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The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes Author(S): Don Kulick Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol

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The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes Author(S): Don Kulick Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes Author(s): Don Kulick Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 99, No. 3 (Sep., 1997), pp. 574-585 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/681744 Accessed: 23-02-2016 11:29 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Anthropological Association and Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Anthropologist. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Tue, 23 Feb 2016 11:29:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions DON KULICK / STOCKHOLMUNIVERSITY The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Dllnetitllte MALESWHO ENJOY being anally penetrated by other One of the basic things one quickly learns from any males are, in many places in the world, an object of spe- analysis of LatinAmerican sexual categories is that sex cial cultural elaboration.Anywhere they occur as a cul- between males in this part of the world does not neces- turally recognized type, it is usually they who are sarily result in both partners being perceived as homo- classiEledand named, not the males who penetrate them sexual. The crucial determinantof a homosexual classi- (who are often simply called men"). Furthermore,to fication is not so much the fact of sex as it is the role the extent that male same-sex sexual relations are stig- performed during the sexual act. A male who anally matized, the object of social vituperation is, again, penetrates another male is generally not considered to usually those males who allow themselves to be pene- be homosexual. He is considered, in all the various local trated, not the males who penetrate them. Anywhere idioms, to be a Uman";indeed, in some communities, they constitute a salient cultural category, men who en- penetrating another male and then bragging about it is joy being penetrated are believed to think, talk, and act one way in which men demonstrate their masculinityto in particular, identifiable, and often cross-gendered others (Lancaster1992:241; cf. Brandes 1981:234).Quite manners. Whatis more, a large numberof such men do different associations attach themselves to a male who in fact behave in these culturally intelligible ways. So allows himself to be penetrated. That male has placed whether they are the maVus, hijras, kathoeys, xaniths, himself in what is understood to be an unmasculine, or berdaches of non-Western societies, or the mollies passive position. By doing so, he has forfeited manhood and fairies of our own history, links between habitual and becomes seen as something other than a man. This receptivity in anal sex and particulareffeminate behav- cultural classification as feminine is often reflected in ioral patterns structure the ways in which males who the general comportment, speech practices, and dress are regularly anally penetrated are perceived, and they patterns of such males, all of which tend to be recogniz- males think structure the ways in which many of those able to others as effeminate. about and live their lives.l A conceptual system in which only males who are area of the world in which males who enJoybe- One penetrated are homosexual is clearly very different ing anally penetrated receive a very high degree of cul- from the modern heterosexual-homosexual dichotomy tural attention is Latin America. Any student of Latin currentlyin place in countries such as the United States, America will be familiarwith the effervescent Elgureof where popularunderstanding generally maintains that a the effeminate male homosexual. Called mar>con, co- is gay no matter chon, joto, marzea, pajara, loca, frango, bicha, or any male who has sex with another male to the role of number of other names depending on where one Emds how carefully he may restrict his behavior him (see Murrayand Dynes 1987 and Dynes 1987 for a penetrator.3This difference between Latin American sampling), these males all appear to share certain be- and northernEuro-American understandings of sexual- havioral characteristics and seem to be thought of, ity is analyzed with great insight in the literature on throughoutLatin America, in quite similarways.2 male same-sex relations in Latin America, and one of the chief merits of that literature is its sensitive docu- mentation of the ways in which erotic practices and sex- ual identities are culturallyorganized. DONKULICK is an associateprofessor in the Departmentof Social Somewhat surprisingly, the same sensitivity that Anthropology,Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm,Sweden. informs the literature when it comes to sexuality does AmencanAnthropologist99(3):574-585. Copyright 63 1997, AmericanAnthropological Association. This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Tue, 23 Feb 2016 11:29:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BRAZILIANTRANSGENDERED PROSTITUTES / DON KULICK 575 not extend to the realm of gender. A question not Travestis occupy a strikingly visible place in both broached in this literatureis whether the fundamental Brazilian social space and in the Brazilian cultural differences that exist between northernEuro-American imaginary.5All Brazilian cities of any size contain tra- and LatinAmerican regimes of sexuality might also re- vestis, and in the large cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao sult in, or be reflective of, different regimes of gender. Paulo, travestis numberin the thousands. (In SalvadorX This oversight is odd in light of the obvious and impor- travestis numberedbetween about 80 and 250, depend- tant links between sexuality and gender in a system ing on the time of year.)6Travestis are most exuberantly where a simple act of penetration has the power to pro- visible during Brazil'sfamous annual Carnival,and any foundly alter a male's cultural deEmition and social depiction or analysis of the festival will inevitably in- status. Instead of exploring what the differences in the clude at least a passing reference to them, because their construction of sexuality might mean for differences in gender inversions are often invoked as embodimentsof the construction of gender however analysis in this lit- the Carnivalspirit. But even in more mundanecontexts erature falls back on familiar concepts. So just as gen- and discourses, travestis figure prominently.A popular der in northern Europe and North America consists of Saturday afternoon television show, for example, in- men and women, so does it consist of men and women cludes a spot in which female impersonators, some of in Latin AmericaXwe are told. The characteristics as- whom are clearly travestis, get judged on how beautiful cribed to and the behaviorexpected of those two differ- they are and on how well they mime the lyrics to songs ent types of people are not exactly the same in these two sung by female vocalists. Another weekly television different parts of the world, to be sure, but the basic show regularly features Valeria,a well-known travesti. gender categories are the same. Tieta, one of the most popular television novelas in re- This article contests that view. I will argue that the cent years, featured a special guest appearance by sexual division that reseachers have noted between Rogeria, another famous travesti. And most telling of those who penetrate and those who are penetrated ex- the special place reserved for travestis in the Brazilian tends far beyond sexual interactions between males to popular imagination is the fact that the individual constitute the basis of the gender division in Latin widely acclaimed to be most beautiful woman in Brazil America. Gender, in this particular elaboration, is in the mid-1980s was ... a travesti. That travesti, grounded not so much in sex (like it is, for example, in Roberta Close, became a household name throughout modern northem European and North American cul- the country. She regularlyappeared on national televi- tures) as it is grounded in sexuality. This difference in sion, starredin a play in Rio, posed nude (with demurely grounding generates a gender conElgurationdifferent crossed legs) in Playboy magazine, was continually in- from the one that researchers working in LatinAmerica terviewed and portrayed in virtually every magazine in have postulated, and it allows and even encourages the the country, and had at least three songs written about elaboration of cultural spaces such as those inhabited her by well-known composers. Althoughher popularity by effeminate male homosexuals. Gender in Latin declined when, at the end of the 1980s, she left Brazil America should be seen not as consisting of men and to have a sex-change operation and live in Europe, women, but rather of men and not-men, the latter being Roberta Close remains extremely well-known. As re- a category into which both biological females and males cently as 1995, she appeared in a nationwide advertise- who en,ioyanal penetrationare culturallysituated. This ment for Duloren lingerie, in which a photographof her specific situatedness provides individuals-not just passport, bearingher male name, was transposed with a men who enJoyanal penetration, but everyone with a photographof her looking sexy and chic in a black lace conceptual frameworkthat they can draw on in order to undergarment.The caption read, '4Vocenao imagina do understand and organizetheir own and others' desires, que uma Duloren e capazf (Youcan't imaginewhat a Du- bodies, affective and physical relations, and social loren can do). roles. Regrettably, the fact that a handful of travestis manage to achieve wealth, admiration,and, in the case of Roberta Close, an almost iconic cultural status says very little about the lives of the vast majorityof traves- The Body in Question tis.
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