a "good time", often in social situations where alcohol and other drugs may be present. These drugs mean that the sexual act occurs in a state of semi-consciousness, which is desirable due to the individual's difficulties in accepting his own homoerotic desires. As
Bronfman and Minello state on the basis of their fleldwork, alcohol is an essential part of the life of the male migrant workers and, according to their sources, it plays an important role in the liberalization of sexual mores, including the possibility of homoerotic
As Federico suggests in the previous field note, men who are from a subordinate ethnic group and who do not speak the official language are particularly vulnerable to infection. encounters in entertainment locales that are eminently homosocial. The individual's
"manliness" and that of his sexual partners is a significant factor in their vulnerability to infection because it leads them to minimize of the risk of infection (AIDS is something that only jotos or "homosexuals' get, and they are "effeminate").
This last point is borne out by Bronfman and Minello's study of rural Mexican migrant workers in the United States. According to the authors, these men believe they are able to judge "whether a person is safe or not" for sexual relations. They apparently use two criteria forjudging this: the person's behavior, and their health. A person's conduct is assessed by whether or not they belong to "high risk" or stigmatized groups - i.e., prostitutes and homosexuals. A person's health is judged by "whether they look well or not". Thus, if one perceives one's sexual partners as being, like oneself, "men" and not "homosexuals" because they are masculine-looking or heterosexual in their behavior, one's perception of risk diminishes or disappears: "he's not a homosexual because he's not effeminate", and also "he looks well".
Even though at times Bronfman and Minello reproduce the hegemonic discourse on male sexuality, the stories of their interviewees afford a glimpse of a homoerotic world that is less binary and more fluid; a world where, under certain conditions and circumstances, men dare to experiment with homoerotic relations. Bronfman and
Minello's study also shows that sexual intimacy among males is driven by more than just a "lack of women", as is usually supposed. Other determining factors seen in the interviews they conducted include: 1) (homo)erotic desire and the need to satisfy it; 2) a need for affection; 3) the role played by alcohol in the growth of affection and the loss of 450
inhibitions; 4) previous experience of homoerotic relationships in childhood and puberty between the ages of 8-12, a relatively common phenomenon among rural males; 5) the lack of premeditation about the act, which helps justify it in a way that does not endanger one's masculinity; 6) frequenting male social spaces that may lead to eroticization, such as bars that show pornographic videos, among others; 7) anonymity due to being outside the community and even, occasionally; 8) the justification that is provided by payment or a gift that is requested or received by some sexual partners. Bronfman and Minello provide an example of the fluidity of male sexual identity and the difficulty that academics have in understanding it. Referring to oral sex among male migrant workers, they remark: "Oral sex is also common; but generally the partner who considers himself heterosexual receives the services of the other, and when the opposite is true [that is, when the "heterosexual" is the one who carries out fellatio], that heterosexual partner does not usually receive semen in the mouth". This raises a number of questions. Firstly, why attribute heterosexuality to a rural Mexican migrant worker who has probably never even heard of the term? Furthermore, how can the authors maintain such a dichotomy in the face of the evident fluidity in roles and behaviors? How do we reconcile the fact that there are "heterosexuals" who play a "passive", "homosexual" role in oral sex? The central problem lies in the invisibility of the category "man" as a sex and gender category, its ambiguous and contested nature, as well as the way it participates in the construction of homoerotic arrangements that are different to those documented in the literature. 451
X "We Could All Become MSM": Resignification and Consequences for Public
Health and Activism
If we could get rid of our habit of using binary, exclusionary models of sexuality, we would be better equipped to acknowledge and understand the true nature of homoerotic experience, in all its fluidity, variety, and spontaneity. The sexual spectrum that Alfred Kinsey proposed in his famous study of sexuality (1948) is far more germane to the types of experience I have documented than the traditional binary model. Kinsey's work attests the extent of homoerotic practices in society (49% of males have had at least one such experience in their lives). These experiences cover the gamut between exclusive heterosexuality and exclusive homosexuality. There is no quantitative research on this issue in Mexico, but my own ethnographic work confirms the existence of a similar spectrum there, rather than a polarity. Bronfman and Minello's work is revealing in this regard and confirms my theory, despite their occasional critical lacunae in relation to identities. Speaking of men and sexual culture in Mexico, the authors declare:
Despite being practically absent in the discourse (an absence which indicates a lack of acknowledgement, acceptance or awareness of the phenomenon), bisexuality is in fact an option in men's sexual life in Mexico [...] This practice figures in the universe of possibilities in their culture of origin (Bronfman and Minello, 1995: 39).
