Contemporary male homoeroticism in Brazilian gay magazines: the case of Sui Generis and Homens

Author: Marko Monteiro (markosy@uol.com.br)

(Brazil, 2001)

Introduction

In this paper (note 1) I want to suggest an interpretation of contemporary Brazil's male homoeroticism as it shows itself in two contemporary magazines directed at "gay" audiences: Sui Generis and Homens (both published by SG Press, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Sui Generis is no longer in circulation). I use the term "gay" here with caution, for reasons that will become clearer as the argument unfolds. As we will see, one of the most important elements in my analysis is that the term "gay" is not representative of all aspects of Brazilian male "homoerotic" (Costa, 1992) or "homosexual" life. It is used by a certain segment of this population, and yet it makes little sense if we relate it to other segments in that same group, considering that all of them are practitioners of "homoeroticism" in a generic sense.

I analyzed five issues of each magazine, and also did a short field study of the SG Press office itself, and talked with the journalists and the owner and director of the magazines. This research was done in the summer of 1999, and does not cover the recent drastic changes suffered by the Brazilian market for gay magazines. I refer specifically to the rise of G Magazine, nowadays Brazil's foremost gay publication, that stole market share from its predecessors (especially Sui Generis, the now defunct ex-leader in circulation figures) by showing famous heterosexual celebrities naked (and with a hard-on) in its pages, with an emphasis on soccer players, Brazil's closest equivalents to "superstars" next to soap opera actors.

As I mentioned before, the term gay does not apply in the same manner to all Brazilian homoerotic subjects. The choice of investigating these two publications in particular was made, among other things, in order to make possible a comparison between two very different worlds, in what homosexuality is concerned. Sui Generis is a more up market magazine, with an editorial formula based on fashion, culture and lifestyle. It also carries a heavy emphasis on ideas such as "gay pride", or in "fighting prejudice" against gay and lesbians, very common in what we in Brazil would expect from the North American gay discourse.

Homens, on the other hand, is a cheaper magazine, targeted at lower class "gays". Its editorial formula is basically pictures of naked men, and eroticism in general, such as erotic correspondence between readers and erotic stories. The majority of the magazine is dedicated to the pictures of naked men, featuring two models per edition, following some rather strict patterns of erotic representation, as will be analyzed further. It is those patterns, in comparison with the patterns present in Sui Generis, that set the drastic difference between the two magazines.

The idea is also to use the comparison between the magazines to attempt at an interpretation of the Brazilian male homoerotic world. In other words, I will also make some comments on what it means to be "gay" or "homoerotic" in Brazil, based on the patterns of representation analyzed in the magazines. My argument is that the duality present in the two aforementioned magazines is also a rift that cuts through two very distinct forms of experiencing homosexuality in this country. These two forms intersect with variables such as class and race, but do not exist totally separate. One depends and draws upon the other for legitimacy. This duplicity has also been described in the now classic work on homosexual Brazil done by Peter Fry (1982), who inspired most other later works, such as the one by Edward MacRae (1990).

One aspect that becomes explicit as the two magazines are compared is the specificity of the term gay. Used by some groups in generic form, in order to describe a community of same-sex oriented persons, this term has only limited experiential value in Brazil. The term gay or homosexual presupposes a unified or coherent subject, and it stands in opposition to heterosexual or straight subjects. There are in Brazil, though, groups that identify themselves with other means of self-description and whose cosmologies of same-sex desire does not conform with this vision of a unified subject or with a clear oposition to a heterosexual norm.

The magazine Sui Generis has been, in Brazil's recent history, one of the foremost vehicles of the propagation of the gay lifestyle to the urban centers. Very much influenced by North American standards and using the discourse of community (the gay community as a unified interest group and lifestyle) and consumerism as marks of the contemporary gay subject, Sui Generis appealed to the upper and middle classes, mostly white. The magazine centered itself on a gay subject, thus unified and self-centered, preoccupied with consumption of an array of products (especially fashion, cultural products and 'gay tourism') that would guarantee its entrance and maintenance in a lifestyle that was characteristic of the "modern gay".

