Entre boys e frangos: anÃlise das performances de gÃnero dos homens que se prostituem em Recife

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

This study analyzes the experience of male prostitution and has the ethnographic research carried out in the main area of male prostitution in the centre of Recife as background. By means of active observation, informal talks and interviews with âlover boysâ and other relevant actors in order to understand the prostitution phenomenon, I tried to reconstruct the psychosocial and historical processes that made those investigated men engage in sexual work; to analyse the construction process of gender roles under the lover boysâ perspective; to check which factors (age, gender performance, race/color, privileged sources of physical pleasure) are involved in the sex business. The study was based on constructionist theories of gender and sexuality. The analysis suggests that the commercial sexual relations between men are structured on some dichotomies (boy/gay, active/passive) marked by the fact that someone is supposedly penetrated. Such event has different meanings as from the sex-gender marking and privileged sources of physical pleasure. The study points at the centrality of the anus in the boyâs business. If for the boy the act of penetrating the client guarantees supremacy of his masculinity, for the client, on the other hand, the fact of penetrating the boy deprives the latter of the position of dominator and virile. The lover boy who is âfuckedâ by the client loses his status of boy and becomes known as âfagâ, as he is in a similar position to the passive clients. Under the symbolic weight of this socio-culturally constructed meaning, the anus while âforbidden zoneâ to many lover boys, should be protected, in order to guarantee the public knowledge of his masculinity. Under this logic, a man will not become or yet be seen as âfagâ for âfuckingâ another man, but for âbeing fucked by another manâ. It is in this sense that the anal region is shaped as a symbol of greed and strength. In the male prostitution universe, the boy, many times, charges and is paid more to be penetrated. In a social context, for the lover boys sex assumes an appreciative representation established and justifiable by the relation of change and monetary gain, where the honor, many times, seems to concentrate only and exclusively on the anus. This erogenous zone, even if symbolically, shows itself as a watershed and determining factor in building identities on which the structural processes of gender performance that back up the commercial sexual practice will be developed

ASSUNTO(S)

gender performance male prostitution prostituiÃÃo masculina homossexualidade homosexuality performances de gÃnero psicologia

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