This recognition should lead us to revise our vision of homoeroticism in Mexico, which would mean re-evaluating the concept of MSM and AIDS prevention. Far from referring to a "group" or functioning as an umbrella term for well-known identities, the concept of MSM designates an experience that could potentially happen to anybody.
Bronfman and Minello agree on this point; "In the case of men, it is difficult to separate out a group of "bisexuals", given the ever-present possibility that a man could eventually have sex with another man, which means that all men should be educated regardless of their sexual preferences" (1995: 79).
The above critique of the meanings of MSM and of the DMUH necessarily affects our assumptions about HIV transmission and prevention. Until now, since the MSM has effectively consigned homoeroticism to a "minority", a non-mainstream "group", we have failed to see how widespread it is in society and how much it affects the dynamics of desire, however they may have been defined.
It is not coincidental that the few public health initiatives and recommendations that include the expression "men who have sex with other men" (merely because the funding bodies demanded it) still focus on "gay" men who go to gay meeting places and entertainment spaces, and, to a lesser extent, to transvestite sex workers (who are assumed to be "jotos", transvestites, transsexuals, cross-dressers, or even "gays"). The educational efforts directed at these men focus on sex workers' terrain; brothels, night clubs, particular streets where they offer their services.'^' Caceres mentions, for example, that places where we need to work on HIV prevention among MSM are: "bars, discotheques, saunas, bookstores, video stores, pickup places, magazines for MSM, internet sites and chat rooms". When Caceres refers to such meeting places for MSM, he is assuming, erroneously, that MSM are groups with stable identities that are reaffirmed via cultural consumption in an ad hoc market place. However, in Latin America, such
I know some notable exceptions to this, such as the radio soap operas discussing male bisexual practice directed by the group Xochiquetzal in Veracruz, the ongoing project of the Condomovil and the articles in the Letra S supplement to the national newspaper La Jornada, to name but a few. spaces are exclusively frequented by a population that assumes a "gay", or "bisexual" identity (an identity confined to a very small sector of the middle class) and, to a lesser extent, by the transgender population, but not by the entire population that at some point has had a homoerotic relationship or encounter. Tim Frasca, who opposes the use of terms such as "communities of MSM", which he considers "contradictory and confusing", and who prefers to speak of "gay men and other MSM" in order to make visible the specificity of the gay population, calls for an attempt to target AIDS prevention on "any circles containing gay or MSM men". Defining MSM as "groups" or
"identities" leads to a number of problems: firstly, the issue of health education campaigns aimed at HIV prevention. Where exactly are the MSM? If we assume that
MSM are constituted by "groups", then we ought to be able to identify "a wide range of access points to populations of MSM". But if by "populations of MSM" we still understand the same thing—gays, bisexuals, transvestites, jotos, mayates (or any other name connoting active versus passive partners, like those used throughout Latin
America)—the end result is that we will continue reaching the same people. We might even conclude, since even those groups have not yet been adequately targeted, that we are not going to have very much effect on the sexual practices of many other men. I do not wish to imply that this is not important to target campaigns on the "gay" or "bisexual" population, or that such work been undertaken in an inadequate way; nothing could be further from the truth. At least in Mexico, there is a great deal to be done in terms of public education and awareness among men who identify themselves in that way; it has been hard enough to raise awareness in meeting places for gay men about strategies for 454
HIV prevention. Caceres and Tim Frasca's recommendations are not inadequate; on the contrary, they are extremely useful. I simply mean that I feel, from my ethonographic evidence and my anaylsis, it is a mistake to believe that we can reach all the men who have sexual relations with other men with that kind of a campaign.