The magazine Homens, on the other hand, rarely features the word "gay" at all. In its place the magazine opens its pages to the homosexual subculture of the lower classes, with its plethora of description terms such as bicha, michê, bofe, travesti, viado, entendido, among others. And the way that it explores the eroticism of same-sex desire is very particular, that is, all the erotic charge is directed towards the macho figure. And many of the stories featured in the magazines explore sex between "heterosexuals" and "gays", something not possible or not accepted in the pages of Sui Generis.

In that manner, the pillars of what I mentioned as 'the gay community' are put in check: there is no unified gay subject in this cosmology, but rather a diversity of characters ranging from very effeminate to very macho (the central duality in this "sub" culture, which in Brazil cannot be considered 'sub', I will argue). There is also no clear opposition between homo and heterosexuals, because the most explored fantasy in the pages of Homens is the gay (in this case bicha or other effeminate character) seducing a "heterosexual" (here occupying the "real macho" figure, or the masculine pole in a feminine/masculine opposition, recurrent in those stories) and being sodomized by him, or letting the gay man perform oral sex on him. In other words, very often the stories carry a sense of erotic humiliation and subjection, that would in the pages of Sui Generis be denounced as "prejudice" or even "violence against gays".

Contextualizing SG Press

The first number of Sui Generis came out in 1994, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, almost handmade by the journalist Nelson Feitosa. According to Nelson, he didn't have any larger ambitions in making the magazine. What he wanted was a small and informative periodical, that would circulate in Rio's South Side (the most affluent area of the city), something rather intimate. But according to him the national media got hold of the news and soon the magazine became successful all over Brazil. It circulated until the beginning of 2000, and was the origin of SG Press, which would attempt at other products in the years that followed.

The magazine created the marketing term GLS (Gays, Lesbians and Sympathizers), that would renew the way products were marketed in the country towards the gay market. It meant basically products for the gay and lesbian community, but it was an attempt at escaping the stigma that the word "gay" carried, and at reaching out for liberal minded heterosexuals. This also was a successful attempt at giving a new face to gay products, that were until then seen as sleazy sex magazines and pornographic videos. The magazine made the option of not carrying nude pictures of men, the foremost resource for attracting readers to these publications, and tried a new formula based on lifestyle.

According to the journalists at SG Press, the magazine was very much influenced by gay magazines of the US and Europe, such as Attitude (the most cited in the pages of Sui Generis). Themes such as culture, fashion, and lifestyle came to replace the most common features of a gay magazine in Brazil until then, which was basically sex. That quest for "quality" was also a quest for the more affluent gay readers (which were traditionally resistant to gay products in general, at least publicly) and better placement in the editorial market, where advertising was directed only to a few "safer" titles such as Playboy, Veja etc.

Homens magazine, on the other hand, was the investment of SG Press in that traditional gay market, where the male nude was the defining factor and the main attention grabber of the magazine. The magazine also features small interviews, erotic classifieds and small investigative pieces. One interesting element is that it is produced by the same staff exactly as Sui Generis magazine. Not all of them participate in both magazines though; most of them work only for Sui Generis (reflecting the larger investment in that magazine). Homens, because it demands a lot less journalistic work, can be handled by only a few of the staff and other free lance professionals, that provide the photos for example.

In Sui Generis, one of the most important elements of its editorial profile is its perspective on what it means to be gay, its stance to prejudice, the necessity explicited in its pages of "coming out" and "being openly gay", as well as to an egalitarian stance towards sexual desire between men (it is a relationship between two equal subjects, that do not have predetermined positions in sexual or emotional dynamics that arise between them). The magazine tries, in the limits of its commercial posture, to be militant and to work the self esteem of the gay reader.

