Culture, Health & Sexuality, June 2007; 9(Supplement 1): S1–S104
International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society
This special issue of Culture, Health and Sexuality comprises a selection of the abstracts for
the IASSCS Lima Conference receiving the highest scores by the international abstract
review committee. A CD-Rom containing all the abstracts submitted will be part of the
conference package available to all registrants. Abstracts are listed by language (English,
Portuguese and Spanish) and then by theme, as suggested by authors. Their order may
differ from that in the final conference programmes.
ABSTRACTS
Fieldwork Experiences on ‘‘Race’’, Sexuality and Gender Research: The Case of
Lapa – Rio de Janeiro
Anna Paula Vencato, Simone Monteiro
Oswaldo Fiocruz Foundation, Brazil
This paper discusses research entitled ‘‘Relations among ‘‘race’’, sexuality and gender in
different local and national contexts’’, internationally coordinated by CLAM/USP and
CEBRAP and locally coordinated by IOC/Fiocruz. The fieldwork undertaken from
February to May, 2006 in social venues frequented either by gays/lesbians/bisexuals or
straight people focused on gender, color/race, sexual orientation and social class on eroticaffective relations established by 18 to 24 years old youths. The empathy/identification
these youths had with the researcher affected the success of insertion by the researchers in
the field. This empathy/identification was usually mediated by the same categories
approached in the research. In addition to the participant observation, 12 in-depth
interviews and 25 surveys were done with young people who patronize these venues.
Participants were chosen taking in account their self-classifications in terms of sex, color/
race and sexual orientation.
[email protected]
Fieldwork Experiences on ‘‘Race’’, Sexuality and Gender Research: The Case of
San Francisco
Jorge Sanchez, Jessica Fields
San Francisco State University, USA
This paper discusses research developed in San Francisco entitled ‘‘Relations among race,
sexuality and gender in different local and national contexts’’, internationally coordinated
by CLAM/USP and CEBRAP and locally coordinated by faculty, staff, and students at
SFSU. The participant observation and subsequent survey implementation, along with
qualitative field interview recruitment, was conducted at venues and special events
frequented by 18- to 24-year-olds in the San Francisco Bay Area. SFSU students close in
age to the subjects of the study were employed to explore affinities between observer and
participant. In the notes-on-notes process during the participant observation, student
ethnographers were asked to look at their own perceptions as conveyed in field notes.
Allowing them to explore how their own identities and activities in the field affected their
ISSN 1369-1058 print/ISSN 1464-5351 online # 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13691050701358956
S2
IASSCS Conference 2007
understanding and interpretation of the identities of those they observed and documented
(along with those who were absent) in the field. Furthermore, in the field survey and
recruitment process student ethnographers documented how potential participants project
identity in terms of race, sexuality and gender. By sending surveyors into the field with a
sampling plan accounting for gender, sexuality and race, the research team was able to
explore how the identities of young adults are conveyed and interpreted in social venues.
Thus discrepancies between the interpretation of identity as mediated by the research
categories and those offered by participants during the surveying process become
meaningful and observable. Identity construction and projection relating to race, sexuality
and gender were explored further in surveys and qualitative interviews.
[email protected]
Fieldwork Experiences on ‘‘Race’’, Sexuality and Gender Research: The Case of
Chicago
Marcus Hunter1, Cathy Cohen2
1
Northwestern University, 2University of Chicago, USA
This paper discusses research developed in Chicago for the project entitled ‘‘Relations
among ‘‘race’’, sexuality and gender in different local and national contexts’’, locally
coordinated by the University of Chicago. The fieldwork was undertaken in social venues
frequented either by gays/lesbians/bisexuals or straight people and examined aspects such
as gender, color/race, sexual orientation and social class on erotic-affective relations
established by 18- to 24-year-old youths. The empathy/identification these youths had with
the researcher affected the success of insertion by the researchers in the field.
[email protected]
Fieldwork Experiences on ‘‘Race’’, Sexuality and Gender Research: The Case of
Cape Town
Phyllida Cok
The African Gender Institute, South Africa
This paper discusses research developed in Cape Town for the project entitled ‘‘Relations
among ‘‘race’’, sexuality and gender in different local and national contexts’’,
internationally coordinated by CLAM/USP and CEBRAP and locally coordinated by
AGI/UCT. The fieldwork was undertaken in social venues frequented either by gays/
lesbians/bisexuals or straight people and focused on gender, color/race, sexual orientation
and social class on erotic-affective relations established by 18- to 24-year-old youths.
[email protected]
Fieldwork Experiences on ‘‘Race’’, Sexuality and Gender Research: The Case of
Madureira – Rio de Janeiro
Fátima Cecchetto, Simone Monteiro
Oswaldo Fiocruz Foundation, Brazil
This paper discusses research developed at Madureira – Rio de Janeiro for the project
entitled ‘‘Relations among ‘‘race’’, sexuality and gender in different local and national
dis/organised pleasures
S3
contexts’’, locally coordinated by IOC/Fiocruz. The fieldwork was undertaken from
February to May, 2006, in social venues frequented either by gays/lesbians/bisexuals or
straight people and focused on gender, color/race, sexual orientation and social class on
erotic-affective relations established by 18- to 24-year-old youths. The empathy/
identification these youths had with the researcher affected the success of insertion in the
field. This empathy/identification was usually mediated by the same categories approached
in the research. Besides the participant observation, 12 in-depth interviews and 24 surveys
were applied with young people who patronized these venues. Participants were chosen
taking in account their self-classifications in relation to sex, color/race and sexual
orientation.
[email protected]
Fieldwork Experiences on ‘‘Race’’, Sexuality and Gender Research: The Case of
Cape Town
Mario Ribas, Elaine Salo
AGI/UCT, South Africa
This paper intends to discuss the experience of the fieldwork developed at Cape Town for
the research ‘‘Relations among ‘‘race’’, sexuality and gender in different local and national
contexts’’, internationally coordinated by CLAM/USP and CEBRAP and locally
coordinated by AGI/UCT. The fieldwork was accomplished on spaces of sociability
frequented either by gays/lesbians/bisexuals or straight people, articulating aspects such as
gender, color/race, sexual orientation and social class on erotic-affective relations
established by 18 to 24 years old youths. Concerning the composition of the fieldwork
team, it was possible to notice that a bigger or smaller insertion on the field was regulated
by the empathy/identification these youths had with the researcher. This empathy/
identification was usually mediated by the same categories approached in the research.
Besides the participant observation, 12 in-depth interviews and 25 closed interviews were
applied with young people that use to go to these spaces. These youths were chosen taking
in account the intersections among their self-classifications in relation to sex, color/race and
sexual orientation.
[email protected]
Fieldwork Experiences on ‘‘Race’’, Sexuality and Gender Research: The Case of
Johannesburg
Zethu Matebeni, Brigitte Bagnol
OUT, South Africa
This paper intends to discuss the experience of the fieldwork developed at Johannesburg for
the research ‘‘Relations among ‘‘race’’, sexuality and gender in different local and national
contexts’’, internationally coordinated by CLAM/USP and CEBRAP and locally coordinated by OUT. The fieldwork was accomplished on spaces of sociability frequented either by
gays/lesbians/bisexuals or straight people, articulating aspects such as gender, color/race,
sexual orientation and social class on erotic-affective relations established by 18 to 24 years
old youths. Concerning the composition of the fieldwork team, it was possible to notice that a
bigger or smaller insertion on the field was regulated by the empathy/identification these
S4
IASSCS Conference 2007
youths had with the researcher. This empathy/identification was usually mediated by the
same categories approached in the research. Besides the participant observation, 12 in-depth
interviews and 25 closed interviews were applied with young people that use to go to these
spaces. These youths were chosen taking in account the intersections among their selfclassifications in relation to sex, color/race and sexual orientation.
[email protected]
Introducing Gender and Sexualities in the Academic Curricula. A South-South
International Project Across Regions and Countries
Adriana Ortiz1, Mario Pecheny2, Huang Yingying3, Jane Bennett4, Soledad Falabella5
1
Colegio de Mexico, Mexico, 2Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, 3China, 4South
Africa, 5Chile
The program is a South research-action project that is being carried out in Argentina,
China, Chile, Mexico and South Africa with support of the Ford Foundation. We will
explore these four questions for the case of Argentina: What factors hinder and facilitate
research and teaching of sexualities and its interaction with gender? What paradigms,
schools of thought and terms of reference are used in these exercises across countries? Are
there regional variations? Is research more advanced than the teaching of sexualities in
different countries and if so, why? Is the teaching of sexualities carried out within
biomedical, public health and/or human rights paradigms? Are issues of gender included in
ways that openly address poverty, equity, sexual citizenship and sexual diversity? Is the
research and teaching constructed in dialogue with public policy or political impacts? What
are the most effective methodological, theoretical and practical ways to overcome existing
limitations for the integration of sexualities that encompasses a critical gender and social
justice perspective in the academic curricula across disciplines such as medicine, social
sciences, humanities and the law? How can informed academic constituencies in the
humanities, social sciences, medicine and law be built to consolidate curricula development
of issues of gender and sexualities that translates into political transformation?
[email protected]
Pushing Open the Sexuality Door: The Indian Case
Radhika Ramasubban
Centre for Social and Technological Change, India
Objective: The HIV/AIDS epidemic in India has put a spotlight on the body as sexual agency.
This poses unprecedented challenges. For the State, it requires policies that go beyond
narrow development frameworks of ‘disease’ and ‘fertility’. For Indian society, it raises
questions about prevailing patriarchal gender relations and hetero normativity. Response to
these challenges has, however, come not from the political and social mainstream but from
the criminalized ‘margins’, the people of alternative sexualities, who launched the struggle to
reform the anti-sodomy law. The paper unravels the ideological and political elements
shaping this contentious process. Main Body: In India one main element of scenario is the
carryover of a British colonial law criminalizing alternative sexualities. Other features are:
ancient indigenous cultural traditions of underground sexual pluralism; the conservative
agenda of fundamentalist political groups that privileges hyper masculinity; the contradictory
signals sent out by the State’s uneasy adoption of the public health concept of ‘MSM’; the
dis/organised pleasures
S5
role of class, language and regional disparities in shaping the spectrum of alternative
sexualities groups; the globalization of ideas and markets that also pushes open the sexuality
door and at the same time sharpening existing dualisms and inequities in Indian society,
which impinge on the evolution of a sexual rights agenda. Conclusions: The legal reform
movement has been invaluable as a tool to mobilize alternative sexualities groups around a
common ideology and strategy, forging them into a national ‘community.’ Going beyond
legal reform in the direction of sexual rights, however, requires a broader coalition of groups
and a broad-based political agenda of sexual rights for all. This agenda must criticize
patriarchy, dominant masculinity and sexual violence, forces that together govern both the
subordination of women and the repression of alternative sexualities.
[email protected]
How Adultery Almost Derailed Turkey’s Dream to Join The European Union
Pinar Ilkkaracan
Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR), Turkey
Objectives: A Campaign to Reform the Turkish Penal Code from a Gender Perspective
(2002–2004) was launched by a coalition of feminist and LGBT groups. In 2004 the
conservative government tried to introduce a bill criminalizing adultery, which sparked
complex conflicts within and outside the country. The paper examines the trajectory and
outcomes of this intense process of politicization of sexuality. Main Body: The Turkish
Penal Code of 1926 reflected a conception of sexuality, especially women’s sexuality, as a
potential threat to public order and morality. The most contested issues during the
campaign were those related to extra-marital sexuality: honor, virginity, sexual relations of
youth and sexual orientation. The religious conservatives argued that women’s honor and
virginity are elements of Turkish identity that must be protected by law. This discourse is in
line with the ideology of the founders of the Turkish Republic who in ‘‘modernizing’ the
country have subsumed religious and customary norms under the notion of public morality.
In 2004, the social democrats insisted on criminalizing consensual sexual relations between
youths and remained silent on sexual orientation. This shows that these issues remain taboo
above and beyond the ideological differences between political parties. The vote on the
adultery bill triggered a major political crisis between the Turkish government and the
European Union (EU), which finally led the government to withdraw the bill. Conclusion:
The 2004 reform of the Turkish penal code constitutes the first example of a holistic reform
of sexual and bodily rights in the legal domain in Muslim societies. The success of the
campaign, despite a governing Islamist party, can be an inspiration for other activists
working on sexual and bodily rights under conservative governments, especially those in a
stage of socio-political transition like Turkey.
[email protected]
Constitutional Authority and Its Limitations: The Politics of Sexuality in South
Africa
Robert Sember, Belinda Beresford, Helen Schneider
Department of Socio Medical Science, School of Public Health, Columbia University, USA
The study examines the paradoxes observed in South Africa with respect to the sharp
disjunctions between progressive, constitutional premises and other legal norms, on the one
S6
IASSCS Conference 2007
hand, and conflictive cultural and political patterns observed with respect to sexuality on
the other. Body: South Africa’s shift to democracy has heralded an era of rights-based
governance that is far in advance of the living conditions and opinions of the majority of its
citizens, including many who hold public office. This is especially true in relation to
sexuality issues with the vast majority of the country opposing pre-marital sex, abortion and
same-sex sexuality. Recent events and emerging discourses suggest that the country is
guided by a confusing and contested mix of progressive, reactionary, rights-based and
fundamentalist principles. The analysis offers insights into efforts to advance sexual rights
within a rare context where a constitution permits sexual rights that the vast majority of the
population does not seem interested in claiming as is evident in conflicts over a liberal
government’s cultural rights claims. It also allows for reviewing the conditions imposed by
external donors or trade partners, which often conflict with the constitution and other key
legislation. Conclusions: One factor partially explaining these paradoxes is the adoption of
neo-liberal policies by the ANC government, which have failed to provide a social justice
foundation for the realization of progressive sexuality policies. The disjuncture between
constitutional principles and popular opinion is also related to deeply grounded cultural
perceptions and meanings and the strength and increasing visibility of conservative actors
and ideologies.
[email protected]
Against Sirri Marriage, Sexual Revolution in Indonesia
Widjajanti Santoso
Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Indonesia
Sirri marriage is a type of marriage in which grown men and women ask clergy to
pronounce them husband and wife. It is a contract, rather than a legal marriage. Men use
the sirri marriage as part of polygamous practices to bypass the permission of the first wife.
In Indonesia the discourse of sexual permissiveness is usually countered by religion as zina.
Zina is forbidden, and those who commit zina risk going to hell. Therefore, marriage is seen
as a solution to male sexuality. This article describes two cases of singers who refused to
acknowledge their sirri marriages. The first case recognized her relationship but refused to
call it a sirri marriage. The other actually denied that she was married to the man without
specifically describing it as a sirri. Sirri proves to be a very simple way to have sex without
jeopardizing a marriage and without committing zina. The sirri marriage is a disadvantage
for women as they can’t sue the men and would be unable to get child support for any
offspring resulting from the liaison. Sirri marriage is usually used to mask a zina relationship
among well-known persons. Some women who have extramarital relationships with
married men began to refuse to accept the sirri relationship. As the women celebrities such
as actresses and singers, they are presumed to have extramarital relationships with married
men, but they do not accept their sirri marriage. The sirri relationship is a sign of sexual
relationships that should be legal without threatening marriage as an appropriate
institution. Masculine power plays a significant role in sirri marriage those who engage
in it are from the upper middle class. Media coverage of extramarital relationships shows
that women refuse to be characterized as having a sirri relationship. This resistance is a sign
of sexual rebellion against male power and the terms of respectability.
[email protected]
dis/organised pleasures
S7
The Uneasy ‘‘Informal Consensual Union’’ of Lesbianism with Feminism in El
Salvador.
Kelley Ready
Brandeis University, USA
In 1992 La Colectiva Lésbica-Feminista Salvadoreña de la Media Luna (Half Moon
Salvadoran Lesbian Feminist Collective) was formed and within a year began to pressure the
Salvadoran women’s movement to discuss lesbianism publicly. While lesbianism was not new
to El Salvador, affirming it as a social identity and challenging lesbofobia was a new political
and cultural practice. However, by 1997 Media Luna had ceased to exist as an active entity.
The organizing model that La Media Luna adopted emphasized self-identification as lesbian,
consciousness-raising with other women, demands for recognition and acceptance by the
women’s movement, and increasingly public visibility, a model that was extremely precarious
due to the cultural and political conditions in the country. The signing of the Peace Accords
that ended twenty years of civil war had just occurred. The return of exiles and the support of
gay rights in the international political movements acting in solidarity with the FMLN, which
influenced and strengthened the movement, were directly related to the peace process. Other
influences were not as closely related, such as the growth of feminist thought and women’s
organizations, the support of Media Luna by non-Salvadoran lesbians, and the international
conferences, especially those held in the region, where lesbophobia was challenged. A public
onslaught of homophobia which resulted when the Sixth Latin American and Caribbean
Feminist Reunion* took place in El Salvador in 1993 inadvertently thrust Media Luna into
the national limelight. As a result of this episode and the impact of the signing of the Peace
Accords, the ties among the movements which supported Media Luna became more fragile.
In the nation building process which unfolded in El Salvador, the opportunities to confront
lesbophobia publicly were reduced considerably. The transnational and transmovement
connections among the queer, feminist and left movements created a unique historical
moment that facilitated the emergence of this organization and also contributed to the
conditions which led to its decline.
[email protected]
The Nexus of Sexuality, Gender and Human Rights: Addressing Common
Underlying Factors Linking Gender-Based Violence and HIV.
Laura Ferguson, Sofia Gruskin, Shahira Ahmed, Susana Fried
Harvard School of Public Health, USA
Introduction: Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in understanding and
addressing the linkages between gender-based violence (GBV) and HIV. Effectively
addressing these interlinked epidemics requires drawing on methods that highlight the
underlying factors common to both. The nexus of sexuality, gender and human rights
presents a conceptual framework to address effectively this intersection. The lessons learned
from an existing multi-country project and the opportunities and challenges of practically
applying this framework, focusing in particular on the sexuality component, are discussed.
Main Body: Although the components of this nexus – sexuality, gender, and human rights –
are closely linked, examining each component separately allows for a more systematic
analysis of the issues each raises. When brought together, this framework can strengthen
efforts to develop and implement effective policies and programs at country level. This
presentation looks at sexuality and how it is defined and applied to the intersection of GBV
S8
IASSCS Conference 2007
and HIV at policy and programmatic levels. Sexuality is defined as sexual orientation, sexual
identity, sexual desires and sexual practices. How these definitions individually and
collectively link with human rights and gender concerns as they impact on developing
policies and programs requires careful consideration. This is critical to ensure that people’s
lived experiences and sexuality are at the center of both the analysis and response to GBV and
HIV. Principles for sexuality-sensitive programming include challenging existing norms of
gender and sexuality; promoting sexual rights such as the right to equality and to be free from
violence; respecting and protecting diverse expressions of sexuality; and fostering greater
access to services for marginalized groups. Conclusions: In pinpointing the intersection of
GBV and HIV, a rights-based understanding of sexuality and vulnerability provides an
essential bridge. It is crucial to place open discussions of sex and sexuality at the center of
policy or programmatic efforts to address this intersection.
[email protected]
Social Construction of LGB-Stereotypical Behaviors. Effects of Social Attitudes
Toward One’s Sexual Identity. A Comparative Straight/LGB Study.
Katarzyna Bojarska
University of Gdansk, Poland
Stereotypical behaviors of LGB people are often attributed to their ‘‘nature’’ and are used
to justify heterosexist attitudes. The study hypothesized that LGB-stereotypical behaviors
constitute a direct effect of exposition to social oppression. A series of workshops on ‘‘LGB
identity’’ was held. The participants from different straight and LGB target groups took
part in role-plays, visualizations or other tasks that exposed them to hetero-normativity/
heterosexism faced everyday by LGB people. All the groups demonstrated a consistent set
of responses, including many LGB-stereotypical behaviors. LGB individuals asked about
their lives recalled a significantly higher proportion of the demonstrated earlier behaviors in
situations related to their sexual identity than heterosexual subjects. Results 260 LGB and
164 straight-identified subjects were interviewed through a web-based, structured
questionnaire. A clearly different between-group pattern of responses was revealed, and
the direction of the differences strongly supports the hypothesis. In future workshops the
frequency of demonstrated behaviors in LGB and straight groups will be recorded and
obtained between-group differences compared with the pattern from the second part of the
study. Between-group differences are expected to disappear as the straight participants
‘‘walk in LGB shoes’’, i.e. the frequency of demonstrated behaviors is expected to be
similar in both groups. Conclusions: The data obtained to date provides evidence that
many LGB-stereotypical behaviors are in fact socially constructed situational responses to
oppression rather than inherent traits of character.
[email protected]
Masculinities Unveiled: Expressions of Male Sexualities in Local Songs, Dances,
and the Everyday Speech of Rural Youths in Zimbabwe.
Eve K. Musvosvi
University of Pretoria, South Africa
This paper is based on an ethnographic study of a rural youth group. It investigates how
local songs, dances and everyday speech assist in the discursive construction of young
dis/organised pleasures
S9
men’s sexual identities, as well as defining erotic spaces and meanings. The study also
explored the processes through which social stereotypes portrayed in songs, dance and
speech determine the sexual behaviors of youths in rural Zimbabwe. The songs and dances
are performed by boys aged 13 to 17 years, mainly at social functions, which include
funerals and workshops organised by the National AIDS Council. Discourse analysis of the
lyrics of the songs, dances and speech show that they are highly sexualized, encourage male
promiscuity and promote the traditional ideals of male virility. The songs usually juxtapose
the ‘‘superiority’’ of the male organs against the perceived ‘‘inferiority’’ of the female organ.
In these songs and dances sexual enjoyment is portrayed to be a man’s right while in
females it is a source of shame. Sexual intercourse with a ‘‘legitimate’’ wife is for
reproduction while ‘‘explosive’’ extra- and premarital intercourse for males is encouraged.
The songs also parody the female form while claiming to be praising it. For example, they
associate stretch marks and large buttocks with ‘‘satisfactory’’ performances in the
bedroom. Chastity and virginity are associated with femininity while the male is supposed
to show he is ‘‘experienced’’ and ‘‘scarred’’ by Sexually Transmitted Infections. These
negative masculinities encourage risky behavior and deprive females their rights to sexual
pleasure and desire. Males from the arts group were very popular with the local younger
boys. Considering that most rural households in the area are either matrifocal or childheaded, the arts group boys fill the role-model void left by the ‘‘absentee’’ fathers of these
rural boys. Therefore, they will have a great impact on the sexual behavior of those local
boys who listen to and internalize their songs. The boys from the arts group were associated
with unwanted pregnancies and were often seen ‘‘entertaining’’ different women. However,
not all boys behaved irresponsibly. The songs, dances and speeches depict the daily
struggles of rural youths with issues of desire, danger and ambiguity in a context where
there are few male role-models. These youths create theirs own platforms for expressing
and learning about sexuality.
[email protected]
No ‘Magic Bullet’: The Radical Promise of Microbicides Reconsidered
Beth Filiano1, Fiona Scorgie2
1
USA, 2South Africa
Vaginal microbicides are being developed as a female-controlled technology primarily to
reduce the risks of HIV infection and to improve general sexual health for women. Yet the
global microbicide campaign rests on an interesting paradox: the assumption that existing
gender inequalities affecting sexual decision-making will continue to prevail. The design of
most microbicide candidates is shaped by this assumption. At the same time, it is expected
that actual microbicide use will automatically challenge this status quo and bring about
greater sexual autonomy for women. In this paper we consider the extent to which
microbicides are being conceptualized, by scientists and sexual rights activists alike, as a
‘magic bullet’ solution. The paper critically reviews microbicide acceptability studies and
literature on ‘vaginal practices’ in Southern Africa, focusing in particular on male
participants’ views about the covert nature of these practices. We also make use of
ethnographic data collected in 2005 during a study of vaginal practices and sexuality in
rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, to contextualize these perspectives in appropriate
socio-cultural terms. The paper calls for a more realistic assessment of the social contexts in
which microbicides will be used and for greater recognition of ‘blind spots’ in the current
S10
IASSCS Conference 2007
microbicide campaign. Sexual partnerships in Southern Africa are often imbued with
mutual mistrust and fear, and local gender inequalities and HIV stigma operate to obstruct
meaningful inter-personal communication about sexual choices — as evidenced in
evaluations of condom promotion strategies. Their full implications for the microbicide
campaign, however, are seldom acknowledged. There is potential for such gendered
dynamics to imperil effective microbicide use in practice if they are not overtly addressed in
public information and education campaigns. The paper sounds a cautionary note about
the dangers of overstating the radical potential of microbicides to give women greater
‘control’ over their sexual health.
[email protected]
Looking for Sex in All the Wrong Places: The Silencing of Sexuality in World Bank
Public Discourse
Kenneth Camargo
IMS/UERJ, Brazil
The paper analyzes how sexuality is understood by the World Bank to produce a sanitized
discourse that further contributes to a normalizing view of sexuality. This discourse can set
the agenda for public policies, thus establishing boundaries and limits to what can and
cannot (or must and must not) be addressed explicitly in policy debates. But unexpected
and paradoxical results may arise from that process, which thus does not necessarily lead to
the furthering of a comprehensive conservative agenda. Based on a conceptual framework
derived from Michel Foucault’s early work, we analyzed a group of documents from the
World Bank’s online document database, which yielded three specific discursive formations
on sexuality: women-gender; sexual-reproductive-health and sex-as-a-risk. In World Bank
discursive frames, technical and scientific principles are assumed to have precedence in
dictating norms and priorities, whether on public policy or in regard to people’s private
lives. A limited view of ‘‘health’’ – namely, the absence of disease – takes precedence over
any consideration of rights or pleasure. The ‘‘experts’’ – medical doctors and, even more
powerfully, health economists – are assumed to know ‘‘what is better for you’’, meaning
either the individual or the entire society. This produces a normalizing, de-politicized and
de-sexualized (paradoxical as it may seem) view of sexuality, described chiefly through
silences and discursive gaps. The public discourse of the Bank is yet another important
arena to fight for an affirmative conception of sexual rights, with potential global
repercussions.
[email protected]
Samba Love and Gruta: Interactions among Race/Color, Class, Gender and
Sexual Orientation in Two Black Clubs in the City of São Paulo (Brazil)
Márcio Macedo, Isadora Lins Franca, JulioAssis Simoes
USP, Brazil
The paper analyzes representation and interaction among the categories of race/color, class,
gender and sexual orientation in two clubs in the downtown area of São Paulo patronized
mainly by Black youngsters. In both places a Black identity is affirmed through musical,
aesthetic and linguistic elements closely related to global and local Black culture. One club,
dis/organised pleasures
S11
whose patrons are mostly female homosexuals, reveals how the categories race/color, class,
gender and sexual orientation join each other in shaping stereotypes, sexual desire and
relationships. This study is part of a larger research project entitled ‘‘Relations among race,
sexuality and gender in different local and national contexts.’’
[email protected]
Sexual Orientation and Human Rights
Matthew Waites
University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
This paper will discuss the contested relationship between United Nations human rights
conventions and sexuality and analyze the implications of moves to utilize the concept of
‘sexual orientation’ in such conventions. Contemporary struggles over United Nations
human rights conventions by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender non-governmental
organizations and movements focus on seeking inclusion of the concepts ‘sexual
orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ in definitions of human rights. The Declaration of
Montréal from the International Conference on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
Human Rights 2006 proposes discussion of a new UN Convention on the Elimination of all
forms of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination. In this paper I will
critically analyze the implications of utilizing the concept ‘sexual orientation’ to revise
United Nations human rights conventions in the light of social constructionist, poststructuralist and queer theory addressing sexuality. Comparative sociological and
anthropological research has convincingly suggested that ‘sexual orientation’ is a culturally
specific concept. However, I will demonstrate that mainstream Western academic literature
on sexuality and human rights in law and socio-legal studies takes this concept for granted
(despite questioning ‘LGBT human rights’) and that queer problematizations of the
concept by writers such as Carl Stychin deserve development and application in relation to
contemporary political shifts. Through exploration of the meanings of ‘orientation,’ I will
argue in particular that ‘sexual orientation’ is a concept incompatible with bisexuality when
interpreted within the context of dominant dualistic assumptions about sex, gender and
desire in Western culture, suggested by Judith Butler’s concept of the ‘heterosexual matrix’.
However I will also suggest challenges to ‘orientation’. I will conclude by discussing the
implications for interpreting contemporary international struggles among competing social
movements, NGOs and governmental actors. Implications for conceptualizing global
governance and ‘global civil society’ will be suggested.
[email protected]
Strengthening Community Surveillance of HIV-Related Clinical Trials in Peru
Susana Chávez1, Carlos Cáceres2, Jorge Bracamonte3, Rossina Guerrero1
1
PROMSEX, Peru, 2Cayetano Heredia University, Peru, 3MHOL, Peru
Given the recognized limitations of behavioral HIV prevention, new, biomedical
approaches are being assessed, including post-exposure prophylaxis. Clinical trials were
planned in various countries to evaluate the efficacy of daily doses of tenofovir to prevent
HIV transmission among higher incidence groups, but some experienced problems of
community acceptability/legitimacy, including accusations of ethical pitfalls, leading to
S12
IASSCS Conference 2007
cancellation. Plans for one such study in Peru by a partnership between U.S. and domestic
institutions were ongoing in 2005, but communication with the community seemed
insufficient given the sensitive nature of such study. Description: The Sexual and
Reproductive Rights Surveillance Panel (SRRSP), a network of local institutions
advocating for sexual and reproductive rights, identified the problem and expressed the
need to inform community stakeholders and generate dialogue before the study started.
After negotiations with the researchers, a plan was set up which included a public
presentation by the researchers, followed by two sessions organized by the SRRSP. At the
first event, activists were trained in the surveillance of HIV-related trials. At the second,
researchers presented the proposed study, and an independent panel posed comments.
Lessons Learned: Community stakeholders reacted favorably to this initiative to enhance
their ability to assess the appropriateness of the study. Since researchers feared increased
public conflict, efforts were made to show that early community involvement in potentially
controversial studies is necessary. The SRRSP also reached a more comprehensive view of
sexual/reproductive rights, including the limitations of informed consent processes in
vulnerable populations. It also reframed surveillance as addressing not only governmental,
but also private activities. Recommendations: Enhanced community stakeholders’
participation in HIV clinical trials should be implemented to guarantee input and
independence so that communities can consider in advance the conditions required so that
the study responds to their needs. Such processes are ethically needed and can help resolve
otherwise intractable conflicts.
[email protected]
Art and Human Rights: Cultural Activism against Stigma Affecting HIV and
Sexual Diversity in Peru
Carlos F. Cáceres, Fernando Olivos, Ximena Salazar, Griselda Pérez-Luna
Unit of Sexuality, Health and Human Development, FASPA,UPCH, Peru
Stigma attached to AIDS is generated by, and simultaneously reinforces, other social
inequities, and its consequences fuel the epidemic. Stigma cannot be tackled from a purely
rational perspective. Art can reach non-rational levels of the public imagination where
stigma is reinforced and discrimination is legitimized. Art can confront emotions and
challenge unconscious stereotypes that configure stigma. Programme. A pilot experience of
research-action was designed to provide the institutional/logistical basis for collaboration
among artists, academics, activists, affected communities and practitioners to develop and
implement two experiences of public art against stigma and discrimination. ‘Vivo con VIH’
[I live with HIV] was an installation of visual and performing public art implemented in
HIV clinics and wards where health practitioners made a commitment to fight
discrimination, put on the ‘HIV’ T-shirt, and have their T-shirts intervened in-corpore
by an artist to change the message to ‘I live’ [vivo]. La homofobia mata [Homophobia kills]
used traditional symbols through which Peruvians express pain and honor the dead in a
march held during the National Day against hate crimes affecting sexual minorities. It
generated consensus and motivated an unexpectedly high participation of LGBT groups.
Lessons learned. The experiences described reflect an initial, encouraging exploration of
the role of art (with an emphasis on processes of public art created collectively with artists,
activists, academics and others) in the fight against stigma and social exclusion in Peru.
These actions are not only ‘public health interventions’ but political processes of
dis/organised pleasures
S13
construction of social capital with potentially important outcomes in the near future. They
also reflect the possibilities of a rich interaction between knowledge and practices as
different as those of academics, artists, activists and practitioners in the fight for social
change.
[email protected]
Going Global: Queer Theory’s Place in International LGBT Rights
Dona Yarbrough
Tufts University, USA
This paper examines some of the points of contention and connection between two
burgeoning gay arenas: the academic field of queer theory and the international LGBT
human rights movement. Beginning with a brief account of ‘‘gay globalization,’’ I discuss
the way in which both discourses are dominated by Western thought and culture, despite
their fundamentally different approaches to the concept of sexual identity. I describe two
key reasons why queer theory is frequently thought to be antithetical to the global gay rights
movements: its widespread rejection of the strategy common in the gay rights arena of
seeking inclusion in the ‘‘normal’’ and its supposed aversion to activism. The paper focuses
on ways that queer theory can, and has, enriched the global gay rights movements, as well
as on how the global gay rights movement can, and has, affected the academic field of queer
studies. Points of connection include notions of ‘‘difference’’ and ‘‘coalition.’’ A new
generation of human rights activists and queer theorists are influencing one another
resulting in a fresh focus on ‘‘intersectionality’’ – a recognition that one cannot discuss
gender and sexuality apart from race, class, culture and nation – that has potential to
advance both the field and the movement.
[email protected]
The Right to Safe Abortion and the Millennium Development Goals
Ash Pachauri
India
At the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000, 191 countries adopted the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which committed their nations to a series of
time-bound targets to reduce poverty, gender inequity and maternal deaths worldwide as a
sustainable development imperative. Even though none of the MDGs explicitly addresses
the issue of sexual and reproductive health and rights, almost all the eight goals are linked
with the international right to safe abortion. The MDGs for eradicating poverty (MDG1),
achieving gender equality (MDG3) and improving maternal health (MDG5) in particular
are intimately linked with the right to safely terminate a pregnancy. Every year
approximately 19 million women and girls with unintended and unwanted pregnancies
will face the tragic consequences of unsafe abortion. Nearly 70,000 of these women will die,
and many more will be left with lifelong injuries as a result. Over 96 percent of these women
will come from the world’s poorest countries. This paper reviews the MDG processes as an
opportunity to address the social injustice of unsafe abortion, which perpetuates the divide
between the rich and the poor nations. The paper highlights the need to address unsafe
abortion: as a cause and consequence of poverty; as a source of gender inequity within
S14
IASSCS Conference 2007
societies; and as a critical contributor to global maternal mortality. Finally, it concludes by
drawing the attention of health authorities and policy makers to tackle poverty, gender
inequity and maternal health as a means to achieve sustainable development by addressing
the right to safe abortion.
[email protected]
Masculinity and Maleness in India through Visual Images
Shrobona Bhattachrya, Anirban Dutta, Ash Pachauri
India
For maximum influence it is visual imagery that lingers in our consciousness. Images arrest
our dormant senses. They stay with us and become a type of cultural currency. They
provoke wonderment. Great imagery offers permanent nourishment. It haunts. Like a
Michelangelo statue or a Picasso nude, the perfect photographic image, once seen, endures
in one’s memory forever. In Douglas Brinkley’s Foreword to The Visual History of the
World, 2005 (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 2005). This session draws
on a body of literature that examines communities visually. Literature from the fields of
anthropology, sociology and documentary photography are brought together to show how
such work is relevant to communication studies, and more specifically to the study of
experiences as they are lived by communities. Visual research methods have the potential to
change the way communication and community inquiry are conducted and the way
communication and community phenomena are understood. This research specifically
explores how men, masculinity and sexuality are constructed in different regions of India
through photographs, which open up windows to the lives of communities of men who have
sex with men (MSM) and communities of men who live in urban spaces. The concept of
maleness or being male in India is equated with the degree of machismo. For example,
being dominant and having aggressive qualities is associated with being a real man. Physical
and verbal abuse is, therefore, often considered important proof of masculinity. A real man
is often characterized by his power and ability to satisfy women and produce children,
particularly male children. In India there is a societal tendency and inclination to stereotype
the concept of maleness. However, there are also different nuances of Indian male sexual
identity. It is in search of these different identities that I have traveled to various regions of
India to construct visual narratives and deepen the understanding of often subtle, as well as
stark, differences. In this session we will attempt to visually capture different representations of male identity as they exist in India. Visual exhibits will be presented to portray the
promises and perils of lives bound by Indian construction of masculinity. These are
sometimes out of the ordinary and somewhat mismatched with current paradigms of how
men should be, and how they should lead their lives. This visual journey will trace the lives
men who have alternate lifestyles within traditional and oppressive contexts and also those
of men who have deviant sexual identities but often fall prey to conventional modes of
existence as a result of societal pressures. In this session we will present photo images,
which will act as witnesses of Indian male sexuality, sexual relationships and sexual
orientations. The photo images will also be effective learning resources not only for what
they show us but also for what they do not let us see. In this process, we learn to see through
the eyes of the photo and gain enduring memory that signals effective education about the
lives of many Indian MSM communities.
[email protected]
dis/organised pleasures
S15
Space and Identity Politics of Gay South African Males in Cape Town
Dale Choudree
South Africa
Cape Town is internationally renowned as a gay friendly city. As part of the team of
researchers exploring Race, Sex and Gender within the Cape Town context, the
fundamental division has emerged within the gay community of Cape Town – which
finds its roots in South Africa’s history of oppression and continues to shape the gendered
subjectivities of those on the fringe of the visible gay space located within the city centre. In
interviews with black gay men ranging between the ages 18-24, many confirmed that the
construction of the gay male image is largely based on a white hegemonic stereotype –
white, wealthy, good-looking and youthful. The existence of the black gay male within the
obvious spaces is often overshadowed by a culture based on socio-economic standards,
which are generally exclusive to the white minority. Given the history of segregation, two
factors have shaped the construction, not only of the gay male image, but more broadly gay
culture and access to space in the Cape Town locale. Class acts as a fundamental axis of
division. The socio-economic status of many South Africans is based on racial lines, given
that white South Africans were afforded more opportunities under apartheid. How does
this affect the accessing of gay space – assumed to be a ‘safe space’ for all homosexuals? The
location of the area that serves as ‘safe gay space’ is located in the very upmarket city centre,
which historically limited access to those of color. Post-apartheid life continues to be
negotiated along the architecture of oppression and segregation. Town planning remains to
act as boundaries, excluding those on the physical and economic periphery.