The concept of "Men who have Sex with other Men" is inadequate if it is used to designate a group. But it becomes extremely interesting if it is used to designate a practice that cuts across sexual and social fields. The problem of talking about "men who have sex with other men" as if they were a group is that we tend to objectify them using existing categories of sexual dissidence and therefore render invisible other homoerotic practices and other men who are probably unprotected and vulnerable to AIDS precisely because they do not have a "vulnerable" sexual identity and because the majority of them are presumably lower class (and/or of rural origin).The concept of MSM is useful when it functions as a heuristic tool for understanding the extent of homoerotic practices, particularly in Mexico, where, according to Bronfman and Minello, cultural conditions
It is worth mentioning a fact that reveals the presence of these other forms of eroticism among people who have access to the Internet and who one imagines must be middle-class. In a research project I carried out on "homosexual and bisexual" websites and chat rooms (a category given by the commercial servers in Mexico), the majority of users described themselves as "gays" and/or "bisexuals". However there are other groups and forums that use less conventional categories or who don't wish to identify themselves by conventional categories, such as "Gays Heterolook" for gays of "heterosexual appearance and lifestyle", one for the "Armed Forces" and two that are particularly interesting in light of the arguments made here, a group called "men with men" (set up by military men or those masculine men who likes military men, not because they are gay but "just for fun"), and another group called "Non-Gay Machos on Machos", "for men who don't identify themselves as gay [it specifically asks gay men not to enter] or effeminate; for masculine men of bisexual practice who are seeking men". What is striking about these Mexican groups is that unlike the others, the majority of the subscribers give virtually no information about themselves in their personal profiles and some just list what city or state they live in. For this reason some activists wrote in to complain when the last site was opened that it was using a non-existent category, and that it didn't promote "coming out" but was directed at "gays in the closef. This is possible, just as it is possible that it is merely a gay fantasy to find "macho men who are not gay but like other macho men". Although they could be "false subscribers", I believe that this is rather a genuine mode of understanding and acknowledging one's sexuality in the context of Mexican sexual culture. 455
are such that, "at some time", any man might end up having sexual relations with another man.
I feel that it is important to clarify my position about this issue. I am not saying that all Mexican men (or all Latin-American men either) are de facto "men who have sex with other men", or that I really believe that all men could end up having a homoerotic relationship. No. That would be to overlook the fact that psychological preferences, disinterest or aversion exists, particularly in a heterosexist and homophobic culture that generates fear of homosexual relationships. Rather, I would argue that since we cannot predict the likelihood of homoerotic relationships occurring, nor restrict them to a "group of MSM", we have to assume that, in terms of public health policy (in which the principle of inclusion outweighs the possibility of exclusion), "all men could be MSM". A public health campaign, therefore, would have to say something along these lines: "We may not have planned it in advance. We may be acting out of desire, or a need for affection. We may be seeking a thrill, or just experimenting. But many of us may end up asking or agreeing to have sex with other men. We may not think of ourselves as gay, homosexual or jotos. But whenever a relationship involves anal penetration, we have to protect ourselves against infections like the one that causes AIDS". For a campaign to work, it would have to assume that any man may end up in a similar situation, and that such experiences are not exclusively "gay", "bisexual", or "MSM", if men are to perceive the risks involved in such relationships. This kind of inclusive approach would also help to make people less likely to engage in homosexual practices in a totally inebriated state because of their internalized homophobia. Only when society accepts the legitimacy of 456
men's homoerotic behaviors and our need for intimacy (whether by preference or not, whether occasional or not), will men really become aware of the risk of infection and the need for protection. This last point leads to a political point that I think it is important to stress.
The restrictive use of the concept of MSM serves the interests of the sex/gender regime by reinforcing patriarchal identity politics and erasures in health education campaigns, in which homoerotic experiences are portrayed as limited to the usual stigmatized groups. According to this perspective, homoeroticism, like AIDS, is limited to "a few": the usual suspects - gays, jotos, and mayates - who are now called "men who have sex with other men". If, on the other hand, AIDS prevention campaigns were to say that "we could all become MSM", thereby targeting all men, we could start overtuming the hypocritical patriarchal assumption that homoerotic behaviors are limited to "minority groups". We could start acknowledging the fact that homoerotic behavior is, in fact, compatible with masculine identities and, furthermore, that many men do or could have homoerotic experiences. This kind of activist strategy would contradict patriarchal society's sex-gender scheme and its supposed "tolerance" of the isolated few who have
"come out of the closet". A public acknowledgement of the reality of homoerotic desires and experiences would effectively bring society itself out of the closet and highlight the political ramifications of the way it organizes desire and assigns identities,especially
I should mention that certain activists are aware of the situation but have nevertheless decided that this is not the right moment to bring up the issue. There is a fear of questioning the meaning of the term MSM at a point when governments are being lobbied to help combat HIV infection arising from homosexual relationships, and when the term MSM has acquired a certain international currency. I think this political sensitivity is appropriate, but it should not silence academic reflection. I believe that, even as activists, we can continue to use the term MSM but acknowledge its complexity. One strategy would be, rather than 457
its exclussionary and homophobic binary man - joto (or homosexualy). Only then will we be able to claim that we have successfully embraced the concept of "sexual diversity", a diversity that, as Freud reminds us, arises not only from differences among individual subjects, but from the diversity that reigns within individual subjectivity itself, from the polymorphous and perverse Eros that inhabits us all. At the same time, a public acknowledgement of this heterogeneous homoerotic reality would bring about the acknowledgment of the axes of distincitons (class, gender, ethnic, age) and the power relations that shape it, affecting in different ways peoples lives.