Homens, on the contrary, deals with the questions of identity and desire in a more fluid manner, if we think of the homo/hetero divide present in Sui Generis. That divide is not at all clear in its pages, and at any moment a "heterosexual" can be seduced and feel desire for another "man", be it in the erotic stories, in the narrative of the photographs or in the letters from the readers. The divisions that do exist (therefore making that term "fluid" only relatively correct) are based upon very different parameters. Such as sexual activity (being "active" or "passive"). The 'heterosexuals' of Homens are much more the macho figure, active, real men because of their preferred desire for women, but not a limitation to their sexual activity with other, passive or effeminate men.

Some very recurrent fantasies are al based on that very strict distinction, defining a sexual dynamics that is hierarchical (the active partner 'dominates' sexually the passive one, and has a greater quota of masculinity, therefore is a more acceptable subject in society). Such as sex with police officers, military personnel, married men (that have their macho stance supposedly guaranteed by their attachment to a female partner). The words "gay" or "heterosexual" rarely, if never, appear as describers in those accounts, raising therefore questions as to their validity in interpreting these contexts, that are not only fictional accounts, but have a very concrete counterpart in "real life", as it were, in the gay ghettoes of Brazil.

Dissonant representations

With the exception of one woman, all of the staff at SG Press was composed of gay males. That created a certain camaraderie between them, in relation to their equal insertion in the demographics they were trying to reach. They all had somewhat similar life histories as gay males growing up in Brazil, and all had some insertion in gay ghettoes or had an open stance towards their own sexuality.

That contributed to a relatively homogeneous group. The work done by them took the characteristic of "made by gays for gays". The interesting thing to notice is that such dissonant editorial formulas could be produced by this same group. Rather than being something anomalous, that is, a kind of schizophrenic dual identity, it reflects in my view the complex and sometimes paradoxical homosexual life in Brazil. Both cosmologies described above are an integral part of Brazilian homosexual lives, and can only analytically (as I have tried to do here) separated. Because even in the pages of both magazines these models mix and intersect, influencing each other in complex ways.

Thus as participants in this homosexual life, the staff at SG Press reflect their own complex insertion in it. It is from their own living (according to themselves) that they draw elements to compose these two very distinct magazines, and both of them can be said to be representative, to some extent, of the fantasies, ideals and frustrations of homosexual life in Brazil.

One example of the way that the duality present in Brazilian homosexual life can be analyzed, both analytically separated and in a way so as to perceive their interconnections, is a piece done on police violence against gays, which was being thought of and written at the time of my visits to SG Press. That piece, later published in Sui Generis (number 43, 1999), is an example of how the magazine searches for a language that is "gay positive", that denounces violence against "gay individuals" by authorities, and thus tries an unification of all homosexual or homoerotic subjects under the gay identity. At the same time, it can also be seen as a place of intersection with the other, hierarchical cosmology, as will be described. Because the article also touches upon the desire and fetish that the policemen exert over gay men.

Explicit Prejudice

Early morning. Aterro do Flamengo (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), a well known cruising area. Maurício walks around in the park, paying attention to the transit of gays that search for anonymous sex. Suddenly, he sees himself surrounded by 11 army soldiers. He is then forced to go to a dark corner, near the Pracinhas monument, designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer. There he is humiliated and tortured for several hours. The group insinuates that they are going to rape him. One of them tried to force Maurício to perform oral sex on him. To finish, they throw him in an artificial lake nearby. When he successfully escapes, already in the morning, he starts another via crucis: denouncing the crime. He goes to more than one police station. The one in the Catete district, where the crime should be notified, refuses to accept the complaint. When he is finally able to make the complain officially, at the Praça Mauá police district, discovers that his case is not only pertinent to civil justice, but also exists in the Military Penal Code. The barman Ricardo Machado, a friend of Maurício, was the informant that narrated to Sui Generis the story (Sui Generis, #43, pg. 42) (see note 2).