[email protected]
Queerying Borders: An Afrikan Activist Perspective
Bernedette Muthien
Engender, South Africa
How relevant is the field of Lesbian Studies is to ordinary people, what is a Lesbian, and
who defines Lesbianism? The word ‘lesbian’, as well as most of the concepts encompassed
within the rainbow or alphabet soup of Greek letters LGBTQI, was coined and developed
outside African realities. In South Africa, Nguni speakers have long (erroneously) referred
to homosexuals as stabane or ‘hermaphrodite’ (intersexed). The original inhabitants of
Southern Africa, the Khoisan, were not heteronormative, and genders and sexualities were
seen as fluid and dynamic, rather than as static binaries. This fluidity applies to most
ancient indigenous peoples the world over from Native American berdache to Indian hijras.
Definitions usually work in negative terms, which define self in relation (and usually
opposition) to another. Hence, homosexual means not heterosexual, and lesbian thus nonheterosexual, or homosexual, woman. However, employing a linear definition of lesbian
may exclude the infinite varieties of sexuality choices that are in between and vary over time
and with circumstances. Alicia Banks cites an article entitled ‘‘Inside Gay Africa’’ to
describe how the Watusi still have a reputation for bisexuality in the cities of East Africa,
and Zande women risked execution by pleasuring each other, sometimes with phalluses
fashioned from roots. In this same part of Zaire, homosexuality had a mystical element to it,
while bisexuality is also quite common among the Bajun tribes of East Africa. So while the
word ‘lesbian’ may have ancient Greek origins, the practices it describes are certainly
universal and include Africa. However, sexualities are not necessarily divorced from
S16
IASSCS Conference 2007
spiritualities or other aspects of human life. Sexualities have always been fluid, especially in
pre-colonial Africa and many other ancient indigenous societies. Rather than a narrow
focus on lesbianism and lesbian studies, it may serve Africa better if we re-historicize and
re-claim pre-colonial fluidities as one way of moving beyond the stranglehold of colonial
binaries, oppressions and violence.
[email protected]
Querying/Queering Development
Amy Lind
University of Cincinnati, USA
In this paper I analyze how sexuality is imagined, understood and operationalized in the
global development industry. Narratives of gender, sexual identity and sexual practice in
development theory and policy inform development practitioners’ and policymakers’
assumptions about the ‘‘targets’’ of their projects: namely, the ‘‘poor’’ or the ‘‘marginalized’’ in the global South. Development narratives have played a central role in framing
so-called Third World women and men as poor, sexing them as reproducers and inevitably
heterosexual, and (ironically) glorifying the west/north as liberated with respect to gay
rights. These representations have very real, material consequences for lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender and otherwise queer individuals in the global South. I address four
arenas in which development takes place: in the development narrative, its institutions and
moralities; in the imagined nature of the underdeveloped; in the local context, its
institutions, narratives of progress and moralities; and in the development worker’s
professional identity. I utilize concrete examples from multilateral and bilateral organizations, state agencies and NGOs to demonstrate how heteronormativity and gender
normativity are reproduced in development thought and practice. I draw out the
implications of this study for research on sexualities in transnational perspective and call
for a broader querying – or queering – of development and globalization as they have been
institutionalized in the global South in the neoliberal era.
[email protected]
‘‘That Split Second Changed Everything’’: Sex/Rape and Meaning.
Nicola Gavey
University of Auckland, New Zealand
The line between sex and rape is not always as clear cut as we would like to imagine. In this
paper I interrogate the possibilities for understanding the impact of the kinds of rape that
Susan Estrich (1987) termed ‘‘simple’’ rapes in which a woman is raped by a man known to
her, who did not use physical violence or threaten her with a weapon. I conducted in-depth
interviews with 25 (predominantly New Zealand) women about their experiences of the
impact of rape. They described a very diverse range of experiences – both in terms of the
nature of the rape itself and the place of that rape within the wider context of their lives.
Their experiences included violent rapes, some in ‘‘classic’’ stranger scenarios, others by
men known to the women as well as so-called simple rapes. The place that rape played in
their lives varied enormously in complex and often not obvious ways. I focus on the
potential meaning and impact of rape in those situations where rape was not accompanied
by fear. I present one woman’s account of her experience of rape in the context of an
dis/organised pleasures
S17
otherwise consensual sexual encounter by a man she later went on to marry. This analysis
explores the complex potential meaning of experiences in which sex turns to rape. I argue
that conventional, increasingly medicalized notions of trauma may not always be adequate
for making sense of such experiences. However, this does not mean that rape is meaningless
and/or harmless. On the contrary, for this woman the rape changed her life in ‘‘that split
second’’. She was not left with symptoms of post-traumatic stress but with a state of
existential crisis for having lost confidence in her whole system of religious values and
beliefs and her sense of who she was within that system of meaning.
[email protected]
Sexuality Services in a Culture of Sexual Suppression
Faysal El-Kak
Lebanon
The notion that Sexuality is an integral part of human life and well-being continues to evolve
and spread globally. More individuals – specifically women and young people – want to know
more and discuss their sexuality concerns and discomfort with their health providers. It
appears that this discomfort varies with cultural norms concerning gender relations and
communication styles between providers and clients. In Lebanon, sexual health and sexuality
services are lacking. We gathered information through open-ended questionnaires and indepth interviews with community leaders and providers on their knowledge, perceptions and
attitudes about strengths, weaknesses, needs and expectations of RH services, as well as on
sexuality services, youth issues and gender issues including GBV. The interviews were
transcribed verbatim and analyzed. Both the community leaders and providers felt services
were satisfactory, but a lot of men and young people are still not using RH services because
‘‘men feel humiliated’’ and youth ‘‘feel alienated and exposed.’’ Women seeking help in these
centers can be socially stigmatized. While some community leaders and providers argued for
keeping sexuality education and services within religious institutions and away from the RH
centers, others recommended that the centers have youth-friendly spaces and special working
hours to ensure confidentiality and privacy to encourage young people to use the services.
Other providers expressed discomfort and inadequate skills to deal with sexuality issues of
women and young people and also to manage GBV and its consequences. Sexuality services
are likely to remain absent from RSH centers as a result of lack of provider skills, community
taboos and embarrassment among youth and women.
[email protected]
Exploring the Social Construction and Conscious Dismantling of Abortion Stigma
Anu Kumar, Ellen Mitchell
USA
In this paper, we consider the tainted identities that are manufactured by attaching social
sanction to acts of reproductive choice. We look across various cultural contexts to answer three
related questions: What is abortion stigma? Drawing from classical stigma theory, we define
some unique aspects of a compound stigma that represents the cumulative effect of layers of
normative, but often considered deviant behaviors. We document the manifestation of abortion
stigma and its burden on women’s health and rights. We then query: How is abortion stigma
reproduced and validated? How does abortion come to be viewed as transgressive in particular
S18
IASSCS Conference 2007
places and times? Using examples from several countries, we compare strategies used to
dehumanize, discredit and ultimately discriminate against women who seek abortion care. Part
of this process includes the use of stigma in creating and perpetuating the notion of ‘‘social
difference’’. We analyze how stigma intersects with and reproduces inequalities based on
marital status, race, class and sexuality. Finally, we ask: What strategies are being employed
across the globe to dismantle abortion stigma and reposition abortion? We present a theoretical
framework for deconstruction of abortion-related stigma and identify a set of innovative
programmatic interventions to change social norms and counter discriminatory practices.
[email protected]
Religion, AIDS and Social Action
Veriano Terto Jr, Richard Parker, Vera Paiva, Luis Felipe Rios do Nascimento, Fernando
Seffner, Jonathan Garcia, Ivia Maksud, Miguel Muñoz-Laboy
Brazil
In few countries has the complex impact of religion and religious organizations in relation
to HIV/AIDS been more powerful than in Brazil. Nominally the world’s largest Catholic
country, but also long recognized for its religious diversity. Brazil is the home to one of the
largest syncretic religious traditions anywhere in the world, comprised of a myriad of
loosely related Afro-Brazilian religious sects. Brazil also has seen the rise of one of the most
intense Evangelical Protestant movements found anywhere in the world in recent years.
This study examines the roles played by religious organizations in the Brazilian response to
AIDS. Five year ethnographic study in four Brazilian cities, including in-depth interviews,
oral histories, archival research, ethnographic case studies and life history interviews. After
two years conducting a number of ethnographic interviews, observation at religious centers,
AIDS, and inter-faith conferences, the researchers identify and catalogue recurrent themes.
These include: the role of ‘‘guilt’’ in different institutional responses; definitions of therapy
(e.g. the degree to which institutionalized discourses about spiritual health can influence
biomedical treatment) and prevention; generational differences in the types of social
movements that have collaborated with religious institutions as well as in the definitions of
concepts of ‘‘sexuality’’ and ‘‘citizenship’’; differences between official discourses among
higher level representatives from religious institutions, on one hand, and more progressive
‘‘reality’’ discourses and practices that occur on the ground, on the other. While the secular
dimensions of HIV prevention have received increasing attention, there has been little
recognition of the fact that organized religion, religious beliefs and religious institutions and
organizations have played a key role in shaping national responses to the AIDS epidemic.
[email protected]
What We Have Not Dared To Ask And The Consequences: Women’s Preparations
For Sex and its Effect on Sexual Health Outcomes – The Results of a WHO MultiCountry Prevalence Study on Gender, Sexuality and Vaginal Practices in
Southeast Asia and Southern Africa.
Adriane Martin Hilber
University of Bern/ WHO, Switzerland
The escalating HIV/AIDS pandemic has prompted researchers to consider the extent to
which sexual practices are linked as risk factors for STIs and HIV transmission. Recent
dis/organised pleasures
S19
premature closures of large phase 3 trials on the microbicide cellulose sulfate (CS) for fear
that it might be contributing to an increased risk of HIV infection among study populations
despite years and numerous studies of their safety and efficacy in non-human trials have led
to speculation about the connection between the vaginal environment and HIV transmission.
Although cursory attention has been given towards so-called ‘dry sex’ (the drying and
tightening of the vagina in preparation for sexual intercourse by way of douching or inserting
substances into the vagina, or ingesting preparations believed to dry the vagina), little is really
known about its social, cultural and historical meanings, its prevalence or patterns of use.
This paper presents preliminary results of a prevalence survey conducted in 2006-2007 under
the auspices of the WHO Multi-Country study on gender, sexuality and vaginal practices in
Thailand, Indonesia, Mozambique and South Africa. It draws on the results of the first
ethnographic phase of the study which informed the development of the survey instrument
and provided the qualitative information used in the analysis of findings. Although
prevalence (fairly high to high) and types of practices vary among countries and cultures,
women’s motivations are similar. Across all the study sites, sexual preferences and practices
heavily impact on women and men’s perceptions and experiences of pleasure and eroticism
and underlie their sexual behaviours. Previous simplifications of people’s sexual behaviors as
‘‘safe’’ or ‘‘risky’’ and the focus on women’s ‘‘ability to negotiate safer sex’’ misses a crucial
point – women and men most often chose how they have sex. Preparation for sex varies from
the simple pre- and post-cleansing to the elaborate, three-day ritual of steaming, application
and insertion of substances into the vagina.
[email protected]
‘‘Double’’ and ‘‘Invisible Sex’’: Postcolonial Imaginary, Evu and Lesbianism in
Cameroon, Africa
Sybille Ngo Nyeck
Swarthmore College, Cameroon
The idea that same-sex relations are un-African is widely accepted in Africa today. Recent
scholarship centered on non-hetero-normative frameworks has invested a great deal of
resources in trying to produce an archeology of same-sex loving relations in Africa with the
hope that such a work could finally yield the ‘‘proof ’’ that homosexuality is African. Unlike
other places in Africa where sexual archeology deals with the construction of masculinity, in
pre-colonial Cameroon female same-sex expressions are overwhelmingly cited. That samesex practices had cultural relevance in Cameroon is already established. It is therefore not
the lack of evidence that explains the persistent claim that homosexuality is a western and
colonial phenomenon in Cameroon. The postcolonial imagination, however, criminalizes
same-sex relations in Cameroon. The penal code recommends two to five years of
imprisonment with fines. Since January 2006, newspapers encourage citizens to track down
‘‘homosexuals’’ allegedly responsible for all the country’s ills. Post-colonial reason, though
aware of the fact that same-sex relations are part of Cameroonian culture, constructs itself
in opposition to a ‘‘homoerotic’’ selfhood. Interpreted in the past as a manifestation of
essential cosmic energy, lesbian love conveyed both practice and knowledge: the private
and the public being a matter of seasonal and philosophical conventions. In the modern
state of Cameroon, the post-colonial reason represents lesbian bodies as mere tools of
‘‘corruption,’’ depriving them of their philosophical ‘‘reality,’’ which is part of the double
construction of an African personhood that considers whatever is human as essentially
S20
IASSCS Conference 2007
multiple, visible and invisible, theoretical and embodied. Invisibility needs not to be the
driving force of ‘‘colonialism.’’ This paper reclaims concepts of evu and hoo to analyze the
function of same-sex desire and practice among women in Cameroon, identify alternative
epistemologies of the in/visible sex and its post-cultural relevance, and demonstrate the
interconnectedness between historical knowledge of homoerotic ‘‘evidence’’ and the
construction of a postcolonial a historical reason about gender and sexual identities.
[email protected]
Quality of Sex Life in a Mining Context in Chile: A Psychosocial Framework
Jaime Eduardo Barrientos
Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile
How do the Chilean’s men and women evaluate their sexual life in a sociocultural context
linked to the mining trade, which legitimizes differences and the persistence of the
masculine hegemony? A study was carried out to answer this question in the II region of
Antofagasta, Chile, with mixed qualitative – quantitative methodology. Sexual satisfaction
is one of the most important dimensions of human life; it involves physical, psychological,
emotional and relational aspects and it influences the degree of health and general wellbeing of the people. The result shows discrepancies in the assessment of the quality of
sexual life among different sexual generations, essentially, in women. Men, more than
women, assess more satisfactorily their sexual life. Women judge positively their sexual life
but we can find some shades in their discourses. According to these shades, we can make
the following hypothesis: on one side, there are generation changes and, on the other side,
for women, sexual life happens in ‘‘partner relationships’’, independently of the sexual
generation. From the point of view of the men, all of them value their sexual life as ‘‘very
important’’ because the sexuality exercise favours a physical and psychological well-being,
reaching the quality of life. Likewise, in men, sexual satisfaction is attached to the fulfilment
of his role as macho. Moreover, many of these men justify differentiated gender roles that
support the system sex /genre and the scripts prescribed socially. The results suggest a
transformation of the sexual behaviour (which is not yet concluded) and of gender roles
that appear towards more equitable and democratic relationships, though still enormous
differences between the sexes persist.
[email protected]
Colombian Women in Australia: Contraceptive Beliefs and Practices
Diane Bourne
La Trobe University, Australia
This paper forms part of a PhD thesis which is nearing completion. The impetus for the
study was developed from my experience of living in Venezuela and Colombia for a period
of three years between 1997 and 2000; and discovering on my return to Australia that, on a
global scale, there was a dearth of research on Colombian women with respect to their
sexuality and reproduction. Twenty-one Colombian women aged between 21 years and 55
years who are first generation migrants in Australia narrated their life-histories on the
theme of sexuality and reproduction. Interspersed with their narratives about growing up in
dis/organised pleasures
S21
Colombia were their stories of their experiences and perceptions of being female in
Australia. The women’s narratives were spoken in Spanish which allowed them to speak
openly, irrespective of their level of knowledge of the English language. Gender symbolism
theoretically guided the study. My paper focuses on one aspect of my study –
contraception. The women’s inadequate sex education extended to the issue of contraception. Women are influenced by partners, friends, the Catholic Church, the State, and
medical practitioners, and are often powerless in the control of their fertility. The women’s
social and cultural environment influenced them and their beliefs and practices of
contraception, often putting the women at risk of unwanted pregnancy and sexual illhealth. In Australia the women faced conflicting information on contraceptive methods,
and revealed a reluctance to visit medical practitioners with regard to their contraception –
a necessary practice to obtain certain methods of contraception. The women welcomed
their new found sense of independence and freedom in their new country where, in their
opinion, gender equality exists, and where women are valued and respected. However,
cultural differences between Colombia and Australia impacted on the women in different
ways when it came to their beliefs and practices of contraception
[email protected]
Disputing Homosexuality in the Post-Soviet Latvia: Quest for Normality
Liene Ozolina
International School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam,
Netherlands
Over the last three years, homosexuality and gay rights have gained particular salience in
the Latvian public sphere. The organization of gay parades in the summer of 2005 and
2006 and legislation amendments regarding anti-discrimination norms on the basis of one’s
sexual orientation have earned special attention in the society and caused vehement debates
and harsh opposing opinions regarding gays and lesbians among politicians, media and the
general public. The heated and polarized atmosphere, which is somewhat disproportional
to the scale of the actual events at its core, raised a row of questions about the reasons for
such tension and perception of sexuality and sexual orientation in the post-Soviet societies.
In order to start addressing these questions, I carried out a discourse analysis of the Latvian
Parliament debates over including an anti-discriminatory norm about sexual minorities in
the Labor Law. For a theoretical framework, I merged the model of governmentality and its
particular political rationality and technologies of government, as developed by Michael
Foucault and Nikolas Rose, with a set of normalization narratives, present in the postSoviet Latvian society, that are directed towards the national past and/or the Western
Europe, as proposed by a Latvian sociologist Daina Stukuls-Eglitis. Based on that, my goal
was to explore how the general quest for normality with its normalization narratives was
affecting the formation of attitudes towards gay people in Latvia. The discourse analysis of
the Parliament debates has revealed a unique concoction of moral urgencies, nationalistic
beliefs, liberal claims and Soviet ideology that mould the perception of same-sex
relationship in the contemporary Latvian society. The issue of sexual orientation has
become lost amidst the often clashing forces of adopting the liberal democratic norms and
values, preserving ‘Latvianness’ and erasing, yet to a certain extent still embracing the
inherited Soviet ideology. Being gay is openly defined as ‘abnormal’ and as a disease
S22
IASSCS Conference 2007
attributed to the ‘perverse West’, yet the actual legislation amendments are approved due to
the strong aspirations towards the security and prosperity associated with the EU.
[email protected]
LGBT Rights and the Limits of Law in Brazil
Rafael de la Dehesa
City University of New York – College of Staten Island, USA
In this paper, I seek to expand understandings of legislative activism around LGBT rights,
recognizing that lobbying to pass a particular law is only the beginning. In this regard, I
consider activists’ efforts to ‘‘take laws off paper’’ as part of a broader project to deepen sexual
rights and citizenship. Since the 1980s, legislative activism rose to the top of LGBT activists’
agenda in Brazil, producing an impressive body of legislation on LGBT rights by global
standards. Since they first embarked on a parliamentary route, however, activists were well
aware of the limitations of these laws in terms of their effective implementation. In this paper, I
examine the history of legislative activism in the country, specifically focusing on how activists
have sought to press for the implementation of existing laws and, in effect, navigate the
limitations of democratic practice in the country. The transnational inscription of sexuality
within a broader framework of universal human rights has produced significant changes in
legislation in several countries around the world. Yet the performative force of such laws, their
ability to change behavior at the level of everyday life, is often limited, as formal stipulations of
equality in the public sphere differentially penetrate highly unequal relations of power in the
private sphere. Recognizing these limitations and the efforts made to address them is crucial to
our understanding of sexual rights and citizenship as lived experience
[email protected]
The politics of Representation: Some issues around depiction of Sex Work in the
Hindi film industry in India
Poulomi Pal
Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
The politics of representation through films as a medium raises myriad concerns. What is
being represented? Whose voice is being articulated? The role of the subject’s agency, the
dynamics between the society and the individual, the role of contexts, time and space,
factual reality and interpretation etc. Apart from this, films are also about the storyline/plot,
aesthetic of the cinematic brilliance, camera work, editing, sound, direction, acting, the role
of audiences, censorship, box office success and so on. The role of violence, music and
dance particularly in the genre of Hindi films helps the audience to chart out the moral
universe the film is meant to tread. In this paper I am specifically focusing on the power
relationships depicted in certain genre of Hindi films, where the protagonist is a sex worker
and the story line is interwoven with her existential reality. The two films, which I
elaborately discuss later in the paper roughly fall under the broad category of Muslim
socials. The realm of politics is determined by firstly how the women are depicted in the
films and secondly the power dynamics exercised by other factoring elements in the film,
which plays an important role in the identity formation of the subject. Other than the role of
dissent articulated or the space for its articulation is also a lens through which the sphere of
politics is determined. The central argument of the paper is to emphasize the need to
dis/organised pleasures
S23
question the stereotypical image of the sex worker as a ‘vulnerable’, ‘helpless’, ‘deviant’,
‘social outcaste’ subject and try to negotiate the role of her voice, agency, autonomy, desire,
sexuality, consent, politics of work etc in the formation of this identity depicted in films as a
medium. The process is one of queering the politics of this stereotypical depiction. Queer
perspectives around sex work are determined by reversing the stereotypical imagery of the
sex workers as ‘vulnerable’, ‘without any agency’, ‘deviant’ subjects of analysis. The
queering of the issue will enable us to transcend the dichotomies of voluntary/forced,
agency/victim, trafficked/socialised, legal/criminal, sexual slavery/sexual autonomy,
exploited/liberated (which have characterised debates around sex work) and explore the
‘life in continuum’ of people in prostitution and sex work, i.e. how they negotiate spaces
and survive through struggles. In other words the terrain it covers would involve
questioning: the social construct of the sex worker in relation to the stigma attached to it as
a viable option of work; the question of power exercised by various bodies in the sex trade
industry; the need to articulate the problem from the perspective of the sex workers
themselves; the politics of collective action. This would be possible in the medium of films
if one makes an effort to draw a parallel between theory/praxis and representation. The
most important arguement for Hindi films to adopt a queer perspective is to get out of this
mode where the sex worker needs to be redeemed by a man and legitimize the act of
redemption through the institution of marriage. The paper essentially is divided into three
parts. The first part contextualizes the issue of sex work in the feminist discourse in India
from a historical perspective. This is important as a tool of analysis to compare the theory
and praxis with representation at some level. The second part gives an introduction to the
politics of visual representation discussing some films, which have sex workers as
protagonists. The third part of the paper discusses some contestable issues in the two
films Umrao Jaan and Pakeezah selected for the study. This paper is limited to Hindi
mainstream films and therefore not focusing on regional films, parallel cinema or art films
and documentaries. Another limitation of the paper is that not all films which have sex
workers as protagonists have been discussed.
[email protected]
How HIV Diagnosis and ARV Use Affect Sexuality of Heterosexual and Bisexual
Men Living with HIV in Brazil
Lı́gia Polistchuck, Vera Paiva, Daniele Licciardi, Aluisio Segura
Casa da Aids-HCFMUSP, Brazil
Free and universal access to antiretrovirals has resulted in 50% reduction in the AIDS
mortality rate in Brazil. Sexuality of HIV + bisexual or heterosexual men has been the
subject of little discussion and few studies have focused on this issue. A consecutive sample
of 250 men who had sex with women (bisexual and heterosexual) was recruited from two
referral centers of HIV/AIDS, in São Paulo. Consenting men were interviewed regarding
demographic characteristics, sexuality, partner characteristics, condom use and attitudes
toward fatherhood. This study will describe how the 229 men who were taking
antiretrovirals perceived their sexuality after the diagnosis. Mean age was 39 years old
(from 17-74 years). 70% reported being sexually infected, and most of them had not
expected a positive result when they received HIV testing results. 45% were single, 40%
were married, 9.6% were separated/divorced and 4.8% were widower. Most men had
children. 20% of them attended college, 34% attended high school, 13% completed
elementary school, 30% attended some years of elementary school and 3% never attended
S24
IASSCS Conference 2007
school. Mean number of years of education was 9 years. 72.5% reported their sexual life is
different after being diagnosed. Some indicated positive effects, as becoming more aware
and informed about sexual issues. The majority reported fear of HIV transmission, lack or
decrease of desire and frequency of intercourse, impotence, becoming more careful and
feeling detachment from partners. Among the interviewed, 5% reported the effects of
antiretrovirals in sexuality and all referred to sexual deficits. These results suggest that
sexuality should be an issue for care and counseling and further investigation is needed in
the issue regarding the link between antiretrovirals and sexuality.
[email protected], [email protected]
Expounding Gender: Transgender (Male to Female) Sex Workers Identities in the
Global-Thai Sex Sector
Witchayanee Ocha
Thailand
The research aims to form a body of gender knowledge through the study of ‘‘emergent
identities’’ in the Thai and Global sex industry. The global sex industry is a major site of
new sexual and gender expressions that can inform of a more complex concept of gender.
Weeks (1995) suggests that the impact of global capitalism may effect life style changes that
enable gender and sexuality to diversify. Transgender (male to female) sex workers are the
most visible faces of these emergent forms and the ‘‘diversification of sexualities’’ confirms
that all gender possibilities are open in Thailand. Data were gathered in the areas of
Bangkok and Pattaya in Thailand. The data gathered about currently emerging marginalized sexual minorities suggest that the financial gains brought by the global sex trade are a
driving force in the development of new sex and gender identities. It can be shown that the
categorization of these new genders is difficult due to the diversity of the human behaviors
and mismatches in self-concept and the outside views of others. It is proposed that the
financial aspect of the global sex industry, combined with advancing medical technologies,
could actually advance the development of new sexualities and body forms. The existence
of various ‘‘performativities’’ is proposed and investigated and the need for a reconsideration of definitions of various sexual/gendered groups and practices explored with relation to
‘‘queer’’ theory. The data clearly suggests that the theory of the fluidity of sexualities is a
very real and relevant theory to describe the development of sexuality/gender in the sex
trade in the contemporary period in Thailand. The research encourages a fuller, more
accurate understanding of the gender subjectivities that are emerging and developing in the
context of communication and medical technologies that broaden the boundaries of the
global-Thai sex sector.
[email protected]
Sexual Rights in Muslim Communities: International Queer Muslim Movement
Today
Vanja Hamzic
LOGOS & Muslim Advocacy Initiative (MAI), Bosnia Herzegovina
This paper intends to present recent developments in the emerging international queer
Muslim movement and to voice the necessity for cross-movement cooperation in the global
dis/organised pleasures
S25
advocacy for sexual and gender rights. It will consist of the following three brief parts: In its
opening lines, the paper will provide an overview of key mechanisms (both theological
(Islamic) and activist) the queer Muslim movement uses to advocate and protect sexual and
gender rights in a wide range of Muslim communities across the globe. It will focus on both
ijtihad (independent reasoning) and queer jihad (LGBTIQ activism in Muslim contexts).
In addition, it will briefly touch upon different concepts of sexuality and gender in various
Muslim communities and their implications to the human rights, identities and realities of
sexual and gender minorities. The second part of the paper will discuss recent crucial
developments in queer Muslim scholarship, activism and global getting together – in
particular in the non-western communities (Middle East, South East Europe, South East
Asia, South Africa and others). It will present, inter alia, the main outcomes of the
international strategic meetings of queer Muslim scholars and activists that took place in
South Africa (June 2006) and Indonesia (February-March 2007). The Closing part of the
paper will explore the emerging avenues of cooperation between the advocates and
defenders of sexual and gender rights and the international queer Muslim movement both
in global (ised) academic and activist arena. Understanding the struggle of queer Muslims
represents an important step forward towards an inclusive and comprehensive advocacy of
sexual and gender rights. Mechanisms this movement uses to combat discrimination and
manifold prejudices are worth thorough study and application in various socio-political,
religious and cultural environments.
[email protected]
Intersecting Identity Conflict among Middle Eastern Gay and Lesbian
Individuals: A Qualitative Study
David Khalili
USA
This study will examine intersecting identity conflict within Middle Eastern gay and lesbian
individuals. For the purpose of this study, Intersecting Identity Conflict is defined as an
internal conflict between one’s own ethnic and sexual identity. Given the lack of prior
research on Middle Eastern gay and lesbian individuals, this qualitative study is
exploratory. Through interviewing six Middle Eastern gay and lesbian individuals, the
study will create a theory using the grounded-theory approach. Five main themes were
found in the data analysis of the interviews with the participants; family dynamics, religion,
sexual silence, intersecting identity conflict, and role of migration. Family dynamics was a
large predictor of comfort with intersecting identities. The closer the participant was to the
parents’, the more likely they were to be open to their parents. The stricter the religion of
the family was, the less likely the participant was to come out to their parents as well as
embrace the intersection of their ethnic and sexual identity. Sexual silence, defined as
ignoring or avoiding the topic of ones sexual orientation or behavior, inhibited the amount
of intersection between ethnic and sexual identity. Finally, the amount of time the
participant has lived in the United States (born natively in the U.S. vs. migrating to the
U.S.) predicted the amount of intersecting identity conflict amongst the participants.
The participants experienced intersecting identity conflict at varying levels, some
experiencing it to an extreme degree and others to a lesser degree. Some participants
experienced intersecting identity conflict to the point where being Middle Eastern and
lesbian or gay was mutually exclusive. Primarily, the participants experienced low levels of
S26
IASSCS Conference 2007
sexual silence, except for one participant who has yet to come out to her parents. Being that
the sample size was small and a majority of the participants were either Lebanese or
Persian, future research would benefit from focusing on a larger sample size as well as a
more diverse sample.
[email protected]
Gender Roles and Sexual Scripts in a Ladies’ Club
Marion Arent
Brazil
This ethnographic study focuses on the investigation of two issues, gender roles and sexual
scripts, performed in a Ladies’ Club in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Observations and interviews
were used to collect data. Ladies Club is a show performed in a Rio de Janeiro night club
where ‘‘beautiful’’ young men (from 18 to 30 years old) do striptease on the stage for a
women’s audience. The strippers’ masculinity is sustained by their bodies’ presentation and
by the sexual scripts performed on the stage. After the show, other men are allowed to come
in, people dance, drink, talk and many couples kiss and touch each other sensually.
Eroticism and infidelity are usual themes, both in verbal interactions and in the songs that
usually liven up the show. Sexuality and affection are normally dissociated in these
interactions. In this context, as subjects and as objects, both men and women perform
conflicting positions. During the show, men’s bodies are displayed to a female consumer,
performing an inversion of the traditional gender roles. Sexually excited by the male
strippers performances, music and alcoholic drinks, after the show women interact with
other men performing a much more traditional role. Even in a context where important
transgressions vis-à-vis gender positions and subjectivities are carried out, the traditional
gender rules are still preserved, largely by the idea that women depend on special stimulus
to wish or do things that men are supposedly always ready to.
[email protected]
Queering Human Rights
Jose Fernando Serrano1, Karen Engle2, Janet Halley3, Amr Shalakany4
1
Colombia, 2University of Texas School of Law, Austin, Texas, USA, 3Harvard Law
School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 4American University-Cairo, Cairo, EGYPT
Since the 1980s, LGBT activists and movements throughout the Americas have deployed a
human rights discourse as a means to articulate their claims. In some cases, ‘‘human rights’’
has become a ‘‘code’’ word for LGBT issues and a means to perpetuate the use of a human
rights discourse. In the United States, for example, the Human Rights Campaign Fund
adopted its name in 1980 when human rights discourse was not commonly used in the
United States to discuss domestic issues. In other cases, ‘‘human rights’’ has become the
vehicle for the articulation of claims by sexual ‘‘minorities’’ or sexual ‘‘citizens’’ within
wider processes of social transformation. In Latin American countries such as Argentina,
for example, LGBT movements in the early 1980s saw their work as an important part of
the development of social movements around democracy and human rights. Although
queer theory has challenged the assumptions about identity upon which such activism is
based, it has yet to address directly the uses of the larger discourse of human rights by
dis/organised pleasures
S27
LGBT activists. This roundtable aims to fill this gap between the critical theorizing of
identity and human rights by pursuing a number of questions, including the following: –
What are the implications for different theories of identity for human rights? – What are the
implications for different understandings of human rights for identity? – Is ‘‘visibility’’
necessary to the recognition of human rights? – How do sexual cultures define themselves
in relationship to human rights discourses? – How does human rights culture interact with
contemporary sexual and gender subjectivities? – Are critical approaches a threat or
promise to LGBT movements? – What practices have already been developed to mediate
the tension between sexual identities and human rights? – What practices would emerge
from a queering of human rights?
[email protected]
Young Children’s Account of Gender and Sexuality in the Spread of HIV/AIDS
Deevia Bhana
University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
This study explored accounts by seven- and eight-year old South African boys and girls of
gender and sexuality in the spread of HIV/AIDS. A substantial body of South African
research shows that gender is an important dynamic in the spread of HIV/AIDS. Yet
gender issues in early childhood have received minimal attention, which is critical in the
light of the unrelenting HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa where girls remain
particularly vulnerable. Drawing from an ethnographic study of young children’s meanings
of HIV/AIDS, this paper seeks to explore how gender and sexuality feature in children’s
account of the spread of the disease. HIV prevention and messaging around gender issues
have become common practice in the South African social landscape. Young children had a
great deal to say about who spreads AIDS and how sex and sexuality are embedded within
this meaning. While many children indicated that women and girls were victims of a
rampant male heterosexuality, there were many variations with children referring to girls’
agency and distancing from violent male sexualities. Starting early with young children is an
important investment in their right to sexual and reproductive health. Efforts aimed at
working with boys and girls in early childhood, who are not necessarily sexually active but
sexual, to address gender and sexuality in HIV/AIDS prevention may help increase their
awareness of gender and sexuality.
[email protected]
BDSM in the Holy Land: From Sexual Puritanism to Sexual Identities
Dana Kaplan
Open University, Israel
Introduction: As in other post-industrialist societies, the Israeli BDSM community has
become socially visible in the last decade. This visibility is a part of the salience of liberal,
public discourses and commercial media images of body, gender and sex. These discourses
attest to the development of a typical late capitalist consumer culture in Israel. This is in
sharp contrast to the founding national ethos, which posited collectivism and communitarism as its core values, expressed in a puritanical sexual discourse and practice.
S28
IASSCS Conference 2007
Breaking away from this nation-building Puritanism, the emergence of a local BDSM subculture and identity can be seen as a glocalization of radical sex in particular and of an
identity politics discourse in general. Objectives and method: In the literature BDSM
identity is conceptualized as a sexually dissenting, anti-hetero-normative practice with
subversive political consequences. Also, the visibility and the emergence of BDSM lifestyles
and communities is explained as part of the general commodification of sex. I wish to trace
this theoretical context back to the emergence of this community in Israel through the
perspective of participants in BDSM forums. Using content analysis methods, I will show
the dialectic between (sexual) difference, on the one hand, and capitalism-inflicted
mainstreaming, on the other hand, and some of the ways its members attempt to overcome
these ambiguities. The relationship between ‘‘new’’, avant-garde sexual lifestyles and ‘‘old’’
class distinctions will also be considered. This will allow me to account for some of the ways
the commodification of sexuality is taking shape in the Israeli context.
[email protected]
Constructions and Contestations of Sexuality and Citizenship in South Africa and
Africa
Gertrude Fester
University of Western Cape, South Africa
In the trial judgment of former deputy president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, a journalist
wrote: ‘This trial is more about sexual politics and gender relations than it is about rape’. I
will investigate the central concept of power and gender power relations with reference to
the polarization of women and their diverse responses to the Zuma trial. I will interrogate
why women led the condemnation of the complainant with the slogan: ‘Burn the Bitch’.
Areas of exploration will include fixed notions of culture, the role of religion, marginalized
sexuality and constructions of sexuality. I argue that despite legislative and constitutional
progress in South Africa, gender consciousness and gender equity have developed unevenly
and sporadically. Using the theoretical framework of citizenship, I explore the ambiguity
and contradictions of inclusive citizenship in Africa within the context of statements of
African presidents, including Robert Mugabe and former president Sam Nujoma, that
homosexuality is ‘unAfrican’. Using human rights argument and historical examples of
same-sex relationships in Africa, I interrogate the notions of tradition and religion, ‘rights’
and ‘culture’ and argue that the rights-based approach is inadequate to facilitate
transformation and bring about equality.
[email protected]
Strategies for the Restoration of Women’s Reproductive Rights in Nicaragua
Marta Blandon, Karen Padilla, Cecilia Espinoza
Ipas/Central America, Nicaragua
The criminalization of therapeutic abortion in November, 2006 — the only legal indication
for terminating pregnancies in Nicaragua — represented a shock to the nation and the panAmerican region as a whole. The suspension of women’s access to therapeutic abortion
contravenes women’s right to health, life, equal treatment under the law, and restitution
dis/organised pleasures
S29
following acts of violence. This paper presents a summary of strategies used by antiabortion forces to rapidly push through this regressive legal measure as a prelude to
answering two central questions: How can such a fundamental right disappear practically
overnight? What strategies can be used to restore this basic right to women? Based on
media analysis, key informant interviews and participant observation, the authors consider
the role of power, electoral politics, information control, allegiances and factionalism as
central factors in the sudden law change, including examples of rhetorical tools used to
polarize the electorate. The paper then goes on to present evidence of the disproportionate
effects of the ban on young, poor and marginalized women and girls. It will also summarize
the current process of constitutional challenge, community mobilization and multi-sectoral
coalition-building to oppose the abortion ban, explaining the role of national and
international actors, forums and commitments. Comparisons are drawn between the
Nicaraguan case and events surrounding the total criminalization of abortion in El Salvador
in 1997. The authors also analyze the array of forces that may be brought to bear to recover
reproductive rights and the unique value of multidisciplinary, multi-sectoral coalitions in
the development and dissemination of key messages about women’s survival. Lessons for
other countries in the region are offered.