denying the existence of MSM, to argue that "we can all become MSM". Male identities and the representation of sexual intimacy among males is clearly mediated by political struggles in the wider sphere of sexuality in general, as seen in public health initiatives and funding for them. I am grateful to Eloy Rivas for this comment, mexican activist on human rights and AIDS. 458
EPILOGUE
I continue to believe that there are concrete scholarly and political benefits to be had from limiting the application of modem sexual categories to the modem period and from attempting to rediscover the indigenous terms, concepts, logics, and practices of different societies-by which I refer to different sectors of our own societies as well as to the different social worlds, past and present, to which our research give us access. Such sensitivity to difference need not rule out identification, attention to continuities, or forms of queer multiplicity and solidarity (Halperin, 2002: 17).
I History and a photograph
When I first saw the picture of Jose Pedro and Francisco hghtly holding hands, I felt I was in the presence of an intimate relationship among men that somehow continue to exist nowadays. This was something I intuited from my own personal and previous ethnographic experience with some people in the Serrano villages and in Hermosillo.
Through this research, even if I never knew about any sexual encounter between Jose
Pedro and Francisco, or any other couple of friends of the same period, I came to know that they had a privileged emotional and body intimacy that is not completely absent from the present. Nowadays in the Serrano villages of Northern Mexico, and in urban
Mexican areas like Hermosillo, many men engage in intimate relationship with other men that take the cultural form of masculine comradeship or friendship, outside or resisting any stigmatized or vindicated identity category like those described by the terms "fairy, homosexual or gay" as well as traditional dominant conception of "manhood". Certainly, young men in the present do not have the cultural licence to have a graphic representation of themselves holding hands as a symbol of that intimacy as Jose Pedro and Francisco had (although in some Serrano villages they can still dance, urinate or sleep together). It is clear that to some extent a cultural transformation has taken place in the sex and gender regime over the last seventy years.
Although it was never my purpose in the present work to analyze the "accuracy" or intricacies of these historical transformations, we are aware of certain facts. First of all, we know that since the forties and fifties the modem medical discourse on homosexuality started to circulate among specialists in the cities, and later on, in the sixties and seventies in popular culture directed to adults, through films, newspaper, and magazines. Since the eighties and nineties, the subject of "homosexuality" appeared widely represented as a social and medical problem in Sonoran's newspapers. In the late eighties, nineties and nowadays, "homosexuality" has become much more openly discussed on TV talk shows, soap operas, reality shows, and educational programs.
These discussions take the form of a liberal discourse under the rubrics of tolerance, acceptation, respect, diversity, and in a lesser degree "sexual rights", or sometimes emerge into news through the debates over discrimination against homosexuals, homophobic violence and same sex marriages (Nunez, 2000). Secondly, after the
Mexican Revolution there seem to have taken an important transformation of the heterosexual couple through the increasing circulation of the romantic ideal as the basis for marriage (and not only economic production, division of work and reproduction).
Domestic unity became transformed since the forties and fifties in an increased industrialized and market economy, from a productive unit into a consiunption unit. In the fifties women reached political equality and in the sixties and seventies they entered 460
in increasing numbers to higher education and to paid jobs. These changes put new pressures on men and their configurations of masculine identity, which became less and less dependent on exclusive labour realms, exclusive access to market economy or higher education or political participation. At the same time the women's movement came to change women sexuality, making of pleasure and love a fair demand in heterosexual relations.