On seduction, the reporter writes in the same article:

Uniform as Fetish

Sometimes the line drawn between seduction and violence is very thin, The barman Ricardo Machado tells, for instance, that for a long time had sexual relations with Miguel, a Military Police (see note 3) officer who was also married. " we were together for three years. We had sex right there in his booth. He used to tell me that his colleagues went to the Arpoador take money from the boys that did cruising there (which is not illegal). Sometimes my police partner went there as well. One day I asked him 'What if they don't give you any money?', 'Then we can't do anything', he answered." In the Arpoador, the policemen first seduce then go for extortion. "They go there late at night, have sex with the guys, then take money from whomever is there", tells the barman. (Sui Generis, #43, pg. 44) (see note 4)

We see that desire, violence and sex go together and that many gays, such as the ones featured in the article, actively seek such risky situations in order to satisfy their desires. The same man that told the story to a gay magazine, in order to theoretically denounce the violence that went on, had a three year relationship with a married policeman, that was a participant in the sessions of sex and extortion that went on. The article, very candid, shows how interwoven these spheres are.

In the cover of this issue of Sui Generis, on the other hand, we see a depiction of a man, shown shirtless and with a very muscular body, being held by a policeman. The pose suggests the man is being held (violence), but has a heavy charge of sex and desire, as though the man was seducing, or being seduced by, the police man that holds him. So we see how the macho imagery (in this case incarnated by the overtly masculine policeman) is used as a token of desire in the cover picture, in a kind of allusion to the strong sexual feelings aroused by situations of police violence. At the same time that the magazine denounces a violence that is rampant and unfortunately very commonplace, analyzing very subtly and ingeniously how this violence is also a part of our Brazilian gay imagery (thus not simply or always "negatively" seen), it shows us on the cover an image that translates that into a picture.

In Homens magazine, the treatment given to similar subject matters is much less subtle and much more positive than what we saw before in Sui Generis. The desire enmeshed with violence and humiliation, even hints of physical abuse, is represented as a pleasurable, fun and positive experience. The erotic and adventurous aspects of such sexual encounters with macho authority figures are used as elements of arousal of the reader. Such as, for example, the comics featured in Homens number 7 (pages 6 and 7), where a young man has a sexual encounter with a soldier. The text describes the situation:

The other day I went to a party at some friends' house. After a few drinks, I got a little horny. I decided to take a walk and try to meet somebody for some action. I passed through a military compound, I just had to stop for a while. The soldier that guarded the place was exactly what I needed to fill that emptiness inside me. Like all guards, he didn't take long to get the picture. I jumped the fence and we had some fun. (Homens, #7, pg. 6). (see note 5)

The story goes on to detail the sexual intercourse they had. Of course, as is recurrent in these stories, the soldier penetrated the guy in all sorts of positions. Nowhere in the narrative is the sexual option of the men discussed or even mentioned. The soldier is treated as the virile and active partner, and the young man as passive. In the end, the other soldiers join in:

After almost two hours of pleasure, I couldn't even move. When I thought about leaving, a group of soldiers showed up, saying it was their turn. I couldn't do anything but just relax and have lots of orgasms. (Homens, # 7, pg. 7) (see note 6).

The question of the sexual option does appear sometimes in the pages of Homens, but never in the same manner as we would see it in Sui Generis. For example, in the following excerpt from an interview with Rogeria, a famous Brazilian transvestite, who often appears on television, talks about the men she has sex with. She mentions not liking to have sex with gays:

Who are these men?

My boyfriends are lawyers that have been with me since they were 19, and are now 24 years old. I met one with 19 and the other with 30. They are not homosexual, and that talk of 'everybody that has sex with transvestites only wants to use the masculine side', that is a lie. He wants a fantasy. Then you throw your hair back, put some make up on, put on some high heels, a negligée, and they are having an orgasm before you start.

So you always have sex with heterosexuals?

Always, but I have had sex with gays, the thing is they don't like to have sex with transvestites.

(Homens, # 8, pg.14) (see note 7).

