Sex Trafficking - Interview

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Cad. Pagu No. 21 Campinas 2003
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Gayle Rubin is an anthropologist who has written a large number of very
influential articles, including "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ?? Political Permalink
Economy 'of Sex", "Thinking Sex", "The Leather Menace" and "Misguided,
Dangerous and Wrong: An Analysis of Anti-Pornography Politics ". The
University of California Press will soon publish a collection of your essays. She is currently writing a book based on
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ethnographic and historical research on a community of gay leather men. from San Francisco.
Rubin has been a member of the feminist movement since the late 1960s, and has had an intense role in gay and
lesbian politics for more than two decades. She was a passionate critic of the movement against pornography and
aggression against sexual minorities. His work presented a series of methodological suggestions for the studies of
feminism and male homosexuality that established some goals in the development process of both fields of study.
JB: The reason I want to do this interview is that some people understand that you developed the methodology for
feminist theory, and then the methodology for studies on lesbianism and gays. And I think it would be interesting,
so that people could understand the relationship between these two fields, that they knew how you moved from
one position in "The Traffic in Women" to another position in "Thinking Sex". It would also be interesting to hear a
little bit about the type of work you are doing now. So, I thought about starting with one of the beginnings, that is,
"The Traffic in Women", and asking you to talk a little bit about the context in which you wrote it, and also asking
when you started to distance yourself from the ideas you exposed on that job.
GR: Well, I think I have a different idea about the relationship between these writings, feminist thinking and
studies on homosexuality. "Traffic in Women" has its origins in the beginnings of the second wave of feminism,
when many of us who had acted in the late 1960s were trying to get an idea of how to think and understand the
oppression of women. The political environment was impacted by the New Left , especially the anti-war movement
and opposition to militarized US imperialism. The dominant paradigm among progressive intellectuals was
Marxism, in various forms. Many of the feminists of the early days of the second wave came from the New Leftand
they were, in one way or another, Marxists. I think that we cannot fully understand this moment of feminism
without understanding its close, albeit conflicting, relationship with New Left politics and with Marxist intellectual
structures. There is a huge Marxist legacy in feminism, and feminist thinking owes a great deal to Marxism. In a
sense, Marxism allowed people to raise a whole series of questions that Marxism itself could not answer
satisfactorily.
Marxism, regardless of the degree to which it was modified, seemed unable to understand the issues of gender
difference and oppression of women. Many of us struggled against this dominant framework - or within it - to make
it work or to understand why it didn't work. I was one of many who finally concluded that we could only move
https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-83332003000200008&lng=pt&tlng=pt 1/18
forward within a Marxist paradigm, that it was useful, but at the same time had limitations with regard to gender
and sex.
I must add that there were different forms of Marxist approach. There were rather narrow formulations on the
"issue of women" and some especially simplistic strategies for the liberation of women. I remember a group in Ann
Arbor called, if I'm not mistaken, Red Star Sisters . Their conception of women's liberation was that they should
mobilize groups of women to fight imperialism. There was no room in his approach to deal specifically with gender
oppression; this was only a by-product of class oppression and imperialism, which was supposed to disappear after
the workers' revolution.
There were many people studying Engels' Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State . Engels was part of
the Marxist canon and he talked about women, so his work enjoyed special prestige. There were dozens of small
studies on the brutal defeat of an alleged primitive matriarchy and the invention of private property as the source
of women's oppression. In retrospect, some of this literature seems strange, but at the time it was taken very
seriously. I wonder if anyone who has not lived through that moment can have an idea of how intensely people
were arguing over whether or not there was a primitive matriarchy and whether its elimination explained class
differences and the oppression of women.
Even the best Marxist works of the time tended to focus on subjects closer to the central concerns of Marxism,
such as class, work, relations of production; there were even some very creative theories about the social relations
of reproduction. Then there was a wonderful, very interesting literature on housework, for example. Good studies
have been done on the sexual division of labor, on the place of women in the labor market, on the role of women
in reproducing work. Part of this literature was very interesting and very useful, but it failed to come up with
certain crucial themes that interest feminists: gender difference, gender oppression and sexuality. Like this, there
was a general effort to differentiate feminism from this political context and its dominant concerns. There were a
lot of people trying to understand the problem of oppression of women and looking for tools that would allow them
to analyze it from different points of view. "Traffic in Women" was part of that effort and addresses this type of
problem. Many other articles with similar themes have been published; one of my favorites was "The Unhappy
Marriage of Marxism and Feminism" by Heidi Hartman. Many other articles with similar themes have been
published; one of my favorites was "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism" by Heidi Hartman. Many
other articles with similar themes have been published; one of my favorites was "The Unhappy Marriage of
Marxism and Feminism" by Heidi Hartman.