Following Katz's (2001) and Chauncey's (1994) arguments, I believe that in
Mexico, the increasing diffusion of a new heterosexual ideal based in love and the sharing of emotions, and the increasing visibility of a public and stable "homosexual" or
"gay" identity as a category to designate a "sexual orientation" (a slowly similar process that has also begun with heterosexual identity) that surpasses the traditional effeminate stereotype to include masculine looks, have brought about an increasing censorship or suspicion of "homosexuality" over intimate relations among men. In as much as masculinity in behaviour or exclusivity in economic or social realms is not any more a solid base for "masculine identity" o being a "normal man" itself, heterosexual exclusivity tends to become a privilege element in the construction of "normal manhood". Body contacts among men have particularly suffered from this new suspicion of "homosexuality". As romantic love became integrated into the heterosexual couple, posing holding hands for a picture became a suspicious act containing a "sexual interest", and became one of the first affective expressions to be censored among men. In recent
The aforementioned processes are more prevalent, but not at all restricted, to middle and upper classes and urban scenarios. Women affective bonds seems to have been less censored by this ideological processes, nevertheless friendship among women of middle class began to be taunted too by the consciousness of lesbian desires and pleasures as some female friends have told me. 461
years we have witnessed other regular forms of body contacts in rural communities among men, like men sharing the same horse, being taunted through jokes invoking the fanthom of homosexuality.'^^
Nevertheless, upon concluding this research and the analysis I present here, I am more convinced than ever of the persistence although somehow changed, of earlier cultural forms, meanings, and values of intimacy in many homoerotic relations among men, especially among lower classes or rural origins. I must accept that this conviction is far form being scientifically documented. This is not a historical research, but an anthropological one and in this context, Sedgwick's commentary on the reappearance of earlier categories and meanings of homosexuality and its coexistence in the present could not be more adequate to frame and back up these feelings and intuitions. Something is clear, there is need to do more investigation regarding the transformation of these categories, meanings and subjectivities in relation to a larger sex/gender system, and in the context of economic, social and political changes too. Some works like those mentioned here by Chauncey (1994) and Katz (2001) for the United States are great examples of what could be done. That kind of research project would be, certainly, the first historical research of its genre in Mexico and Latin America. I hope to have contributed through this ethnography some insights and intuitions to stimulate this type of historical research.
1 have witnessed this in the traditional Cowboy Feast of Hermosillo where people coming from rural communities and representing their rancher organizations or their villages, parade through the city streets. Young men sharing horses started to be the object of homosexual jokes in the last 6 years approximately. This is something that I had never witnessed before. 462
At the same time, I think that this ethnographic account of male intimacy in
Serrano villages and in Hermosillo, may help to better understand or to raise question on the historical account of past forms, relations and subjectivities like the "trades",
"fairies", and "wolves" described by Chauncey (1994), the love stories of friends and comrades described by Katz (2001) or present forms existing in many other societies and continents (see for example for example Murray and Roscoe, 1998). Didier Eribon himself, notwithstanding his effort to support a narrative of a "homosexual subjectivity", posits an intriguing question that implicitly acknowledges the historical existence of these other forms of subjectivity and homoerotic bonds:
What do we know about all those people who never wrote anything, about what they were thinking? To put it bluntly, what was going on in the minds of the soldiers or workers who were drinking with the intellectuals, spending evening with them in taverns, and sleeping with them? What was Dorian Gray doing on those days when he disappeared? Who did he spend that time with, time about which Wilde's novel tell us almost nothing if not, in few words, that "it was rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors... and that he consorted with thieves and coiners"? (Eribon, 2004: 206)
I hope to have contributed, through this research, to a better understanding of the sexual and gender values, meanings, subjectivities, and practices (and their social contexts) of soldiers, peasant, cowboys, construction or manufacturer workers engaged in homoerotic relations in a varied of ways (sometimes with intellectuals or artists, sometimes among themselves), and that in the best of cases have been peripheral to literary or anthropological accounts of "homosexuality". At the same time, 1 hope I have been able to prove through these cases, that the category "homosexual subjectivity" is not adequate enough to understand all subjects engaged in homoerotic experiences, as their 463
subjectification and resubjectifiaction processes follow different paths, and as the same modem conception of "sexual orientation" or "sexuality" is not for most of them, the major framework to understand their desires and erotic practices.