In that short text we come in contact with three categories of sexual desire: heterosexuals, gays and transvestites. All play in the same game of desire, and all relate with each other. They are not, as the hetero/homosexual duality suggests, categories that exclude all others. In this cosmology, heterosexuals can have sporadic sexual encounters with men, even though their "preferred" sexual object are women. Transvestites dress up as women, and often also take hormones and undertake plastic surgery (most in deplorable conditions, because of the marginal position these people have in society) to put silicone breasts, buttocks and other "feminine" accessories. They have sex (although most work in prostitution) with men and even with some women. And gays prefer to have sex with other gays, or with the occasional seduced heterosexual, but do not like transvestites.

In order to better understand this dynamics of desire, that is so much a part of Brazilian sexual (and not only homosexual) life, we can think of a masculinity scale, where all of these categories fit. Each is defined by a quota of masculinity, and that quota is always relationally defined, never fixed.

For example, the heterosexual male. He would be at the most masculine end of the scale, the subject with the largest quota of masculinity, while the transvestite is the one with the least quota, excluding women. Between these poles are all kinds of liminar characters: gays, bichas (effeminate gay men), bofes (very masculine gay men, often confused with the macho or heterosexual end of the scale), the michês (male prostitutes, most often dependent on a large quota of masculinity in order to get clients) etc. The main pattern is that the more feminine characters search for the more masculine characters , and vice-versa. (see note 8)

The idea of gay men having sex with heterosexuals, a kind of paradox that is very much in question in our imaginary, was dealt in an article called "Strange Attraction", ("Estranha Atração", Homens # 9, pg. 16-17). "Why do so many bichas want to have sex with bofes?", asks the author:

In any manner, it is undeniable that the heterosexual exerts a fascination among gays. Some take that so seriously that they refuse to have sex with other homosexuals and joke that they are not lesbian. That is just stupid prejudice. It sounds like the old saying that gays are, deep down, women and have to have a man by their sides. An image created in the Stone Age and that is dismistified by any gay with more than two neurons. "Nowadays it is very old fashioned, that bicha thing of having sex with heterosexuals", says Ricardo Nogueira. But Adalberto Rocha proclaims himself an adept of sex with heterosexuals. "I am heterosexual. I only have sex with men", he jokes. (Homens, # 9, pg. 17) (see note 9).

Notice that the article, in an attempt at being critical of the bicha figure, that searches for "real men" to have sex (in this case "heterosexuals"), ends up not denying the existence of this type of sex, but confirms its legitimacy, saying only that it is old fashioned. In other words, the overall cosmology is maintained (and not put in question like in Sui Generis), even when it is criticized.

Some authors (as Fry, 1982), in their research on this same subject matter, have suggested that the so called "hierarchical" cosmology, where the relationships are based on relational identities that are hierarchical depending on a quota of masculinity (this is not their terminology, but my own interpretation of the system), is characteristic of "traditional" Brazil, and is most prevalent where such social relations still hold, such as isolated rural areas and poorer communities. In the urban centers, larger cities and places where industrialization and social relations are more complex, the influence of the gay movement originated in North America and Europe have favored a more egalitarian approach to homosexual relationship, including there the adoption of the terms heterosexual/homosexual as excluding terms, and the gay identity as an urban minority lifestyle.

That sort of "evolutionist" approach is not entirely satisfying, in my view, because of all the discussion I have done before on the interpenetrations that these two models have, even in the most "modern" and "urban" contexts, such as the ones depicted in the magazines, and where these magazines circulate. Even though the analysis done by Fry was an important breakthrough, still unparalleled in my opinion, in the better understanding of homoerotic life in Brazil, we need to pay more attention to how more "traditional" more, associated with the lower classes and with rural settings (even by those journalists at SG Press, who made use of the hierarchical cosmology on a product targeted at the lower classes, and pushed the hand on the modern gay lifestyle when targeting the middle and upper classes), do have enormous influences on Brazilian sex life as a whole, and not just in those homoerotic contexts.