What inspired my article "Traffic" was a course on tribal economics given by Marshall Sahlins at the University of
Michigan, around 1970. That course changed my life. I had already been in contact with feminists, but that was my
first experience with anthropology, and I fell in love. I was delighted with Sahlins' theoretical approach, and also
with the descriptive richness of ethnographic literature.
I was writing an assignment with two friends and our topic was the status of women in tribal societies. Sahlins
suggested that I read Lévi-Strauss's Elementary Structures of Kinship . To use the language of the time, "the book
made my head". The same happened with other works of French structuralism. I read Althusser's article on Freud
and Lacan in the New Left Review at the same time I was reading Elementary Structures of Kinship, and I realized
that there was a relationship between the two approaches. So I started reading most of the classic
psychoanalytical essays on "femininity". "The Traffic in Women" was the result of the confluence of these studies. I
was very excited about all these relationships and wanted to incorporate them into the work for Sahlins' course.
One of my co-authors hesitated to incorporate this abstruse material into the work, so I wrote the first version of
"Traffic" as an appendix to the work. So I kept reading and thinking about it.
At that time, the University of Michigan allowed students to develop an independent field of study in the special
course for exceptionally gifted students. I took advantage of the program to develop a Women's Studies discipline
in 1969. There was no such program in Michigan at that time, so I was the first to develop it. This independent
study required the elaboration of a thesis in the special course, so I elaborated it partly on the literature and the
history of lesbianism, partly on this analysis of psychoanalysis and kinship. I finished writing the thesis in 1972,
and I reworked part of the text "Traffic" until Rayna Rapp (then Reiter) extracted the final version for Toward an
Anthropology of Women.A penultimate version was published in a little-known Ann Arbor magazine called
Dissemination in 1974.
What many people certainly don't remember is that there was very little French structuralist and post-structuralist
literature available in English at that time. Lévi-Strauss, Althusser and Foucault were very well translated around
1970, unlike what happened with Lacan. In addition to Althusser's essay on him, Lacan was represented, in
English, by one or two articles, A Linguagem do Eu(translated and commented at length by Anthony Wilden), and a
book by Maud Mannoni. I remember seeing perhaps one or two articles by Derrida. Almost all of his work, as well
as that of Lyotard, Kristeva, Irigaray and Bourdieu, could only be read by those who knew French. His thinking was
virtually unknown in the United States. When I wrote the version of "Traffic" that ended up being published, one of
my friends edited it. She thought that only ten people would read it. I figured maybe two hundred would read it,
and we finally tied for fifty.
JB: You said that in a way you intended to intervene in Marxist feminism and make feminism stop being a kind of
tax movement within Marxism. Can you talk a little bit about it?
GR: I thought that if people adopted Marxism as the main theory to address the issue of oppression of women,
they would miss out on a lot, and that was what was happening. I think of "Traffic" as a proto and postmodern
neo-Marxist exercise. It was written at the height of the transition between dominant paradigms, both in
progressive thinking in general, and in feminist thinking in particular. But the basic problem was that Marxism had
a very precarious understanding of sex and gender, and had intrinsic limitations as a theoretical framework for
feminism. There were other themes, such as the general problem of seeking some theoretical basis for lesbianism.
JB: It seems to me that you based a lot of what you say about sexuality and gender in "The Traffic in Women" on a
concept of kinship taken from Lévi-Strauss. Insofar as it could be shown that kinship relations were at the service
of compulsory heterosexuality, it could also show that gender identities derived, to some extent, from kinship
relations. So we thought it was possible to go beyond gender - perhaps "gender identity" is a more appropriate
term - if it were possible to do something like overcome kinship ...