II The heterogeneous homoerotic present
The homoerotic present that I research in this work is a complex and heterogeneous reality with different meanings, identities, ways of creating relations and integrating them into people's life. This heterogeneity that I have argued and substantiated cannot be contained in the single narrative of "homosexual subjectivity" or adequately accounted for by the narrative of a "double sexual system" of some anthropological accounts, and somehow reproduced by Latin American epidemiology and activists; "the modem (of North European and American origins) gay system, and the traditional (of Mediterranean origins) joto-mayate system. I tried to demonstrate here that these "systems" are in themselves far away from being completely reproduced in people's lives. On the one hand, the "gay" category and its meanings get appropriated and resignified by people under their own sexual traditions and understandings; on the other hand, partners tend to transgress and subvert constantly the supposed gender, sexual and power binaries of the trade-fairy (mayate-joto) system, and with them, their patriarchal ideological assumptions over homoeroticism in Mexico, as I argued in chapter
6. Furthermore, I have tried to demonstrate also that there is a reality of homoerotic experience that resists, by resignifying, dominant conceptions of manhood and masculinity, as well as dominant conceptions of the homoerotic as involving always a 464
homosexual, gay, fairy (Jotd) or trade (jnayate) identity. It is a reahty that has not achieved the same level of representation in historical, literary or anthropological analysis. It is a reality that exists in the margins of representation not only of heterosexist discourses, but also of major gay intellectuals and artist who have dared to write differently from homophobic discourses, about the homoerotic experience. Present homosexual liberation movements and "gay culture" along the widespread notion of gay or homosexual identity in big and mid-sized cities seems to be adding to the oblivion or invisibility of this reality. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note, that in the experience of some people there is a kind of perception of this homoerotic reality, but it is very difficult to name and understand it, as some activist have confessed to me. The same Eribon, a contributor to a single homosexual narrative, seems to hint at this when he says in a footnote (in itself symptomatic of its uneasy character in the main text):
To speak of « modem homosexuality," by which one understands « as we know it today ,» poses its own sets of problems, especially to the extent that it allows one to assume there to be some unique, unitary form of homosexuality and that we could take account of it by simply looking around us. But this would leave out, of course, all the forms that we do not « know," that we do not see, all the forms that do not fit within the « homosexual/heterosexual » duality (Eribon, 2004: 377).
To my understanding, what does not fit within that duality is precisely what does not even enter into modem common conception of sexuality and still lives in the present, not only on the homoerotic reality of « modem underdeveloped countries » but also in those very "modem westem countries" as Zeeland has tried to prove for the United States
(1993, 1995). 465
The acknowledgement of a heterogeneous homoerotic reality, on the other hand, does not proceed without problems of its own. The notion of the "heterogeneity" of homoerotic experiences, subjectivities, categories and meanings, strategically framed here under the concepts "male intimacy", I argue, should not be understood as a social or political "equivalence" of all forms, meanings, subjectivities, categories in the context of the sex/gender system or the social field; or just an "unstable and conflict cohabitation of ways of life, images, discourses that have no stability and no coherence either individually or among themselves" (Eribon, 2004: 233). As I have tried to show, especially in the last chapter, identity categories in the homoerotic field are more than labels to call "essentially the same acts and people", they express different sociohistorical trajectories of sexual discourses on the homoerotic experience, different positions in the social field along class, ethnic, and gender lines, and different personal and social histories of subjectification and resubjectification. Most importantly, they guard among themselves a different position in term of their visibility, social recognition, ability to interpellate political forces, representation of their reality and their interests, a different vulnerability vis a vis the heterosexist and homophobic technologies of power, and even a different vulnerability towards HIV/AIDS. Certainly, the coexistence of these differences and similarities is complex but still they create different regularities of meanings, ways of life, images, subjectivities, and experiences.
I conclude that, although useful and productive, Sedgwick's insight on the coexistence in the present of different meanings and categories related to homosexual relations, is not enough; not only because as Halperin puts it, to make more complex our 466
understanding of modem homosexual identity does not make disappear the "historical problems of describing the differences between pre-homosexual and homosexual formations", but also, I would argue, because it does not clarify how these "definitional forces" coexist differently in a "social field of power" that is the sex/gender regime.