[email protected]
‘‘Ethiopian by Birth, Gay by Nature, Proud by Choice’’: Sexuality and HIV/AIDS
among men having sex with men in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Getnet Tadele
Addis Ababa University, Etiopia
There is a growing literature that shows that homosexuality exists in traditional African
societies. Recent works cite the existence of homosexuality in approximately fifty African
societies from different regions, family structures and kinship groups. Despite such studies,
there is a widespread public and religious discourse that claims homosexuality is not
African. This ongoing study in Addis Ababa explores the sexual lives of men having sex
with men in a society where homosexuality is illegal. Using snowball technique, more than
20 in-depth interviews were conducted with MSM (particularly with those engaged in
commercial sex work). I also conducted one focus group discussion (FGD) with six MSM.
FGDs and interviews have been also conducted with key informants working on HIV/
AIDS prevention and other related activities. Preliminary results show that male-to male
sex is much bigger than generally speculated in Addis Ababa and there is flourishing
underground commercial sex work. Most of those interviewed, however, suffer from
internalized and externalized stigma and discrimination. What is more shocking is that
most of the MSM involved in this study believe that HIV/AIDS can only be transmitted
through heterosexual sex and they perceive their sexuality as completely safe from HIV/
AIDS infection/transmission. The liquid produced in the vagina is perceived as the main
source of HIV virus and anal sex (‘‘dry zone’’) is devoid of such liquid and safer than
vaginal sex. Some of them also argued that they are possessed by a spirit and such spirit
doesn’t like it when they use condoms. This is not surprising finding since all interventions
on HIV/AIDS in the country focus only on heterosexual transmission. The study argues
the need to open up space for the discussion of different forms of sexual relationships that
take place in the country. The study also highlights that interventions aimed at preventing
S30
IASSCS Conference 2007
the spread of HIV could benefit from an approach that addresses different types of sexual
practices and identities.
[email protected]
Breast Cancer Patients Treated with a Mastectomy: An Analysis of Personal
Narratives of the Partners
Luiza Akiko Komura Hoga, Débora Silva Mello
University of São Paulo, Brazil
Introduction: The family members of cancer patients play a central role as caregivers. The
present study reports the perspectives of men whose wives have undergone a mastectomy to
combat breast cancer. Method: This qualitative study utilized a narrative analysis method
to interview 17 men. Findings: Four main themes emerged from the analysis of interview
transcripts: reactions to the diagnosis and the involvement in caregiving; support received;
the influence of breast cancer on the couple’s relationship; and the evaluation of the care
provided by the institution. The findings indicate that healthcare professionals should
interact with a patient’s primary caregiver, take family dynamics into consideration when
planning and implementing home care, and systematically inform the patient and their
family members about the disease and the implications of treatments.
[email protected]
Diagnosis…Extremely Homosexual: (Re)Constructing Hegemonic Masculinity
through Militarized Medical Discourse in Turkey
Alp Biricik
Turkey
The paper addresses the (re)construction of hegemonic masculinity through the analysis of
the ideological investments of militarist discourses in Turkey, particularly through the
analysis of eleven gay men’s life narratives who received, tried but failed, or refused to be
disqualified from military service between 1991 and 2006. A ‘rotten report’ is provided by
the Turkish Military Department to male citizens before or after they are conscripted to the
military service to certify their mental or physical disabilities. I discuss the review process
for homosexual men, which includes psychological tests (i.e. MMPI); photographs taken
during homosexual intercourse — allegedly, the applicant must be seen in the ‘passive role’
— and rectal examination. Depending on the applicant’s status/resistance, the person can
be taken under observation in the military hospital up to two weeks. The overall review
process may take between one and three years. Throughout the study I draw on theories
from feminist critics’ work on nationalism, masculinities and queer studies, including
Foucault, Butler, Kandiyoti and Connell’s concepts of sexuality, gender performance and
strategies in patriarchal structures. I discuss how the militarist medical gaze functions as an
apparatus of militarist and nationalist discourses to determine the set of ‘fit’ and ‘rotten’
citizens in society. The criteria of these military medical examinations serve to (re)construct
the values attributed to hegemonic masculinity, equally embedded in the historic legacy of
Turkish nationalist and militarist discourses as well as the idealized modern Turkish man.
[email protected]
dis/organised pleasures
S31
Reform of the Domestic Violence Ordinance for Same-Sex Couples in Hong Kong
Man Wai, Connie Chan
Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, China
Introduction: Partners suffering abuse in same-sex relationships are unable to access help
offered by refuges because social workers are not properly trained to meet their needs.
Beginning in November 2006, the Hong Kong Government began to reform its Domestic
Violence Ordinance but did not include same-sex couples, arguing that it did not recognize
same-sex marriage. The first survey on same-sex domestic violence in Hong Kong was
conducted in December 2006 to show the importance of a reform of the Ordinance and the
lack of hope in regard to domestic abuse in same sex relationships. The survey also focused on
other unique problems for them. Main Body/Results: The survey of 236 people found that a
common type of abuse in same-sex couples was the threat to disclose a partner’s sexual
preferences to parents, friends or employers. The survey of homosexuals and bisexuals found
that a third had suffered some form of domestic abuse. Sixteen per cent had been beaten up
by their partners, almost double the 9.6 per cent rate among heterosexual couples. Domestic
violence is often only thought of as physical violence, but it can also involve emotional abuse
or violence including undermining of self-confidence, sexual violence or the threat of violence
by a person who is, or has been in a close relationship. This can also include financial control
and using a partner’s sexuality in a bid to blackmail them. The social workers at family service
centers, shelters or hotlines for domestic violence did not know how to handle gay victims and
ignored their fears. The findings were underlined by undercover calls to five groups dealing
with domestic violence. Conclusions: The situation is worsening as the pressures spurring
increased violence in heterosexual relationships are doing the same among same-sex couples.
The Hong Kong Government should reform the Domestic Violence Ordinance to include
same-sex relationships.
[email protected]
Emerging LGBT Activism in Mongolia
Sukhragchaa Mijidsuren
Youth for Health Centre, Mongolia
The Non-Governmental Organization ‘‘Youth for Health’’ center was founded with the
initiative of the gay community in Mongolia and was officially recognized by the
Government. The center obtained legal registration in 2003 from the Ministry of Justice
and Home Affairs. The mission of our CBO is to provide adequate information about staying
healthy for MSM and helping them to learn how to prevent HIV/AIDS and change the social
understanding of sexuality as well as to prevent sexual violence against the LGBT
community. Our CBO cooperates with journalists and health workers to give the right
message to the general public about sexuality. The culture of our country is very different
from some other South Asian countries. Mongolian society tends to identify LGBT people as
addicted and same-sex behavioral as a mental disorder. Thus, we organize social events with
the LGBT community to improve social understanding. One issue that emerges as a problem
is how to change public knowledge about sexual orientation. International experience shows
that early knowledge of HIV infection is critical in controlling the spread of HIV infection.
Twelve years ago Mongolia was reported as ranking 165th country in the world on HIV
infection. The first case was a gay man. However, Mongolia now has 25 registered cases of
S32
IASSCS Conference 2007
HIV infection, half of them in gay men. Public conceptions about HIV is closely related to
sexuality, and there is very high level of stigma and discrimination against the gay community,
related to low levels of knowledge on sexuality among Mongolians. Youth never talk about
sexuality, and most LGBT are hidden. It is also difficult to get the MSM community to
attend the activities of the organization.
[email protected]
Sexualized Humour in the Context of HIV/AIDS
Wangari Muthuk
University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
The paper draws on a research project I have been conducting in Durban on the lives and
identities of men and women with AIDS and on the strategies they develop to cope with
stigma, poor health and anxiety. I focus on a HIV/AIDS support group and how the members
presented themselves and interacted in ways which minimized tensions and anxieties relating
to the above issues. Sexuality was a key theme that emerged in the conversation of the group.
Through sexualized humour and innuendo, the participants in the support group produced a
sense of community and fun which enabled them to deal with HIV/AIDS. By constructing
each other as highly sexual in humorous ways, members of the group: created a sense of
camaraderie, which cut across ‘race’ and allowed spaces for discussing personal and intimate
issues with people from other ‘races’ whom they normally distanced themselves; and
parodied popular constructions of people with AIDS as promiscuous and were not only
unusually open about their status but played at being promiscuous. However, anxieties about
sexuality that emerged in individual interviews with some of the participants rarely featured in
the support group. For example, deep concerns about the effects of lipodystrophy (a side
effect of some antiretroviral drugs involving fat accumulation in the breasts and torso) on
their gendered and sexual identities. The support group represented an important venue for
people with AIDS to express themselves and their concerns. A sense of camaraderie, fun and
group identity was achieved in part through humour and sexual innuendo, reacting to and
subverting the stigma in the world outside. But while this may have facilitated social
interaction and engagement among the participants (especially given those from different
‘races’), it also made it difficult for them to voice anxieties.
[email protected]
Asserting Themselves through Sexuality: Black South African Girls in a Formerly
Indian school
Rob Pattman
University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Introduction: The paper draws on a loosely structured interview study conducted with 16and17-year-old men and women of different ‘races’ in Durban schools. The study sought
to investigate these young people’s accounts of their lives and identities with a particular
interest on the significance they attached to sexuality. The paper focuses in detail on an
interview with black young women at a formerly Indian school in a predominantly Indian
and middle class area. Main Body: Young black women raised concerns about racism
directed towards them by Indian students (especially girls) and teachers. In their accounts
this often took the form of Indian girls presenting themselves as more heterosexually
dis/organised pleasures
S33
attractive than others. The black girls responded by asserting themselves as heterosexually
desiring and desirable subjects. These girls were also critical of what they viewed as ‘black’
forms of parental control of daughters through policing of their sexuality. But in asserting
their heterosexuality, these girls ran the risk of being accused of cultural violation, as
happened in the interview itself when some of the girls accused others of doing precisely
this. Conclusion: Studies on black girls and sexuality in Africa have focused on exploitation
and abuse, and the paper argues for more research on female sexual agency and desire. The
black girls in this interview drew on heterosexual desire as a source of self-esteem in a
school where they felt marginalized, though it was especially in relation to sexuality that
they expressed their subordination. ‘Race’ and sexuality were introduced as important
themes in this interview by the black women themselves in ways which were always
interlinked.
[email protected]
When 21st Century Africans Display Disorganised Pleasures
Jessie Kabwila Kapasula
Chancellor College, Malawi
When 21st century African Men and Women Display ‘Disorganised Pleasures’: ‘Subversive’
Sexualities in Benjamin Kwakye’s The Sun By Night. Homophobic views are prevalent in
Africa. To Presidents Mugabe and Museveni, homosexuality is not only disorganized, it is
not human (BBC News, 2002). Opponents of homosexuality in Africa often portray it as a
western and foreign practice. In fact, when one reads on-line discussion boards on this issue
or newspapers, comments like the following made on BBC Africa are quite common: Africa
and Africans should not respect or entertain homosexuality in any form or fashion. Gay
recognition and rights is a Western thing. African culture and tradition does support nor
encourage such things... if I may go further here, neither does almighty God support such a
sinful act. The discourse on prostitution in Africa focuses on its intersection with poverty and
female subjectivity, often essentializing the African woman by concentrating on poor illiterate
women, neglecting the diverse types of women of Africa. Much of the scholarship involves
third party articulation on behalf of the prostitutes. An alternative view is that of Kwakye’s
2006 publication, The Sun By Night. Set in Ghana, the novel’s plot and characterization
negates the usual ‘subversive-sex-is-alien’ trope by squarely locating the narrative on African
soil. Kwakye’s innovative portrayal centers on the educated, urban prostitute explaining her
love for sex. This paper argues that through the portrayal of the prostitute and cross-dresser,
Kwakye signals the presence of men and women born and bred in Africa who are assertive in
their sexuality even though it is labeled ‘disorganised.’ His representation also reveals how sex
is a category of gender and class contestation, a battleground that is ever in motion and
central to the construction of political power in Africa.
[email protected]
Through the Eyes of the Butterfly
Endah Sulistyowati
Gender and Sexuality Studies, Indonesia
In Indonesia efforts are underway to criminalize sex workers not only by field officers but
also backed by state and local regulations since anti-prostitution statutes have been issued
S34
IASSCS Conference 2007
in many regions. Repression only falls on women while pimps and clients are never
arrested, and the women are treated as sinners, seducers, social disease bearers and
criminals. How do they respond? This research tries to see sex work from a different
perspective, through their eyes to break the silence and raise their voices to fight for their
rights. A beautiful slender girl sways from a five-star hotel in Jakarta. A sweet petite girl
sings in a karaoke pub in Cirebon city. A brawny tawny girl massages her guest in a spa. A
middle-aged woman heads to a massage parlor in haste. A skinny little girl sells drinks on
the street. All those girls are sex workers in different classes of the economic hierarchy. But
they are the same, women with problems who need to survive like anyone else. They ‘have
sex’ just like we do, with lots of variation of course. Furthermore, this paper will show their
subjectivity of being sex workers. They want people to see them as a person, not just a sex
worker. This study moves beyond portrayals of sex tourism and AIDS which neglect the
worldviews and everyday experiences of female sex workers in Jakarta and Cirebon, who
rarely consider themselves as victims of the political economy or part of global sex traffic.
Instead, their lives are framed by issues of employment opportunities, psychological
conditions (traumatic moments in the past, self-destructive behavior), family responsibilities and dreams of a better life.
[email protected], [email protected]
Sex Workers in Japan
Masayo Aihara
Universite de Toulouse 2, Le Mirail, France
In Japan the sex business is very developed and has a great variety. One important reason is
its legality. The law ‘‘Baishun Boushi Ho (Anti-Prostitution Law)’’ which came into force
in 1956 defines prostitution as ‘‘sexual intercourse with a large number of unspecified
(anonymous) clients in order to receive money’’. But ‘‘sexual intercourse’’ is interpreted by
judicial precedents as an insertion of the male sexual organs into the female ones. So, even
though this law prohibits prostitution, all other sexual acts such as a fellatio, cunnilingus,
petting or anal sex are not considered prostitution under the law. The legality of the sex
business allows Japanese women (and some men) to work in this field without risk. For
example, a Japanese girl aged 20 years old whom I interviewed worked for two years in a
‘‘Fashion-Health’’ shop where the women sex workers provide sexual massage to the clients
to earn her school fees. She didn’t want to be a sex worker, but finally she decided to work
there because she could not borrow her college money from her parents. She told me that
to have enough time for studying and also earn the money, she had no choice but to be a sex
worker. Usagi Nakamura, a famous woman essayist in Japan, published an essay on her
experience as a sex worker last year. According this essay, her motive was to satisfy her
desire to be an object of men’s lust. At the age of 44, she felt a loss of her charm as a
woman. She had plastic and face-lifting surgery, but she remained unsatisfied. Therefore,
she made up her mind to try to be a sex worker. Other sex workers have expressed their
opinions and thoughts in essays although most Japanese sex workers hide their activities
because it hurts their reputation. However, its legality allows Japanese sex workers to assert
their right to be a sex worker. In my presentation, I will report on the Japanese sex business
in detail and analyze what means sociologically to be an object of men’s desire.
[email protected]
dis/organised pleasures
S35
Living with Genital Mutilation: The Personal and Sexual Experience of Migrant
Women Demanding Reparation Surgery in Italy and France.
Michela Villani
EHESS, France
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the term used to refer to the removal of part or all of
the female genitalia. The WHO estimates that 135 million of the world’s girls and women
population have undergone genital mutilation, and two million girls a year are at risk of
mutilation. It is practised extensively in Africa (28 countries) and in some countries in the
Middle East. In industrialized countries genital mutilation occurs predominantly among
immigrants. Girls or girl infants living in industrialized countries are sometimes illegally
operated on by doctors from their own community. More frequently, traditional
practitioners are brought into the country, or girls are sent abroad to be mutilated. In
industrialized countries (cases of France and Italy) we are witnessing a social change in the
medical and public health fields: on one hand, we observe more specialization of doctors
and health care while on the other hand, there is a particularization of health requests
among immigrants. We analyze female genital mutilation and surgical reparation from a
gender perspective. These changes are expressing the most profound and intimate social
metamorphosis, which leads us to reflect on a new definition of care and health as well as
sexuality. By observing these social phenomena (genital mutilation and the medical
response), we highlight the stages of these changes and the reasons given by the social
actors producing these changes. We need to understand what draws women to ask to have
their sex reconstructed, that the relation with their own body be reorganized, that the
relationship with the masculine Other be questioned, and finally that their sexuality be
opened to other experiences. This analysis focuses on the problematic journey of
deconstruction and reconstruction of body, sex and gender.
[email protected]
Sexually Emancipated or Dirty Sluts: Negotiating Women’s Sexuality
Joni Meenagh
University of Calgary, Canada
This paper explores the sexuality of adolescents and young women and how they negotiate
their own sexualities within a western, primarily North American, context. I have struggled
to have my own sexuality recognized as acceptable for a young, white, bisexual woman and
have taken on the label of ‘‘slut’’ in an attempt to challenge people’s assumptions about
what this label means. I examine a theoretical critique of the progress of the sexual
revolution, which I use to frame the experiences of the women discussed in the four works I
have reviewed. My findings are reflective of my own life experiences. Women’s sexuality is
devalued to such an extent that it is nearly impossible for women to lay claim to their sexual
agency, especially in their earlier years where making such a claim would be most beneficial
to them. While the sexual revolution has allowed women to experience their sexuality in
new ways, it has not allowed women to experience their sexuality on their own terms.
Women’s sexual coming of age involves multiple struggles; they must negotiate the line
between pleasure and danger, and the social mores regarding women’s sexuality in the
larger society. They are forbidden from discussing both the pleasures their bodies afford
them and the ways in which they have been violated, all while living under the moral
S36
IASSCS Conference 2007
imperative that love and sex must go together. The social inequalities which structure our
sexuality hinder us from true emancipation, as the current markers of womanhood are
controlled by patriarchal ideals of sexual development. It is important for adolescent girls to
have empowering rites of passage into womanhood which focus on them and put their
sexuality into a positive light. For me, this meant accepting my so-called ‘‘slutty’’ sexuality
as a positive and empowering aspect of myself.
[email protected]
Constituting Americans: Black Women, Sexual Assault and the Law
Toni Irving
University of Notre Dame, USA
Black women are generally displaced as victims of rape. The experiences with sexual assault of
black women in general and lower class black women in particular is illustrative of how sexual
ideologies help construct complex social hierarchies that in turn structure rights. How the law
currently deals with black women’s rape reinscribes the historical notion that for black women
sex is never against their will. In this way, the law constructs an image of the black female sexual
body that frames sexual violence as merely an extension of normal sexual practices when cases
are not investigated. This paper pulls from over two thousand ‘‘real’’ rape cases of low income
black women ignored and not investigated in Philadelphia between 1995 and 2000 to unearth
some of the embedded qualifiers to sexual rights. The dismissed cases, often despite significant
supporting evidence, illuminate how entitlements like protection are experienced differently by
bodies according to race and class status. Here, processes of normalization defer to highly
selective definitions of mainstream that leave black women outside of the parameters of
protection. Because there is a civic failure to protect, and the acts go unpunished, the failure to
prosecute underscores (if not encourages) the ability to sexually abuse and harass particular
women unmitigated by law. This essay is interested in the gap between the ‘‘law as legislation’’
and ‘‘law as practice’’ where the relationship between conceptions of sexual bodies, rights and
cultures come into sharper focus. Rape continues to stand in for, and effectively obscure, other
social, political, and economic concerns. To examine the sexual assaults of black female bodies
then is to also unpack the dual system of legal protection, the veiled intentions of public
policies, and the extension of citizenship in the present.
[email protected]
Achieving sexuality justice: Is a rights-based discourse enough?
Sean Slavin, Murray Couch
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Australia
Discourses of human rights have permeated the politics of many social justice struggles,
including the movement against the oppression of diverse sexualities. There has been an
explosion, over the last decade, of research, writing and discussion about the concept of
sexual rights, the primary concept that links sex and sexuality with the broader human
rights agenda. We offer a critical overview of the current meanings of sexual rights, by
asking how they are currently understood and discussed, and acknowledging various
critiques of rights-based discourses, including critiques concerned with the base of rights in
the traditions of Western Enlightenment, and emerging from positions of feminism and
postcolonialism. Particular attempts to enunciate sexual rights at international and national
dis/organised pleasures
S37
levels will be examined, including differences between ‘rights as citizens’ and ‘rights as
humans’. We will inquire whether, indeed, rights-based strategies serve to advance social
justice aims, through a discussion of two recent and salient examples of the use of sexual
rights discourse: same-sex-marriage and male-to-male-sex, including the category of MSM.
Using these substantive instances, we will identify unintended consequences of employing a
rights based discourse, including a tendency to ‘normalise’ diverse sexual practices and
identities. The paper concludes with a tentative exploration of alternative paths to social
justice that do not rely on the uncritical assertion of rights. While conceding that invoking
the normative is often key to effective political action, we urge that openness to contestation
be maintained in order to avoid all rights becoming equivalent and to develop democratic
processes as well as final goals.
[email protected]
Participation in BDSM Sex: Perversion, Evidence of Psychological Damage, or
Just a Hobby? Data from a National Survey
Juliet Richters, Richard de Visser, Andrew Grulich, Chris Rissel, Anthony Smith
National Centre in HIV Social Research, Australia
The Australian Study of Health and Relationships was the first national representativesample sex survey worldwide to ask respondents about involvement in BDSM, defined as
‘B&D or S&M, that’s bondage and discipline, sadomasochism, or dominance and
submission’. In 2001–02, a total of 19,307 respondents aged 16–59 were interviewed by
telephone, of whom 2.0% of men and 1.4% of women said they had been involved in BDSM
in the previous year. We analysed demographic, psychosocial and sexual correlates of BDSM
activity and found that people who had engaged in BDSM were more likely to have had
same-sex partners, to have experienced oral and anal sex, to have had more than one partner
in the past year, to have had sex with someone other than their regular partner, and to have
taken part in phone sex, visited an internet sex site, viewed an X-rated (pornographic) film or
video, used a sex toy, had group sex, or taken part in manual stimulation of the anus, fisting or
rimming. However, they were no more likely to have been coerced into sexual activity, and
were not significantly more likely to be unhappy or anxious — indeed men who had engaged
in BDSM scored significantly better on a scale of psychological wellbeing than other men.
Engagement in BDSM was not significantly related to any sexual difficulties. Our findings
support the idea that BDSM is simply a sexual interest or subculture attractive to a minority,
not a pathological symptom of past abuse or difficulty with ‘normal’ sex. However, it has been
treated in the professional literature as pathological, and ‘fetish’ elements in pornographic
films have been subject to censorship even in otherwise liberal jurisdictions. Reasons for
irrational responses to BDSM will be explored, including the confusion of role-playing and
sexual games with real humiliation and oppression.
[email protected]
AIDS and Structural Violence among Indigenous People in Peru
Doreen Montag
University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Indigenous people are the poorest, most discriminated, and most vulnerable to AIDS.
Unfortunately, they are also the most neglected in statistics and health policies to combat
S38
IASSCS Conference 2007
the epidemic. Due to scarce economic resources and no potential future, indigenous
people often put themselves and their community at risk by engaging in commercial sex
work in the tourism and timber industry and commercial routes. At present, very little is
known about their perceptions of HIV/AIDS. What kind of impact, if any at all, does the
AIDS epidemic have on the people’s social relations and social organization of
households and communities? How do individuals, households and communities respond
to it? What are the strategies that the affected would like the Peruvian government to
take? This paper examines the daily struggle of people being at a high risk towards HIV
infections and those afflicted by AIDS. I identify barriers to AIDS treatment and
prevention among Shipibo. Based on 25 months of fieldwork in Yarinacocha, Peru,
between 2001 and 2006, analysis of follow up case studies, oral histories, and
participatory observations revealed that the Shipibo perceive AIDS to be a spirit that
lives in the air and travels around the world to attack the most vulnerable. AIDS is
perceived as a rotting of the stomach wherefore suffers are left alone to die or AIDS is
neglected in favour of witchcraft that does not have the same effects on the stomach.
Scarce economic resources, structural violence and racism were the major factors that
inhibited HIV prevention and ARV treatment. This has several consequences for the
planning and implementation of health care projects that seek to address the increasing
AIDS epidemic among indigenous people.
[email protected]
Loneliness, Migration and Risk
Miguel Munoz-Laboy
Columbia University, USA
Mexican migrant men are amongst the vulnerable groups to HIV infection because: They
are a subset of the Latino population which has been disproportionably affected by HIV/
AIDS since the onset of the epidemic; Latino labor immigrants are typically men of
extremely low-income backgrounds with low levels of formal education (well-known factors
in the literature to increase the likelihood of HIV infection); and the migration experience
has a profound impact in increasing the sexual risk practices among migrant workers. The
overall goal of this sub-study is to understand the relationship between the migration
experience and sexual risk of HIV infection for Mexican migrant men. Drawing on sexual
market theory, we designed an ethnographic study to systematically analyze the social
organization of extramarital and premarital sexual practices that put Mexican migrant men
at risk for HIV infection. Two year ethnographic studies, including life histories (n510),
structured interviews (n550), key informant interviews (n515) and, ethnographic
observations of daily workers pick up points, sexual entertainment industry, and social
environments of Mexican migrant workers in New York. More than half of the men crossed
the border by themselves. A quarter of the men did not have a place to stay once they
arrived to the United States. Loneliness was one of the strongest predictors of sexual risk in
the quantitative data analysis. This finding was supported by the analysis of sexual risk
episodes in the life history narratives. This presentation will focus on discussing how
loneliness shapes the ways men configure their sexual practices and how it intersects with
men’s notions of masculinity.
[email protected]
dis/organised pleasures
S39
The Hidden Text: Using Body Maps and Narratives to Challenge Dominant
Representations of HIV and Addiction among Sex Workers in Vancouver, Canada
Treena Orchard, Kate Shannon, Vicki Bright, Kate Gibson, Veronica Bock, Mark Tyndall
Women’s Information Safe House, Canada
Introduction: Although HIV positive sex workers are featured prominently within HIV/
AIDS prevention and education literature, very few projects use woman-centered,
phenomenological perspectives that validate their intellectual and artistic abilities. Against
dominant representations of HIV positive sex workers as both ‘vectors’ and victims of
disease, this paper discusses an alternative approach to prevention, care, and on-going
peer support through the use of body mapping and journal narratives. Set within the
context of a multi-disciplinary, community-based HIV prevention project with sex
workers (the MAKA project), the women’s embodied and written knowledge are shown
to be powerful tools with which to create more representative models of what it means to
live with the virus and to express the impact of other complex forces in their lives, namely
addiction. Main Body: MAKA participants took part in body mapping and journaling
exercises to record their own experiences with HIV/AIDS and addiction. Since many of
the women are of Aboriginal ancestry a holistic approach was incorporated that honours
the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual components of health and healing. Twelve
sessions were held, which featured the on-going creation of body maps, recording of
personal narratives in journals, and group discussions of emerging themes. The paper
examines how the women’s drawings and writings contest, sometimes mirror, and
question mainstream representations of HIV positive sex workers. Of particular
importance are issues of self transformation, physical/mental triggers for addiction,
bodily responses to different drugs (recreational and HIV-related), and strategies of
resistance and survival. Conclusions: Body mapping and journal narratives are innovative
and effective methods to uncover experiences and feelings on a range of issues among
HIV positive sex workers, especially those that may be difficult to discuss in more
conventional forums like focus groups or individual interviews. Another important finding
is the role of the social support provided by project staff and other participants, which
was critical during emotionally distressing points in the project. The validation of the
women’s images and words as important sources of data is another empowering outcome
of the project.
Making the Orishas Visible: Gender(ed) Labor and Santerı́a Worshipping
Salvador Vidal Ortiz
American University, USA
Drawing on several years of ethnographic fieldwork, extended interviews, and Santeriaspecific religious documents and academic books, this presentation will explore whether
Santeria is a ‘‘contact zone’’ or a zone of tension between two distinctive areas of social
scientific study: gender and sexuality, on the one hand, and labor, on the other. Santeria is
an Afro-Cuban religious-cultural practice derived from Yoruba traditions that emerged in
Cuba during the 19th century. It migrated to the U.S. (with the first massive migration of
Cubans) in the 1950s, and it is predominantly practiced by people of color. Based on my
findings, Santeria is a hierarchical religious-cultural tradition where gender and sexuality
determine certain roles. Women of all sexual orientations and gay and bisexual men are
S40
IASSCS Conference 2007
expected to conduct a multitude of tasks: from designing altars, initiation dresses, and
prepare bodies when possessed by deities, to cooking, serving food, and cleaning/
maintaining a sacred space. This happens while heterosexually-identified men remain
involved in sacrificing main ritual animals and conducting very specialized acts of
divination; they also avoid public possession because they link possession to a demoralizing
aspect of their public gendered presentation and sexuality and, albeit implicitly, assign this
task to non-heterosexual men and women. A gendered notion of labor is discussed, where
‘‘sexual [and gender] minorities’’ serve as instruments to much of the labor that permits the
Orishas (deities) to visit. The concept of gendered labor is elaborated as I present data on
the relationship between gender and sexuality-based labor within Santeria, and the kind of
tasks assigned to practitioners within the religious-cultural practice. Implications about the
relationship between gendered labor, sexual minorities, and ethno-racial minorities in
Santeria practice are discussed in relation to the notion of contact zone. Further research
elucidating the impact on these hierarchical divisions is included.
[email protected]
Marriage as the Cure for Poverty
Jean Hardisty
Wellesley Centers for Women and Political Research Associates, USA
In the United States, the George W. Bush Administration has created an initiative known
as ‘‘Healthy Marriages.’’ This initiative provides federal money to organizations and
programs that promote marriage for low-income women, especially those who are
receiving ‘‘welfare’’ payments. The promotion may be in the form of counselling,
relationship education, or even billboards advertising marriage. It is justified by the
assertion that marriage will raise low-income women out of poverty and that the presence
of a father will substantially improve the wellbeing of children. The most recent federal
budget allocated $100 million annually for marriage promotion and another $50 million
for programs promoting fatherhood. In keeping with the Bush Administration’s stated
goal to fund faith-based organizations, many of the federal grants for marriage and
fatherhood promotion are awarded to religious groups. For this and other reasons, federal
grants are not awarded for promotion of gay marriage or to provide counselling to gay
couples. The close link between marriage and fatherhood promotion is rooted in the
conservative movement’s commitment to restore the patriarchal nuclear family. The
political power of the movement’s ideology is illustrated by a provision in the 1996
‘‘welfare reform’’ law denying any increase in welfare recipients’ payments if they give
birth to a child ‘‘out-of-wedlock’’ while receiving welfare. Marriage promotion programs
are a form of social experimentation driven by ideology, rather than supported by social
science research. There is no evidence that marriage will increase the financial stability or
address the joblessness and poor housing of low-income families. Further, violence against
women within marriage is a constant concern of advocates for women. Many feminists
argue that single-mother heads of household make rational, self-interested decisions when
they choose to remain single. Research demonstrates that most low-income women aspire
to a healthy and happy marriage. The proven path to that goal is governmental assistance
to address the hardships of poverty rather than government interference in private family
arrangements.
[email protected]
dis/organised pleasures
S41
Phantom Pleasures: The Eroticization and Contestation of the Amputated Body
Coleman Nye
New York University, USA
Introduction/Objectives: This is an effort to track the various discourses that have emerged
around amputated desires in attempts both to regulate and radicalize sexualities and
disabilities in the past century. Analyzing the way that the bodies and desires of amputees
and their admirers have been represented and rationalized in medical, scientific, and
psychoanalytic texts, I examine the production of apparatuses of truth and knowledge in
the locus of sexuality. I then examine the ways in which people situate themselves in
relation to these structures of truth and knowledge, chronicling the appropriation and
contestation of technologies, terminologies, and social terrains. This is an attempt to create
a nuanced portrayal of the experiential discourses of the lived person at the intersection of
sexuality and disability, placing them in context and in dialogue with larger socio-scientific
systems of logic and belief. Main Body/Results: As is evidenced in a historical analysis of
the medical and psychoanalytic discourses around amputees and their admirers, there is a
tendency to pathologize marked ‘‘deviance’’ and then reign it back into the realm of
normativity, of governability, through categorization and treatment. Simply by framing the
disabled body or the desire for the disabled body as something that must be treated,
medical practitioners imply that there is something inherently wrong that must be corrected
or mitigated. This pathologization and stigmatization acts both to reinforce the norm and
neutralize any threat that alternate manifestations of bodies, desires, and fantasies may pose
to the production and maintenance of various regulatory apparatuses of knowledge. The
amputated form, then becomes a site upon which and within which multiple collective,
material, and political fantasies and realities are manifested and contested, where
boundaries and oppositions are reinforced and ruptured. Conclusions: Fundamentally,
the differences among bodies and pleasures are too vast and varied to be consigned to either
side of a binary between disabled and able-bodied, acceptable and unacceptable, or normal
and deviant. Such a distinction is, however, routinely produced and policed, rendering
alternate affiliations and affections illegible, unthinkable, and undesirable. The norms that
have come to govern idealized human anatomy and sexuality thus work to create a
differential awareness of who is recognizable and who is not; of what is desirable and what is
not; of what life is livable and what life is not. The eroticization of the amputated form can,
in many ways, act as a revelation. It produces a fissure in the myth of normalcy that opens
up alternate ways to figure bodies and desires, and, in so doing, unlearning and relearning
inherited notions of ability and desirability, and reconstituting a norm that creates unity
and livability, enabling life through practices of inclusion, rather than exclusion.
[email protected]
Diversifying ‘‘Gay’’ Identity
Russell Robinson
UCLA School of Law, USA
This project aims to analyze the significance of the many differences in life experiences and
relationships among people who in the U.S. are often grouped under the term ‘‘gay’’ or
‘‘LGBT.’’ By presenting at the conference, I hope to learn more about how other cultures
conceive of sexual orientation and whether they have multiple, diverse conceptions of queer
S42
IASSCS Conference 2007
sexuality, rather than the singular ‘‘gay’’ construction. Scholars and activists tend to refer to
one ‘‘LGBT’’ or ‘‘gay’’ community when in fact there are numerous communities, and they
may have divergent interests. Although the LGBT construction is a convenient heuristic, it
may create a false sense of inclusiveness and efface salient differences. These differences
include gender, race, class, and culture. For instance, much of what constitutes ‘‘gay’’
culture reflects the interests of white gay men. Race and class intersect in that most people
of color who are queer cannot afford to leave a poorer community of color to live in an all or
mostly-queer, white and wealthy enclave. Some people of color in the U.S. are unfairly
viewed by whites as deviant because they reject the dominant conceptions of sexual identity
and do not live as ‘‘openly gay.’’ I expect that the conference’s focus on international
conceptions of sexuality will help me draw connections between the sexual identities of
people of color in the U.S. and people in other countries. In terms of gender, two key
differences include sexuality and childcare. First, women are more likely to describe their
sexuality as fluid and identify as bisexual; whereas bisexuality is less visible and not
perceived as genuine in the dominant gay male community. Also, social attitudes among
heterosexuals toward sex between women and sex between men are quite different. Women
can have same-sex relations and relationships, and can still be accepted as ultimately
heterosexual in a way that men cannot. Second, queer women in the U.S. are more likely to
have children and be the primary caregivers than queer men. These various cleavages of
gender, race, class and culture may lead to different priorities in terms of legal reform.
Although some may fear that identifying such differences among ‘‘gay’’ people will
fragment political activism and reduce the likelihood of legal reform, I argue that
acknowledging the diversity of experiences will produce a number of offsetting benefits. For
instance, I conclude that political movements will earn greater legitimacy when they
acknowledge the parochial interests behind their particular goals and that they do not
represent all ‘‘gay’’ people.
[email protected]
Peru – Abortion, HIV/AIDS, Sexuality: Conflict, Biases and Silences
Carlos Cáceres, Nancy Palomino, Marcos Cueto
Escuela Salud Publica Universidad Cayetano Heredia, Perú
This study aims to examine how two administrations in the Peruvian Government since
1990 have addressed reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and sexual
diversity rights. It also examines drastic policy shifts and their many contradictions. In
Peru, abortion and contraception consistently generated profound public controversies and
debates. HIV/AIDS were often portrayed as having the potential to affect everyone. Public
discussions of the epidemic included calls for concern and sympathy for those affected, that
directly challenged stigma based on fears of contagion or moral judgments. Sexual diversity
rights, perceived as a demand made by ‘‘others’’, were generally trivialized and disdained
by politicians, officials and the general population. Advocates and activists achieved some
success in advancing HIV/AIDS-related rights. Positive changes also occurred with respect
to sexual diversity rights, as long as the issue was given a low political and institutional
profile. Controversies over reproductive rights and growing international conservatism
threatened not only to stall progress, but to reverse past gains. Analysis of policy- making
and program implementation in these three areas reveals that: Weaknesses in national
institutional frameworks concerning reproductive health made it possible for governments
dis/organised pleasures
S43
to adopt two very different (even contradictory) approaches to the issue over the past 15
years: Policies were presented as rights-based in order to gain political legitimacy when in
fact, they evidenced a clear disregard for the rights of individual citizens; and by favoring
low-profile ‘‘public health’’ discourses and marginalizing ‘‘the sexual’’ in official policies
relating to sexuality, advocacy groups sometimes created opportunities for legal change, but
failed to challenge conservative powers opposing the recognition of sexual and reproductive
rights and the full citizenship of women and sexual minorities.