GR: Right, and the cultural residue, the symbolic manifestations and all the other aspects of that system, and the
internalization of those structures and categories in people.
JB: It was a kind of utopian vision.
GR: Well, we were all quite utopian back then. That was between 1969 and 1974. I was young and optimistic about
social change. At that time there was a common expectation that utopia was very close. Now I think very
differently. Now I fear that fascism is very close. I am as pessimistic now as I am optimistic then.
JB: Yes. So you could tell how you distanced yourself from that conception and talk about what made you write
"Thinking Sex"?
GR: It was a different type of concern that generated "Thinking Sex". I think the main difference was that,
theoretically, I thought that feminism dealt inappropriately with sexual practice, especially with unconventional
sexual behavior; and, in practical terms, the political situation was changing. "Thinking Sex" is from the late 1970s,
when New Rightit was beginning to ascend in American politics, and when stigmatized sexual practices were under
fire from repression. 1977 was the year of Anita Bryant and the campaign against gay rights in the municipality of
Dade. Now these campaigns are, unfortunately, the common topic of gay politics, but at that time the intolerance
and homophobia generated by this struggle was frightening. It was during this period that the fundraising directed
by Richard Viguerle was giving a new impetus to the political organization of the radical right. In 1981 Reagan was
in power. This changed the status , security, and legal status of homosexuality, sex work, sexually explicit media,
and many other forms of sexual practice.
"Thinking Sex" was not conceived as a continuation of "Traffic", nor from it. I was trying to do something different,
which involved a review of some aspects of my previous theses. But I think those last few pages have been
interpreted, wrongly, as a turn or a great rejection of my previous positions. I see them before as a correction, and
as a way of addressing another series of issues. I wasn't looking to get away from "Traffic in Women". I was trying
to address issues of sexual difference and sexual variety. And when I speak of "sexual difference", I understand,
reading your text "Against Proper Objects", that you are using the term very differently than I do. I use that term
to refer to different sexual practices. Apparently, you use it referring to gender.
JB: Do you mean that I use the term "sexual difference" in the same sense as you use "gender" in "Traffic in
Women"?
GR: Well, I'm not sure about that. Tell me in what sense do you use the term "sexual difference" because it is not
clear to me.
JB: Yes, well, I think most people who work on the issue of "sexual difference" actually believe that there is
something that persists when it comes to the sexual difference understood in terms of male and female. At the
same time, they tend to adopt psychoanalysis or some theory of the symbolic. And what I always found interesting
in "The Traffic of Women" is that you used the term gender to track down the same type of problem raised by
Lacan or Lévi-Strauss, but in fact it took a very different turn from that adopted by - let's call them so - feminists
of sexual difference, who now work almost exclusively in the domains of psychoanalysis. And what interested me in
"The Traffic of Women" was that you, using a term that comes from the American sociological discourse - "gender"
- actually the less fixed genre, imagined a kind of mobility that I suppose is absolutely impossible in a Lacanian
context. So, I think you produced a mix of positions that I liked a lot and became one of the reasons why I also
addressed the gender issue and developed myGender Trouble.
GR: Well, I didn't want to fall into Lacan's trap. It seemed to me, like all respect to those who are able to escape
traps or to manipulate them, that Lacan's work arises with a dangerous tendency to create a kind of deep pit from
which it would be impossible to escape. I kept looking for ways to avoid the demands of certain systems, and
Lacanian psychoanalysis was a tool for that, at the same time that it proposed new challenges. Lacanian
psychoanalysis is very useful in dealing with structures of gender and desire, but it comes at a price. I was
concerned with the totalizing tendencies in Lacan, and with the non-social character of his conception of the
symbolic.
JB: Yes. It is a really interesting problem. I think that in British feminism, for example, in the seventies, there was
a belief that if you could reshape and change the shape of your kinship system you could also reshape your
sexuality and your psyche, and that the psychic transformation would actually take place, directly, the social
transformation of kinship configurations. So when everyone did that and found that their psychesthey were still in
the same old wells where they had always been, Lacan's position became quite popular. I think the problem now is
how to describe these restrictions on sexuality, apparently more persistent than what we can change through the
transformation of social and kinship relations. Maybe there is something intractable, maybe there is something
more persistent ...