The understanding of those interpenetrations is complex and must be built step by step, in order not to simplify it for analytical purposes. Another example of it can be seen in the production of the photo shoots featured in the pages of Homens. I had the opportunity to interview by phone the free lance producer of those shoots. His team consists of two people, himself and a photographer. During the interview, he revealed to me that his photographer was in fact a woman. "People don't like to know that it is a woman that is taking the pictures, so I credit them to a man", he said.

One of the shoots we discussed in the interview was of two guys, enacting an erotic encounter in a tire repair shop ("Sacanagem no borracheiro", Homens n.18, p.28). What is most interesting about the pictures, according to him, was the fact that the guys were representing non gay, or heterosexual types, very masculine and working class, that were engaged in sexual activities. He told me that "most of the models are not actually gay, at least most say they aren't". That adds an element of subversion of norms that becomes very exciting. As I have already discussed, the macho heterosexual that penetrates gay men. The active, dominant male that subjugates the more feminine, gay man.

In the interviews with the models that are published alongside the pictures, none of the models describes himself as gay, although nearly all admit to having occasional sex with men, especially in the condition of male prostitutes. "Fuck assholes", "being sucked", are always possible activities described in the interviews, and none of the models feels, in the narrative, that that would make them gay or homosexual or bicha.

In one interview, the model says:

How is the flirting with you as a stripper?
It happens alot. By transvestites, as well as gays and women, it's all the same thing.
And how do you deal with that?
When I am working, I don't like to get involved. Outside, its ok.
And when it happens outside?
They tell me stuff that makes me even blush. It happens especially with gays.
[...]
Have you had sex with other men?
Yeah, it was ok. I met him dancing. He asked me for my phone number, and it happened.
And what did you feel having sex with another guy?
It was kind of strange, it is not the same as with a woman.
Well, that is expected. But how did it happen?
I got to his place kind of shy, but I knew what was going to happen. I went there to find out and it happened.
[...]
Would you do a gay porno?
No, otherwise I get a bad rep. I already went through that with a porno I did with transvestites.
(Homens, # 18, pg. 32) (see note 10).

The reporter in this interview is very distant from the gay positive militancy of some articles of Sui Generis. He does not question the model on his sexual identity, does not make explicit the apparent incoherences of what the model says about his sexual practice and his sexual preferences, and does not suggest that he should "come out" or something of the sort, that could be expected in such a situation, were this a "gay affirmative" magazine. The reporter accepts the difference established by the model between "being gay" and his own sexual practice.

In Sui Generis, such incoherences are also dealt with, but with a very different tone, as we see in the following article, "Betrayed by Desire", about men who have sex with other men, even though they expose themselves publicly as heterosexuals:

Ever since the beginnings of the world, betrayal has been a part of the many existing carnal temptations. Infidelity becomes even more exciting when, in one of the ends of the triangle, there is a person of the same sex. It is interesting to notice, for example, the high numbers of married men that often go to gay saunas. And others that, in the still of the night, search for the company of transvestites and hustlers. Women are not behind men and also cheat their partners with other women. Sui Generis investigated the motivations behind these extra marital adventures, that according to specialists, in most cases, are a sign of latent homosexuality. (Sui Generis, # 33, pg. 28) (see note 11).

Conclusions

I want to suggest, therefore, that it may be impossible to directly adapt to Brazilian reality the model, developed in North America, of sexual options, that implicates in a continuum between homosexual/bisexual/heterosexual, all of these mutually exclusive categories. These are categories that came to be in medical discourse in the XIX century, as has been amply discussed in the literature, and that have been associated to biological predispositions that in the individual, lead him to one specific sexual behavior.

I am also not satisfied with the distinction made by Fry (1982) and others between hierarchical and egalitarian models. The hierarchical model, supposedly present mostly in the lower urban classes ands rural settings, organizes individuals in "actives" and "passives". In this model, sexual behavior does not define discreet identities, such as hetero or homosexual. The egalitarian model, according to Fry a creation of gay movements in North America and Europe, had a greater influence among urban and more affluent classes in large cities. In this model, the homoerotic practice and desire serves as a unifying element of community, defining a distinct gay identity that is equal to all that participate in it.