[email protected], [email protected]
Sexualized Politics: Polish Abortion Debates
Wanda Nowicka
Polish federation for Women and Family Planning, Poland
This paper examines why women’s right to abortion in Poland was abolished after almost
forty years of liberal legislation. It discusses how, soon after communism collapsed, sexual
politics were introduced into the top-level political agenda. Since this time, sexual politics
have been the subject of very controversial debates which have led to the introduction of a
restrictive anti-abortion law. The revival of so-called traditional values has dominated
public discourse on abortion. These values are based on conservative societal attitudes
towards human sexuality, especially that of women. Prevailing concepts of sexuality derive
from Catholic teaching, reinforced by the still strongly patriarchal model of society.
Although on the surface public discourse is focused on the fetus’s right to life, on a deeper
level it aspires to control women’s sexuality. It includes a low level of acceptance of sex for
pleasure, as independent from the reproductive component of human life. Although the
concept of female versus male sexuality was never fully accepted, recently the notion of
woman as a sexual being is being increasingly denied and transformed back into an asexual
mother and wife. Dominant public discourse tolerates sex if people are prepared to take full
responsibility for consequences of sexual activity. Responsibility is not understood as
protecting oneself against unplanned pregnancy or HIV/AIDS, but as readiness to accept
all consequences of sex, such as accepting unplanned children and pregnancy-related
marriage. Such discourse challenges the use of contraception as a preventive measure, and
ignores human rights responsibilities of the State. At the present time, the proposal of the
League of Polish Families to totally ban abortion is being discussed in Parliament. In spite
of Poland’s membership in the European Union, the obsession of policy makers with the
sexuality agenda continues. Moreover, Polish conservatives aspire to export traditional
values within Europe and to have impact on EU policies.
[email protected]
Gender, Race/Color, Sexual Identity and the Ideal Partner among Young
Homosexual and Bisexual Men and Women in Sao Paulo.
Júlio Assis Simões
University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
This paper offers an initial interpretation of ways in which gender and race/color
conventions and classifications operate through expressions of sexual orientation and
preferences, within affective/sexual partnerships. The research discussed focused on young
S44
IASSCS Conference 2007
men and women in Sao Paulo who took part in the study ‘‘Relations among ‘race’, sexuality
and gender in different local and national contexts’’. Ethnographic observation and
interviews were carried out in different spaces of leisure and sociability, some characterized
by specific class and lifestyle profiles. In seeking to qualify meanings of gender and race/
color within the framing of sexual identity, the authors highlight the erotic investment
relating to these social markers. We are mainly concerned with understanding how specific
discourses of difference are shaped, and how they make sense of particular lived
experiences that relate to sexual desire and relationships, as well as to hierarchy and
discrimination.
[email protected]
‘‘Rainbow Nation’’: Notions of Transforming Identity, Race/Colour, Gender,
Class and Sexuality among Young People in Johannesburg.
Brigitte Bagnol, Zethu Matebeni
OUT, South Africa
South Africa, and specifically Johannesburg, is a theater for adaptation and transformation
of old racial paradigms in a newly defined ‘‘rainbow nation’’. Thirteen years after the end of
apartheid and the elimination of all forms of inequality based on created notions of ‘‘race’’,
and the abolition of the Immorality Act condemning people involved in inter-racial
relationships, young people’s discourses frame the struggle against former, pre-established
boundaries. The present day South African Constitution grants young people the right to
choose their own sexual preference and orientation, and to shape their own identities.
Through ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews carried out in a range of public
spaces in Johannesburg, the paper seeks to explore and understand notions of transforming
identity, race/colour, gender, class and sexuality among young people. Furthermore, the
paper presents the dynamics (and challenges) faced by young people with regard to interracial sexual attraction in post-apartheid Johannesburg.
[email protected], [email protected]
Race, Sex and Space: The Reproduction and Policing of Race and Segregation in
Sexual and Intimate Spaces
Cathy J. Cohen, Marcus Hunter
University of Chicago and Northwestern University, USA
In this paper we begin a process of mapping out how perceptions of race and racialized
space work to influence affective desires and sexual experiences of young adults aged
between 18 and 24 in Chicago. Borrowing from and building on the work of Edward
Laumann and colleagues in the book ‘‘The Sexual Organization of the City’’, we are
interested in exploring how the intersection of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation at
the levels of the individual, neighborhood and social space, ‘‘organizes’’ the intimate sexual
desires, encounters and acts of young people in Chicago. More specifically, how are race
and segregation reproduced and ‘‘policed’’ in sexual and intimate spaces? The research for
this paper is based on ethnographic observation, interviews and survey data gathered for the
project ‘‘Relations among ‘race’, sexuality and gender in different local and national
dis/organised pleasures
S45
contexts.’’ This analysis will focus on the most vulnerable groups in Chicago, namely Black
and Latino/a youth.
[email protected]
Difference, Inequality and Diversity in an International Research Experience
Concerning Race, Sexuality and HIV/STI Prevention (I)
Difference, Inequality and Diversity in an International Research Experience
Concerning Race, Sexuality and HIV/STI Prevention (II)
Laura Moutinho
CLAM, USP, Brazil
The research project ‘‘Relations among ‘race’, sexuality and gender in different local and
national contexts’’, internationally coordinated by CLAM, USP and CEBRAP, is being
carried out in three countries (Brazil, South Africa and United States) and six cities (Rio de
Janeiro/Sao Paulo, Cape Town/Johannesburg and San Francisco/Chicago). These cities
were selected as pairs that offer a number of comparable characteristics. Rio de Janeiro,
Cape Town and San Francisco are internationally known as more democratic cities that are
dedicated to tourism, diversity-friendly, mixed on all levels, and share hedonistic ways of
being. On the other hand, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg and Chicago are known as ‘‘hard’’ or
more working-class cities that seem ‘‘closed’’ and reserved, as well as competitive. The
subjects targeted by this research are young people aged between 18 and 24 who share
differences in terms of color/race, gender and sexual orientation. The research also groups
researchers who come from different academic and political backgrounds. The main
purpose of this paper is to discuss the process of construction of the research itself, as well
as the dialogue established among the research teams from Johannesburg, Sao Paulo and
Chicago, concerning categories such as race, sexuality, gender and HIV/STI prevention.
More specifically, the central point of the paper is to discuss the pertinence of some
categories of thought and experience in different international contexts.
[email protected]
‘‘Killed Twice’’: Sexuality, AIDS, and Nationalism in South Korea
Huso Yi
Korean Sexual-Minority Culture and Rights Center, Seoul, South Korea
South Korea, which used to be a ‘‘pure one-blood’’ ethnically homogenous country, is now
expanding in/out-flows of transnational bodies and culture. Despite the global trend of
Korean popular culture (‘‘Korean wave’’) and capitalist industries, migrant workers, and
international marriage (mostly middle aged men to young women in their late teens to early
twenties from Southeast Asia), the country has not loosened its unity by re-confirming the
norms of citizenship: ‘‘what is Korean and what is not.’’ In contrast with growing societal
acceptance of sexual and gender equality, AIDS is still regarded as ‘‘social illness’’ and the
fear of being linked to it is widespread. This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the first
research on human rights issues for PLWHA. Ethnographic data were collected from
PLWHA and health practitioners; a survey was conducted among 215 PLWHA, and
thematic analysis of 1,600 AIDS-related newspaper articles from 1982–2005 was
S46
IASSCS Conference 2007
undertaken. As of June 2006, sexual contact accounted for 99% of the 4,227 reported HIV
diagnoses (c.f. , .01% of total population; 91% male; 3,454 PLWHA alive). Notably,
when the myth of AIDS as a result of ‘‘mixing with foreign blood’’ in the early epidemic was
questioned by a dramatic increase of seroincidence in the localized epidemic, the discourse
of egalitarian human rights emerged, and individual rights and public responsibility were
highly contested. Unlike other countries, since gay rights movements had not connected
with AIDS activism until recently, perhaps for the purpose of achieving sexual citizenship in
the pathway of democracy, protective resources for PLWHA are rarely observed.
Moreover, discrepancy between the two operates by overemphasizing sexual behaviour
in HIV prevention interventions and eliminating sexual identity in the care system. It
implies a within-nation boundary between sexuality and disease that deprives PLWHA of
their social self. An absence of understanding of how sexual stigma affects a changing
epidemic was also identified as a structural barrier.
[email protected]
Mapping Desire in Post-Apartheid Cape Town: Sexual Orientation and Everyday
Experiences of Black Lesbians and Gays across Racialised Space.
Elaine Salo
African Gender Institute, Sudáfrica
This paper seeks to examine the relationship between space, gender, sexual orientation and
race, as expressed in the everyday lives of black gay and lesbian youth in Cape Town. In
doing so, it attempts to explore how young black gays and lesbians live their sexual
identities vicariously in a city that at least on the surface, appears to be gay- friendly, but
where apartheid racial divides across space are still reproduced. The cultural geography of
South African cities has been extensively studied during the period of apartheid. Many of
these studies have indicated the racialised mapping of the city, in order to drive home how
racial policies have influenced both town planning (see for example Bickford–Smith, et. al
1999; A. Lemon 1976) and everyday lived experiences of black citizens, especially those
who were marginalised by the separatist policies of the past. Other studies have investigated
how apartheid era spaces such as migrant hostels have influenced same-sex desire (Elder
1995; Donham 2002). However, there is a dearth of research on cultural meanings of space
in the post-apartheid city, in relation to gender identity, sexual orientation and race. In my
own work (Salo 2005), I confine my investigation to black heterosexual women’s and men’s
lived experiences across racialised space. This paper will extend this research lens to include
black gay and lesbian youth, thereby contributing to the growing literature on queer studies
in Africa.
[email protected]
Consuming Youth: Race and the Sexualization of Young Adulthood
Jessica Fields
Sociology Department and Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality, San Francisco
State University, USA
In this paper, I explore the commodification of young people’s sexuality in contemporary
San Francisco. Drawing on participant observation, interviews, and survey data gathered
dis/organised pleasures
S47
in popular San Francisco venues, I examine the ways in which young people participate in
gendered and racialized sexual spaces. Often, young people enter San Francisco’s public
sexual spaces as consumers, purchasing, assessing, and trading experiences and goods. At
other times, young people are themselves commodities; though perhaps exploitative, such
commodification also allows them access to sexual play. At other moments, youth itself is
for sale: adults of all ages purchase clothing, accessories, and experiences that
approximate an idealized and eroticized vision of youth. In a consistent way, youth and
consumerism in San Francisco are inflected with gender, racial, and sexual inequalities. In
a city famous for sexual tolerance, those with racial and gender privileges enjoy the
greatest access to that utopia. For young people of color, young women, and
transgendered youth, that utopia remains elusive. Despite widespread concern about
young people’s sexuality, adults often fail to include young adults’ concerns in movements
for sexual justice and equality. This paper puts these concerns at the center of the analysis
and explores the practical and ideological shifts required of adult sexual movements,
economies, and communities.
[email protected]
An Ethnographic Perspective on Hetero- And Homosexual Spaces in Rio de
Janeiro (Brazil), Concerning Race And Gender Relations
Simone Monteiro, Fátima Cecchetto, Eliane Vargas
Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil
The project ‘‘Relations among ‘race’, sexuality and gender in different local and national
contexts’’, internationally coordinated by CLAM-USP-CEBRAP, analyses the interrelations among color/race, gender and sexuality in the biographical careers of young
people, and the consequences for their reproductive and sexual behavior. The project is
being developed in six cities (Chicago, San Francisco, Cape Town, Johannesburg, São
Paulo and Rio de Janeiro). This paper presents preliminary data from the Rio de Janeiro
research project coordinated by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation. It is based on
ethnographic fieldwork in the neighborhoods of Lapa and Madureira, and on data
from 24 in-depth interviews with boys and girls aged between 18 and 24, self-identified
as homo- or heterosexual and self-classified as black, brown/mulatto or white. The
analysis, centering on the characterization of hetero- and homosexual youth spaces,
concerns sexual diversity; erotic and affective relations; gender and race relations;
manifestation of youth styles and experiences of discrimination. The demarcation of
spaces by sexual orientation is more perceptible than demarcation by race/color, class
and gender. With the exception of charm/hip hop parties, characterized by the
affirmation of black and heterosexual territory, the boundaries between race/color and
social class seem to be more flexible than the ones implying sociability between
individuals of different sexual orientations. In the case of gender categories, looking at
some specificities of gay and lesbian spaces, no difference was noted. The coexistence of
several youth styles was apparent, spread around the streets and nightclubs, but there
are territories with symbolic boundaries that are demarcated. The analysis of contexts of
young people’s sociability aims to discuss challenges for sexual and reproductive health
programs.
[email protected], [email protected]
S48
IASSCS Conference 2007
Sexual Politics and Sexual Rights in Brazil: Key actors and strategies
Sergio Carrara, Adriana Vianna
CLAM/IMS/UERJ/BR, Brazil
Objective: Since it ratified a new Constitution in 1988; Brazil has promoted and strengthened
human rights. The study provides an overview of main actors, legal frames and arenas that are
especially relevant to the configuration rights in relation to reproduction/abortion, STDs/AIDS
and ‘‘sexual diversity’’. Main Body/Results: One key feature of the Brazilian sexuality scenario
is the successful Brazilian response to HIV/AIDS that offers universal treatment for all and
strongly promotes non discrimination. HIV/AIDS was instrumental in increasing the visibility
of homosexuality and constituted an important base for the formation of new activist groups.
Even so the program has drawn strong criticism from conservative groups, especially the
Catholic Church and has not been exempt from critiques from civil society organizations. The
LGBT movement has also expanded and gained much political legitimacy in recent years, of
which the main illustration is the recently launched program Brazil without Homophobia
(2003). Though feminist organizations have struggled for legalization since the late 1970’s
abortion remains the most controversial topic of these new rights agenda. Conclusions: Despite
a trajectory that has been favorable to the advancement of sexual and reproductive rights, the
viability of such rights is threatened by racial, ethnic, gender and other social inequalities as well
as by the influence of conservative forces. The close ties between the State and civil society
groups, on the one hand, can viewed as empowering. But on the other sometimes it may also
curb the critical role of civil society. While the GLBT movement has gained much social and
political support, it tends to fragment into different identity groups with separate agendas.
Competition for public resources exacerbates this fragmentation and creates conflict.
[email protected]
Ardhanary Project
Agustine
Indonesia
This presentation will discuss the origin and the methods of the Ardhanary network in
Indonesia. The Ardhanary groups consists of lesbian and transgender female-bodied
persons. They work from a human/women’s sexual rights perspective. The paper will
analyse two opposing trends in Indonesian society. On the one hand the greater attention to
human rights that has become possible after the overthrow of the authoritarian Soeharto
regime in 1998. On the other hand the growth of the fundamentalist movement which is
expressed in the promulgation of discriminatory by laws. Ardhanary is organizing the first
ever lesbian conference of Indonesia. The paper will discuss the challenge posed by the
human/women’s/sexual rights discourse which is a universalizing discourse, in relation to
the great cultural, religious and social differences in Indonesia
[email protected]
Diversity Scale: The Abject Comes Centre Stage
Saskia E. Wieringa
The Netherlands
Based on an analysis of four (historical) examples of institutionalised communities of
women’s same sex relations a number of variables are proposed, as cultural epistemes in
dis/organised pleasures
S49
which diversity becomes socially intelligible. A scale is constructed on the basis of these
variables and the variables are operationalised. The paper analyses the scores of The
Netherlands and Indonesia on this scale. The Netherlands prides itself on its tolerance,
Indonesia is experienced as much more repressive. But what does the scale indicate? And
what does this mean for theories that posit a unilinear development towards a global queer
movement?
[email protected]
From Family Planning to HIV/AIDS in Vietnam: Shifting priorities, remaining
gaps
Le Minh Giang, Nguyen Thi Mai Huong
Public Health School Hanoi University, Vietnam
This paper focuses on the shift in public health priority from family planning and
population control to HIV/AIDS in late socialist Vietnam. Globally, both the disjunction
between sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, and the fact that HIV/AIDS has
taken over political and funding agendas, are well noted. Has this trend been reflected in
Vietnam? What are some of the factors that have shaped this trend? To address these
questions, we analyzed newspaper accounts over the past two decades. We also analyzed
other secondary materials, and conducted interviews with informants who have played key
roles in both public health programs. There are some signs that the narrow focus on fertility
control has given way to a broader agenda in reproductive health and rights, with HIV/
AIDS emerging as a new social and public health priority. However, this has not led to a
complete break with family planning. In the first place, the State has not relinquished its
interest in fertility control, which has been seen as crucial for its project of pushing Vietnam
towards modernity. More importantly, this incomplete shift has signaled more continuity
than discontinuity. We focused on two main issues: the lack of a strong civil society that
could have served as advocates for change other than those within the State and the donor
community; and the control of women’s bodies and sexuality, driven by the nation-building
project sponsored by the State. Transnational forces, represented mainly by the donor
community, have changed both in terms of their structure and key messages. Their tension
or convergence with the State partially explains sexual and reproductive health gaps, as the
shift in public health priority in Vietnam continue to deepen.
[email protected]
Living in the Closet: Portraits of Young Urban Lesbians in Indonesia
Sinta Situmorang
Women and Gender Studies Center, University of Indonesia, Indonesia
The status and role of Indonesian women have been strengthened through various policies
and laws developed at the level of State and society. It is acknowledged that women have
rights, obligations, and opportunities equal to those of men. However, in practice society still
considers women as subordinate. The status and role of women only exist when they are
related to men. In society, it is believed that women’s nature is to become a wife (to get
married) and mother (to reproduce). Moreover, the government has endorsed these roles by
S50
IASSCS Conference 2007
establishing organizations for wives. As a result, women who are not in the institution of
marriage, or carrying out reproductive roles, are considered to be against nature, sinners, and
rebels because they are beyond men’s control. It is clear that the status of lesbians in
Indonesia is put in that category. This stigma has discouraged lesbians from revealing their
identity, because they are afraid of being violated by society. My life history research,
conducted in 2005, showed that young urban lesbians, aged 20 to 33, had to survive living
with their sexual orientation by building strategies and developing their self actualization. My
paper also describes their struggle in dealing with their feelings towards other women, and
how they overcame the turmoil within their self. I go on to discuss how these young lesbians
coped with problems with their parents, peer groups and the larger society. Finally, they
expressed their expectation of governmental recognition and fulfilment of lesbian rights in
Indonesia. Indonesian young urban lesbians face many obstacles. They have to experience
multiple subordination in society. As women they are subordinate, and as lesbians they are
even more inferior. But this will not make them stop fighting for their lives and rights.
[email protected]
Images of Urban Young Male Sexuality in Jakarta
Yuyun Wahyuningrum
Mahidol University, Tailandia
This study concerns the representation of young male sexuality, as depicted in NGO posters
relating to sexual health, reproductive rights and masculinity in the period 1997 – 2006. The
posters targeted young people between 12 and 18. Through semiotic and audience analysis,
this paper explores the way in which male sexuality is visually handled in the Indonesian
context, with reference to concepts of masculinity, male sexuality and gender. The analysis of
meanings encoded in the main structure of the images reveals two notions of male sexuality:
one alluding to a conventional role and form of masculinity, and the other alluding to a new
and radical male sexuality. The images portray young people within a landscape of hopes,
innocence, desires and dangers, particularly regarding their relations to social changes,
modernity, gender and sexuality. I conclude that images of sexual health, reproductive rights
and masculinity still reinforce the dominant ideology of masculinity, and fail to address the
gap between young men’s realities and cultural norms of masculinity.
[email protected]
Sexing Women: Lesbian Women’s (Safer?) Sexual Performance in Johannesburg
Zanele Muholi, Zethu Matebeni
South Africa
Lesbian women’s sex and sexuality is a theme not generally discussed or seen in our
societies. In many societies, talking about sex is taboo. Discussions concerning lesbian
sexuality or sex are even more difficult to broach. Many lesbians come out in contexts
where their own lesbian sexuality is the unknown, and their sexual practices are unexplored
and unacknowledged. While many lesbians in South Africa live under harsh contexts of
experiencing and living with rape, HIV, homophobia and marginalization by health care
services, very few services are available for them. This study aims to explore how lesbians
dis/organised pleasures
S51
negotiate safe sex with each other; how they discuss issues of rape, STIs and HIV; and how
the experiences of lesbians in Johannesburg shape their sexual performance. Research was
carried out through in-depth interviews with 20 lesbian couples and individual selfidentified lesbian women between the ages of 18 and 35. The couples had been together for
at least three months. Many of the participants are living openly with HIV; others have
experienced and survived rape. Participants shared their own experiences of negotiating sex
in their first encounter with a sexual partner. Issues of safe sex arose in the context of
talking about personal experiences of sexual violence, history of STIs, and living with HIV.
The paper explores the importance of sexual performance among lesbians, and how this is
challenged and negotiated in the context of sexual violence and HIV.
[email protected]
‘‘I’m just like any other boy or girl’’: Sexual desires and rights of young people
perinatally infected with HIV in Uganda
Harriet Birungi
Population Council, Kenya
The presentation seeks to contribute to an understanding of the sexual desires of young
people (10-19 years) perinatally infected with HIV. The authors argue that supportproviding programs can help these young people to move towards more satisfying sexual
lives and well-being. Until recently it was not anticipated that infants born with HIV would
live to adulthood. However, the roll out of HAART has made this possible, albeit for a
small but growing population. Nevertheless, existing programs neglect the sexual desires
and dreams of this population. Data for this study were gathered through an ethnography
created around 30 young people aged between 15 and 19, living with HIV since infancy in
Uganda. Results: HIV/AIDS programs de-sexualize young people living with HIV. At the
very best, these young people are encouraged to delay sexual initiation and live positively in
terms of having proper nutrition and exercise, and controlling stress. Service providers,
parents and guardians seem neither interested, nor motivated or prepared to find out about
the sexual desires of these young people as they grow up. Apart from assessing their risky
practices/behavior and encouraging them to delay sexual initiation, counselling of young
positives pays scant attention to their sexual desires, thus threatening their very right to
exist, let alone to love and be loved. Most of these young people desire to be just like any
other young boy or girl growing up – an aspiration connoting sexuality and desire to
construct their private worlds around life and meaningful living. They strongly desire to act
upon their sexuality. Some are dating, some are sharing intimacy, some would like to have
children early so that they do not die without offspring, and they would like to talk and ask
questions about these issues. They see their sexuality as a critical aspect of their lives – a
source of happiness, personal fulfillment and well-being. In conclusion, concern about the
vulnerability of populations to HIV infection has tended to override positive realities of
sexuality in HIV/AIDS programming. There is a need to balance concern about disease
with issues of sexual desire, especially in the case of young people perinatally infected with
HIV. HIV/AIDS treatment, care and support programs will need to provide these young
people with practical support to understand their sexuality as they grow up, so that they can
negotiate vital aspects of their sexuality, enjoy positive lifestyles, make informed choices,
and be able to balance responsibility with their sexual and reproductive rights.
[email protected]
S52
IASSCS Conference 2007
The role of the Global Fund in supporting HIV-related Work in Peru: Lessons
Learned
Carlos F. Cáceres, Rocı́o Valverde, Victor Cuba, Patricia Vasquez, Roberto Lopez,
José Pajuelo, Ana Maria Rosasco, Maziel Girón, Clara Sandoval, Alfonso Silva
Unit of Sexuality, Health and Human Development, FASPA; UPCH, Peru
Since the agreements achieved at the United Nations Special Session on HIV/AIDS in
2001, numerous strategies have been implemented to upscale access to treatment and
prevention worldwide. Actors such as the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria, the World Bank’s Multi-Country AIDS Program, and the U.S. President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief have contributed the funds necessary to intensify the fight
against HIV/AIDS. In Peru, the GFATM has funded 3 HIV/AIDS projects to be executed
between 2003 and 2012, with a contribution of approximately US$ 80 million. While these
projects represent very significant investment in HIV/AIDS in Peru, various sources suggest
that their contribution to HIV control is not automatic and that, in fact, negative effects
may occur. A two-year study started in September 2006 in Peru to contribute to the global
discussion of the impact of these initiatives, and simultaneously help in the domestic debate
on the impact of activities generated to seek support from the GFATM and the subsequent
implementation of projects funded. This presentation will summarize the first wave of data
collection and analysis of: the effects that the country’s participation in the processes
generated by the FMSTM has had on institutional entities involved in work on HIV/AIDS
in Peru, as well as the interactions between those entities in the decision-making processes
in relation to HIV/AIDS; the potential effects of national interaction with the Global Fund
on the structure and functioning of the Ministry of Health; the impact of access to these
funds upon the sources and policies of financing of the national response to the AIDS
epidemic; the impact of activities funded by the Global Fund in Peru upon the level of
equity in access to project benefits, and upon the situation of stigma and discrimination
affecting PLHA and vulnerable groups.
[email protected]
Islam & Sexual Diversity
Muhsin Hendricks
South Africa
As an Islamic Scholar and activist in the Queer Muslim community of South Africa, I would
like to represent my organization, The Inner Circle, at the IASSCS VI Conference in Lima to
do a presentation on Islam & Sexual diversity. The objective of my presentation is to create
awareness around how a patriarchal interpretation of religious text was used to marginalize
the queer community who was very much an intrinsic part of 7th century Arabian culture at
the advent of Islam; How this information is still used today to discriminate against sexual
minorities. I would also like to share in this presentation an alternative interpretation of
Islamic scriptural text that are inclusive of sexual diversities. In my presentation on Islam &
Sexual Diversity, I would like to address: Religious resources used in the argument against
Homosexuality; Quran – as the Muslim’s first book of reference; Hadith – recorded sayings
and actions of the Prophet of Islam; Ijma – consensus of religious scholars; Qiyas – Analytical
reasoning; Ijtihad – Independent Reasoning; Non-religious text as evidence of homoeroticism in 7th Century Arabia; Linguistic use of the word ‘‘sodomy’’ and ‘‘homosexuality’’;
dis/organised pleasures
S53
The views and destructive language used by the clergy; Orthodox interpretation vs Research
view on Sodom and Gomorrah from a Quranic perspective; Inclusivity of sexual diversities in
the Quran. The Inner Circle believes that homophobia is a product of religious teachings
which is often motivated by politics and the patriarchy. One of the anticipated milestones of
such a presentation is to assist participants in recognizing the language, motivation and
misrepresented historical information used to marginalize sexual minorities in the name of
religion. The Inner Circle also believes that religion and sexuality are basic human rights and
hence its efforts to bring these rights to the fore.
[email protected]
Global Law and Local Justice: Sexuality, Human Rights and Gender in
Contemporary Bangladesh
Dina Siddiqi
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
Introduction. Recent anthropological scholarship points to disjunctures between transnational notions of justice as embodied in human rights discourse and ‘local’ normative
understandings of social justice. The dissonance is especially acute in the realm of sexuality,
the regulation of which is often considered fundamental to maintaining social order. Drawing
on research with legal aid organizations operating in rural communities in Bangladesh, I
examine the tensions between state frameworks of women’s rights as human rights and
community practices of dispensing justice in cases involving the regulation of sexuality –
‘illicit’ sexual relations, pregnancy outside marriage, and adultery – in the context of uneven
globalization and rising Islamism. I am particularly interested in whether, and to what extent,
rights discourse is able to challenge and transform normative understandings of sexuality and
a woman’s right to sexual autonomy and bodily integrity. Main Body. This paper looks at
how injuries and their consequences are imagined in often radically different interpretive
contexts, as well as how the vocabulary of rights is mobilized, adapted and occasionally
transformed. I also foreground gaps between legalistic formulations of justice promoted by
non-government organizations (NGOs) and the desires and potentially split subjectivities of
some survivors of sexual violence. I show how women negotiate the cultural codes through
which they constitute their subjectivities in the social realm even as they selectively challenge
dominant constructions of female sexuality. Conclusion: As anthropologist Sally Merry
suggests, rights discourse is one weapon among others with which to mobilize resistance to
perceived injustice. However, whether or not women embrace their roles as rights bearers and
individuals with rights to bodily integrity depends to a great extent on the institutional and
community support they receive in the long-run.
[email protected]
Intensive Sex Partying: Sexual practice and cultural space
Michael Hurley
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia
Intensive sex partying is a minority practice amongst gay men. It involves actively
choreographing distraction and dissociation in order to create peak experience. Players
S54
IASSCS Conference 2007
maximise the potential for intense moments of corporeal immersion by practicing it
over time (regularity). It manifests in multiple material spaces (sex venues, private
parties, homes). The behaviours of men engaging in intensive sex partying are
associated with increased levels of both pleasure and risk. Practices include frequent
partying, frequent sex, multiple sex partners, drug use, high levels of unprotected anal
sex, sexual risk reduction and the presence of both HIV negative and positive men.
Increased sensation and affect are delicately balanced with more regulatory versions of
care of the self to create behavioural and affective intensity. This balancing is subject
to quality control (one form of self regulation) and normalised. However, over time
the inherent structural tension between disinhibition and care of the self tends to
polarise, sometimes subjecting participants to unintended resolution (drug ‘messiness’,
HIV and STI infection). This risk is often considered subsidiary to an enhanced sense
of self as a gay man. The pleasure is constitutive of what it means for participants to
‘be’ or ‘do’ gay.
[email protected]
Prostitution as Political Philosophy: Global Advocacy for Legalising Prostitution
and ‘‘Sex Work’’
Subir Kole
East-West Center, Honolulu, U.S. Minor Outlying Islands
Introduction and objectives. Prostitution both as a question of women’s free choice and as a
site of oppression, exploitation and reinforcing men’s power over women has been very
contentious and unresolved issues in most feminist debates until recently. While the liberal
feminist school argue that prostitution should be a question of women’s self-determination
and human right, radical feminist school on the other hand has dismissed the proposition
on the ground that prostitution reinforces commodification, violence against women,
sexual slavery, human trafficking and sexual servitude that in itself is a violation of basic
human rights. Yet due to transnational advocacy by powerful lobbies of international
NGOs, donor agencies, activists, sex industry entrepreneurs, and prostitutes themselves,
national policies and politics in many countries are undergoing rapid change. National
governments in developing countries are under intense pressure from international donors
and transnational NGO-activists to accept prostitution as a question of women’s freechoice and legalising the prostitution and sex trade. Methods and results. This research
project is being undertaken at the Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii,
Manoa with funding support from the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii. Largely based
on published literature and secondary data with some field investigation, this paper aims to
capture both sides of the legalisation debate and argue that prostitution as a political
philosophy has been advanced by those whose vested interest lies in making profit out of
commoditising women’s bodies and has been an integral part of an economic, social,
cultural and political process called ‘‘capitalist globalisation.’’ Legalising prostitution has
made the State to play the pimp by selectively allowing its women citizens to be sold in the
marketplace for man’s sexual pleasure while consuming a part of their earning as revenue.
Neoliberal global capitalism thus redefined social and cultural norms including political
ethics in many places.
[email protected]
dis/organised pleasures
S55
The Dieting Body: Food, Health, and Sexuality
Ines Valdez
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Food advertisement utilizes women’s bodies extensively. This is the case both for dieting
products (which carry implicit discourses about health) and decadent food items (which
tend to accompany the products with (provocative) women’s bodies, and an associated
discourse about desire). My paper argues that the different uses of women’s bodies
described above lead to contradictory messages about women’s sexuality and — in
particular — it establishes a hierarchy of values in which slenderness is the prime value to be
attained, while health and the attainment of female desire suffer. The outlet for desirable
(edible) women’s bodies in the advertisement of pleasurable food further marks the saliency
of this paradox: women are desired but their attractiveness is only attained at the cost of
deprivation (repression of the (sexual) pleasure associated with food) and damage to their
health. The advertisement discourse can be fruitful for the analysis of these issues, and its
theoretical relevance stems from the fact that it both reflects current ideologies about the
body and publicizes them, thus creating/re-creating body ideals. In order to uncover these
discourses I examine advertisement material published in the Sunday magazines of the
three principal Argentine newspapers (Cları́n, Perfil, and La Nación), as well as a men’s
magazine (Brando) and two local women’s magazines (Elle Argentina and Para Ti) during
the period October-December 2006. The examination of the material shows how women
are constructed as desired but not desiring, slender but not necessarily healthy, edible but
starved. The theoretical analysis of the paper utilizes a Feminist Foucaultian framework to
uncover the gendered character of disciplining techniques associated with the care of bodies
and the management of pleasures. Additionally, the paper presents an examination of the
relationship between the spread of neoliberalism and consumer capitalism and the uses of
women’s bodies.
[email protected]
On Research Methodologies about Sub Alternate Sexualities
Cleo De Vos
South Africa
This paper aims to describe the research methods utilized in the research project Relations
among ‘‘race’’, sexuality and gender in different local and national contexts’’ which is being
carried out in Cape Town South Africa. Very little research on gay and lesbian people who live
in the black areas of Cape Town (South Africa) has been done thus far. Studies such as that by
Achmat (1995) have been largely autobiographical and no published studies exist to date that
are based upon larger samples. Consequently the above named research project is one of very
few attempts to unravel the day-to-day experiences of black Lesbian and Gay people in this
city. Research was initially very difficult to initiate and still remains a challenge after a year in
the field. In this paper I explore issues surrounding space and identity as well as the difficulties
of identifying gay men and lesbian women who were willing to participate in the study,
especially in a context of homophobia. I also look at the role of personal networks and my own
experience as a coloured lesbian living in ultimately ensuring the success of the research
process. My paper is divided into three key sections. In the first section I explore the
relationship between spaces such as clearly identifiable gay and lesbian friendly spaces and the
S56
IASSCS Conference 2007
role of snowballing in accessing participants. In the second section of the paper, I examine the
difficulties of homophobia in accessing black gay and lesbian women living in townships on
the Cape Flats especially when they were closeted in these spaces. In last section I reflect
critically upon my experiences as a lesbian researcher speaking to homophobic participants.
In order to start this research we had to find spaces in which to do participant observations as
well as find respondents to interview. As a gay woman I decided to go to places that I would
normally hang out in. These included popular lesbian spots such as night clubs and poetry
evenings. I initially only observed the people that frequented these places and later
approached them to converse. I would then, at a later stage, ask if I could interview them to
which most agreed. After speaking to quite a few people they suggested that I speak to their
friends too. My friends were also a great source for finding or being referred to people that I
could interview, as many of them are or were previously from areas in the Cape Flats. All my
respondents lived on the Cape Flats because it was difficult to gain access into the ‘‘townships’
as I was not familiar with this space as well as any gay spaces that might be part of this
community. It was also difficult to find gay people within the ‘township’ because most of them
are not openly gay and they fear that if they do admit to being gay they would be victimized in
their own community. This made me realize that what I considered to be difficult when
coming out was nothing compared to what so many people have to go through. I spoke to
someone that declined being interviewed because he did not want to be identified as being gay
with in his community but in the gay community he had no objections with this identity. The
issue of not being able to easily identify gay spaces and gay people arose out of the fact that not
much has been written about being gay on the Cape Flats and ‘Townships’. A lot of
homophobia still exists in South Africa and doing this research meant that I had to interview
people who believe that being gay is wrong. While doing this research I had to remain
objective which meant not commenting on what people said or felt about homosexuality. I
had to listen and reserve judgment even though these people were judging my entire life.
Queer Fetish and the New South Africa: Post-Modernist Subversion or NeoColonialist Fantasy?
Lincoln Theo
South Africa
Introduction. The intersections between Queerness and African-ness are often uncomfortable spaces. Notwithstanding the entrenched constitutional protection for gay, lesbian,
bisexual, transgendered and intersexed people in South Africa, the discourses surrounding
homosexuality and its perceived nature as ‘un-African’ pervade public perceptions, and
challenge consensus-reality-based perceptions of what it means to be a legitimate African
citizen. All the more so is queer sexual fetish. Main Body. Discourses around fetish are loaded
with questions around their connections with materiality and corporeality, from Marx’s
commodity fetishism to Freud’s sexual fetish. It can be argued that fetish in its commercial
sense relates to globalised conceptions of material value, either distorting, challenging or
supporting them. Similarly, it can be argued that sexual fetish challenges or distorts power
relations between consenting adults in sexuality, and indeed challenges or distorts
conceptions of what many perceive as ‘legitimate sexual relations’ by reconstituting or
revisioning ideas of the meaning of corporeal and shared sexual expression. How does sexual
fetish in South Africa relate to post-colonial conceptions of modern Africa, and traditionalist
patriarchal and homophobic perceptions? Is there something worthwhile exploring in the idea
dis/organised pleasures
S57
of ‘Ubuntu’, the idea that people are only people in relation to other people, a sense of shared
community that challenges modern Western individualism? Together with the constitutionalised respect for human rights supporting gay and lesbian equality, can Ubuntu be
argued to shift narratives of sexual orientation in post-apartheid South Africa for both straight
and gay? Results. In this paper I propose to explore relationships and intersections between
African senses of community, queerness, the sexualised body and gay male sexual fetish in
South Africa. The paper will seek to address whether narratives of gay male sexual fetish in
South Africa can be seen as an expressions of post-modernist subversion or neo-colonialist
fantasy. The paper will draw on queer theory and postcolonialist perspectives, and will draw
from ethnographic approaches and literature reviews.
[email protected]
Sex Work and Human Trafficking: Engaging in Evidence-Based Media Advocacy
from a Human Rights Perspective
Juhu Thukral
Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center New York, New York, USA
Introduction/Objectives: This paper addresses challenges that human rights advocates face
when engaging in media advocacy on sex work and trafficking in persons, especially the
need to present evidence-based information on the realities of sex workers’ lives without
presenting sex workers as victims or as persons without agency. Main Body/Results: Sex
work is a little-understood issue within human and sexual rights advocacy. Policies that are
intended to ‘‘help’’ sex workers and their families often have exactly the opposite effect,
especially those who migrate due to the impact of global economic policies or for sexual
freedom. Most public discussion of this issue only involves salacious coverage of underage
immigrant sex workers that is aimed at titillating the audience and further exploiting the
women and girls involved. The paper is based on a Media Toolkit that we have developed
over the last year, with our Working Group on Sex Work and Human Rights, a group of
advocates and sex workers who are creating media messages on the issues of sex work and
trafficking in persons that focus on the delicate balance of fighting exploitation in terms of
trafficking and coercion into sex work, as well as human rights abuses experienced by sex
workers, but also recognizing the agency of sex workers in engaging in sex work in the larger
context of economic issues. Topics include the anti-prostitution pledge (where organizations must denounce prostitution in order to get US funding for trafficking and HIV/AIDS
programs); demand-oriented policies (enhanced criminalization of clients, which further
entrenches criminalization into sex workers’ lives); and conflation of sex work and
trafficking (resulting in arrest, detention, and deportation of immigrant sex workers.)