GR: Leaving aside the problem of how much these social and kinship relationships have really transformed so far,
the magnitude of these changes, the time intervals necessary for this to happen and the fact that many of our
psyches were formed long ago time and are refractory to such a quick education - what is this intractable thing ?
One of the advantages of psychoanalytic approaches is that they explain both change and the intractable
character. But there is something about the special intractability of what is called symbolic that I don't understand.
Is it something in the very nature of the brain's structure and in the way it creates language?
JB: I would say that it is the structure of language, the emergence of the speaking subject through sexual
differentiation, and the way that language subsequently creates intelligibility.
GR: Does this in any way make it necessary to have a male and a female?
JB: As you know from your readings of Lacan, there is a tendency to understand sexual difference as coextensive
with language itself. He also knows that there is no possibility of speaking, of taking a position in the language
except by differentiating gestures, not only by means of a differentiation of the maternal - who, it is said,
introduces a speaker into the language for the first time - but by other differences between speakers in the context
of kinship, which includes the prohibition of incest. Insofar as this is done within the constellation of, say, Mother /
Father as symbolic functions ...
GR: There is something inherently problematic about any idea that, to some extent, language itself or the ability to
acquire it requires sexual differentiation as the main differentiation. If human beings were hermaphrodites or
reproduced in an asexual way, I imagine they would still be able to speak. A specific symbolic relationship that
precedes any social life ... I have a certain resistance to this idea. One of the problems I have with Lacan is the fact
that his system does not seem to give enough space for the social structuring of the symbolic.
JB: Right. I agree with you on that point. But I think that this is one of the reasons why the social does not have
much expression and is in fact not of interest to many of those working in the Lacanian domain. What I think is
really great about "The Traffic in Women" is the fact that it allowed us to understand psychic structures in relation
to social structures.
GR: Well, that is what I intended to do, and I did not want to get caught up in a symbolic that could not be
accessed by any social means. People often think that if something is social it is also somewhat fragile and can be
changed quickly. For example, a right-wing wing of anti-gay literature now claims that, given that homosexuality is
socially determined, people can (and should) easily change their sexual orientation. And as you were saying a while
ago, frustration with the persistent character of some things leads people to think that they are not socially
generated. But the kind of social change we're talking about takes a lot of time and the amount of time we've been
trying to make that change is incredibly small.
Furthermore, the mark of kinship configurations on individual psyches is very long-lasting. The acquisition of our
sexual and gender programming is very similar to the learning of our cultural system or our mother tongue. It is
much more difficult to learn new languages, or to have the same fluency that we have in our first language. As
Carole Vance said in Social Construction Theory,this same model can be useful in analyzing gender and sexual
preferences. As with languages, some people have more flexibility in terms of gender and eroticism than others.
Some may have a second language in terms of sex and gender, and a few will be absolutely comfortable in more
than one position. But most people have a mother tongue and well-being zones in terms of sex and gender that
will never change much. This does not mean that these things are not social, just as the difficulties in learning
other languages do not prove that languages are not social phenomena. The social phenomenon can be incredibly
refractory. Nevertheless, in "Traffic", I intended to place gender and sexuality in a social context,
JB: So, if you want, talk about the theoretical and political circumstances that made you turn to "Thinking Sex".
GR: "Thinking Sex" was part of a movement that moved away from the vision of a first-hour structuralism centered
on the binary aspects of language, such as the binary oppositions so present in Lévi-Strauss and Lacan, moving
towards the later models, more discursive, post-structuralism or postmodernism. If you really think that social life
is structured like language, then you will need complex models that show how language is structured. I think
binary models seem to work best for genre, because we usually see it as binary; even the continuumgender
differences almost always seem to be structured by a basic binary opposition. But as soon as we move away from
the assumptions of heterosexuality or simple hetero-homo opposition, differences in sexual behavior are not very
intelligible in terms of binary models. Even the idea of a continuum is not a good model for sexual variations; it
takes one of those mathematical models that are now being made, with strange topologies and convoluted shapes.
There needs to be a model that is not binary, because sexual variation is a system of many differences, not just a
pair of conspicuous differences.