Sedgwick's analysis not only lacks historical grounding, as Halperin argues (2002: 12), it lacks anthropological grounding too. The different ways of living, understanding, and representing the different homoerotic realities have a history, but also a socio-political existence, as well as particular consequences in people's lives.
Although I frankly recognize that this research is far from providing a full historical and anthropological description account of this heterogeneous homoerotic reality (this was not my goal to begin with), I want to call readers' attention to what I would call a "homoerotic social formation" made up of many different discourses, subjectivities, categories, and ways of living linked in very complex way. This involves modem sexual categories like "homosexuality" or "gay" as well. The meanings of these terms are far form being transparent, they have a history and a socio-political existence in every society, and that should be accounted for anthropologically, instead of presuming it from academic analysis of European literature. Behind these categories, there is a complex colonial, imperial, asymmetric or unequal economic, political and cultural history. They should be analyzed in the complexities of their introduction, appropriations, re-elaborations, and cultural and political effects. 467
III "Homoerotic" colonialism
This last point leads me to consider another issue that I have tried to make face through this research and that has somehow rested unconscious until this point. It has to do with what I perceive to be the existence of a "colonialist homosexual narrative, and practice" (present outside and inside of Mexico and "developed countries") that tend to assume the most "developed" character of "gay identity" vis a vis other forms of understanding or identifying, considering them "pre-modem" and therefore, "backward, inadequate, underdeveloped, not liberating, less progressive, in the closet". I believe that this is an ethnocentric and evolutionist conception of homosexuality that is completely inadequate to understand the coexistence of different forms of living same sex affection and desire in different countries but also, that is inadequate to understand the intemational cultural, economic, and political links and its effect in sex and gender politics. David Halperin puts it this way: "such progressive narrative not only promotes a highly invidious opposition between sexually advanced and sexually retrograde cultures, but also fails to take account of the complexity of contemporary transnational formations of sexuality" (1999: 220: 14). This transnational forms of sexuality are not limited to the capitalist globalization of processes of gay identity and community's production and consumption, we should be aware that they include the global processes of migration of people and with them, the migration of others ways of living and understanding their erotic practices, as those that I have described here. This is interesting to become aware, not only for epidemiological reasons (as AIDS epidemics has proven), but also for purposes related to sex and gender rights and politics. I should add that in this transnational formation of sexuality we must include those related to the academic discourses subjected many times to a similar invidious colonialist relation. In as much as "gay liberation" has a greater developpement in
European countries or the US, there is a tendency to marginalize discussions, topics and different experiences of those with "underdeveloped" sexual and gender cultures; this goes along the appropriation of the right to speak theoretically of "homosexuality",
"gayness" or "queemess" through the analysis of a canon (European or US literature, while "others" literatures become "applications") or through the imposition of what counts as a valid example of "gay studies" "queer studies" or just "men studies". In other cases this appropriation takes the form of a wide discussion on the "homosexual experience" and "identity" as a universal issue, without deeming important the specification of its geographical reference, or the meaning of the usual term "modem western countries", as it happens to Didier Eribon. Once the unique and stable
"homosexual subjectivity" is established through a particular analysis of a literary canon, an intellectual leadership of a purported "global" or at least "modem westem" homosexual "community" emerges inevitably.
I hope that through this thesis I have been able to bring to the attention of
Mexican and other Latin American scholars this complex transnational relation in the academic domain of homoerotic experiences, and stimulate an academic reflexion that could take us to the revisions of our interests, categories, theoretical perspectives and politics in the context of an unequal academic intemational relationship. IV The political dimension of the homoerotic heterogeneity.
The title of this work includes the word "politics" in relation to "masculine identity and intimacy". In the final analysis, I understand this politics as a complex set of discourses on being a man, and on what it means to have a homoerotic relation (captured by the joto-mayate binary or the gay identity) that frame the way men may get to understand their homoerotic affective and/or erotic desires, pleasures or experiences, and themselves as sexual and gender subjects, and consequently, their subject positions in the field of social distinctions and power relations. Thus, these sexual and gender dominant discourses work to structure the possibilities and the modalities of intimacy among men.