Conclusions: We will offer media strategies to promote a human rights perspective on sex
work and trafficking in persons, so that solutions are focused on empowering sex workers.
[email protected]
Sexuality Theory and Research Training Internationally in the Era of AIDS
Sean Slavin, Maureen Lockhart, Gary Dowsett
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society, Melbourne, Australia
Twenty-five years into the AIDS epidemic, it is timely to map the range of current
advanced courses in sexuality theory and research methodology. This paper reports on an
S58
IASSCS Conference 2007
international audit that documents current programs and courses aimed at post-graduate
training or beyond. Data were collected via a desktop review utilising various internet
search techniques including Web searches, electronic academic databases and key
informant consultations. The search used a wide range of terms seeking advanced courses
in English about sexuality (theory and research methodology), sexual health, HIV/AIDS
and to a lesser extent gender studies, women’s studies and queer theory. The widest
possible search initially returned in excess of 1000 results. These were coded according to
region, institutional location, level, pedagogical approach, delivery mode, theoretical
orientation, epistemological underpinnings, and prospective audiences. A plethora of
undergraduate and basic professional courses are offered internationally. Particularly
numerous are courses in the context of HIV/AIDS prevention and/or issues of gender.
Courses offered in developing countries tend to privilege biomedical frameworks and do
not explore theory or a wide range of research methodologies. Opportunities for advanced
training in sexuality theory and research are limited. Of note were the Summer Institutes
run by the National Sexuality Resource Centre in San Francisco and by the University of
Amsterdam. These courses largely draw participants from developing countries and faculty
from the developed world. A significant gap exists in advanced training in sexuality theory
and research that is potentially ameliorated through the delivery of an in-country course for
developing country researchers and educators. In order to facilitate international discussion
about advanced sexuality training, the results of the audit should be made freely available.
The potential for this to become an evolving resource, in the form of an updateable website,
should be explored.
[email protected]
Body Knowledge and Female Masculinity: Tomboi Subjectivities in West
Sumatra, Indonesia
Evelyn Blackwood
Purdue University West Lafayette, IN, USA
Cultures have a multiplicity of discourses about gender that offer different and sometimes
contradictory views of men and women. At the same time that dominant discourses
empower certain gendered understandings, they do not produce a seamless sense of self.
Discourses have partial effects because the range of discourses on gender and actual selfrepresentations will differ. As with any ‘‘gender,’’ tombois are not unambiguously
gendered. Tombois take on the subject position of ‘‘man’’ and claim to be no different
than other men, but they inhabit multiple and contradictory positions that engage a
number of discourses and micro-discourses on gender flowing through Indonesia and West
Sumatra. The question I ask is by what processes and in what moments do tombois take up
particular subject positions? The relevance of ‘‘body knowledge’’ is important to
understanding their shifting positionalities because to move in different spaces is to know
in one’s body what differences involve. Tombois’ female bodies are visible, called on and
recalled by tombois in a number of contexts. Tombois engage and reproduce femininity to
a certain extent when they move within family and community spaces. The conditional
femininity a tomboi invokes at home suggests that being tomboi is not an ‘‘identity’’ that
demands recognition in all contexts. Although they see themselves as men, social relations
of kinship and family connect tombois with discourses of femininity. I identify these
dis/organised pleasures
S59
processes of subjectivity by what I call ‘‘strategies of normality,’’ in which certain dominant
discourses are taken up at certain times (whether conscious or not). These strategies point
to the power of normality to produce and maintain certain gendered understandings that
are consequent on their material effects.
[email protected]
Beyond the Constitution: from Human Rights to Belonging
Mikki Van Zyl
Simply Said and Done, Cape Town, Sudáfrica
At the beginning of the 1990s, several apparently unrelated historical processes conjoined
to spotlight sexual rights in South Africa. Firstly, over the duration of a century, political
struggles had mobilised a broad front of organisations against apartheid. South Africa’s
democratisation was heralded finally by the institution of a liberal democratic constitution
in the ‘new’ South Africa in 1996. Secondly, the mobilisation of feminist, lesbian and gay
and women’s organisations around gender and sexuality, nationally and internationally,
were tied into broader and ongoing histories and cultures of activism around human rights
and democracy. Thirdly, HIV/AIDS, initially branded a ‘gay’ disease and concomitantly
stigmatised, raged into Africa as a ‘heterosexual’ pandemic. South Africa was the first
country in the world, and remains the only country in Africa, to protect citizens against
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in its Constitution. In this paper I briefly
examine the conjunction of various historical processes which made it possible, how sexual
rights have been shaped by the rhetoric of human rights, and how ongoing struggles of
identification and belonging have shifted from the streets to the courtroom. Based on a
human rights paradigm, the Constitution reflects human values which are far removed
from the (inequitable) lived realities and moralities of the majority of South Africans.
Hence ascendant global discourses which tend towards fundamentalist views on sexuality,
and continental discourses which demonise homosexuality as un-African have secured a
fertile foothold amongst reactionary groups who are mobilising against sexual autonomy for
women and homosexuals. I explore the significance of these struggles of belonging and
reactions to them, and assess the potential impact of these processes on sexual rights and
the values of diversity which are promoted as a South African national identity, and
symbolised in the motto, ‘strength in diversity’.
[email protected]
The Impact of Social Programs on Reproductive and Sexual Practices, on HIV
Prevention and the Social Mobility of Young from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Simona Monteiro, Fatima Cecchetto
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
This study analyzes the perceptions and experiences of a group of youth, between 18 and
24 years of age, from the lower economic levels of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), about the
repercussions of social programs on their affective/sexual and educational/professional
trajectories. From a comparative perspective, the work examines the perspectives,
practices, and conditions of life of 42 boys and girls: 24 who did participate in social
S60
IASSCS Conference 2007
projects directed at professionalizing and promoting citizenship and 18 who had not this
institutional experience. Both groups had similar characteristics in terms of sex, age, social
insertion and location of residence. In particular, we discuss the impacts of interventions on
concepts of health and AIDS, on reproductive and sexual practices, on indicators of social
mobility and professionalization, and on the formation of social networks, including the
dimension of gender. We sought to address the effects of civic organizations on the lowincome youth population, in the context of socioeconomic crisis and of few social policy
advances. We emphasize that in spite of the limitations of such interventions in the greater
social context, the experience of social support promoted by the projects contributes to the
expansion of life perspectives and the symbolic capital of this social group, with positive
impacts for the sexual and reproductive health field, including STD/Aids prevention. This
study was supported by Ford Foundation.
[email protected]
‘‘Yu get fo liv positive’’: Promoting Regimes of Self, Biological Citizenship, and
Responsible Sexuality in Sierra Leone
Adia Benton
Harvard University, Freetown, Sierra Leone
In this paper, I draw upon observation and interview data collected over several months
from HIV clinics and support group meetings in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Expanding on
the concept of biological citizenship (Petryna 2002; Rose and Novas 2005), I describe
how poor HIV+ men and women use their biological status (e.g. CD4 counts) to demand
and access otherwise unavailable entitlements from the government. Biological status –
and the entitlements it confers – is managed by a panoply of actors through HIV support
group meetings. During these meetings, support group members receive food rations,
invitations to catered workshops, or free referrals for laboratory tests. Initiated and initially
funded by government and non-governmental agencies, the groups are intended to help
members learn more about their condition and provide support to each other, thereby
increasing their ‘‘empowerment’’ and ‘‘self-reliance’’. Group facilitators – nurses, social
workers, and HIV+ role models – actively promote new ‘‘regimes of self’’ (Novas and
Rose 2006), and encourage members to ‘‘live positively.’’ That is, they encourage
members to be proactive individuals who shape their lives through prudent decisions
about sex, diet, and other ‘‘lifestyle’’ matters. Central to these new regimes of self is
responsible sexual citizenship, in which HIV+ people are urged to disclose their status to
their sexual partners, not to ‘‘womanize’’ and to refrain from consciousness altering
substances (which will ultimately lead them to make irresponsible sexual decisions). Much
to the chagrin of facilitators, members disregard the lessons, yet continue to demand
money, food, and skills training through these groups. From the standpoint of facilitators,
members’ resistance to messages of responsible sexual citizenship reflects their duplicity:
association members choose not to be responsible citizens, yet they demand access to the
entitlements that should only be available to self-reliant and compliant citizens.
Ultimately, I argue, the meetings are sites where biological citizenship becomes entangled
in struggles over institutionally mediated notions of responsible sexuality and local
experiences with poverty.
[email protected]
dis/organised pleasures
S61
Dis/organized Identities: Implications for HIV Prevention
Thomas E. Guadamuz, Chris Beyrer
Center for Public Health and Human Rights and Department of Epidemiology, Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Introduction: Several medical and epidemiologic studies have now established the
connection of gender and sexual orientation to HIV transmission and acquisition risks.
However, these studies often work within a narrow biomedical paradigm, assuming that
gender and sexual identities are categorical, fixed over the lifecourse, and that the causal
pathways linking these identities to disease risks are unidirectional. Main Body: In this
paper, we present a conceptual framework, based on field work among men and
transgender persons in Thailand, to illustrate the fluid nature of gender, sexuality, and
sexual role identities and hypothesize how these complex interrelationships of identities
affect HIV risks at multiple levels and over the lifecourse. In addition, external factors, that
are cultural, racial, social and religious, including societal norms of masculinity and
femininity; directly affect HIV risks of these men. The framework also suggests how
homophobia, including transphobia, at different levels affects and shapes the formation of
identities and drives HIV risks. We also explore the mechanisms by which dominant
Western ‘‘gay’’ cultural norms shape risks. Conclusion: Realizing that an individual’s
gender and sexual identities are indeed fluid and are influenced by numerous societal
factors that may change during one’s lifecourse will enable men in their own communities,
public health workers and HIV researchers to design and implement appropriate HIV
prevention and intervention programs. Additionally, medical and epidemiologic research
needs to move beyond the counterfactual model of disease and consider a sociologic
pragmatic approach to disease causation and model building. Finally, interventions which
promote the dignity of LGBT persons are urgently needed for HIV prevention at
individual, community, and social levels. Moreover, exploring the ways in which dignity
and pride can galvanize healthier behaviors among LGBT persons are needed.
[email protected]
Women’s Response to the Psychosexual Impact
Bridget M. Finn
USA
This paper presents an overview of the major findings of a qualitative inquiry exploring the
psychosexual impact of the abortion experience with women who self-identify as Catholic,
discussion of conclusions derived from these findings, and a synthesis of practical and
theoretical implications of these findings and conclusions. This research study focuses
solely on the experiences of nine women enculturated by Western ideology with regard to
the abortion issue. A triangulation of qualitative data sources from four different groups of
women derived at four different times and means is combined with the qualitative
phenomenological method. This exploratory research inquiry resulted in an explanatory
theory of the psychosexual impact of abortion. The development of this theory is based on
emerging themes and categories resulting from the inquiry. Some major findings include: it
is the unwanted pregnancy, rather than the abortion, that is the identifiable trauma;
Received Catholic religious beliefs and values did not enter into decisions to terminate
pregnancies, and did not create any conflict for participants during any aspect of the
abortion experience, including post-abortion adjustment; The abortion experience impacts
S62
IASSCS Conference 2007
sexual behavior and functioning with short-term fear of pregnancy and short-term lack of,
or decrease in, sexual desire; Women reveal a redefinition of self post-abortion; The
psychosexual impact of the abortion experience can be conceptualized as a phenomenon of
nine interwoven themes which begin prior to the actual medical procedure, at the time of
the unwanted pregnancy, to the present time. These are: ‘‘exercising choice’’; ‘‘a mark of
separation from the Catholic Church’’; ‘‘revealed a feminist moral perspective’’;
‘‘redefinition of self’’; ‘‘taking personal responsibility for sexual activity’’; ‘‘altered quality
of attachment’’; ‘‘avoidance of the trauma’’; ‘‘increased/enhanced cognizance of sexual
health care’’; and ‘‘political awareness’’.
[email protected]
The Queer Intervention: Globalization and Problematics of Sexual Identities and
Politics in Africa
Babere Chacha
Egerton University, Njoro, Kenia
Since the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Africa has become tightly integrated into
the global system-producing growing rights movement in regards to marriage, sexual and
reproductive health, and one of the main vectors of these information has been the women
rights groups often run by local and international NGOs. Behind globalization lies the
growing internationalization of the sexual rights and identities, women’s movement, and
increasing demands for basic equality, just as it lies behind the escalation of effective new
sexual orientation in many urban areas of Africa. Consequently, for the first time, there has
been the development of an international gay and lesbian movement, in many parts of the
Africa. In this paper, I intend to examine the role played these organizations in the sexual
identity and rights issues in Africa. The paper inter alia explores the politics of sexuality in
writings of women in Africa. By reviewing literature from multiple disciplines to delve into
what it means to be male and female in modern African contexts; the different ways in
which sexualities have been constructed, performed, resisted, transformed and transgressed; how tensions between traditions and modernities have played out in the arena of
gender; the ways in which post-colonial movements and institutions mobilize gender
ideologies. It is argued here that, demographic transformations such as rising age at
marriage and increasing levels of urban migration are playing a part in changing the nature
of male-female relationships. Sexual relationships are being socially constructed as an
appropriate expression of intimacy, but also as a statement about a particular kind of
modern identity. People consider globalization a tidal wave sweeping over the world and
profoundly influencing every aspect of lives in all disciplines: sexuality, politics, economics,
law, social relations, and even culture.
[email protected]
Nigerian Literary Scene: Mobilizing for Lesbians?
Olatubosun Olabimpe
University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Ibadan Oyo, Nigeria
This paper critically examines, the role that the Nigerian film industry and feminist writers
have played in voicing the presence of lesbians in Nigeria, the activities of the Nigerian state
dis/organised pleasures
S63
to curb same sex sexuality in Nigeria. Recent action has been against the state’s
implementation of international human rights agreements related to sexual and
reproductive rights. Its focus throughout is twofold, qualitatively adopting a content
analysis of three feminist writers books and two Nigerian films about lesbians. First, it
explores the multiple ways in which reproductive and sexual rights are inhibited in
heterosexual relationships, leading to agitations for sexual fulfillment and the subsequent
outlet of potential lesbian sexual orientations in Nigerian film industry and feminist
literature. Second, it uses this inquiry to rethink the complex politico-cultural dynamics in
which lesbians find themselves, as they manoeuvre within a globalizing yet deeply
stigmatizing society. These dynamics encompass a double and precarious positioning. On
the one hand, the Nigerian film industry and feminist writers more often than not have had
a major impact at both international and national levels in lifting the shrouded veil of
lesbian presence in Nigeria through dominant discourses about gender and sexuality in
their scenes and chapters against otherwise public disclaimers of lesbian presence within
Nigeria. This is a major historical achievement and a mark of the power of the Nigerian film
industry and feminist writers. On the other hand, the translation of this discursive shift into
policies and programmes which could be in support of lesbian orientation has been
seriously limited by the state and religious and cultural forces whose institutional power are
far greater than any that the Nigerian film industry and feminist writers could possibly
attain in the near possible future. Conclusively, it suggests strategies to limit sexual
dissatisfaction for women in heterosexual relationships to the Nigerian state.
[email protected]
Trajetórias Sexuais Femininas
Maria Luiza Heilborn
UERJ, Brazil
Esta pesquisa objetiva uma análise de trajetórias sexuais de mulheres de diferentes gerações
que no decorrer de suas vidas experimentaram contatos sexuais com pessoas do mesmo sexo.
O clima de maior tolerância à diversidade sexual presente no Brazil, associado às mudanças
nas concepções sobre o exercı́cio da sexualidade na juventude, marca significativamente a
ocorrência e a identificação com a homossexualidade. Neste contexto observa-se uma maior
facilidade de comunicação com os familiares e com os pares acerca da orientação sexual.
Contudo, apresenta-se uma importante diferença entre as gerações, especialmente no que
concerne a valores associados à fidelidade entre as parceiras e à aceitação de práticas
bissexuais concomitantes. A observação etnográfica conduz à afirmação de que as mudanças
nos costumes sexuais não ocorrem de maneira linear, indicando uma persistência de valores
tradicionais, ao lado da modernização da moralidade.
[email protected]
Desafios da Contracepção na Juventude: Interseções entre gênero, sexualidade e
saúde
Cristiane Cabral, Elaine Reis Brandão
UERJ, Brazil
A comunicação aborda trajetórias afetivo-sexuais de jovens Brazileiros de ambos os sexos,
com idades entre 18 e 24 anos, de diferentes segmentos sociais, parte deles com episódios
S64
IASSCS Conference 2007
de gravidez na adolescência, residentes em três capitais de diferentes regiões do paı́s: Rio de
Janeiro, Salvador e Porto Alegre. Este material empı́rico foi produzido pela Pesquisa
Gravad, cuja perspectiva metodológica buscou reconstruir retrospectivamente a trajetória
afetivo-sexual dos entrevistados. Abordam-se as práticas contraceptivas na adolescência e
juventude, estabelecendo nexos entre o aprendizado da sexualidade, das relações de gênero
e da contracepção com a conquista gradativa da autonomia nessa fase da vida. Busca-se
compreender se os ‘‘momentos de vulnerabilidade’’ nas relações sexuais entre adolescentes,
ou seja, situações propensas à não utilização de métodos contraceptivos estão ligadas à
assimetria de gênero, ao contexto da relação (tipo de parceiro, duração do relacionamento,
diferença etária entre parceiros) e à existência ou não de gravidez anterior na trajetória de
um dos parceiros.
[email protected]
Entre a Polı́tica e a Medicina: Sobre a proliferação dos ‘‘transtornos sexuais’’
como classificação diagnóstica
Jane Russo
UERJ, Brazil
Nas últimas décadas do século XX o campo psiquiátrico sofreu uma importante
transformação com a substituição da antiga concepção ‘‘psicodinâmica’’ dos transtornos
mentais por uma visão estritamente descritiva, baseada em critérios objetivos e
mensuráveis, nitidamente afeita à visão biológica das perturbações. Pretendo discutir o
lugar das antigas ‘‘perversões sexuais’’ neste novo arranjo classificatório, bem como o
surgimento de novos ‘‘transtornos’’ e sua relação com as transformações ocorridas no
campo mais amplo dos estudos da sexualidade. Para tanto examino o modo como a
concepção de diversidade sexual – como parte dos direitos polı́ticos do cidadão – convive
com a proliferação de ‘‘transtornos sexuais’’ apontando para uma nova estratégia de
medicalização que tende a focalizar, no lugar dos antigos ‘‘desvios’’, a sexualidade antes
considerada normativa.
[email protected]
O Império dos Hormônios e a Construção da Diferença entre os Sexos
Fabiola Rohden
UERJ, Brazil
Este trabalho se insere na perspectiva do campo dos estudos de gênero e ciência e da análise
da construção dos saberes e práticas constituı́dos em torno da noção de diferença sexual,
especialmente considerando a articulação entre ginecologia, endocrinologia e sexologia. A
questão central refere-se à percepção de que, em vários contextos distintos, assiste-se a
processos de redefinição das diferenças de gênero e de sexo por meio de marcadores tidos
como ‘‘biológicos’’ ou ‘‘naturais’’ que se tornam o fundamento da produção de teorias e
intervenções práticas. Investigar a gênese de tais processos remete à discussão em torno da
preeminência da uma perspectiva dualista em nossa tradição de pensamento e produção
cientı́fica, sobretudo calcada na oposição entre natureza e cultura. Neste trabalho abordo a
trajetória da descoberta dos chamados ‘‘hormônios sexuais’’ e sua nı́tida relação com a
perspectiva dualista no que se refere ao gênero, buscando demonstrar como esses
dis/organised pleasures
S65
poderosos mensageiros quı́micos ajudaram a configurar a passagem entre uma lógica do
excesso que envolvia o sexo até o final do século XIX para o imperativo da falta que rege o
campo da sexologia desde meados do século XX.
[email protected]
Intersexualidade e Direitos Sexuais: Análise acerca de um Contexto Hospitalar
Paula Machado
Núcleo de Pesquisa em Antropologia do Corpo e da Saúde (NUPACS/UFRGS), Brazil
Este trabalho se propõe a analisar alguns elementos envolvidos no manejo sócio-médico da
intersexualidade em um contexto Brazileiro. Busca-se, ainda, identificar a forma como essa
discussão se insere em um debate mais amplo sobre direitos sexuais e direitos humanos.
Trata-se de uma pesquisa antropológica, realizada especialmente no contexto de um
hospital-escola, localizado em uma cidade ao sul do Brazil. Procurarei examinar os
elementos em jogo nas decisões como compondo uma trama complexa, a qual inclui
diferentes nı́veis de relações, entre os quais destacarei três: 1) Relações entre as ‘‘áreas do
conhecimento’’ envolvidas (endocrinologia pediátrica, cirurgia/urologia pediátrica, genética, pediatria/neonatologia e, ainda, psicologia); 2) Plano das relações cotidianas entre os
especialistas (por exemplo, nas reuniões de equipe, nas discussões de caso, nas trocas de
informações); 3) Relações estabelecidas entre os profissionais de saúde e as pessoas intersex
e seus familiares. Nas negociações em torno dessas decisões, o sexo surge como uma
‘‘categoria médico-diagnóstica’’, construı́da a partir de uma combinação de elementos.
Termos como ‘‘estados intersexuais’’, ‘‘genitália incompletamente formada’’, ‘‘micropênis’’, ‘‘clitóris hipertrofiado’’, ‘‘ambigüidade’’, entre outros, emergem como categorias
discursivas produtoras de efeitos normativos concretos sobre os corpos, dentre os quais
destaca-se a intervenção cirúrgica. Além disso, novos recursos diagnósticos destacam-se
cada vez mais como discursos de ‘‘verdade’’ na busca do sexo ‘‘autêntico’’. No entanto, as
soluções e definições médicas muitas vezes são não apenas diferentes daquelas acionadas
pelas famı́lias de crianças intersex como também insuficientes para resolver suas demandas.
Entre outras questões, denuncia-se, no decorrer de trajetórias de ‘‘correções’’ e regulações
corporais, a insuficiência de um modelo que prevê categorias sexuais dicotômicas. Ao
interpelar essas dicotomias, os debates em torno da intersexualidade escrutinam os limites
teóricos e éticos que circunscrevem o campo dos direitos sexuais como direitos humanos.
[email protected]
O Processo de Construção dos Direitos Sexuais como Direitos Humanos na
América Latina: considerações a partir da experiência Brazileira
Adriana Vianna, Sergio Luis Carrara
UFRJ, Brazil
Essa apresentação busca avançar nas discussões sobre a construção dos direitos sexuais na
América Latina interrogando-se sobre suas relações com os processos de redemocratização
no continente, em especial no que diz respeito às relações entre movimentos sociais e
Estados nacionais. Para tanto, partirá sobretudo do panorama Brazileiro, enfatizando a
trajetória dos movimentos feminista e GLBT, estabelecendo, porém, conexões com o que
vem sendo trazido à discussão por investigadores de outros paı́ses.
[email protected]
S66
IASSCS Conference 2007
Jovens Homossexuais: Experiências de Violência e Solidariedade
Joao Bosco Hora Gois, Thiago Soliva
Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
A juventude, enquanto grupo social, vem sendo objeto de estudos por parte de profissionais
das mais distintas áreas do conhecimento nos últimos anos. No entanto, poucas pesquisas
têm se ocupado das experiências dos jovens homossexuais: suas expectativas de futuro,
preocupações, certezas, dúvidas e problemas. Objetivando contribuir para a superação
dessa lacuna, desenvolvemos uma pesquisa junto a 20 jovens estudantes do sexo masculino
da Universidade Federal Fluminense que se auto-identificam como gays. Tendo como eixo
central as experiências de violência, entendidas como violação de direitos humanos,
realizamos entrevistas com eles, as quais foram gravadas, transcritas e depois submetidas à
análise. Os resultados mostram que a violência perpetrada contra eles – principalmente
para os que mais se distanciam das caracterı́sticas de gênero masculino – se dá
predominantemente nos espaços públicos. A escola constitui um espaço central na
dinâmica da violência, pois é nela que eles geralmente sofrem as primeiras, mais repetidas e
mais fortes agressões. Na universidade, ainda que em menor escala, os entrevistados
também foram vitimizados, principalmente por membros do corpo técnico-administrativo.
Todos os entrevistados, em maior ou menor grau, foram vı́timas de violência (psicológica,
fı́sica, simbólica etc) por parte de familiares próximos (pais, mães e irmãos). Em situações
de vitimização os jovens puderam contar com o apoio de diferentes pessoas: professores,
parentes mais distantes do núcleo familiar e, principalmente, outros jovens e adultos
amigos seus que também se identificavam como gays. Apesar de terem passado por
dolorosas experiências de vitimização, todos os entrevistados expressaram a positividade da
experiência homossexual. Isso pode ser atribuı́do, ao menos em parte, à existência, em
cidades como o Rio de Janeiro, de organizações e lugares de sociabilidade que possibilitam
a desconstrução de imagens negativas sobre os gays e que impedem que eles se encerrem
em espaços fı́sicos e mentais de solidão e sofrimento.
[email protected]
O Exercı́cio dos Direitos Sexuais de Jovens Privados de Liberdade: um Estudo
sobre a Visita Intima
Laura Davis Mattar
Conectas Direitos Humanos, Brazil
Este artigo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa que teve como objetivo principal
conhecer como se dá o exercı́cio da sexualidade por jovens privados de liberdade. Isto
significou analisar, de um lado, como estes jovens exercitam seus direitos sexuais e, de
outro, a polı́tica pública de visita ı́ntima em unidades de privação de liberdade juvenil
instituı́da em três estados do nordeste do Brazil. A pesquisa foi realizada ao longo do ano de
2006 com recursos concedidos pelo programa GRAL – Gênero, Reprodução, Ação e
Liderança, desenvolvido pela Fundação Carlos Chagas, do qual a autora foi bolsista. Tratase de uma pesquisa qualitativa composta por 24 entrevistas semi-estruturadas (sendo 15
delas com jovens) realizadas nas unidades de internação visitadas – as únicas do paı́s onde
há uma polı́tica de visita ı́ntima institucionalizada. O artigo inicia-se com a descrição do
referencial teórico adotado, qual seja, a concepção contemporânea de direitos humanos,
que inclui a atual formulação dos direitos sexuais e o estado da arte dos direitos da criança e
do adolescente. Em seguida, o texto apresenta os dados obtidos na pesquisa de campo. São
dis/organised pleasures
S67
vários os aspectos descritos: o perfil do jovem em conflito com a lei em privação de
liberdade nas unidades visitadas; a vida sexual e os cuidados com a saúde antes da
internação; o exercı́cio da sexualidade dentro da instituição e, por fim, a visita ı́ntima do
ponto de vista do jovem. A terceira parte reflete um esforço de avaliação da polı́tica pública,
feito com base no cruzamento da construção teórica com a análise empı́rica. Nesta
avaliação são considerados os seguintes direitos relativos aos adolescentes: direito à
autonomia da pessoa; direito de participação; direito à igualdade e à não discriminação; e
direito à integridade corporal e direito à saúde. Ao final do artigo apresentam-se
proposições para que a polı́tica pública de visita ı́ntima no ambiente de privação de
liberdade juvenil seja aperfeiçoada de modo a efetivar de forma mais consistente os direitos
humanos dos jovens em conflito com a lei, especificamente seus direitos sexuais.
[email protected]
Discursos do Poder Judiciário sobre Conjugalidades Homoeróticas no Brazil
Contemporâneo
Rosa Maria Rodrigues de Oliveira
UFSC, Brazil
Proposta de investigação sobre a pluralidade de discursos do Poder Judiciário Brazileiro
sobre conjugalidades homoeróticas através da análise documental de 100 acórdãos judiciais
proferidos por quatro Tribunais de Justiça Brazileiros onde se verifica a existência de maior
número de processos: São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro e Minas Gerais. O
estudo de caso foi realizado nestes quatro estados a partir de observações de sessões de
julgamento, análise de acórdãos judiciais, acompanhamento de listas de discussão via
Internet e matérias jornalı́sticas, bem como entrevistas com magistrados de primeira
instância, desembargadores, advogados e representantes do Ministério Público. Foi
possı́vel identificar, em leitura preliminar, a existência de elementos que apontam a
controvérsia entre os conceitos jurı́dicos de união estável e sociedade de fato como marcos
discursivos que subdividem sujeitos com base em sua orientação sexual, pela diferenciação
de acesso ao direito ao casamento, conforme sua condição seja previamente identificada ou
declarada como homossexual ou heterossexual. Isto parece estar relacionado, entre outros
fatores, à divergência entre as decisões tomadas no estado do Rio Grande do Sul e os
demais estados analisados, que apresentam diferentes interpretações de princı́pios
constitucionais, como o da igualdade. Em contrapartida, o Poder Judiciário parece ocupar
um espaço estatal hipertrofiado, quando decide sobre temas cuja legislação especı́fica ainda
não foi promulgada. Aparecem aı́ os conflitos entre o poder de legislar e o de decidir sobre
litı́gios. Palavras-chave : homoerotismo, homossexualidade, homoafetividade, poder
judiciário, conjugalidades, famı́lia, igualdade.
[email protected]
Rompendo o Silêncio! Reflexões sobre a Produção da Violência Heterossexista a
partir da Experiência de um Centro de Referência em Direitos Humanos
Fernando Pocahy
Nuances e UFRGS/PPGEdu, Brazil
Esta comunicação apresenta uma experiência de intervenção no combate à violência
heterossexista – homofóbica, realizada em Porto Alegre, no RS, pela ONG Nuances, grupo
S68
IASSCS Conference 2007
pela livre expressão sexual. A ação está caracterizada como Centro de Referência em
Direitos Humanos na Prevenção e no Combate à Homofobia e foi realizada através de
convênio com a Secretaria Especial de Direitos Humanos da Presidência da República do
Brazil e em parceria com organizações do poder público local, universidades e organizações
da sociedade civil. Intitulado ‘‘Rompa o Silêncio’’, o projeto tem no seu quadro de metas a
atenção aos casos de violência, em abordagem interdisciplinar (Direito, Serviço Social e
Psicologia), assim como ações de promoção da cultura e da educação para os Direitos
Humanos. Apresentamos, neste trabalho, uma análise parcial dos resultados do primeiro
ano de atuação do projeto, indicando o perfil de vitimização e as modalidades de violação
dos Direitos Humanos mais presentes. O número de casos analisados, no perı́odo de
janeiro a dezembro de 2006, perfaz um total de 79 denúncias presenciais. Os resultados
revelam o papel importante da construção de mecanismos no acesso à Justiça e na
efetivação da mesma, bem como remetem à imprescindı́vel articulação deste fazer com
outros atores sociais, como organizações, grupos e, em especial, buscando a proximidade
com a população GLBT. A experiência deste ano de trabalho sublinhou alguns desafios,
como o da construção de polı́ticas públicas abrangentes, a urgência de que as
especificidades possam ser contempladas na universalidade e de que o heterossexismo
seja uma questão a ser abordada de forma intersetorial. A necessidade de articulação e
mobilização social, associada às pesquisas acadêmicas e ao compromisso e empenho do
Estado são sinalizadas como condições para a efetivação de um estado de direito realmente
democrático, cujas formas de disputa de significados e garantias de direitos sejam dadas de
forma menos violentas e desiguais.
[email protected]
Prostituição Feminina na Zona Boêmia de Belo Horizonte
Marina Veiga França
Ecole des Hautes études en sciences sociales, Brazil
Esta pesquisa, realizada como dissertação de mestrado, teve como objeto de estudo a
prostituição feminina em hotéis de uma área central da cidade de Belo Horizonte (Brazil),
chamada ‘‘zona boêmia’’. Podemos nomeá-la ‘‘baixa prostituição’’, tanto pela inserção
social dos atores (classes desfavorecidas) como pelo baixo preço dos programas. A
especificidade do caso que estamos estudando é o fato de se realizar em hotéis, onde as
prostitutas alugam quartos por dia e ficam à espera dos clientes. Nosso objetivo foi
investigar o quotidiano de trabalho das profissionais do sexo, os efeitos da falta de direitos e
reconhecimento social desta categoria e a configuração das relações de gênero e das práticas
sexuais na prostituição. As histórias e falas das profissionais do sexo são diversas, mas
alguns aspectos se destacam. Primeiramente o peso e o sofrimento ocasionado pelo
estigma, que é apropriado de maneiras diversas, passando por movimentos de
incorporação, inversão e projeção dos esteréotipos. É interessante também analisar a
maneira como as prostitutas administram seus afetos e sexualidade dentro da prostituição e
as relações profissionais e ı́ntimas que estabelecem com clientes e com não-clientes. As
regras e táticas da prostituição ajudam a preservá-las de envolvimento afetivo com os
clientes e favorecem o deslocamento das relações de gênero. Relações mais ou menos
fugazes se sucedem; sedução, amizade, relações de ajuda e formação de parcerias podem
entrar em jogo. A prostituição é uma opção economicamente vantajosa para mulheres com
baixa escolaridade e pouca possibilidade de acesso a empregos qualificados. No entanto, as
dis/organised pleasures
S69
profissionais do sexo acabam vivendo um isolamento social, com dificuldade de estabelecer
relacionamentos afetivos fora do mundo da prostituição. Neste quadro, é muitas vezes em
seus clientes – alguns já de muitos anos – que vêem reconhecimento social, valorização
pessoal, ocasionalmente prazer sexual e amor.
[email protected]
Amores não Hegemônicos na Cidade de Deus
Flávia Péret
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
Análise crı́tica do livro Cidade de Deus (Paulo Lins, Companhia das Letras, 1997, Brazil),
uma obra referencial da literatura contemporânea Brazileira que aborda a questão da
intolerância sexual no contexto de uma grande favela Brazileira. O trabalho tem como foco
a análise da personagem Ari/Soninha Maravilhosa, uma travesti, garoto de programa,
morador da favela, filho de pai alcoólatra e mãe prostituta. O contexto social no qual está
inserida a personagem Ari/Soninha a converte em um indivı́duo duplamente excluı́do:
vı́tima tanto da pobreza, quanto de sua condição sexual. A personagem vivencia, na favela,
uma série de violências que vão de estupros realizados por policias, espancamentos que
sofre do irmão e dos amantes, além da violência verbal e psicológica infringida pelos
próprios morados da Cidade de Deus, que se mostram intolerantes à diversidade sexual. A
partir de um processo doloroso e formativo a personagem empreende – ao longo da
narrativa – uma busca por sua identidade e afirmação da condição homossexual,
apresentando uma personalidade que transita entre o masculino e o feminino. Ari/
Soninha é nesse sentido o retrato da travesti latino-americana, vı́tima de sociedades
patriarcais e católicas. O trabalho estuda como é construı́da a identidade do grupo social
travesti dentro de um contexto de violência, racismo, pobreza e intolerância sexual. O
questionamento das identidades, no contexto da pós-modernidade, se articula cada vez
mais com a discussão dos direitos das minorias. Vários são os autores que apontam para a
necessidade da literatura mundial traduzir tais conflitos, localizando e, principalmente,
dando visibilidade a um conjunto de vozes minoritárias. Nessa perspectiva, Cidade de Deus
confirma sua força e vitalidade poética. Ao transformar uma travesti em ‘‘heroı́na’’, é
possı́vel perceber que nem toda literatura está esvaziada ideologicamente. Uma obra em
consonância com o espı́rito pós-moderno de atribuir voz e espaço aos grupos marginalizados, revelando o hibridismo e a ambivalência das identidades sexuais. Ao denunciar o
cı́rculo vicioso que atinge as travestis, a discriminação diária e a intolerância sexual, Paulo
Lins expõe e avalia eticamente as implicações sociais e morais que vivenciam os
homossexuais no contexto da favela.
[email protected]
Significados da Sexualidade de Homens que fazem Sexo com Mulheres e Vivem
com HIV/AIDS
Lı́gia Polistchuck, Vera Paiva, Aluisio Segurado
Casa da Aids – HCFMUSP, Brazil
Existem atualmente poucos estudos que se dedicam a investigar o significado da
sexualidade para os homens heterossexuais que vivem com HIV/Aids. Esta pesquisa visa
S70
IASSCS Conference 2007
descrever, compreender e discutir significados referentes à sexualidade masculina, tendo
por base dados coletados numa pesquisa previamente realizada com 250 homens
portadores de HIV, que fazem sexo com mulheres, atendidos em dois centros de referência
em São Paulo – Casa da Aids – HCFMUSP, e CRT Santa Cruz. Algumas pesquisas
contemplam a questão da infecção pelo HIV relacionada ao exercı́cio da sexualidade e a
como as pessoas passam a significar e vivenciar sua sexualidade após saberem-se
soropositivas. Com relação aos homens heterossexuais soropositivos, verifica-se a existência
de pesquisas que buscam descobrir formas mais eficazes de introduzir os métodos de
prevenção dentro de um cotidiano que socialmente coloca o homem numa posição de
impossibilidade de recusa à tentação (relativo à sexualidade), de constrangimento do que
deve e do que não deve ser feito na tentativa de provar sempre uma masculinidade
irrestrita; e que dá um caráter indomável à sexualidade masculina, e também uma exigência
de satisfação imediata (GUERRIERO et al., 2002). Este tipo de repertório sexualsociocultural dificulta a percepção destes homens sobre sua vulnerabilidade ao vı́rus do
HIV e, por isso mesmo, os torna mais vulneráveis. Neste trabalho foi possı́vel perceber o
quanto as questões culturais envolvidas com as categorias de gênero se mostram presentes
nos discursos destes sujeitos, e o quanto as questões relacionadas à vulnerabilidade, à
infecção e ao adoecimento pelo HIV devem ser trabalhadas culturalmente. Novos estudos
se fazem necessários relativos a homens que fazem sexo com mulheres, por ser uma
população que tem pouca percepção de sua vulnerabilidade e poucos espaços destinados a
direitos familiares e de saúde reprodutiva.