We were just talking about the evident relationship that exists between "Thinking Sex" and MacKinnon's work. In
retrospect, many people saw "Thinking Sex" as a reaction to MacKinnon's work against pornography.
JB: I'm certainly to blame for that ...
GR: While the feminist movement against pornography was on the agenda, much of the work for "Thinking Sex"
was done before Mackinnon became a prominent figure in the movement. For many, Mackinnon came to represent
the feminist movement against pornography, but in fact she arrived relatively late in the movement. She gained
prominence as an important figure in the wars against pornography around 1984 (after the passage of the anti-
pornography "civil rights" law in Minneapolis in late 1983) and then in Indianapolis in late 1983. Her fame tends to
overshadow the beginnings of the feminist movement against pornography, which is best represented by the
anthology Take Back the Night.The information I had about Mackinnon is mainly derived from the two articles
published in Signs.The first was published in 1982, and I knew of an earlier version. I had been working on
versions of "Thinking Sex" for some time. But I could see where Mackinnon was headed, at least at the theoretical
level, and I was going in the other direction. She intended to make feminism the privileged field for analyzing
sexuality and for subordinating sexual politics not only to feminism, but to a particular type of feminism. On the
great chessboard of life, I wanted to obstruct that particular movement. But that was not the motivation for my
text. At some level, I think there were certain underlying political and social changes that gave rise to "Thinking
Sex", the feminist movement against pornography, Mackinnon's approach,
JB: You mean Mackinnon's "Marxism, Feminism, Method and the State".
GR: Yes. "Thinking Sex" has its roots in 1977-78, and I started making versions of this work for lectures in 1979. I
think you were present at one of them, at the Second Conference on Sex at the New York Institute for the
Humanities .
JB: Yes. That was the first time that I saw a copy of Foucault's History of sexuality .
GR: Was I with one of them?
JB: Yes. You introduced him to me.
GR: I was crazy about that book.
JB: Yes, and you made me stay too ... [laughs]
GR: Actually the work started before I started reading Foucault, but his book clarified some themes and inspired
me. Anyway, the sources of my work were older, and a little different. First of all, I started to be increasingly
dissatisfied with the feminist explanations that existed then for certain types of sexual behavior. A large number of
debates, discussions, events and themes led me to question the wisdom, and even the relevance, of feminism as a
political movement or political theory capable of dealing with certain themes of sexuality and sexual difference.
One of them was the debate about transsexualism. Even before this debate reached the press, around the end of
the 1970s, the discussion irritated me for being so deterministic from a biological point of view. When he finally
reached the press, with the hiring of Sandy Stone, a transsexual who opted for the female sex, by Olivia Records,
there were a large number of articles in the lesbian press about how women are born and not made (House and
Gowan), the that I found something ...
GR & JB: (in unison) ... regrettable.
GR: To say the least. And then other themes came up. Around 1977-78, there was a crackdown, to use an old-
fashioned term in Michigan, against the public sex of male homosexuals. Suddenly, men were arrested much more
aggressively for having sex in parks or in tearooms. There were two old meeting places on the Michigan campus,
one at Union and the other at Mason Hall. The police came and arrested some people. At a gas station frequented
by truck drivers on I-94 between Ann Arbor and Detroit, many men were arrested, and in a police raid on a park
they arrested, and then fired, a Detroit public school official. And when these stories started circulating through
lesbian and feminist associations, the opinion I heard most was that it was men doing horrible masculine and
patriarchal things that certainly should be arrested. It was a position that I could not accept. Nobody went around
arresting everyone who had heterosexual sex in parks and cars. It was abhorrent to me to support or rationalize
someone's imprisonment for committing homosexual sex.
There was another series of events, also in Ann Arbor, in the late 1970s, related to sex work and prostitution.
There was a very interesting woman named Carol Ernst. We had been disagreeing, for years, on several subjects;
she was committed to ideas for which I had no patience, such as the theory of matriarchy and patriarchal revolt as
a way of explaining women's oppression, and the idea that women had no political power in societies that
worshiped female deities . But you know how in small communities people tend to talk to each other, even when
they disagree or have very different points of view. That was what happened in that case, and we were friends.