This distinction is very productive when, for example, we want to understand the differences between the two magazines analyzed: Homens would represent the hierarchical model, and Sui Generis would be the representative of the egalitarian ideal. In my opinion, I think it is problematic to suppose any sort of evolution, as Fry implies, from the hierarchical to the egalitarian model. This vision presupposes that the egalitarian is better than the other model, and is also a natural symptom of society's evolution towards modernity (urban and industrialized), while the other model is characteristic of some sort of "inferior culture".

We cannot lose sight of how the subjects, in their concrete practices, make use of both models, adapting them to their different needs and desires. I would suggest that the hierarchical model is much more prevalent than most texts imply, even in the higher, more affluent and intellectualized urban classes. It influences even those nuclei of urban gay culture that explicitly combat and demoralize this hierarchical model and its subject positions (bicha, bofe, etc.).

The plurality of homoerotic practices in Brazil is complex, and cannot be fit into those categories created and disseminated by the gay ghetto. It penetrates what could be considered heterosexual culture in many respects. This happens in the sense that the popular (also the most common) perceptions of homoerotic practices between for example bofes and bichas are not categories exclusive to the gay ghetto, but are used and understood, and experimented by the whole of Brazilian society, prevailing over imported categories such as gay or homosexual.

There is legitimacy, in popular heterosexual culture, for all kinds of non heterosexual subject positions, such as transvestites and bichas. These identities are "legitimate" insofar as they are subordinate and inferior. There is no contradiction, as it is believed to happen in the United States, between a universal heterosexual norm and minority practices. In Brazil, non heterosexuals are as much a part of the universal norm as any other, but are seen as grotesque and inferior subjects, very popular in the media for example as clownish images.

So the contradictions (if we could call them that) which exist in the SG Press team, who produce a magazine featuring culture, fashion and lifestyles, geared towards the upper middle classes and also a pornographic magazine geared to lower classes are the contradictions that make up (homo)sexual life in Brazil as a whole. Insofar as those representations are fluid, contradictory and plural, so are the representations that we see circulating in mass media.

Sui Generis, whose editorial formula implies in the elevation of self esteem, through the construction of the gay subject as good and legitimate consumer, leaves out the majority of those individuals that, although they share the sexual desire for same sex partners (featured in the magazine), do not possess the money to buy the products announced as part of legitimate gay living, and also do not fit into the lifestyle standards disseminated in the magazine, which implies specific ways of experimenting sexual and emotional relationships.

The picture composed by Sui Generis represents thus the minority of a minority. At the same time it attempts to open up a space of legitimacy for a population excluded from mainstream culture, victimized by abuse and prejudice, the model of legitimacy it proposes is very limited and not workable for the majority of the population in Brazil that suffer the abuses denounced in its pages.

Homens magazine, in turn, also does not offer a solution to this problem. In its pages we see a greater diversity of characters, more in tune with Brazilian reality. Also the necessity to buy products is not the central feature of unity in the magazine, but rather erotic pleasure. But the model of desire and lifestyle present in its pages is also reductionist. We are led to believe, in reading the erotic stories and in seeing the pictures, that only very masculine men, many times heterosexual and muscular, are a legitimate object of desire. That means that sexual desire for the same sex occurs always as a concealed experience, with married men, policemen, firemen and bichas, transvestites, etc. In the erotic encounters described, we see repeatedly a macho man figure subjugating, humiliating or otherwise proving his greater masculinity towards a more effeminate figure.

While I do not wish to deny or devalue the erotic value of these images, what comes out as a bother is the fact that homoerotic practices are so frequently represented as acts of submission to a macho. As Bourdieu (1998) describes, there is a eroticization, in representations, of a concrete relation of hierarchy and submission. While that experience can be sexually arousing and satisfying, I would not condone a vision that reduced same-sex desire as only that.