The modem notion of "sexual orientation" as a "truth" that gives meaning to the whole being, the stereotypical associations of homosexual desire and femininity or masculinity with heterosexuality, as well as the homophobic regime that continues to value the homoerotic desire or experience as an "abnormality", a "pathology" a "psychic problem", make their inroads into men' subjectivities and social relations to preclude, disavow, repress, trace the path of those desires or condition processes of identification or dis- identifications.
There is a power regime working over men's libido, a power regime made up of
"modes of speaking" about being a man and having a homoerotic desire that structure in men ways of living their intimate relationships with other men. At the same time, there is a resilient homoerotic desire that resists and persists, that takes shape and gets expressed though different categories of identities and subjectivities with different degrees of visibility and different consequences in peoples lives and in society. As complex and 470
heterogeneous as these forms of Uving and integrating in one's life homoerotic desire are, so are the forms of resisting at the level of subjectivity, discourses and ways of living.
I have been trying to argue, maybe with too much insistence through this analysis that homoerotic realities do not fit adequately in dominant conceptions of homosexual subjectivity or identities. I have tried to suggest that the reality of intimacy is larger, more heterogeneous, richer and more diverse in meanings, subjectivities, and relations. I think that to render invisible this heterogeneity and insisting on representing it through a single "homosexual subjectivity" narrative, or a "double system" narrative, responds more to a longing of community than to reality. It is anthropologically mistaken and a conservative intervention in the sexual and gender politics that frame the homoerotic possibilities of people. It is a conservative intervention, in as much as (paraphrasing
Miranda Joseph criticism of gay narrative of "community") the invocation of a essential and common core already existing for all subject engaged in homoerotic practices
("homosexual subjectivity"), or one in the making (once the traditional "trades" become
"modem gay"), function as a narrative to exclude people of different ethnicities, classes, gender and sexual subjectivities who have other understandings and categories of homoerotic experience, or for whom homoerotic experience and desire is not isolated or primary identity (Joseph, 2002: xvi-xvii).
I think that we should evaluate the consequences of such political interventions in the academic field and beyond. That is, in the literary, artistic and popular culture representations of the homoerotic experience, in the NGO's and the political movements, in the public policies related to health and sex education. We should analyze how these 471
politics and representations help to maintain the present sex/gender regime, especially by
supporting what queer theory has considered the central core of the politics of identity of
patriarchy (if not the central core of patriarchy itself): the systems of homologies male =
masculinity = heterosexuality supported by the androcentric and heterosexist practices
and relations of society (Butler, 1990; Jagose, 1996; Foster, 1995), and that I called in a
previous work, the "trilogy of prestige" (Nunez, 2000) or the binary "homosexuality-
heterosexuality" so convenient to patriarchal identity politics.
From a radical Freudian perspective, like the one sustained by Guy Hocquenhem,
we could say that when we render invisible or keep in the margins the homoerotic desires
and experiences of people whose subjective position leads them to resist any other
classification and to resignify the very one of "man", we are rendering invisible a truth of great importance to destabilize the sex/gender regime: that homoerotic desire is ubiquitous and not restricted to a "different biological nature" or a "particular psychic configuration" ("inverted" or not) or "subjectivity", as gender and sexual technologies of
power want to make us believe. This capacity, so to speak, is a potential of every human being that not repressed and sublimated into patriarchal capitalist institutions, might help us to constitute a more solidarious, more egalitarian, more generous, and less competitive and individualistic society (Hocquenhem, 1972).
I propose that this knowledge and consciousness of heterogeneity could be useful to interpellate politically those subjects that have been marginalized from sex politics until now, especially as those politics have been led by gay activists focused in creating
(or assuming the need to create) a strong "gay community", in great part due to their own 472
cultural capital and subject positions in the social field (highly educated, middle class, urban). Nevertheless, I hope things could go even further. I hope an acknowledgement of heterogeneity of homoerotic relations, subjectivities, meanings and identities in
Mexico could foster a renewal of sex politics that until now, have been rather limited to gay identity or gay culture with its restricted class and ethnic dimensions (if not classiest, racist and even misogynist). I envision, optimistically, a renewed and more radical sex/gender politics that with a historical and political awareness of present homoerotic heterogeneity, turn to privilege the fight for freedom, solidarity, equality and the renewal of society along those values, over the celebration of a marketed (and restricted) "sense of community" and identity. 473
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