[email protected]
‘‘Castelar’’: Construir um Castelo – a Vivência do Amor e da Sexualidade por
Intermédio de Cartas de Mulheres Presidiárias.
Márcia Lima Freitas
Prefeitura da Cidade de São Paulo e Faculdade de Saúde Pública – USP, Brazil
Até o ano de 2001, mulheres do sistema prisional do estado de São Paulo (Brazil) não
tinham o direito a receber seus parceiros para realizar a visita ı́ntima (encontro sexual entre
o casal) sendo esta uma das principais queixas e reivindicações das presidiárias, já que o
homem preso sempre teve este direito. Em dezembro de 2001 foi instituı́do o Programa de
visita ı́ntima às mulheres presas, no entanto, é baixa a adesão por parte das mulheres em
inscrever seus parceiros por enfrentarem dificuldades em vivenciar o amor e a sexualidade
no presı́dio. Sendo assim, algumas mulheres realizam esta vivência através do ‘‘castelar’’
que é a construção de histórias de amor e de sexo através de cartas a homens ou mulheres
de outros presı́dios. O objetivo do trabalho é desvelar os significados do ‘‘Castelar’’, as
histórias escritas através de cartas, na perspectiva das mulheres presas na Penitenciária
Feminina da Capital de São Paulo. Foi realizado um estudo qualitativo através de grupos
focais, sendo um com mulheres que optaram pela visita ı́ntima e outro com as que não
optaram. O ‘‘Castelar’’ só apareceu na discussão do grupo de mulheres que não optaram
pela visita ı́ntima. Revelam que é uma prática prazerosa e esperam diariamente pelas
correspondências. Acreditam no amor e paixão entre os (as) correspondentes, mesmo não
os (as) conhecendo pessoalmente. O fato de criarem uma história de intimidade favorece o
enfrentamento da prisão, principalmente pela superação da carência de afeto e sexo.
Acreditam que um dia os correspondentes irão assumir uma condição de conjugalidade e
apontam constrangimento quando funcionários lêem suas cartas. O ‘‘Castelar’’ é uma
dis/organised pleasures
S71
possibilidade da vivência sexual no presı́dio feminino, principalmente porque as mulheres
são abandonadas pelos seus parceiros, e na construção do imaginário vivem um ‘‘amor de
verdade’’ que é concretizado através das cartas e assim exploram seus sonhos e fantasias.
[email protected]
Conhecimento, Atitudes e Práticas relacionadas ao HIV/AIDS: Homens que
fazem sexo com homens em Salvador-Ba
Marcia Marinho, Rosa Gonçalves, Mônica Coutinho
Gapa-Ba, Brazil
Introdução/Objetivos: Apesar da persistente tendência de heterossexualização, a epidemia
de Aids no Brazil continua mantendo altos ı́ndices de contaminação entre população de
orientação sexual homossexual, especialmente entre jovens. Com o objetivo de atualizar
informações sobre práticas sócio-sexuais e acesso a serviços públicos de saúde junto a
homens que fazem sexo com homens em Salvador-Ba, Nordeste do Brazil, o Gapa-Ba,
Grupo de Apoio à Prevenção a Aids da Bahia, Brazil, desenvolveu a pesquisa
‘‘Conhecimento, Atitudes e Práticas relacionadas ao Hiv/Aids:Homens que fazem sexo
com homens em Salvador-Ba’’, realizada em espaços de lazer e sociabilidade gays. Corpo
do texto/resultados: Foram analisados 287 questionários válidos, aplicados em espaços de
sociabilidade de homossexuais, bissexuais, homens e travestis/transgêneros, como boates,
shoppings, bares, cinemas e banheiros públicos. 72,12 % dos entrevistados tinham entre 18
e 35 anos, cerca de 70,7% referiram ser homossexual; 19,5% bissexual e 6,6% transgênero.
A Idade da primeira experiência sexual homossexual situa-se na faixa etária de 10-15 anos
de idade (44,6%), seguida da de 16-20 anos com 40,8%. Cerca de 33,1% declaram ter feito
sexo desprotegido nos últimos 5 anos e 15,68% referem ter tido alguma DST. Conclusão O
alto ı́ndice de jovens que iniciam práticas sexuais homossexuais entre os 10 e 15 anos
apontam a necessidade de incorporação de ações educativas junto a homens que fazem
sexo com homens mais jovens, além de sinalizar a escola como um espaço que deve ser
priorizado. A pesquisa indica a manutenção de comportamentos sexuais inseguros para a
contaminação com o vı́rus da Aids e a pertinência social e epidemiológica de continuar
priorizando a população de homens que fazem sexo com homens nas estratégias de
pesquisa e de intervenção educacional, visando a promoção de informações em HIV/Aids,
fortalecimento do sexo seguro, e consolidação positiva da identidade homossexual.
[email protected]
Prováveis Estereótipos Associados à ‘‘Raça’’/Cor e ao Gênero Feminino em
Relacionamentos Lésbicos e Bissexuais Femininos Inter-raciais
Layla Vitorio Peçanha
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Este trabalho busca analisar como certos estereótipos associados à raça/cor e ao gênero
feminino aparecem nos discursos de mulheres que se apresentam como lésbicas e
bissexuais. Os dados aqui apresentados advêm, em parte, da pesquisa ‘‘Relations among
‘race’ sexuality and gender in different local and national contexts’’, coordenada
internacionalmente pelo CLAM, USP e CEBRAP e coordenada no Rio de Janeiro pelo
IOC/Fiocruz. A análise resulta do trabalho de campo realizado em contextos de
sociabilidade com jovens de 18 a 24 anos no bairro da Lapa no Rio de Janeiro e de
S72
IASSCS Conference 2007
entrevistas realizadas para o referido projeto. Tais dados foram complementados com
outras entrevistas com militantes e não militantes e da observação participante em dois
eventos da militância LBT – um voltado para mulheres de orientação homossexual ou
bissexual em geral, e outro voltado para afro-descendentes. A partir deste material, é
possı́vel afirmar que nem todas as mulheres que se apresentaram como lésbicas ou
bissexuais se viam afetadas pela discriminação da mesma maneira ou no mesmo grau. A
identidade dessas mulheres e suas percepções acerca de seus privilégios ou desvantagens
sociais variavam dependendo da intersecção ou combinação de uma série complexa de
fatores, como cor/raça,gênero,classe social,status familiar,etnia e religião. Estes fatores e
sua combinação serão analisados em cada um dos contextos pesquisados.
[email protected]
Contracepção de Emergência no Carnaval de Salvador-Ba: Algumas Reflexões
Patricia Figueiredo Marques, Simone Andrade Teixeira, Silvia Lucia Ferreira
Brazil
Introdução/Objetivo – A contracepção de emergência – CE – apresenta-se como uma
possibilidade de responder às reivindicações do movimento de mulheres e feminista no que
concerne ao exercı́cio pleno da sexualidade feminina desvinculado de aspectos reprodutivos. A possibilidade de prevenir uma gravidez indesejada com o uso deste recurso dá mais
autonomia às mulheres em ocasiões em que as relações sexuais não são previstas , como no
caso do carnaval. Este estudo busca realizar uma reflexão baseada numa perspectiva
interseccional de gênero, raça, idade e classe, que possibilite compreender os resultados
alcançados pelo acesso e uso deste método pelas mulheres baianas durante o carnaval no
ano de 2006. Corpo do texto/Resultados -Trata-se de uma reflexão teórica sobre o uso de
contracepção de emergência a partir de uma perspectiva de interseccionalidade destas
categorias de análise, tendo como fonte de dados o relatório da Secretaria Municipal de
Saúde em Salvador/BA. O relatório aponta que o perfil da usuária que buscou a CE foi
caracterizado por mulheres jovens, sendo a maioria de raça/cor auto-referida negra
(72,7%), com 2u grau completo (54,5%), isto é, fortemente marcada pela raça, classe e pela
idade/geração. As mulheres negras, que constituem o maior segmento populacional em
situação de maior vulnerabilidade para morte materna, foram, também, as que mais
buscaram a contracepção de emergência. Conclusões. A experiência relatada pela SMS
exemplifica como gênero, classe e raça se cruzam para criar não apenas fatores comuns,
mas diferenças na experiência das mulheres. Nesse contexto, destaca-se a participação do
movimento feminista negro que, ao denunciar tais diferenças, tornou-se mais atento a essas
questões, no sentido de qualificar seu discurso e prática ao incluir a questão racial como
importante na luta por democracia e cidadania.
[email protected]
A Vida entre Discursos: Representações da Sexualidade do/a Adolescente por
Profissionais de Saúde em uma Unidade de Atenção Básica.
Márcia Cristina Marinho, Jorge Bernstein Iriart
Gapa-Ba, Brazil
Introdução/Objetivos: O crescimento populacional e a epidemia de Aids renovaram o
lugar de poder da saúde enquanto campo de prescrição de condutas para distintos públicos,
dis/organised pleasures
S73
dentre eles os adolescentes, que buscam disputar significados e controles sobre seu corpo e
sexualidade instaurados nas polı́ticas públicas e num discurso médico tecnológico que
recrudesce a perspectiva biologizante no campo da sexualidade. A presente pesquisa de
Mestrado visou compreender como profissionais de saúde, em uma Unidade de Atenção
Básica, atribuem significados à sexualidade do/a adolescente em suas práticas e discursos,
buscando responder se há um lugar especı́fico para a sexualidade do/a adolescente em suas
rotinas de atenção. Corpo do texto/Resultados: Como uma pesquisa etnográfica, que
combinou técnicas de observação participante e entrevistas semi-estruturadas junto a 10
profissionais de saúde de nı́vel superior, a mesma realizou-se numa unidade de saúde de
atenção básica, na periferia de Salvador-Bahia-Brazil. A análise de conteúdo das narrativas
orientou-se por categorias teóricas e empı́ricas para fazer revelar os significados das
percepções relacionadas à adolescência e sexualidade. A unidade de saúde pesquisada não
desenvolve ações especı́ficas dirigidas ao adolescente. As representações dos profissionais
de saúde retratam um perfil de adolescente marcadamente sexualizado, que reverberam,
em seus comportamentos, as condições de pobreza em que estão inseridos. Conclusões: As
representações constituı́das frente à sexualidade do/a adolescente e a estes usuários/as da
Unidade são construções mediadas pelos eixos de classe e gênero, tendo-se encontrado que
os/as pesquisados guardam frente à sexualidade feminina adolescente as representações
mais tradicionais das ideologias de gênero e sexualidade. A incorporação de outra produção
discursiva para o construto sexualidade, que passe a considerar a cultura e as
transformações sociais, pode colaborar com uma mais adequada apreensão dos contextos
e da gramática cultural e sexual dos/as adolescentes.
[email protected]
Diálogos sobre Transexualidades: Corpo, Natureza, Biomedicina e Direito
Izis Morais Lopes dos Reis
Universidade de Brası́lia, Brazil
Os debates sobre sexualidades, direitos sexuais, e sobre a intervenção médico-tecnológica na
saúde têm gerado desafios para as ciências sociais no sentido de compreender as nuances do
controle do corpo, da constituição das identidades através da experiência corporal, das
relações de poder e da normatização das pessoas por meio da biomedicina. O trabalho
pretende fazer uma breve revisão das questões envolvendo transexualidades, a partir de textos
sobre transexualidade escritos por juristas em defesa da cirurgia de trangenitalização, assim
como resolução do Conselho Federal de Medicina pela legalização da cirurgia. A proposta é
fazer uma interlocução dos discursos profissionais com debates da antropologia da saúde e do
corpo. O discurso hegemônico de juristas e médicos sobre transexuais, ao defenderem a
legalidade das cirurgias de trangenitalização e direito à mudança de nome no registro civil,
baseia-se na idéia de que a transexualidade é uma patologia. Transexuais ‘‘verdadeiros’’, para
estes profissionais, são indivı́duos que negam o sexo biológico e exigem a operação de
reajustamento sexual a fim de poder assumir a identidade de seu verdadeiro gênero, que não
condiz com seu sexo anatômico. A ruptura entre o que se considera sexo, ou seja, anatomia,
com o que é classificado como do domı́nio da psiqué é o conflito instaurado entre as normas
de gênero e as ficções sobre o corpo. As transexualidades, ao seren classificadas como
patologias, são retiradas da esfera de comportamentos ‘‘moralmente corruptos’’, podendo ser
alvo de respostas polı́ticas de proteção aos transexuais. A patologização retorna ao que
poderia ser considerado subversão das normas de gênero para a esfera da natureza, causada
S74
IASSCS Conference 2007
por anomalias no desenvolvimento embrionário e, portanto, passı́vel de conserto e
solidariedade, para o Direito e a Medicina. A liberdade de expressar comportamentos
diversos é podada pelo saber biomédico, já que a naturalização da transexualidade significa
também a impossibilidade de se comportar diferente. Ao mesmo tempo em que o argumento
da natureza propicia a proteção de transexuais, é criado um fosso entre o comportamento de
transexuais e sua possibilidade de escolhas de vida e de itinerários terapêuticos. A idéia de
doença não é ruim em sua totalidade, no sentido que gera novas formas de proteção às
categorias de humanos vulneráveis na contemporaneidade. Novas estratégias de proteção são
criadas, entre eals, a ética como direito ao não sofrimento. Há consciência nas esferas
jurı́dicas e médicas da necessidade de um olhar diferenciado sobre questões que desafiam a
ordem moral hegemônica. É um desafio interessante pensar como os valores existentes estão
sendo modificados pela sobreposição de várias lógicas que podem, de um lado, gerar
liberdades, e, de outro, novas formas de dominação.
[email protected]
Aborto e Anencefalia: implicações da decisão em K.L. versus Peru no Judiciário
Brazileiro
Carmen Campos
Universidad de Toronto, Canadá
Desde 2004 pende no Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) a Arguição de Descumprimento de
Preceito Fundamental (ADPF) impetrada pela Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores
de Saúde – CNTS objetivando descriminalizar o aborto realizado em casos de anencefalia.
Em 2005, o Comitê de Direitos Humanos/UN que monitora o cumprimento da Convenção
dos Direitos Civis e Politicos (CCPR) condenou o Estado do Peru por impedir que uma
jovem de 17 anos realizasse um aborto de feto anencefálico. Neste artigo, pretendo analisar
quais são as possiveis implicações desta decisão sobre o judiciário Brazileiro. O Comite
considerou que forçar uma jovem a carregar uma gravidez comprovadamente inviável
constitui tratamento desumano e degradante. Meu argumento é que a decisão em KL v Peru
é um precedente jurı́dico international importante, que amplia significativamente as
possibilidades juridicas de discriminalizar o aborto em casos de anencefalia, mesmo o STF
decidindo negativamente. A decisão tem reflexos técnicos e polı́ticos. Do ponto de vista
técnico, o Brazil estaria obrigado a tomar medidas para assegurar a interrupção antecipada da
gravidez em casos de anencefalia. Do ponto de vista polı́tico, a decisão é um instrumento de
pressão sobre o Judiciário Brazileiro para que este implemente e amplie os direitos
reprodutivos das mulheres, especialmente no que se refere ao aborto.
[email protected]
Uma Análise sobre o Discurso da Pedofilia na Internet
Alessandro José de Oliveira
Universidade Estadual de CAmpinas/UNICAMP, Brasil
Este trabalho busca apresentar questionamentos sobre a existência de uma construção ou
uma desconstrução de um ‘‘ser pedófilo’’ através de uma análise desconstrutivista de uma
série de enunciados e discursos a respeito da pedofilia. O principal corpus do trabalho é um
site da internet denominado ‘‘Ajuda ao Pedófilo’’ em que um grupo de discussão de
dis/organised pleasures
S75
pedófilos insere seus depoimentos a respeito de vários temas. Na análise parcial dos
enunciados encontramos trechos que induzem a crença de uma disjunção entre violência/
abuso sexual e prática sexual intergerencial, como por exemplo: ‘‘Embora eu me sinta
atraı́do sexualmente pelos pequenos, eu nunca fiz nada com nenhuma criança. Sinto-me
excitado ao vê-las, ao tocá-las (não me refiro aos órgãos genitais), ao abraçá-las e beijá-las.
Depois eu me alivio sexualmente nos momentos de prazer solitário, relembrando as
situações em que estive perto de uma criança. Para evitar interpretações equivocadas em
relação ao que eu acabei de escrever, quando eu me referi a tocar, beijar, abraçar, foi
enquanto uma relação afetiva e carinhosa absolutamente aceita socialmente. Nunca fiz
nada escondido e todos que conhecem sabem que eu gosto de crianças, embora não
imaginem que eu goste de uma maneira um pouco diferente do que certamente eles
imaginam’’. Nesse relato, o enunciado opera na perspectiva que vislumbra a possibilidade e
viabilidade de práticas sexuais desvinculadas da violência, e aponta para uma tentativa de
criar uma atmosfera de aceitação de atos sexuais periféricos, mais normalizados a partir de
uma idéia de um politicamente correto. Este enunciado visa ter um caráter performativo,
ou seja, visa acontecer como um discurso, que retire ‘‘o pedófilo’’ do lugar de ‘‘monstro’’
em que está na sociedade. Para Butler (2002) a performatividade é uma prática que reitera
e referencia, mediante a qual o discurso produz o efeito que nomeia. Assim, o objetivo
dessa inscrição é apresentar e discutir com a comunidade cientifica essas operações em
curso bem como questionar sua validade.
[email protected]
Sexualidade e Masculinidade na Estrada: a Vulnerabilidade dos Caminhoneiros
às DSTs/AIDS
Daniela Riva Knauth, Ana Maria Borges Teixeira, Fernando Seffner, Andrea Fachel Leal
Medicina/Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brasil
Os caminhoneiros constituem um grupo social que se caracteriza por dois aspectos: por ser
eminentemente masculino e por seu caráter itinerante. Estas caracterı́sticas fornecem um
contexto particular às experiências de gênero e sexualidade. Este trabalho objetiva
evidenciar as práticas e concepções dos caminhoneiros sobre sexualidade e parcerias
sexuais, e identificar os principais aspectos de vulnerabilidade desta população às DSTs/
Aids. Os dados analisados são resultantes de uma pesquisa desenvolvida em cinco cidades
que concentram grande número de caminhoneiros no sul do Brasil. Na fase quantitativa,
foram entrevistados 854 caminhoneiros e na fase qualitativa foram realizadas entrevistas
semi-estruturadas com 38 caminhoneiros e observação participante nos postos de
combustı́veis. Os caminhoneiros mencionam o uso de camisinha, entretanto, não é um
uso continuado, pois depende da parceria e do tipo de relacionamento. Assim, 61% dos
entrevistados afirmam usar camisinha, porém 68% deles não usou o preservativo na última
relação sexual. Todos reconhecem que é comum o uso dos serviços de prostitutas nas
paradas noturnas. Aproximadamente 50% dos entrevistados referem fazer uso de serviço de
profissionais de sexo, mas menos da metade menciona a utilização de preservativo quase
sempre/sempre. Há ainda outras modalidades de prostituição, como a ‘‘acompanhante’’ e a
‘‘namorada’’ que, por serem tidas como conhecidas, dispensam o uso do preservativo.
Podemos concluir que os padrões de masculinidade hegemônicos – como a idéia da
necessidade sexual masculina, o incentivo à variação das parcerias sexuais, a construção da
masculinidade entre pares – e o caráter itinerante da profissão, que produz o afastamento
S76
IASSCS Conference 2007
dos caminhoneiros de sua rede de relações mais próxima e dificulta o acesso aos serviços de
saúde, acabam por colocar esta população numa situação de maior vulnerabilidade às
DSTs/Aids.
[email protected]
Reprodução e Sexualidade: Transformações e Permanências de Valores Relativos
ao Desejo de Filhos entre Casais de Camadas Médias no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Eliane Vargas
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Brasil
A experiência reprodutiva e sexual contemporânea enfatiza a primazia da representação de
uma ‘escolha’ pessoal e de uma ‘liberdade’ individual com significativas diferenças de
gênero. Esta investigação tematiza a valorização da reprodução em um grupo definido
culturalmente por uma configuração moderna de valores cuja principal caracterı́stica recai
no indivı́duo como valor. Teve por objetivo delinear valores e práticas modeladores da
percepção da ausência involuntária de filhos, entre casais heterossexuais de camadas
médias no Rio de Janeiro, com ênfase nas relações conjugais, familiares e de gênero.
Buscou relativizar uma compreensão corrente da ‘infertilidade conjugal’ enquanto
categoria biomédica prevalente nos discursos socialmente construı́dos sobre o tema. Tal
categoria é analisada a partir das injunções históricas determinantes das relações entre
corpo e medicina e das estreitas relações entre sexualidade e reprodução, considerando sua
dissociação como uma possibilidade contemporânea. Compõem o grupo 16 entrevistados
cujas trajetórias indicaram algum impedimento para terem filhos. São: 5 homens e 5
mulheres, casados entre si; 4 mulheres unidas; 1 mulher separada e 1 solteira. Dos 14
homens e mulheres unidos, 8 têm filhos, 5 não têm e 1 estava grávida no momento da
pesquisa. Compõem o corpus etnográfico entrevistas semi-estruturadas, matérias
jornalı́sticas e análises (portais de saúde, chats e listas de discussões) sobre infertilidade
na internet. Os dados apontam a articulação entre diversas mediações culturais – familiar,
educacional, ethos religioso – e racionalidade médica. Os casais percebem o exercı́cio da
sexualidade espontâneo, privado e livre de controle para fins reprodutivos, e com auxı́lio
médico como uma ‘invasão’ de privacidade e de liberdade. Se, por um lado, as
transformações sociais que dissociaram sexualidade e reprodução favoreceram, em especial
às mulheres, maior liberdade reprodutiva, por outro, ingerências médicas na concepção
exprimem os limites da liberdade de escolha e de opção nos modos ocidentais modernos de
conceber sexualidade e reprodução.
[email protected]
Transexualização e Parentalidade – Novas Questões para o Direito
Elizabeth Fetter Zambrano
UFRGS, Brasil
Baseado em pesquisa empı́rica, o trabalho aborda as questões que se colocam ao judiciário
como decorrência da possibilidade médico/tecnológica da cirurgia de transgenitalização.
Analisa o discurso médico mostrando os pressupostos que o sustentam e as conseqüências
dessa visão para @s transexuais, tanto do ponto de vista pessoal, quanto do ponto de vista
jurı́dico. Coloca o acionamento do modelo heteronormativo como responsável pelas
dis/organised pleasures
S77
condutas médicas e jurı́dicas tanto no que se refere à cirurgia, quanto à troca de
documentação, avaliando as implicações da heteronormatividade (corroborada pelos
discursos médico/jurı́dico) na vivência da parentalidade exercida por transexuais
(operad@s ou não). Levanta a hipótese de que o papel parental pode atuar como elemento
confirmador do gênero d@s transexuais e que diferentes representações de parentalidade
podem ocorrer quando os filhos são nascidos antes ou depois das transformações corporais.
Mostra as diferentes possibilidades de acesso à parentalidade e como @s transexuais
pesquisadas reagem a elas. Finaliza mostrando alguns paradoxos, tanto médicos quanto
jurı́dicos, que torna essas parentalidades ainda ‘‘impensáveis’’.
[email protected]
Difundindo os Direitos Sexuais e Reprodutivos no Âmbito do Cone Sul
Daniela Riva Knauth, Fernando Seffner, Ceres Vı̀ctora
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil
A discussão a respeito dos direitos sexuais e reprodutivos, onde a questão central está colocada
na igualdade de direitos e autonomia sobre o próprio corpo, independente do sexo, gênero ou
orientação sexual, é de extrema importância para a garantia da democracia em todas as esferas
da vida social. Se, no âmbito dos sistemas polı́ticos, muitas vitórias já foram conquistadas,
muito ainda resta a ser feito no que se refere à dimensão da vida privada, especialmente no que
concerne às relações de gênero e à diversidade das práticas e identidades sexuais. Na esteira
dessas preocupações, um grupo de pesquisadores, ativistas de direitos humanos e profissionais
da área do Direito, desenvolveu o projeto Difundindo os Direitos Sexuais e Reprodutivos no
Âmbito do Cone Sul, no perı́odo 2004/2006, com financiamento da Fundação Ford Brasil, e
sob a coordenação do Núcleo de Pesquisa em Antropologia do Corpo e da Saúde – NUPACS
da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, em Porto Alegre. O objetivo geral foi
consolidar e difundir a perspectiva dos direitos sexuais no âmbito de diferentes instituições do
Cone Sul, atingindo dessa forma públicos variados. As estratégias de ação buscaram
combinar, por um lado, estudo, reflexão e produção acadêmica sobre o tema, e por outro,
ações de sensibilização e difusão do tema junto a quatro esferas sociais, por entender que
nestas esferas encontram-se atores que desempenham ou podem desempenhar um papel
central na consolidação e efetivação destes direitos: a esfera jurı́dica (legislativa, normativa) e
do direito; a área da saúde; os profissionais da educação e; a esfera da mı́dia. Para cada um
destes espaços o projeto elaborou materiais, promoveu cursos, seminários e capacitação,
visando não apenas difundir a temática, mas construir estratégias de inserção da perspectiva
dos direitos sexuais nestes diferentes segmentos da sociedade.
[email protected]
Autonomia das Adolescentes no Contexto Sanitário Brasileiro e Interrupção
Voluntária da Gestação: Aspectos Sócio-Jurı́dicos
Taysa Schiocchet
Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brasil
Diante do alto número de jovens que se submetem a condições inseguras para realizar o
abortamento, o Brasil incorporou o direito à assistência ao abortamento no marco ético e
S78
IASSCS Conference 2007
jurı́dico dos direitos sexuais e reprodutivos, amplamente afirmados nos planos internacional e nacional de direitos humanos. Assim, foi legalizado o direito ao abortamento
para adolescentes nos casos de gravidez decorrente de violência sexual. Todavia, o exercı́cio
desse direito pelas adolescentes sofre inúmeras limitações na prática. O objetivo da
pesquisa é verificar como o ordenamento jurı́dico enfrenta a questão da interrupção
voluntária da gravidez na adolescência, a partir do reconhecimento dos adolescentes
enquanto sujeitos de direitos. Em outras palavras, identificar qual o respaldo jurı́dico dado
às adolescentes que querem interromper a gravidez naqueles casos em que o Direito
permite essa opção. A limitação legal dos adolescentes para o exercı́cio de direitos é um dos
temas que tem suscitado questionamentos. As legislações fixam condições para o exercı́cio
de direitos, considerando a idade, a saúde ou o desenvolvimento intelectual, com o fim de
proteger determinadas pessoas. Entretanto, qualquer exigência que afaste ou impeça o
exercı́cio pleno pelas adolescentes de seu direito fundamental à saúde ou à liberdade, como
a obrigatoriedade da presença de um responsável para acompanhamento no serviço de
saúde, constitui lesão ao direito maior de uma vida saudável, representando uma limitação
à autonomia sexual e reprodutiva das adolescentes. A interpretação em favor da autonomia
das adolescentes fundamenta-se no fato de que, enquanto direitos humanos, os direitos
sexuais e reprodutivos – e neles inserido o direito à interrupção da gravidez – estão
estritamente relacionados à dignidade, ao corpo, à intimidade etc. Isso os coloca na
categoria de direitos personalı́ssimos, os quais – como o próprio nome sugere –
independem da maioridade, para serem exercidos.
[email protected]
Fantası́as Caleidoscopicas
Leandra Migotto
Brasil
Segundo o Censo Demográfico do IBGE – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatı́stica –
de 2000, existem 25 milhões de brasileiros com deficiência, dos quais 46% são mulheres!
O tema da Deficiência possui um GRANDE estigma social que se reflete também no plano
da sexualidade. Acredita-se que a mulher e o homem com deficiência não têm sexualidade.
Há uma tendência a vê-los de forma infantilizada, a serem protegidos e cuidados – (esta
postura é bastante comum, especialmente com adolescentes com deficiência mental).
Outro GRANDE equı́voco é vê-los como assexuados, que devem ser tratados apenas como
‘‘amigos’’ pela sociedade. A mulher ou o homem com deficiência visual tem possibilidades
de exercer sua sexualidade, assim como pode escolher se querem ter filhos ou não. É
importante levar esta informação às pessoas, pois quem nunca teve a oportunidade de
conviver com uma mulher ou homem com deficiência provavelmente carrega estes falsos
conceitos consigo. É por isso, que a exposição ‘‘Fantasias Caleidoscópicas’’ (fotografias
sensuais de pessoas com deficiência) mostrará imagens e depoimentos de alguns cidadãos
que aceitaram o desafio de retomar a única e universal caracterı́stica do ser humano: a
diversidade. Posaram para mostrar, se desnudar interna e externamente, e dizer – a uma
sociedade anestesiada (eu espero que não esteja em coma) com a ditadura da beleza ideal
da perfeição, dos corpos sarados, das formas esbeltas, da racista brancura da pele, do
status, da riqueza material, da ignorância, da falta de conhecimento, da prepotência, e
tantas outras coisas – que a sedução, as fantasias, os amores, as paixões, as sensualidades
dis/organised pleasures
S79
estão na diversidade de corpos, olhares, perfumes, gestos, cores, formas, tamanhos,
palavras, sons, sentimentos... caleidoscopicamente HUMANOS.
Entre las Normas del Deseo y el Deseo de Normas: Sobre Matrimonio y Familia
entre Personas del mismo Sexo
Felipe Rivas
Revista Torcida de estudios gays, lésbicos, trans y queer, Chile
Analiza las demandas LGBT en torno al derecho al matrimonio y a que las uniones entre
personas del mismo sexo se consideren familia. Ciertas instituciones como el matrimonio, a
la vez que normalizan el cuerpo y el deseo (según denuncia el feminismo), establecen las
bases de la legitimación social y del acceso a la inteligibilidad cultural de los sujetos (Judith
Butler). La pregunta es: ¿por qué gays y lesbianas demandan el acceso al matrimonio o la
familia, cuando esas instituciones son las culpables de la exclusión, la normalización y la
discriminación de ellos mismos? Ası́, la noción de ‘‘derechos’’, puesta en práctica por el
activismo LGBTTI, es problematizada en cuanto a que el deseo de acceso a los derechos (es
decir, el ‘‘deseo de normas’’), ya está de algún modo regulada por ‘‘normas del deseo’’ que
anticipan los derechos por los que vale la pena reclamar acceso. El término familia está
sufriendo ampliaciones semánticas para volverlo más inclusivo, en tanto que los sectores
conservadores luchan por restringirlo. Pero en lo que tanto conservadores como progresistas
coinciden, es que la familia es y debe seguir siendo la base de la sociedad, independientemente de lo que ese término signifique. Las polı́ticas de ampliación del término
problematizan su utilidad: cuando una expresión tiene tantas posibilidades semánticas
¿qué sentido tiene seguir usándola? En las proclamas ‘‘Tenemos derecho al matrimonio’’ o
‘‘nosotros también somos familia’’ ¿estamos realmente escuchando una voz homosexual, o
simplemente un eco ventrı́locuo de las normas que el sistema heteronormativo impone al
establecer ciertas instituciones y derechos deseables? ¿Puede pensarse una polı́tica estratégica
que vincule las necesidades de atacar la discriminación más evidente, con las polı́ticas crı́ticas
que alertan sobre las estrategias más ocultas del poder?
[email protected]
El Caso de la Anticoncepción de Emergencia en Chile
Claudia Dides
Chile
Analiza el discurso conservador en el debate sobre la anticoncepción de emergencia
desarrollado en la prensa escrita de Chile entre el 2001 y el 2005. El contexto es la
‘‘democracia post dictadura’’ – también llamada transición democrática –, enmarcada en
una sociedad que muestra diversos avances en materia económica y mayor bienestar de
amplios sectores de la población que, a la vez, han modificado sus creencias, sus sistemas
de valores, sus estilos de vida, su intimidad y construcciones subjetivas, en un proceso – no
lineal ni homogéneo – que se inscribe en lo que se ha denominado modernización. Estas
tendencias modernizadoras entran en conflicto con corrientes tradicionales y nuevos
conservadurismos, que tienen como una de sus voces con mayor presencia a la jerarquı́a de
la Iglesia Católica. La disputa pública en el terreno de la sexualidad y la reproducción pasó
a transformarse en uno de los contenidos fundamentales de la llamada discusión
‘‘valórica’’, que incluso se transformó en un factor electoral. Los medios de comunicación
S80
IASSCS Conference 2007
se encuentran en el centro y actúan como intermediación compleja entre quienes emiten un
discurso, la sociedad en general y sus diversas audiencias, determinando muchas veces la
actividad polı́tica, la opinión y la agenda públicas.
[email protected]
Cuerpos y riesgo en la salud sexual de HSH que consumen drogas en espacios de
ocios recreativos (cuartos oscuros, saunas, discos y crusing), Barcelona
Alejandro Guajardo
Flacso Chile, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona- UAB, Grup Igia, Chile
Este estudio, cualitativo y etnográfico, realizado en Barcelona a finales de 2006 e inicios de
2007, se propuso localizar las prácticas de riesgo en un marco situacional y relativo que
ensambla y articula aspectos materiales y simbólicos que definen, median y modulan la
expresión y significado de las mismas. Se realizó mediante diez entrevistas en profundidad,
observación no participante y visitas con notas de campo etnográficas, tanto de los circuitos
gays como de las entrevistas que se realizaron. Para la obtención de los casos se usó la
técnica bola de nieve: establecer un contacto para después conseguir una cadena de
informantes. Tradicionalmente las prácticas se encuentran fuera del hogar, donde los HSH
tienen oportunidad de conocerse y tener sexo casual, generalmente anónimo. Según
Binson, D., Woods, W., Pollack, L., Paul, J., Stall, R. y Catania, J., (2001), dada la
temprana asociación entre VIH y saunas, los estudios se centraron en espacios de
encuentro sexual como único constructo, sin diferenciar o profundizar en el reconocimiento de los distintos niveles de riesgo frente al VIH/SIDA y las ETS y los patrones de
comportamiento asociados a los distintos lugares. La investigación concluyó primariamente
que, si bien las saunas son los lugares donde se tiende a dar más la transmisión del VIH y las
ETS, la mayorı́a de los que asisten no muestran comportamientos de riesgo, por lo que no
podrı́a asociarse directamente el lugar a los comportamientos. Una cuestión clave es que los
itinerarios de los clientes son tan múltiples y heterogéneos como lo es la gama de ofertas y la
densidad de sus redes sociosexuales. Por otro lado, los comportamientos sexuales de riesgo
en estos contextos se encuentran mediados, no sólo por variables de tipo psicosociales, sino
también por otros factores determinantes como, por ejemplo, el consumo de drogas.
[email protected]
La Construcción de un Sentimiento. Historia de la Afectividad y el
Emparejamiento entre Varones en la Ciudad de México.
Gabriel Gallego Montes
Colegio de México, México – U. de Caldas, Colombia
El debate sobre el carácter de ‘‘construcción social’’ de las realidades, identidades y
especificidades gay, lésbica, travesti, transexual y transgénero está permeado por la
pregunta ¿cómo se ha construido históricamente la afectividad, el cuidado y las expresiones
de amor entre personas del mismo sexo? Un intento de respuesta a esta pregunta,
especı́ficamente a partir de la afectividad entre varones en la ciudad de México, revela
varios asuntos problemáticos. En la literatura sobre homoerotismo disponible en México
existe una fragmentación histórica que no permite identificar fácilmente las continuidades y
las rupturas acerca de lo prohibido, lo permitido o lo ignorado en la construcción de este
sentimiento entre varones. Existen cuatro rupturas discursivas que revelan la construcción
dis/organised pleasures
S81
ambigua del homoerotismo como elemento no excluyente de la masculinidad en la
sociedad urbana mexicana. Durante el siglo XIX las ‘‘amistades profundas’’ entre hombres
se convirtieron en el escenario que posibilitó las muestras públicas de afecto entre ellos. Sin
embargo, el discurso de la criminalı́stica moderna hizo recaer sobre la institución de la
amistad un efecto panóptico, que no provocó su desaparición como institución social pero
sı́ transformó los códigos y las normas de expresión de afecto y trato corporal entre varones,
leı́dos actualmente bajo la figura del ‘‘cuatismo’’. Durante la primera mitad del siglo XX se
identificaron tres patrones de afectividad entre varones, descritos por la narrativa mexicana,
que reflejan cómo la sociedad urbana representaba el amor y la afectividad entre hombres.
A mediados del siglo XX, es posible rastrear el tránsito de la noción ‘‘mi amigo’’ a ‘‘mi
pareja’’, que muestra no sólo la incorporación de nuevas expresiones, sino un cambio de
sentido y una apropiación del tema del emparejamiento entre los mismos varones,
otorgándole contenido sustantivo propio. El uso de la categorı́a ‘‘pareja’’, para nombrar
una relación erótica-afectiva entre varones, sólo es posible con el advenimiento y
apropiación del discurso gay-lésbico y el proceso de coming-out, que generaron nuevas
condiciones de posibilidad, pero también nuevas prohibiciones y exclusiones.
[email protected]
Acción Colectiva y Diversidad Sexual: Pluralidad o Especificidad en la Lucha por
Derechos?