There are no easy answers or formulas, and there shouldn't be. The complexity that I attempted to describe is an integral part of the gay experience of Brazilians. That plurality should be explored and celebrated, even in its paradoxes. We shouldn't, I think, be satisfied with the establishment of rigid subject positions for our sexuality, but open more and more possibilities for the free expression of our eroticism, without by so doing turning ourselves into victims of abuse, prejudice and discrimination.

(1) This paper came about as part of the research done for my Master's in Social Anthropology at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP, state of São Paulo, Brazil), financed by the State of São Paulo's Research Support Foundation (FAPESP). It was presented at the II Meeting of University Researchers: Literature and Homoeroticism - An agenda for gay and lesbian studies in Brazil. Universidade Federal Fluminense (Niterói, state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), May 24-26, 2000. I thank here my advisor, Professor Guita Grin Debert, for her support throughout the research process; my friends at Niterói, especially Sérgio Aboud, Mário Lugarinho, Émerson da Cruz Inácio, and also professor Rick Santos (SUNY), for their friendship.

(2) Portuguese to English translation done by the author.

(3) For those not familiar with the Brazilian context, in the country we have two police corporations, a heritage of the military dictatorship that governed from 1964-1988. One civil and the other military, subjected to military law and discipline. Most of the street work is done by military police officers.

(4) Portuguese to English translation done by the author.

(5) Portuguese to English translation done by the author.

(6) Portuguese to English translation done by the author.

(7) Portuguese to English translation done by the author. The dynamics of transvestite life in Brazil are very complex, and much larger than this paper allows, thus some elements may seem obscure to unfamiliar readers. We could say they fit, speaking very generically, in the most feminine end of the scale, thus having some legitimacy outside of the "gay ghetto" as lesser women. They are also the preferred targets for police and other violence committed against gays, including murders and torture.

(8) This cosmology has been explored in detail by Perlongher (1987), in his research of male prostitutes in the city of São Paulo. He describes very well the relational character of identity definition inside the ghetto, and how fluid some relationships become, as well as the masculinity scale I mentioned above. His analysis also opens up the logical possibility of analyzing the complex relationships between the marginal sexual practices and the larger, conventional society. That relationship is less one of total exclusion (the ghetto has few or no resemblance to the society it is encompassed by, rather it has its own sexual mores) than one of complex intersections (marginal and conventional mores live alongside each other and in many instances need each other in a relational form).

(9) Portuguese to English translation done by the author.

(10) Portuguese to English translation done by the author.

(11) Portuguese to English translation done by the author

References:

BOURDIEU, Pierre
(1997). Sobre a televisão. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar.
(1998). La Domination masculine. Paris: Seuil.

COSTA, Jurandir Freire.
(1992). A Inocência e o Vício: Estudos sobre o homoerotismo. Rio de Janeiro: Relume-Dumará.

FRY, Peter.
(1982). Para Inglês ver; identidade e política na cultura brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar.

MACRAE, Edward.
(1990) A Construção da igualdade; identidade sexual e política no Brasil da Abertura. Campinas: UNICAMP.

PERLONGUER, Néstor.
(1987). O Negócio do Michê: a prostituição viril. São Paulo: Brasiliense.

Magazine issues consulted:

Homens, Rio de Janeiro, ano 2, n. 7.
Homens, Rio de Janeiro ano 2, n. 8.
Homens, Rio de Janeiro ano 2, n. 9.
Homens, Rio de Janeiro, ano 2, n. 10.
Homens, Rio de janeiro, ano 2, n. 12.
SUI GENERIS, Rio de Janeiro, ano IV, n. 33, 1998.
SUI GENERIS, Rio de Janeiro, ano IV, n. 34, 1998.
SUI GENERIS, Rio de Janeiro, ano IV, n. 35, 1998.
SUI GENERIS, Rio de Janeiro, ano IV, n.36, 1998.
SUI GENERIS, Rio de Janeiro, ano IV, n. 37, 1998.
SUI GENERIS, Rio de Janeiro, ano V, n. 43, 1999.