Graciela Biagini
FCS. UBA, Argentina
La ponencia se enmarca en el Proyecto Estado y sociedad civil: la construcción social de la
sexualidad y el complejo VIH/sida, UBACyt 2004-07. Aplica un diseño descriptivo y
exploratorio, con técnicas de investigación cuantitativas y cualitativas. A partir de una base
de datos conformada por 168 OSC que trabajan en temas vinculados a condiciones de
vulnerabilidad al VIH/SIDA, presenta una caracterización institucional de las organizaciones que realizan actividades de asistencia, prevención y advocacy en torno a la diversidad
sexual en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, ası́ como las principales modalidades de articulación
que mantienen entre sı́, con el Estado y con otros conjuntos sociales y polı́ticos. A partir de
una muestra de de ONGs que trabajan en VIH/SIDA y Mujer y teniendo en cuenta las dos
dimensiones de la sociedad civil que Cohen y Arato diferencian –como institución y como
movimiento–, compara las modalidades de acción colectiva, las demandas y reclamos de
ésta en ambas instancias con las metodologı́as de defensa y construcción de derechos
predominantes. Discute el alcance y validez de las acciones colectivas especı́ficas y
focalizadas como expresión de la fragmentación social y factor de su reproducción.
[email protected]
Incesto y Abuso Sexual: su Impacto en el Desarrollo Sexual Saludable
Carlos Danilo Wetzell Gayoso
Ministerio de Educación, Perú
Ofrece los resultados de una investigación de campo sobre el abuso sexual e incesto que se
realizó entre 505 alumnos de primaria y secundaria de dos colegios nacionales mixtos del
distrito de Villa Maria del Triunfo, Lima. A partir de una explicación del trauma psı́quico
enfoca el estrés postraumático en la vı́ctima de abuso sexual, respuesta que, en el recorrido
S82
IASSCS Conference 2007
de una larga curva, compromete aspectos claves de su desarrollo socio-afectivo, emocional
y sexual y, en el largo plazo, puede contribuir a la aparición de un cuadro de
desorganización mental. Explora la forma como los abusadores sexuales y perpetradores
de incesto atacan los vı́nculos relacionados con las prohibiciones culturales fundamentales,
ası́ como los vı́nculos interpersonales e intrapsı́quicos que fundan las bases del desarrollo
sexual saludable de las niñas, los niños y los adolescentes. indaga el poder patógeno del
trauma psı́quico en los casos de abuso sexual, especialmente, la forma como son vulnerados
los núcleos mentales de la representación y la simbolización. Señala que la estructura del
silencio en torno al abuso sexual se nutre no sólo de la amenaza y del chantaje, sino de la
naturaleza misma del trauma. Explica la importancia de la prevención primaria en la
escuela y en el hogar, ası́ como de la oportuna psicoterapia del niño abusado sexualmente
como una propuesta para derribar la estructura del silencio, dándole a la vı́ctima la
oportunidad de elaborar el trauma en el vı́nculo terapéutico.
[email protected]
Perú: Diversidad Sexual, Familias y Derechos
Alejandro Merino Rosas
Perú
La investigación, aún en curso, tiene como objetivo indagar acerca de la construcción de
mecanismos de exclusión que afectan a familias constituidas por personas del mismo sexo,
con el propósito de contribuir al diseño de estrategias que permitan revertir esta situación.
La metodologı́a se basa en la realización de entrevistas en profundidad a personas
identificadas como lesbianas, gays y trans, que han establecido sus propias familias; ası́
como en el análisis legal. Por siglos se ha privilegiado el reconocimiento social y legal de una
sola forma de estructurar la familia: la pareja conformada a partir del matrimonio entre un
hombre y una mujer. Esto niega la existencia de un sinnúmero de formas de
establecimiento de vı́nculos afectivos y de parentesco. Ni las estadı́sticas oficiales, ni la
mayorı́a de estudios académicos han visibilizado una realidad evidente: la de aquellas
familias constituidas por personas con formas disidentes de encarar aspectos relacionados
la sexualidad, la afectividad y la construcción identitaria de género. Esta invisibilidad
deviene en exclusión, desconociendo que históricamente han constituido familias por
encima de lo que los mandatos sociales imponen. Los mecanismos de exclusión operan en
diversos campos y se expresan en la cotidianeidad, en la interacción con las familias de
origen, en lo laboral, en el acceso a la protección de la salud, etc. Las entrevistas realizadas
comprueban la existencia de diversas situaciones de vulneración de derechos. El estudio
plantea la obligación del reconocimiento de igualdad de derechos por parte del Estado y la
necesidad del establecimiento de polı́ticas públicas al respecto.
[email protected]
Panorama sobre Salud, Sexualidad y Reproducción de Pueblos Indı́genas en Chile
1990–2004
Soledad Pérez Moscoso
Chile
Entrega los resultados de una primera sistematización nacional de investigaciones y
experiencias en salud sexual y reproductiva en pueblos indı́genas en Chile entre 1990 y
dis/organised pleasures
S83
2004. Reflexiona en torno a los avances y déficit en esta materia y pretende ser un insumo
para la formulación de polı́ticas públicas en salud sexual y reproductiva para los pueblos
indı́genas. Analiza la complejidad del uso del concepto salud sexual y reproductiva,
desarrollado desde el mundo no indı́gena y asociado a movimientos polı́ticos y de derechos
humanos, en contextos culturales diversos. Considera con especial atención las opiniones
que provienen desde el mundo indı́gena respecto de la pertinencia del uso y reconocimiento
de este concepto. Estima que es necesario tomar en cuenta las percepciones de hombres y
mujeres indı́genas en estos temas. No obstante, reconoce que la temática de salud sexual y
reproductiva posee un innegable potencial analı́tico y polı́tico. De esta manera, se aproxima
a la materia utilizando conceptos como salud, sexualidad y reproducción como procesos
reconocidos entre los pueblos indı́genas y vinculados con aspectos ligados a su propia
cultura.
[email protected]
Opinión Pública, Derechos y Polı́ticas Públicas
Mónica Petracci
Cedes, Argentina
Muestra los hallazgos de tres estudios recientes y su contribución a la polı́tica pública. Su
propósito es describir el estado de la opinión pública sobre derechos sexuales y
reproductivos en la Argentina durante el perı́odo 2003-2006.
La actualmente llamada polı́tica de salud y derechos sexuales y reproductivos se inició en
ese paı́s con la restauración democrática en 1983. A partir de esa apertura comenzó el
pasaje desde una situación monolı́tica de restricciones y omisiones a otra en la que los
derechos sexuales adquirieron visibilidad, se amplió su reconocimiento como derechos
humanos y se demandó al Estado su promoción y la garantı́a de su ejercicio.
Dos de los estudios –los de 2003 y 2004– se realizaron en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y
Gran Buenos Aires, en tanto que el de 2006 se hizo en grandes centros urbanos de todo el
paı́s. El universo estuvo constituido por personas de 18 años y más en los dos primeros
casos, y mayores de 18 años en el tercero. En todos los casos el levantamiento de
información se hizo mediante encuesta domiciliaria cara a cara, con consentimiento
informado; el muestreo fue representativo y polietápico con probabilidad proporcional al
tamaño en la selección de los hogares. El tamaño de la muestra fue de 303 en 2003, 300 en
2003 y 500 en 2006.
[email protected]
La Imagen Pornográfica. Entre la Mirada Dominante y la Posibilidad de una
Polı́tica Liberadora del Sexo.
Roland Jeremy Álvarez Chávez
Vı́a Libre, Peru
Analiza los dispositivos psicosociales que intervienen en la representación de las
pulsiones y deseos de la sociedad, ası́ como la relación tensiva que existe en la imagen
pornográfica entre la fuerza represiva y la fuerza liberadora del sexo. Por lo general, las
representaciones relacionadas con las actividades e impulsos sexuales están negadas,
reprimidas o veladas. En otros casos, el poder de la mirada dominante recae sobre
S84
IASSCS Conference 2007
cierto cuerpo-contenido y significados. La imagen pornográfica está sujeta a distintos
mecanismos psicosociales: la fuerza represiva a la sexualidad, la constitución patriarcal,
los contenidos sociales y las imágenes psı́quicas atribuidas a los géneros y a los cuerpos
sexuados. Esto revela una sociedad que valora el velamiento-exposición de algunos
cuerpos, en la que emerge una mirada dominante, escrutinadora y masculina que
provoca una disparidad en la exposición y en la centralidad de la visualización. Sin
embargo, la imagen pornográfica constituye un espejo que soporta la proyección y
materialización de las pulsiones y deseos primarios, que se busca que sean dominados.
Por tanto, la imagen pornográfica se convierte en una alegorı́a o ilusión compensatoria
de una realidad sexualmente pobre en el discurso público; imagen entendida como
canal único de satisfacción, a través de las relaciones de proyección/identificación de
nuestros deseos y pulsiones más básicas, ası́ como de nuestras filiaciones más siniestras
y placenteras. Si reconocemos la función revitalizadora de la imagen pornográfica,
podemos definirla como un instrumento didáctico dentro de una polı́tica liberadora del
sexo. Ésta se basarı́a en una corriente y proceso deconstructivista del sexo, la
sexualidad, el deseo y el placer. La imagen llega a recrear ineludiblemente la fuerza
interna de nuestra sociedad bajo un sentido que neutraliza y renueva el que dictamina el
pudor y el control, términos que se asocian a los niveles de civilización de la sociedad.
[email protected]
Visiones sobre el Cuerpo, Sexualidad y Relaciones de Genero de las Adolescentes
Rurales: Ucayali, Puno, Ayacucho y Lima. Pobreza, Sexualidad y Derechos
Reproductivos
Rocı́o Gutiérrez Rodrı́guez
Movimiento Manuela Ramos, Peru
Visibiliza los significados y visiones que las adolescentes tempranas de zonas rurales tienen
sobre el cuerpo, el desarrollo sexual, la sexualidad y las relaciones de género en diversos
contextos culturales. Documenta los elementos sociales y culturales que constituyen factores
decisivos de vulnerabilidad para su salud sexual y reproductiva y su desarrollo. Sistematiza los
resultados del autodiagnóstico de 178 adolescentes entre 10 y 14 años, residentes en cuatro
zonas rurales y peri-urbanas. El desarrollo sexual es visto por las adolescentes como
directamente vinculado a la posibilidad de tener hijos, tener pareja, formar familia y
conquistar un lugar en su comunidad, ‘‘irse haciendo mujer’’. A su vez, esos procesos son
vividos con mucho temor y desinformación. El crecimiento, consagrado con la aparición de la
menstruación, marca para ellas un periodo de represión, recorte de posibilidades de
movilización, vigilancia y confrontación con la autoridad, generalmente paterna. Las
adolescentes vinculan esos cambios con un estado de perpetua vulnerabilidad de sus cuerpos,
los cuales están amenazados y deben ser cuidados. Perciben el ser mujer como sinónimo de
fragilidad y violencia. En general, reconocen una mayor autonomı́a, incluso en términos de
decisiones reproductivas, respecto de la generación anterior, ası́ como una diversificación en
cuanto a sus roles y tareas en el ámbito doméstico y en la comunidad, aunque las expectativas
sociales estén puestas todavı́a en el cumplimiento de los roles tradicionales asignados por
género. Asimismo, aunque hay mayor libertad para hablar sobre la sexualidad, existe para
ellas todavı́a mucha información confusa respecto a ésta, reforzada a veces por mitos,
creencias y normas locales que colocan en riesgo a las adolescentes.
[email protected]
dis/organised pleasures
S85
La Importancia del Cuerpo en la Resignificación de la Identidad de las Personas
Transexuales
Oriana López Uribe, Diego Mendiburú
México
Enfatiza la importancia del cuerpo en la constante conformación de la identidad de las
personas transexuales.
La investigación se hizo a partir de relatos de vida de cuatro personas transexuales, dos
hombres y dos mujeres, que accedieron a ser videograbados con el fin de analizar al detalle
sus testimonios y elaborar un video documental que explicita el proceso que muchas
personas transexuales viven. El cuerpo es un elemento fundamental en la identidad de las
personas, puesto que en él se refleja la visión que el sujeto tiene de sı́ mismo y, a la vez, sirve
como tarjeta de presentación para con la sociedad. El género, como construcción social,
está socialmente ligado a un ideal de cuerpo. Ası́, tener cuerpo de macho implica ser
masculino –hombre–, y tener cuerpo de hembra entraña ser femenina –mujer–. Las
personas transexuales viven un género que, de acuerdo con nuestras sociedades, no
corresponde a su fisonomı́a. Por lo tanto, el propósito fundamental de la mayorı́a de ellos y
de ellas es modificar su cuerpo para que coincida con su identidad de género. Entre las
principales conclusiones se establece que las personas transexuales: 1) Necesitan un cuerpo
congruente para autoidentificarse plenamente, pero también para que la sociedad las trate y
las acepte de acuerdo con su identidad de género y, muchas veces, para lograr establecer
una relación de pareja plena; 2) Viven una disforia de sexo, mas no una disforia de género;
3) Asumen un rol de género y por tanto, al final de su proceso, se insertan en la estructura
dicotómica sexo-genérica de la sociedad; 4) En México carecen de un marco legal que les
permita desarrollarse social y laboralmente en plenitud.
Masculinidades Homoeróticas y la Infección VIH entre Hombres que tienen Sexo
con Hombres
John Harold Estrada Montoya
Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Doctorado en Salud Pública, Colombia
Expone las consideraciones epidemiológicas de la infección VIH en los HSH alrededor del
mundo con énfasis en América Latina-Caribe. Hace referencia a los factores sociales que
determinan el tránsito de las polı́ticas de prevención de lo epidemiológico-conductual a una
perspectiva construccionista del género y la sexualidad desde un enfoque polı́ticoeconómico. Revisa el contexto cultural de los estudios de sexualidad entre hombres. El
estudio se realizó mediante una revisión sistemática de alrededor de100 artı́culos que
contienen datos de prevalencia y comportamientos de riesgo de HSH en diversos paı́ses,
con énfasis en América Latina-Caribe. Después de que la prevalencia de VIH entre HSH
habı́a descendido, la literatura informa sobre aumentos de la infección entre grupos de
HSH en distintas partes del mundo, lo que obliga a preguntarse por las posibles causas de
este fenómeno. En algunas ciudades la prevalencia oscila entre el 5% y el 40%, valores por
encima del observado en la población general (1%), lo cual permite afirmar que la epidemia
se encuentra concentrada en poblaciones de HSH y tiene el carácter devastador. Después
de los Estados Unidos, América Latina aporta el mayor número de infecciones nuevas. La
transmisión sexual del VIH entre hombres tiene caracterı́sticas muy particulares, ligadas a
prácticas sexuales especı́ficas como la penetración anal y el sexo oral y a diversidad de
S86
IASSCS Conference 2007
situaciones psicológicas, sociales, culturales y polı́ticas, que determinan las condiciones en
que se realizan dichas prácticas. Los riesgos especı́ficos de los HSH exigen polı́ticas de
prevención especı́ficas para esta población. Una estrategia de intervención para HSH
deberá incluir un discurso que promueva el respeto y la equidad de género, revalorice la
sexualidad y permita la libre expresión y ejercicio de las diversas orientaciones sexuales,
entre ellas la homoerótica.
[email protected]
Estigma y Percepción de Riesgo Vinculados al VIH/SIDA en Jóvenes
Nicaragüenses.
Camilo Antillón
Consultor Independiente, Nicaragua
A partir de 42 entrevistas en profundidad con jóvenes varones y mujeres –realizadas en
diciembre de 2005 en el contexto de un estudio cualitativo de la Fundación Puntos de
Encuentro–, analiza el estigma y la percepción de riesgo vinculados al VIH/SIDA en jóvenes
nicaragüenses. El estudio revela que existe un fuerte estigma hacia hombres homosexuales y
trabajadores sexuales, pues se les asocia con prácticas sexuales socialmente censuradas y
con la infección por VIH. Para muchas/os entrevistadas/os, las personas de estos grupos
tienen mayores posibilidades de contraer el VIH, pues se cree que sus prácticas sexuales son
especialmente riesgosas. Sin embargo, resulta contradictoria la tendencia a subvalorar el
riesgo de esas mismas prácticas en personas de otros grupos o en ellas/os mismas/os.
También se subvalora el peligro de otras prácticas potencialmente riesgosas, como no usar
condón con una pareja estable. Estas discrepancias se deben a que, en realidad, lo que está
en la base de la percepción del riesgo en estas/os jóvenes son normas culturales que, desde la
teorı́a cultural del riesgo (Wildavsky y Douglas 1982), podrı́amos describir como
individualistas – pues obstaculizan la solidaridad entre personas de distintos géneros y
orientaciones sexuales – y jerárquicas – ya que condicionan el ejercicio de los derechos a
éstas clasificaciones sociales – . Estas normas culturales entran en los procesos sociales y
cognitivos que permiten diferenciar cuáles cosas se consideran riesgosas y cuáles no. La
estigmatización se constituye en un proceso de producción de diferencias y jerarquı́as
(Parker et al. 2002), que alimenta a las normas culturales que están en la base de la
percepción de riesgo. A su vez, el que los/las entrevistados/as perciban a estos grupos como
de mayor riesgo legitima que se les estigmatice. Percepción de riesgo y estigma se refuerzan
recı́procamente para justificar la discriminación y el control social sobre estos grupos.
[email protected]
Sobre ciertos Desencuentros. Concepciones del Estado en torno a la Unión Civil
Renata Hiller
Grupo de Estudios sobre Sexualidades (GES) – Instituto Gino Germani, U.B.A.,
Argentina
La ponencia se enmarca en un proyecto de investigación más amplio sobre el debate de la
ley de Unión Civil, sancionada el 2002 en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, que reconoce
legalmente a las parejas de hecho, sean éstas conformadas por personas de distinto o del
mismo sexo. Durante el debate legislativo, uno de los elementos en discusión fue la
dis/organised pleasures
S87
necesidad y pertinencia de la actuación del Estado sobre la cuestión. El trabajo indaga
sobre las diversas conceptualizaciones del Estado subyacentes en los discursos circulantes
en el debate, para intentar comprender los posicionamientos y estrategias de los actores
implicados. De la revisión del material documental emergen dos concepciones distintas del
Estado, que no se superponen a la división central del debate acerca del acuerdo o no con la
sanción de dicha iniciativa. Por una parte, el Estado aparece como garante de la autonomı́a
personal y las libertades individuales; por otra, es concebido como organizador del orden
social y fuente legı́tima de pautas de comportamiento. Ambas concepciones pueden
rastrearse también en la filosofı́a liberal, señalando una tensión no resuelta entre los
derechos individuales y la concepción de sociedad o comunidad moral. La finalidad y
funciones del Estado, reñidas en esta doble pretensión, inciden a su vez en la distinción
público-privado tan cara a esta tradición. A partir del análisis de los discursos de la sesión
legislativa y la revisión de la tradición liberal, la autora propone una relectura de la
distinción público-privado que atiende a esta doble concepción del Estado y señala algunas
paradojas del debate en torno al reconocimiento legal de las parejas conformadas por
personas del mismo sexo.
[email protected]
Movimiento GLTTTBI en Argentina: La Sexualización de la Polı́tica.
Aluminé Moreno
Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de Género (UBA) y Grupo de Estudios sobre
Sexualidades (UBA), Argentina
Presenta una serie de reflexiones elaboradas a partir de una investigación actualmente en
curso acerca del movimiento GLTTTBI (gay, lésbico, travesti, transexual, transgénero,
bisexual e intersexual) de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. La intención es compartir algunos
aspectos del proceso de elaboración de estrategias para abordar el tema y una serie de
preguntas productivas para analizar las polı́ticas de la diversidad sexual. El núcleo del
trabajo está constituido por los interrogantes que han surgido del trabajo de campo acerca
del movimiento GLTTTBI y sobre los desafı́os polı́ticos y epistemológicos que éste
plantea. La ponencia caracteriza brevemente al movimiento GLTTTBI local y
contextualiza su trayectoria en las últimas dos décadas. Luego, desarrolla los principales
nudos de las polı́ticas de la diversidad sexual y su relación con los procesos de
diferenciación entre las organizaciones polı́ticas y espacios de militancia más relevantes.
A continuación reflexiona acerca del papel del Estado en la regulación de los géneros, las
sexualidades, los cuerpos y las condiciones de inclusión ciudadana. Por último, señala
algunos dilemas vinculados con los fundamentos de la movilización polı́tica.
[email protected]
Discursos sobre la Prostitución en 1850 – 1920. Comparación entre dos Ciudades a
lo Ancho de un Paı́s.
Santiago Morcillo
UBA, Argentina
Constituye una primera aproximación a los distintos discursos que se han gestado sobre la
prostitución/trabajo sexual en Argentina. Analiza y compara los discursos producidos en
dos ciudades de caracterı́sticas disı́miles: Buenos Aires, metrópoli consolidada, y San Juan,
S88
IASSCS Conference 2007
configurada históricamente como periférica. Busca comprender algunas de las relaciones
entre trabajo sexual, identidad nacional y procesos migratorios. Observa los imaginarios
presentes en los discursos en torno al trabajo sexual, buscando entenderlos en sus vı́nculos
con los entramados de grupos sociales involucrados y los procesos estructurales que los
atraviesan. Estudia el perı́odo histórico 1850-1920. Ese lapso constituye una época
particularmente importante, tanto para la formación de la identidad nacional argentina –
pues cristalizan una serie de proyectos en el ámbito social, económico y cultural–, como
para el ejercicio de la prostitución –ya que aparecen regulaciones, prácticas y discursos que
influirán sobre su devenir–. Indaga en las legislaciones y polı́ticas públicas referentes al
trabajo sexual que fueron puestas en marcha por el Estado. A través de estos elementos
accede a algunos de los principales discursos sobre esta problemática, en tanto las
legislaciones y las polı́ticas públicas constituyen instancias donde cristalizan los procesos de
lucha entre los distintos sectores en pugna e instauran definiciones, principios de
clasificación y valoraciones que atraviesan y construyen los imaginarios y subjetividades.
Estas reflexiones pueden, tal vez, arrojar alguna luz sobre las actuales discusiones en torno
al trabajo sexual, entendiendo que en éstas resuenan los distintos movimientos históricos.
[email protected]
‘‘Ciudadanı́a Sexual’’: Articulando la investigación y el activismo para la vigencia
de los derechos sexuales en América Latina
Griselda Pérez Luna, Maria Esther Mogollón, Fernando Olivos, Cecilia Ugaz, Juan de
Dios Zúñiga, Julio Cuadros, Carlos Cáceres
Unit of Sexuality, Health and Human Development, FASPA, UPCH, Peru
Tomando como punto de partida la experiencia de la Red de Investigación en Sexualidades
y VIH/SIDA en América Latina, el proyecto Sexualidades, Salud y Derechos Humanos
surge frente a la necesidad de articulación de investigadores y activistas que trabajan en
distintos aspectos del género, la sexualidad y la diversidad sexual en relación a la salud y los
derechos humanos. Ha aportado al crecimiento y fortalecimiento de una comunidad
interesada en estos temas, y ha facilitado el intercambio entre individuos y organizaciones
que trabajan en áreas relacionadas. Desde el 2002, el proyecto, asesorado por un comité de
investigadores y activistas de Brasil, Argentina, México, Chile y Perú, ha desarrollado
estrategias orientadas a fomentar la producción de conocimientos, la difusión de los
resultados de investigación y a propiciar el aprovechamiento de hallazgos para la
elaboración de polı́ticas públicas en América Latina. A través los 22 números del boletı́n
electrónico bimensual Ciudadanı́a Sexual y de 45 informativos electrónicos mensuales, el
proyecto ha llegado a 3410 usuarios en toda América Latina, Estados Unidos y algunos
lugares de Europa, profesionales de las ciencias sociales y médicas que trabajan en el sector
público o privado, investigadores y un grupo representativo de activistas. La información es
utilizada en el desarrollo de nuevas investigaciones, en actividades de docencia y en
discusiones al interior de grupos comunitarios, y alimenta procesos de advocacy en temas
vinculados a los derechos sexuales y reproductivos en paı́ses de la región. El proyecto ha
propiciado espacios de reflexión mediante el desarrollo de seminarios regionales en temas
emergentes sobre los DSR, que han sido difundidos mediante publicaciones y puestos a
disposición de los usuarios del sitio web. Asimismo, ha apoyado trabajos de investigación
de post grado sobre temas emergentes en el campo de la sexualidad, los derechos humanos
y la salud. También ha brindado sostén a activistas jóvenes con actividades de
dis/organised pleasures
S89
entrenamiento y ha colaborado en acciones de activismo nacional y regional relativas a los
temas de trabajo del proyecto. En cinco años de ejecución ha aportado de manera
sustantiva al objetivo que se propuso. Ahora inicia una nueva etapa, en la que explorará en
mayor profundidad el papel del activismo cultural en la promoción de los derechos sexuales
y la lucha contra el estigma y la discriminación en relación con el VIH y la sexualidad en la
región.
[email protected], [email protected]
Cuerpos pintados/Cuerpos desnudos
Maud Dampne
Francia
Trata de rescatar la creatividad y el dinamismo de los movimientos feministas en
Guatemala, paı́s patriarcal, racista, homo-lesbofóbico y neoliberal. ¿Cómo ser guatemalteca
y no morir en el intento?, se preguntaba la feminista Ana Marı́a Cofiño. En un paı́s donde el
feminicidio y la violación de los derechos humanos siguen creciendo en total impunidad, la
movilización social dirigida al reconocimiento del derecho al placer sexual, es aún más
reprimida y se produce bajo un clima de miedo generalizado. Sin embargo, en el dı́a
internacional contra la violencia hacia las mujeres, en noviembre 2006, un grupo de
lesbianas y mujeres feministas constituyó la Batucada feminista contra la violencia sexual.
Debido al éxito de la convocatoria, decidió continuar con esta experiencia con motivo del
dı́a internacional de las mujeres, el 8 de marzo de 2007, mediante la performance Cuerpos
pintados/Cuerpos desnudos, que se propuso reivindicar el derecho de las mujeres a decidir
sobre su cuerpo y su sexualidad. Consistió en presentarse ante la Corte Suprema de
Justicia, desnudas, pintadas de color morado, rojo y con una letra blanca para formar juntas
la frase MI CUERPO ES MIO. Adoptando lemas anarquistas como sin dios, sin patrón, ni
marido, ni partido y desnudándose delante un público de mujeres y hombres, se procuró
motivar la reflexión sobre el concepto del cuerpo y la opresión que vive el mismo en esta
sociedad. Esto es importante debido a que los derechos sexuales y reproductivos deben ser
primordiales en las reivindicaciones feministas, más aún en un año electoral en el cual está
de moda la ‘‘participación ciudadana’’. A pesar de las peticiones y las acciones realizadas
por los grupos feministas y de mujeres organizadas, la Corte Suprema sigue sin aplicar la ley
votada en 2005 sobre planificación familiar, que no cuenta con un presupuesto asignado.
Al mismo tiempo, no se ha aprobado ninguna ley a favor del derecho de las mujeres al
aborto.
[email protected]
Trayectorias Conyugales en Relación con la Decisión de la Vasectomı́a. Un
estudio de Caso en Bogotá
Mara Viveros
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia
Analiza el proceso que lleva a una pareja a optar por la esterilización masculina, una
práctica anticonceptiva marginal en Colombia. Contrariamente a lo que se piensa y afirma,
éste no es un asunto únicamente de varones, sino que se construye y cobra sentido en el
marco del proyecto de vida de una pareja, y en relación con otras decisiones en distintos
S90
IASSCS Conference 2007
ámbitos: familiar, profesional, etc. Visibiliza el papel que desempeñan en esta elección los
intercambios con los profesionales implicados en la difusión de esta técnica y en la
intervención quirúrgica. Asimismo, muestra que el grupo de pares –los varones que ya han
vivido esta experiencia– y las compañeras afectivas de los hombres implicados también
juegan un rol esencial en la adopción de esta medida. Sugiere, igualmente, que ésta es una
experiencia singular en la que los hombres toman a cargo la anticoncepción, habitualmente
asumida por las mujeres, y contribuyen a la limitación del número de hijos en función de un
proyecto de movilidad social. Esta decisión puede modificar otros campos de las relaciones
entre hombres y mujeres, o por el contrario, reproducir la dominación masculina,
brindando a los hombres una libertad sexual extra conyugal. Por último, señala que, de la
misma manera que la contracepción femenina libera la palabra de las mujeres en relación
con las condiciones de ejercicio de la sexualidad, la vasectomı́a favorece el intercambio de
confidencias entre los hombres interesados, sus pares y sus compañeras.
[email protected]
Mentiras Verdaderas. Derecho y Medicina en torno al Cambio de Sexo
Mauro Cabral
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina
A lo largo de las últimas décadas la apelación al saber biomédico ha ocupado un lugar
central en el quehacer jurı́dico-normativo. Este trabajo explora un aspecto singular de esa
apelación: aquel que gira en torno al cambio de sexo. El análisis se orienta por una
perspectiva deconstruccionista, y se centra en la intensa producción discursiva en torno a la
verdad (del sexo, del género, de la experiencia, de la identidad) como significante a la vez
médico y jurı́dico. Las fuentes utilizadas provienen de la tópica y la dogmática jurı́dicas
argentinas de los últimos diez años.
[email protected]
Saber-poder y pobreza: el vı́nculo entre hospital y pacientes en condición
intersexual en México
Eva Alcántara
Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Unidad Xochimilco, México
Al igual que en otros paı́ses, en México la visión biomédica ocupa un lugar predominante
para comprender e intervenir respecto a la condición intersexual. Dicha visión se estructura
sobre restringidos supuestos naturalizantes del sexo y género, presentes en el juicio y las
decisiones clı́nicas del equipo médico. La ponencia analiza la situación de los derechos de
sujetos en condición intersexual en México. El objetivo es acercarse al tema desde las
ciencias sociales, mediante una metodologı́a que permita aproximarse a los discursos, los
sujetos y las prácticas que tienen lugar al respecto. Uno de los hallazgos del trabajo es que, a
pesar del discurso oficial de instituciones hospitalarias, los derechos de pacientes en
condición intersexual son transgredidos. Con frecuencia, la explicación del equipo médico
es intencionalmente incompleta y escasa, las decisiones sobre el tratamiento no siempre son
discutidas o presentadas como optativas a la familia. Entrevistas a familiares de infantes, ası́
como a sujetos en condición intersexual de diferentes edades, ponen de manifiesto la
dis/organised pleasures
S91
enorme diversidad de factores que intervienen en la búsqueda de sentido para la familia o el
sujeto intersexual. El vı́nculo con el hospital es complejo, más aún cuando existe una
distancia importante entre el lugar que ocupan el médico y el paciente o su familia en la
institución. Dada la función del hospital y el saber-poder médico, es necesario su estudio
para la transformación del abordaje de casos de niños en condición intersexual.
[email protected]
Cuando la Dicha es Buena. Los Tiempos de la Intersexualidad en el Derecho
Argentino
Mauro Cabral
Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, IGLHRC, Argentina
Indaga en torno a la economı́a de la intersexualidad en el contexto del derecho argentino
contemporáneo. Esta exploración hace un abordaje deconstructivo de las diferentes
temporalidades que atraviesan la producción tópica y doctrinaria sobre la cuestión. El
análisis propuesto se detiene particularmente en la consideración de la singular
antropologı́a intersex producida a través del circuito semiótico-material del corpus legal
analizado, definida, desde un comienzo, como una antropologı́a constituida por
temporalidades diferenciadas: el tiempo de la asignación, el tiempo del diagnóstico, el
tiempo por venir, el tiempo de la intervención, el de la comunicación –y también,
centralmente–, el tiempo de la ley. Puesto que esta indagación tiene lugar en el contexto de
una discusión especı́fica sobre la relación entre la intersexualidad, como fenómeno
complejo, y el marco de los derechos sexuales, el recorrido deconstructivo que se hace tiene
como guı́a la exploración crı́tica de esa relación. Dicha exploración procurará tensar
versiones fuertemente temporalizadas de los derechos sexuales y de la intersexualidad, tal y
como emergen en el registro jurı́dico-normativo propuesto.
[email protected]
Democratización Polı́tica y Democratización Sexual: un Análisis Comparado
Mario Pecheny, Monica Petracci
Instituto Gino Germani (UBA-CONICET) y CEDES, Argentina
El artı́culo busca levantar interrogantes sobre la relación entre sexualidades y derechos, a la
luz de una serie de temas sexuales que son objeto de regulación legislativa jurı́dica y de
demanda de derechos en varios paı́ses latinoamericanos. Sobre la base de la descripción y
análisis de diversos ejes relativos a la intersección entre sexualidad y derechos (derechos
civiles y conyugalidad, expresión y reconocimiento de la diversidad sexual, reproducción y
aborto, violencia, VIH, trabajo sexual y prostitución, identidad de género, entre otros) en
varios paı́ses latinoamericanos, sistematiza la comparación tanto entre paı́ses como entre
los ejes. El análisis muestra que en la región ha habido avances significativos en la dirección
de una mayor libertad e igualdad en relación con el sexo, el género, la orientación sexual y
la identidad de género, al tiempo que se hacen cada vez más evidentes las tensiones y
lı́mites de pensar el terreno de las sexualidades y las subjetividades sexuales en términos
normativo-legales, en el lenguaje de derechos.
[email protected]
S92
IASSCS Conference 2007
Experiencias, Representaciones y Opiniones sobre el Aborto. Un Estudio
Exploratorio en Varones Adultos de Buenos Aires
Monica Petracci
Cedes, Argentina
El trabajo explora la perspectiva masculina sobre el aborto provocado con el objetivo de
aproximarse a las representaciones sociales, experiencias, percepciones y opiniones que
sobre el tema tienen los varones adultos (25-39 años) de los estratos alto y bajo, residentes
en el Área Metropolitana de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (AMBA). La investigación
encuentra que en la Argentina, el debate sobre aborto se encuentra actualmente en una
etapa diferente respecto de perı́odos previos. De tener una espasmódica presencia en la
agenda pública, generalmente asociada a hechos externos, este tópico pasó a ocupar un
lugar central en el debate público. La opinión de los varones sobre el tema, a semejanza de
otros sectores, es ambivalente: la representación social más extendida ancla en el rechazo a
la práctica del aborto pero, al mismo tiempo, las opiniones se muestran de acuerdo con la
despenalización.
[email protected]
Trayectorias Colectivas/Trayectorias Biográficas: Subjetividad, Ciudadanı́a y
Sexualidad en México
Ana Amuchástegui, Rodrigo Parrini
Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México
Trata sobre la experiencia del Club Gay Amazonas, creado hace diez años en Tenosique
(estado de Tabasco), al sur de México. La mencionada entidad agrupa a personas que se
auto identifican como gays u homosexuales y surge como espacio de convivencia y como
posibilidad de interlocución polı́tica y social con diversos sectores de la sociedad de esa
ciudad y ese estado. Constituye, también, un caso de politización de la sexualidad que
permite entender el vı́nculo entre los procesos colectivos de construcción de ciudadanı́a con
otros, más bien de tipo biográfico, que tienen que ver con la constitución, aceptación y
reivindicación de una identidad sexual. El trabajo permite encontrar las señas históricas del
proceso de apertura democrática y cultural que sucede en México durante las últimas dos
décadas, especı́ficamente en el ámbito de la inscripción sociopolı́tica de las diversas
orientaciones sexuales. Asimismo, pone en evidencia los efectos del proceso de
globalización de ciertos imaginarios que lleva hasta los lugares más apartados del paı́s un
mundo plural y diverso, en términos de identidades, sexualidad y subjetividad. Del mismo
modo, da cuenta del desarrollo de un proceso subjetivo, inscrito en una trayectoria
histórica, de construcción de ciertas señas identitarias, vinculadas con la sexualidad y el
deseo, que permiten la conformación de referentes colectivos de identificación y acción
polı́tica. Ası́, la identidad gay emerge como un espacio de auto identificación, de
vinculación y de diferenciación. Amazonas da lugar, pero también se apropia, de dos
procesos históricos: el de expansión de la ciudadanı́a y el de conformación de identidades
sexuales diversas. Su acción intercepta ambos, politizando las identidades y otorgándole un
cariz deseante a la ciudadanı́a. El mencionado colectivo, ası́ como inserta sus demandas en
el debate público de su ciudad, establece las coordenadas que permiten a sus integrantes
construir una noción afirmativa de sı́ mismos, de sus cuerpos, de su estética y de su deseo.
dis/organised pleasures
S93
De esa forma, el proceso de construcción de ciudadanı́a se transforma, y surge de un
proceso de constitución de sı́.
[email protected]
El derecho a la Identidad Legal de las Personas Transexuales, Transgéneros e
Intersexuales – Estudio de Derecho Comparado.
Tamara Adrián
UCAB/UCV/DIVERLEX, Venezuela
La ponencia tiene por objetivo delinear la situación existente en América Latina en relación
con el reconocimiento de la identidad legal de las personas transexuales, transgénero e
intersexuales, confrontando la del resto del mundo. Se apela al método legal comparativo,
tomando en consideración no sólo las legislaciones nacionales sino también las decisiones
supranacionales relevantes, y los pactos y tratados de derechos humanos. A través de este
estudio se esbozará el concepto de derecho a la identidad como el derecho a ser reconocido
legalmente por quien se es fı́sica, psı́quica y socialmente, con independencia del sexo
biológico. Se pondrá énfasis en los conceptos cientı́ficos de sexo y género, se resaltará los
derechos humanos violados o afectados seriamente por la falta de tal reconocimiento
(derechos a la salud, seguridad social, seguridad personal, estudio, trabajo, libre circulación
y tránsito, etc.); y se presentará alternativas para evitar las mencionadas vulneraciones de
derechos. Al respecto, se sugiere el retiro de la mención al sexo en los documentos de
identidad –como en su época desaparecieron las alusiones a la condición de esclavo, liberto
o libre; a pertenecer a una determinada raza; o a ser hijo natural, legı́timo, incestuoso,
expósito, etc.). Se considera que esta mención responde a la necesidad de establecer una
diferencia legal entre hombres y mujeres como método de privación de ciertos derechos a
las mujeres (tradicionalmente derecho al voto, a la administración de su patrimonio, etc.),
además que tenı́a la intención de evitar que ciertos hombres escapen de deberes como el
servicio militar. Asimismo, se examinará el origen del principio de la indisponibilidad del
nombre propio y su cuestionamiento contemporáneo en virtud del derecho a la identidad.
Se analizarán, igualmente, las principales medidas que deben ser tomadas para reconocer la
identidad legal de las personas transexuales, intersexuales y transgénero: el derecho al
nombre legal, el derecho al sexo legal, y el derecho a la no discriminación efectiva.
Finalmente, se propondrá un proyecto de Ley Modelo para América Latina sobre
reconocimiento legal de la identidad de las personas transexuales, transgénero e
intersexuales, con su respectiva exposición de motivos, que pueda servir de base a los
distintos legisladores para enfrentar el tema de forma coherente.
[email protected]
Fecundidad ¿Un Asunto de Mujeres?
Yulexis Almeida Junco
Universidad de la Habana, Cuba
El abordaje del género en el campo de la salud sexual y reproductiva no siempre se ha
realizado con acierto y profundidad, los estudios se han limitado a exponer las diferencias
entre los sexos, sin incorporar otras variables relacionadas con la vida cotidiana y la
subjetividad. En otras oportunidades se privilegian aspectos relativos a la mujer y no se toma
en cuenta cómo un mismo fenómeno puede afectar a hombres y mujeres. El presente trabajo
S94
IASSCS Conference 2007
se propone identificar los roles asignados socialmente a hombres y mujeres en la salud sexual
y reproductiva y valorar la relación que puede existir entre las desigualdades de género y las
bajas tasas de fecundidad en Cuba. Este paı́s es uno de los pocos de la región que ya
concluyeron el proceso de transformación de sus patrones reproductivos. En la actualidad se
encuentra en una etapa caracterizada por un nivel de fecundidad extremadamente bajo y una
esperanza de vida elevada. El análisis sobre los cambios en los niveles de fecundidad se centra
fundamentalmente en aspectos económicos, que requieren la intervención del Estado, cuya
acción se materializa en polı́ticas sociales focalizadas en las mujeres, desestimando el papel
influyente que los hombres desempeñan en todo lo relacionado con la salud sexual y
reproductiva. A mayor equidad entre hombres y mujeres, se crean las bases para una
situación más favorable en la que ambos pueden trabajar y tener descendencia con los
menores inconvenientes posibles. Arriba a la conclusión de que la fecundidad es la variable
demográfica que más ha incidido en el volumen y estructura de la población cubana en las
últimas décadas. Las polı́ticas estatales implementadas hasta el momento no han logrado
subvertir su descenso acelerado. Se requiere de una estrategia multifactorial que tenga como
objeto a hombres y mujeres, no como entes aislados, sino como sujetos que están en relación
y que se construyen socialmente.
[email protected]; [email protected]
El Lesbianismo Asumido como Práctica Polı́tica
Yolanda Pineda López
Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, México
A casi treinta años de la aparición pública de lesbianas y homosexuales en la ciudad de
México, los estudios acerca de este movimiento son escasos, más aún, aquellos que se refieren
a las mujeres. Este trabajo trata sobre el proceso que lleva a las lesbianas de ese paı́s a asumir
públicamente su identidad, y acerca de cómo este hecho se relaciona con la vida cotidiana de
las activistas. Durante la década de 1970 surgió en México el Movimiento de Liberación
Lésbico Homosexual. El Grupo Lambda de Liberación Homosexual, que formaba parte del
movimiento, era una organización mixta, cuya posición polı́tica implicaba asumirse
públicamente como lesbianas u homosexuales, y participar en el cuestionamiento, estudio
y análisis de la sexualidad. La investigación consigna entrevistas a cuatro mujeres. Para ellas,
asumirse lesbianas ante la sociedad fue un proceso significativo en sus vidas, del que resaltan
tres situaciones importantes: El malestar que sintieron por estar y permanecer ‘‘en el clóset’’;
el hecho de sumarse a una militancia cuyo fin es transformar su situación individual, social y
polı́tica (‘‘lo personal es polı́tico’’); y el camino de construcción identitaria sexual y polı́tica
que transitaron. ‘‘Dar la cara’’ significó para las militantes un proceso de valoración y
dignificación personal, basado en el conocimiento de su propio cuerpo, de su sexualidad, de
su capacidad de amar y en el despojo de sus propios prejuicios.
[email protected]
Las Parejas en su Laberinto: Derechos de Parejas del Mismo Sexo en Colombia
Mauricio Ariel Albarracı́n Caballero
Colombia Diversa, Colombia
Examina las estrategias polı́ticas y judiciales que ha usado el movimiento LGBT para
alcanzar el reconocimiento de los derechos de las parejas del mismo sexo en Colombia. El
dis/organised pleasures
S95
objetivo es realizar un análisis de los argumentos usados por los activistas, que
recientemente fueron aceptados por la Corte Constitucional, evidenciando los alcances y
limitaciones de los mismos. También se reseña el papel de los medios de comunicación
como mecanismo para posicionar los mensajes claves de la estrategia y el papel del
Congreso de la República. La distinción entre la pareja y la familia homosexual introducida
por el activismo, permitieron a la Corte Constitucional avanzar en el reconocimiento de los
derechos patrimoniales de las parejas del mismo sexo. La decisión contó con la votación
unánime de los magistrados, incluso con el apoyo aquellos más conservadores,
¿Asimilación del movimiento, estrategia polı́tica o cambio social? Excluir deliberadamente
el debate en torno a la familia homosexual en los discursos del movimiento fue útil para
posicionar en la opinión pública los derechos de las parejas, aplazando temas como la
adopción y el matrimonio homosexual. Sin embargo, esta estrategia introdujo a las parejas
en un laberinto, debido a que sólo tendrı́an derechos como pareja, y no a los derechos de la
familia, especialmente en derechos sociales imprescindibles en paı́ses pobres y desiguales.
¿Cómo puede el movimiento LGBT lograr los derechos de la familia hasta llegar a cumplir
la promesa de igualdad real? Se concluye con una propuesta de estrategia judicial y polı́tica
que emplee la distinción aceptada por la Corte como un caballo de Troya. Ası́, mediante
situaciones de hecho que evidencien la injusticia en la distinción, junto con nuevos
argumentos legales, se busca abrir la posibilidad de que a través de decisiones judiciales y
polı́ticas futuras, se reconozcan nuevos derechos.
[email protected]
Sexualidad, Reproducción y Derechos de las Mujeres: Definiciones y
Redefiniciones en un Debate Central para la Democracia.
Mariana Viera
Uruguay
El presente artı́culo analiza los argumentos esgrimidos por legisladores y legisladoras de
Uruguay al votar el Proyecto de Ley de Defensa de la Salud Reproductiva. Dicho proyecto,
puesto a consideración de las Cámaras a fines de 2004 (antes de las elecciones nacionales) y
aún no aprobado, establece en sus artı́culos 4 y 5 (Capı́tulo II) que para la interrupción de
un embarazo dentro de las primeras doce semanas de gravidez ‘‘bastará que la mujer alegue
ante el médico, circunstancias derivadas de las condiciones en que ha sobrevenido la
concepción; situaciones de penuria económica; sociales; familiares o etáreas, que a su
criterio le impidan continuar con el embarazo en curso’’. Si bien el Proyecto de Ley tiene
fines más amplios, la defensa de la autonomı́a de la embarazada implı́cita en su formulación
es lo que ha generado mayores reticencias para su aprobación. El análisis que proponemos,
en términos de otorgamiento de significados a cuestiones tales como la sexualidad, la
reproducción, la vida, la autonomı́a, entre otras, permitirá confrontar los núcleos
semánticos manejados por la ‘‘clase polı́tica’’ con los de los movimientos sociales que
defienden la aprobación de esta Ley. Nos centraremos fundamentalmente en la
Coordinadora de Organizaciones Sociales en Defensa de la Salud Reproductiva, que
involucra a la central sindical de trabajadores (PIT-CNT), Mundo Afro, diversas
organizaciones de derechos humanos y prácticamente todas las organizaciones feministas
de Uruguay. La metodologı́a utilizada fue el análisis de las argumentaciones de los debates
parlamentarios y la realización de entrevistas a activistas de nuestro medio. El abordaje de
este proyecto y de los sentidos que desde diversos colectivos se tejen en torno a él, se
S96
IASSCS Conference 2007
muestra de vital importancia en tanto contextualiza los debates más amplios que en
relación a los derechos sexuales y reproductivos se dan en nuestro medio.
[email protected]
Mortalidad Materna por Aborto como Indicador de Accesibilidad en Salud Sexual
y Reproductiva
Gabriela Viviana Perrotta
Argentina
La mortalidad materna por aborto puede tomarse como indicador de calidad de atención,
promoción de la salud, accesibilidad a los servicios e inequidad de género al abordar la salud
sexual y reproductiva. El objetivo de este trabajo fue analizar ese indicador para diseñar
estrategias de intervención. En Argentina, alrededor del 30% del total de muertes maternas
ocurridas en los últimos cinco años, son por aborto. Existen diferencias regionales: en un
tercio de las provincias las muertes maternas por aborto oscilan entre el 40% y el 50%. Las
mujeres que mueren por abortos provocados se encuentran en general solas y no tienen signos
de alarma frente a los sı́ntomas de complicaciones postabortivas o no responden rápidamente
a esos signos por temor a ser censuradas o incluso denunciadas (ya que el aborto no es legal en
Argentina). Por el contrario, las mujeres que mueren por otras causas obstétricas suelen estar
acompañadas por la familia y acudir más rápidamente a la consulta ante los sı́ntomas. Los
abortos provocados que culminan en la muerte de la mujer suelen realizarse por presión de la
pareja. Esto nos remite a la falta de autonomı́a de género que refuerza la inequidad en el acceso
de las mujeres a una vida saludable. El análisis de la distribución de muertes maternas en el
paı́s muestra que en algunas provincias las muertes maternas han disminuido proporcionalmente mucho menos que en otras y que incluso en algunas han aumentado. Esto muestra
la necesidad de continuar las investigaciones orientadas tanto a buscar las circunstancias de las
muertes para intervenir sobre los servicios y los profesionales del equipo de salud para mejorar
la accesibilidad (a métodos anticonceptivos, información y atención), como a explorar las
representaciones sociales que dificultan y/o demoran el acceso al sistema de salud ante
complicaciones de abortos provocados.
[email protected]
Construcción de la Identidad Lésbica: ‘Vivir de Acuerdo con lo que Uno Es’
Florencia Herrera
Chile
Las preguntas que abordaré en mi ponencia son cómo, en Santiago de Chile, una mujer
llega a identificarse a sı́ misma como lesbiana y cómo enfrenta la posibilidad de comunicar
su identidad homosexual a sus seres cercanos. A lo largo de la exposición describiré y
analizaré el camino que las lesbianas chilenas recorren desde los primeros cuestionamientos
de su identidad sexual hasta la revelación de ésta a sus seres queridos. El contenido de la
ponencia está basado en información recogida en un estudio etnográfico que realicé en
Santiago de Chile con mujeres de estrato medio que se consideran a sı́ mismas lesbianas.
Esta investigación constituye mi tesis doctoral en Antropologı́a Social y Cultural presentada
a la Universidad de Barcelona. En la exposición desarrollaré tres puntos: 1. Revisaré el
concepto de identidad homosexual y describiré cómo se relacionan las mujeres
entrevistadas con su orientación lésbica. Para ellas su identidad sexual no es algo que
dis/organised pleasures
S97
puedan escoger, sólo pueden elegir si viven de acuerdo a ‘lo que realmente son’. 2. Relataré
el complejo proceso interno que viven las mujeres lesbianas al asumir una identidad lésbica.
Este proceso suele ser largo y doloroso ya que es muy difı́cil hacer propia una identidad
estigmatizada por la sociedad. Antes de considerarse a sı́ mismas lesbianas las mujeres
entrevistadas han debido de ‘resignificar’ esta categorı́a social. 3. Analizaré la experiencia
de las participantes en la investigación con respecto a revelar su identidad homosexual o
‘salir del closet’. Las consideraciones para tomar la decisión de revelar la identidad lésbica
tienen relación con la protección — de ellas mismas y de sus seres cercanos — y con la
honestidad. A modo de conclusión compararé la realidad chilena con la de Estados Unidos
utilizando los resultados de la investigación realizada por Steven Seidman, Ched Meeks y
Francie Traschen (1999).
[email protected]
El Lesbianismo Feminista como Propuesta Polı́tica en un Mundo Globalizado
Rosa Ynés Curiel
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia
La ponencia trata de los fundamentos del lesbianismo feminista como proyecto polı́tico.
Más allá de la reivindicación de identidades sexuales, el lesbianismo feminista propone
pautas éticas y de acciones polı́ticas avalado por teorı́as sociales y sexo-sociales en torno a
estructuras de poder patriarcal, heterosexistas, racistas y clasistas para lograr transformaciones sociales profundas no sólo para las mujeres, sino para toda la humanidad. Se hará
una crı́tica a los conceptos de género, diversidad sexual y diferencia sexual, como categorı́as
débiles polı́tica y teóricamente; y abordará el tipo de alianzas necesarias con otros
movimientos sociales (LGTBI); antiracista, étnicos, etc., siempre y cuando se definan
proyectos polı́ticos, no sólo porque estos movimientos forman parte de lo que hoy se
denomina identidad sexual y/o cultural. En la ponencia se destacarán las coyunturas
polı́ticas desde donde surge este movimiento, los aportes teóricos fundamentales tanto para
la teorı́a y la práctica feminista como para los movimientos socio-sexuales, y la propuesta de
lesbianismo que urge frente a la globalización económica y la mundialización neoliberal, la
cual debe articular categorı́as como sexo/género, raza, clase y sexualidad.
[email protected]
Divinas Coincidencias: el Control de la Natalidad en la Iglesia Católica y su
Relación con las Polı́ticas Demográficas Argentinas de los Años ’60 y ’70
Karina Felitti
CONICET/Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de Género, Facultad de Filosofı́a y
Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
En 1968, la encı́clica Humanae Vitae clausuró un tiempo de debate sobre los métodos de
planificación familiar que aceptarı́a la Iglesia Católica: los anticonceptivos orales fueron
rechazados y sólo se admitió la abstinencia periódica como mecanismo para ejercer una
‘‘paternidad responsable’’. Esta decisión generó múltiples rechazos dentro de la misma
Iglesia, pero también amplios apoyos por parte de aquellos gobiernos que buscaban
aumentar su población y defender su soberanı́a en materia demográfica, ante el avance de
los programas de planificación familiar apoyados por Estados Unidos. El gobierno
S98
IASSCS Conference 2007
argentino celebró la posición del Vaticano en virtud de su reivindicación como paı́s
católico, la sostenida caı́da de su tasa de natalidad y su defensa de un modelo de familia
tradicional y patriarcal, entonces cuestionado por la juventud y la liberalización de la
sexualidad. En 1974, durante el tercer gobierno peronista, la defensa de la procreación y la
moral familiar se hizo más fuerte mediante la sanción de un decreto que prohibı́a la venta
libre de anticonceptivos y la información sobre planificación familiar en los hospitales y
dependencias públicas. Esta vez fue el Episcopado quien apoyó la medida, la cual siguió
vigente hasta 1986, ya avanzada la recuperación democrática. Analizaremos aquı́ los
principales documentos emitidos por el Vaticano, los obispos latinoamericanos y el
episcopado argentino sobre el control de la natalidad y el modo en que estas
recomendaciones pastorales llegaron a coincidir con las polı́ticas públicas en una relación
de mutuo apoyo. El análisis de los debates sobre anticoncepción y control de la natalidad en
los años ’60 y ’70 tiene una importancia crucial para comprender la situación actual en
materia de derechos sexuales y reproductivos, estableciendo importantes lı́neas de
continuidad e influencia en lo que algunos autores denominan la ‘‘cultura anticonceptiva’’
del paı́s.
[email protected]
Derechos Sexuales y Educación en Argentina: Las Tramas de la Discriminación y
las Marcas de la Violencia
Juan E. Péchin
Universidad de Buenos Aires – CONICET, Argentina
Introducción/Objetivos: Se expondrá un análisis sobre la articulación entre derechos
sexuales y educación en Argentina. Para ello se presentará un mapa de prácticas,
experiencias y percepciones sobre derechos sexuales en ámbitos educativos. Este mapa
tiene como principal objetivo relevar las voces y los silencios que constituyen la trama de
significaciones y sentidos sociales -sobre aquellos derechos sexuales- que producen y/o
legitiman valoraciones del/de la ‘‘otro/a sexual’’ desde parámetros de normalidad genérica y
sexual. Desde este material introductorio se abrirán las lı́neas fundamentales del análisis
propuesto. – Cuerpo del texto/Resultados: Se presentará un análisis de la importación
cultural del bullying escolar como estrategia de intervención frente a las experiencias
concretas de violencia y discriminación en ámbitos escolares y otros ámbitos que se
relacionan con los mismos. Se enfocará fundamentalmente la discriminación y la violencia
por diferencias de géneros y orientación sexual, especificando las condiciones ideológicas
que articulan su producción institucional como también las consideraciones académicas del
problema y las prácticas profesionales que lo abordan desde diferentes epistemologı́as
institucionales. La ponencia se centrará en la revisión de las configuraciones culturales que
vinculan juventud, escuela, violencia, diferencias, desigualdades y estigmas identitarios, en
relación con las tramas ideológicas que ordenan hegemónicamente tanto los procesos
sociales y culturales que producen inteligibilidad sobre los derechos a las identidades de
géneros y de orientación sexual como también a las condiciones de vida que se habilitan,
entonces, para las identidades que no cumplen con los criterios de adecuación a la
normalidad universal. – Conclusiones: Las estrategias de intervención más corrientes frente
a los episodios de ‘‘violencia escolar’’, como es el caso de los protocolos de control del
bullying, constituyen modos psicologicistas de institucionalización del problema de la
violencia y la discriminación en contextos escolares; poco se pregunta por las condiciones
dis/organised pleasures
S99
sociales de producción de los modos de discriminación, naturalizándolos como evidencias
auto-explicativas que sólo se contabilizan como violencia.
[email protected]
Vinculaciones entre Sexualidad y Felicidad en Adolescentes y Jóvenes de
Contextos Rurales y Peri-Urbanos de Lima.
Jossy Angela Cárdenas Rojas
Movimiento Manuela Ramos, Peru
Desde 1946, la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) señaló que la salud debe ser
entendida como ‘‘el estado completo de bienestar fı́sico, mental y social, y no sólo la
ausencia de enfermedad o dolencia’’. Considerando que ‘‘bienestar’’ es sinónimo de
‘‘felicidad’’ y trasladando este concepto a la salud sexual y reproductiva, podemos concluir
que la felicidad es insumo imprescindible para la vivencia de una sexualidad saludable. El
presente texto intenta compartir algunos resultados de autodiagnósticos realizados con
adolescentes y jóvenes, en los cuales se indaga sobre las nociones de felicidad de hombres y
mujeres y su impacto en su salud sexual y reproductiva. Las percepciones sobre la felicidad
de las adolescentes giran en torno a logros inmediatos, y a la negación del riesgo
permanente: no ser abandonadas, no ser maltratadas en la familia, no ser humilladas, etc;
es decir, ‘‘no seguir con el destino que les espera’’, tal vez por ello las metas a más largo
plazo se dibujen como inalcanzables, obstaculizadas por un embarazo no deseado y el
consecuente abandono de la pareja. Los chicos en cambio, tienen expresiones más
afirmativas, son felices sintiéndose queridos, bien tratados y respetados por su familia y
personas mayores, en este caso se percibe un mayor dominio de la capacidad de decidir
sobre su propio futuro, producto de la socialización de género a la que han sido expuestos.
En ambos casos, la pobreza y la violencia marcan sus vidas, pero salir de ellas no es algo que
consideren muy viable. De acuerdo a esta experiencia, el contexto de violencia estructural
de la familia y la sociedad conjugada con pobreza, no contribuye positivamente a la
consecución de bienestar y/o felicidad de adolescentes y jóvenes, por tanto el derecho a su
salud sexual y reproductiva es constantemente vulnerado, impidiendo su desarrollo.
[email protected]
Derechos (no) Reproductivos y Sexuales en Argentina: Trayectoria y
Encrucijadas de una Noción y una Reivindicación Polémicas.
Josefina Brown
GES -IIGG – UBA, Argentina
La inclusión de las mujeres a la ciudadanı́a se produjo de un modo paradójico: excluidas de
la sociedad polı́tica por su cercanı́a con la naturaleza y el mundo de los afectos fueron sin
embargo, incluidas bajo la figura del tutelaje. Su inclusión tenı́a efecto de la mano de un
varón que oficiaba de representante en el mundo público y polı́tico. Mucho tiempo hubo de
pasar para que las mujeres conquistaran algunos derechos de los que los varones ya
gozaban, y aún unos cuantos años más para advertir la trampa de la igualdad a costa de la
abstracción de la diferencia sexual. Fueron los sesenta los años en los que el cuerpo y la
sexualidad cruzaron la barrera entre lo público y lo privado insinuándose con fuerzas como
asuntos importantes de ser discutidos en la esfera pública polı́tica: la diferencia sexual ya no
era un asunto del que habı́a que prescindir para lograr una ciudadanı́a plena, también para
S100
IASSCS Conference 2007
las mujeres. La diferencia sexual cobra entonces, dimensión polı́tica. El derecho al aborto
será la expresión y la conquista, en muchos casos, de una de las demandas feministas
centrales en los paı́ses del norte. En los del sur, y en la Argentina en particular, fueron
aquéllos los años del sueño de la revolución social y de su pulverización bajo una brutal
dictadura. Los ecos de aquella oleada llegarán recién con el retorno democrático y al
amparo de los consensos alcanzados en el marco de Naciones Unidas bajo el paraguas de
derechos reproductivos. Por qué esa denominación, de dónde viene y cuáles han sido y son
sus posibilidades y sus lı́mites en orden a la consideración de las mujeres y otras/os
diferentes como ciudadanas/os plenas/os, son las preguntas sobre las que pivotearemos.
[email protected]
Diálogos y Aprendizajes sobre el Placer Sexual. Adolescentes mujeres de Trelew
(Argentina).
Daniel Eduardo Jones
Grupo de Estudios sobre Sexualidades, Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani,
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Esta ponencia se propone responder qué significados sobre el placer sexual aprenden las
adolescentes de sectores medios de la ciudad de Trelew, a través de sus diálogos con amigas
acerca de sus experiencias sexuales. Analizo veintidós entrevistas semi- estructuradas, que
conforman el corpus de mi tesis doctoral, a partir de la teorı́a de los guiones de Simon y
Gagnon. En las charlas con amigas estas adolescentes elaboran y aprenden ‘‘guiones
interpersonales sobre el placer sexual’’, una categorı́a que construı́ para sintetizar el análisis
inductivo. Estos guiones establecen diferentes rasgos de los personajes y papeles a cumplir,
según el género de cada actor o actriz, que configuran dinámicas de interacción sexual
relativas al placer. Por un lado, delinean un personaje masculino sexualmente activo, que
lleva la iniciativa y es responsable del placer sexual de las mujeres. Se critica a muchos
varones por no cumplir este papel, ya que son egoı́stas en la búsqueda de placer e
ignorantes en relación a cómo brindarlo. Por otro lado, esbozan un personaje femenino
pasivo, de una mujer adolescente que no puede pedir al varón prácticas sexuales que le
brinden placer. Estos papeles configuran una dinámica de interacción sexual, silenciosa y
poco placentera para las mujeres, que sólo una relación de noviazgo modificarı́a. ¿Por qué
una adolescente puede y/o quiere hablar sobre su propio placer con un novio? Primero, la
mayor confianza que existe con éste permite conversar sobre el tema, y el tipo de vı́nculo
implica que posiblemente él haga algo al respecto, a diferencia de compañeros sexuales
‘‘egoı́stas’’. Segundo, si una mujer plantea la cuestión a un novio no se expondrı́a a ser
calificada como una ‘‘puta’’, una reputación moral producida por transgredir el mandato
femenino de pasividad sexual y demandar el propio placer.
[email protected]
Una cuestión de cuerpos. Sobre los cuerpos de las mujeres transexuales y los
lı́mites de la genitalidad
Julieta Vartabedian
Universidad de Barcelona, Spain
Esta ponencia girará en torno a una reflexión sobre los cuerpos transexuales, particularmente,
sobre los cuerpos que han iniciado algún tipo de transformación en el tránsito de ‘hombre’ a
dis/organised pleasures
S101
‘mujer’. Se hablará, asimismo, de las identidades de género, todas ellas frágiles, complejas e
inestables, identidades que, teniendo en cuenta la experiencia transexual, no podrán ya más
ser consideradas como simples productos de una corporalidad sustentada por el ‘‘imperio de
los genitales’’. Si bien los aportes feministas y constructivistas han contribuido notablemente
a des-esencializar la genitalidad como organizadora del sistema sexo-género, me pregunto:
¿no es acaso a través de nuestros cuerpos que podemos vehiculizar nuestro estar-en-elmundo? ¿No es el cuerpo, en última instancia, el soporte para la acción y la identificación? Hay
que reconocer que todos los cuerpos de ‘mujeres transexuales’ han sido modificados en mayor
o menor medida. Cuerpos que consumen, cuerpos que transgreden o cuerpos que
cuestionan. Si la anatomı́a dejó de ser destino, ahora el cuerpo – dotado de significación
social y contenido polı́tico- se erige como el representante por excelencia de aquellas
identidades que se han ido construyendo desde los márgenes y se han mantenido allı́ para
cuestionar (para que cuestionemos) el modelo de sexualidad (naturalizado y normalizado)
que domina en nuestra sociedad. En definitiva, con esta ponencia pretendo reflexionar sobre
el cuerpo como un medio privilegiado para la construcción de las identidades de género. Los
análisis feministas y constructivistas nos han ayudado a difuminar los esencialismos que
encadenan la realidad social a lo estrictamente biológico, no obstante, ellos mismos caen
muchas veces en las redes de un determinismo absoluto de lo social. No se puede negar la
materialidad de los cuerpos, materialidad que es transformada por las transexuales para
posicionarse frente al mundo en tanto transgresoras o reproductoras de un ordenamiento
marcado por la genitalidad.
[email protected]
Hermosas, pero distintas…Un examen crı́tico de la noción de ‘‘experiencia gay’’
Eduardo Mattio
Núcleo de estudios Queer (UNC). UNVM, Argentina
Nuestro trabajo se propone examinar crı́ticamente la noción de ‘‘experiencia gay’’, en tanto
recurso conceptual que permitirı́a comprender las particularidades de una determinada
minorı́a sexo-genérica, y con ello, hacer posible el diseño de una determinada agenda polı́tica.
Ya en la década del ’80, Perlongher sospechaba de la posibilidad de encontrar un único
denominador común en ‘‘la infinidad de actos sexuales a los que un sujeto puede abocarse con
otros del mismo sexo’’ (1997: 32). Más aún, nos advertı́a acerca del poder con que una categorı́a
como ‘‘gay’’ permitı́a erigir un modelo normalizador capaz de operar nuevas exclusiones. En su
lugar, nos invitaba a pensar las posiciones identitarias ‘‘no como identidades, sino como
devenires. Como mutaciones, como cosas que nos pasan’’ (Perlongher 1997: 33). A la luz de
tales afirmaciones, nos proponemos mostrar las dificultades que entraña la construcción de una
identidad minoritaria a partir de la noción de ‘‘experiencia’’. En concreto, entendemos que: (1)
en términos epistémicos, la apelación a la ‘‘evidencia de la experiencia’’ naturaliza determinadas
narrativas que, por su irremisible particularidad, sólo pueden ser universalizadas a costa de
suprimir otras igualmente legı́timas. En ese caso, la experiencia no es el origen que explica
nuestra especificidad identitaria, sino más bien, el fenómeno a interpretar a fin de comprender la
constitución de nuestra subjetividad (Scott 1991). (2) en términos polı́ticos, la apelación a una
‘‘experiencia gay’’ que expresarı́a cierta identidad minoritaria, no puede menos que provocar
irremediables exclusiones. Dado que las categorı́as de identidad no son meramente
descriptivas, sino que siempre son normativas (Butler 1992), es necesario deconstruir el
contenido descriptivo de la ‘‘experiencia gay’’ a fin de liberarla de narrativas particulares a las
S102
IASSCS Conference 2007
que ha sido restringida, a fin de que, como construcción polı́tica útil pero inestable, encarne el
ı́mpetu democrático radical de la polı́tica queer.
[email protected]
No Ser Mujer o la Disyuntiva Lesbiana
Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso
Argentina
Hace unas décadas Monique Wittig sentenció ‘‘las lesbianas no somos mujeres’’
produciendo un movimiento cuyas resonancias nos llegan hasta hoy dı́a. Al definir una
identidad por oposición más que clausurar, inauguró el debate. Porque si las lesbianas no
son mujeres una podrı́a preguntarse a seguidas, qué son. En el presente trabajo nos
proponemos desde una mirada deconstructiva, genealógica y situada acercarnos a la
afirmación wittiana desde el complejo contexto de una Latinoamérica racializada,
empobrecida, desigual, ası́ como desde los debates sobre el tema de la identidad que se
han desarrollado al interior de los movimientos socio-sexuales. El trabajo se centra en la
frase de Wittig para intentar re-mirar su intencionalidad polı́tica y sus repercusiones más
allá del sujeto lesbiano mismo; ası́ mismo, intenta aportar a un análisis crı́tico que indague y
dé cuenta de sus limitaciones. Hay aquı́ algunas preguntas claves que intentaremos dar
respuesta: ¿De qué forma y por qué en la afirmación de Wittig se mantienen entrecruzadas
una historia del género y del deseo? ¿Podemos seguir afirmando que una lesbiana es una
mujer que ama a otra mujer cuando en ese amar explota el sujeto de la acción? ¿O
tendremos que admitir una genealogı́a implı́cita que hace posible la negación de ser algo? Si
una se ve en la necesidad de aclarar que una no es una cosa es porque hay una vinculación
solapada y tácita que es necesario desmentir. ¿De qué manera opera este imaginario sobre
la identidad de la lesbiana? ¿Es posible, más allá de estas operaciones de control, asumir
una auto asignación de identidad? En una segunda parte proponemos un acercamiento más
situado, una lectura pragmática desde la cual intentaremos, aprovechando el pie que nos da
una afirmación que deja abierta la pregunta – si no son mujeres, qué diablos son-, armar la
enmarañada red en la que se entretejen las vidas y las identidades lesbianas. Si no son
mujeres, ¿quiénes son las lesbianas?, nos preguntaremos, con el propósito de contemporaneizar en este aquı́ una categorı́a, que como toda, armando un núcleo de sentido, marca
un adentro y un afuera. Comenzaremos haciendo una discusión sobre si es necesaria esta
operación de demarcación del sujeto lesbiano. A seguidas, reflexionaremos sobre lo que
incluye y lo que queda excluido en la terminologı́a lesbiana clásica y por qué; ası́ como
respecto a las discusiones sobre limitaciones y propuestas de ampliación de la categorı́a que
se han llevado a cabo en algunos ejemplos concretos en el continente.
[email protected]
El feminismo (¿Espontáneo?) de las Lesbianas
Ana Rubiolo
Argentina
En este escrito me propongo y les propongo reflexionar sobre cuestiones que quedan para
mı́ abiertas a partir de ciertas articulaciones entre psicoanálisis y feminismo en relación a las
lesbianas. Estas cuestiones surgen a partir de lecturas de escritos de autoras como Emilce
Dio Bleichmar, Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler y Jessica Benjamı́n. Lecturas que me han ido
dis/organised pleasures
S103
acompañando en mi práctica clı́nica como psicóloga y mi práctica polı́tica dentro del
feminismo y el lesbo-feminismo. Es mi intención a partir del tı́tulo de este trabajo: ‘‘El
feminismo (¿espontáneo?) de las lesbianas’’, que parafrasea el tı́tulo del libro ‘‘El feminismo
espontáneo de la histeria’’ de Emilce Dio Bleichmar editado en los 80, rescatar al
lesbianismo y a las lesbianas como otra expresión del feminismo espontáneo de las mujeres.
Considero al lesbianismo y a las lesbianas como actoras y autoras visiblemente
‘‘protagónicas’’ en ese contexto que se denomina ‘‘La segunda ola del feminismo’’ surgido
históricamente a fines de los 60 y principio de los 70 y que expresa un cambio
importantı́simo en la vida y la historia de las mujeres. Conclusiones: Es a partir de la
inclusión del pensamiento crı́tico desarrollado por el movimiento homosexual, lesbofeminista y queer que las teorı́as psicológicas crecen en complejidad y comprensión no sólo
sobre las problemáticas especı́ficas aplicadas a las diversidades sexuales sino en relación a
una mirada más amplia y menos sesgada de la sexualidad humana, como lo expresan las
conceptualizaciones de Jessica Benjamı́n y Luisa Muraro. Por otra parte es de destacar que
sólo el ejercicio crı́tico por fuera de las teorı́as que sustentan aparatos conceptuales
impregnados del logofalocentrismo, puede hacernos avanzar en la comprensión y creación
de un nuevo pensamiento que subvierta las prácticas vigentes.
[email protected]
Cuerpos Negados/Cuerpos Afirmados, las Representaciones Lésbicas
Gloria Careaga
México
La representación del cuerpo que las lesbianas realizan han sido motivo de distintas
interrogantes e hipótesis, al mismo tiempo que de múltiples cuestionamientos. El largo y
sinuoso camino a través del que se afirma la identidad lésbica necesariamente es resultado
de un concierto entre las valoraciones socioculturales y las necesidades propias.
Este trabajo pretende identificar algunos de los elementos que participan en la construcción
de la identidad lésbica y la configuración de este proceso en la expresión corporal. Si bien se
trata de un proceso dinámico que confronta distintas aproximaciones al objeto de estudio,
se funda en elementos comunes de la cultura latinoamericana. A partir del análisis de
algunos de los aspectos involucrados en el proceso y la voz misma de las actoras, se trata de
despejar estereotipos y romper categorı́as que contribuyan a una mirada más profunda que
permita adentrarnos más allá de lo explı́cito. La presentación recorre ası́ distintas
manifestaciones corporales, contrastándolas con las interpretaciones del ser lesbiana que
ellas mismas experimentan, a partir de su contexto cultural, familiar y social. Su análisis nos
ofrece elementos de un fenómeno que ha dado lugar al estigma y descrédito, en la
búsqueda de una mejor comprensión, al mismo tiempo que plantea algunas propuestas de
intervención que posibiliten su reivindicación.
[email protected]
Enfoque de género y diversidad sexual
Violeta Barrientos
CLIT-IASSCS, Perú
La ponencia intenta explorar ası́ como ejemplificar acerca de un aspecto de la última
evolución de las luchas por la sexualidad y sus derechos ası́ como las contribuciones
S104
IASSCS Conference 2007
académicas que refuerzan estos planteamientos. Desde la introducción del término
‘‘diversidad sexual’’ en estudios y luchas por los derechos de grupos no heternormativos,
han ocurrido diversos fenómenos que hablan de un protagonismo de sexualidades que
relegan a los grupos lésbicos, desde la aparición de grupos de nuevas identidades hasta el
manejo de nuevos términos que hablan de ‘‘derechos sexuales’’ independientemente de las
cuestiones de género. Es este relegamiento cierto? De qué modos se manifiesta? La
autonomı́a del estudio de la sexualidad que usa distintas herramientas a las del género ha
provocado también un desplazamiento del mismo? Hasta dónde los cambios producidos en
el estudio de la sexualidad, desde la medicina y las ciencias sociales, ası́ como en el
activismo refuerzan una vez más el rol secundario de la mujer en la sexualidad? Cuál ha sido
la respuesta desde el activismo lésbico y desde el activismo feminista ante esta situación?
Cómo hacer avanzar las reivindicaciones por sexualidades no normativas, bajo qué
condiciones?
[email protected]
Polı́ticas sexuales y reproductivas en el Perú
Maria Jennie Dador Tozzini
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Perú
La investigación ‘‘Polı́ticas sexuales y reproductivas en el Perú’’, no es solo una
recopilación de instrumentos y decisiones jurı́dicas, sino también de discursos y de
demandas surgidas desde diversos colectivos y actores generalmente no invitados al
banquete donde se toman las decisiones, como mujeres, homosexuales, ciudadanos trans;
quienes hasta ahora no habı́an tenido voz, o solo en circuitos periféricos. El ‘‘aborto’’, más
que como un derecho de las mujeres ha sido demandado en el paı́s como una medida de
protección frente a la ficción del discurso penalizador, las altas tasas de mortalidad y como
un ahorro posible para el sistema. Asimismo, se pretendı́a inaugura la discusión en torno a
la maternidad forzada, en el marco del Informe de la Comisión de la Verdad y
Reconciliación, respecto al conflicto armado interno que vivió el Perú, entre 1980 y el
2000. En el eje de violencia sexual contra las mujeres, desde los silencios y omisiones
estadı́sticas, discursivas y jurı́dicas, se desliza la existencia de la violencia sexual contra los
varones y travestis. En cuanto al desarrollo normativo, éste ha ido cambiando
progresivamente; sin embargo, se observa inacción y hasta retrocesos en el campo de la
implementación de las polı́ticas públicas. En general, aparece como una constante a los ejes
investigados la judicialización de las polı́ticas, es decir que, las decisiones ya no se toman
necesariamente en el Legislativo o Ejecutivo, sino que son los órganos jurisdiccionales,
nacionales o internacionales los llamados a pronunciarse sobre cuestiones que afectan a la
sociedad en general. Esto ha sido especialmente relevante en los casos de aborto (K.LL vs
Estado peruano), anticoncepción oral de emergencia (fallo del Tribunal Constitucional) y
ciudadanı́a sexual (fallos del Tribunal Constitucional); tanto desde los sectores que
demandan el reconocimiento y la ampliación de derechos, como desde quienes pretenden
mantener la exclusión.
[email protected]