Carol carried out a series of very important activities in that community. At one point she went to work at a local
massage parlor. She ended up trying to unionize sex workers, and in the early 1970s she led a labor action against
salon management. There were prostitutes picketing on the street in front of that sordid bookstore in downtown
Ann Arbor, and striking sex workers filed a lawsuit with the Michigan Department of Labor Relations. An amazing
thing. and striking sex workers filed a lawsuit with the Michigan Department of Labor Relations. An amazing thing.
and striking sex workers filed a lawsuit with the Michigan Department of Labor Relations. An amazing thing.
Then Carol left the massage parlor and went to work at the bus company, where she worked to resolve labor
issues and promote union membership. Many Ann Arbor lesbians ended up working in the massage parlor or the
bus company, which we affectionately called "hot-lesbian". In the mid-1970s, the top three lesbian employers in
Ann Harbor were the university, the bus company and the massage parlor. It's very funny, but it was like that.
Then the massage parlor where so many lesbians worked was invaded by the police. One of the arrested women, a
wonderful person, very beautiful and athletic, was the midfield star of the lesbian softball team . The local lesbian-
feminist association had to face the fact that many of its friends and heroines were in prison for prostitution.
JB: Fabulous.
GR: At first, most of the other people, including me, had a conventional reaction, thinking that they shouldn't do
that job and that they were supporting patriarchy. The women prisoners and their supporters created an
organization, called PEP, the Prostitution Education Project. They placed us, as everyone else, as the target
audience for an entire educational project. They asked what they did so differently from what everyone else did for
a living. Some said they liked that job more than any other within their reach. They asked why it was more
feminist to work as secretaries, for more hours and much less money. Some said they liked working conditions; the
massage parlor even had an exercise room where sports lovers exercised while waiting for customers. They asked
us to see prostitution as a job and not to judge it from a moralistic point of view. They brought in Margo St. James
and held a big dance for prostitutes to raise funds for the defense in court.
Later, Carol Ernst died tragically in an automobile accident. But she was a visionary, and her combination sui
generisof feminism and labor politics left a big mark. She challenged me in my rhetorical use of prostitution to
discuss the horror of women's oppression. I used to make people feel indignant by comparing the situation of
women in marriage - and in similar sexual / economic conditions - to the situation of prostitution. Carol claimed
that I was using the stigma of prostitution as a persuasion technique, and that in doing so I was contributing to
maintaining and increasing that stigma at the expense of women doing sex work. She was right. I ended up
realizing that rhetorical efficiency came from stigma and understood that my rhetorical gain could not justify
attitudes that rationalized the persecution of sex workers.
I was becoming more and more frightened by how the logic of the conception of lesbianism as a form of mutual
identification between women had been able to impose itself. In defining lesbianism, as a whole, as relationships of
mutual support between women, and not as something with sexual content, this approach emptied - to use a
popular term - lesbianism of any sexual content. This definition made it difficult to distinguish a lesbian from a non-
lesbian. These were common trends in local lesbian communities. Adrienne Rich somehow codified a certain
approach, widespread at the time, in which people did not want to distinguish between lesbians and other women
who had close relationships of mutual support. And I thought that was debatable, both from an intellectual and
political point of view. A number of things that in no way, even with the greatest effort of imagination, could be
considered lesbianism, were included in this category. And that view also reduced something that lesbians are
interesting and special about. At first I was incredibly excited by the ideas about mutual identification between
women, but I was already beginning to realize their limitations.
JB: Is that why you opposed calling the whole domain of friendship between women "lesbian"?
GR: In part. I disagreed with a certain obscuration of the categories, and felt it a mistake to take the limited world
of nineteenth-century romantic friendship, stuck as it was to a rigid segregation of the sexual role and entangled in
marriage relations, as a kind of ideal model of lesbian existence . I disagreed with the dominant discourse that was
then developing in lesbian historiography, according to which the changes that were subverting this world were
considered to be totally negative, a fall from the state of grace, an expulsion from Eden, plotted by abominable
sexologists with their knowledge of carnal desires. I did not like the way that lesbians motivated by sensuality, or
lesbians invested in dyke / lady roles, were treated as second-class inhabitants of the lesbianism continuum , while
some women who had never had sexual desire for women enjoyed a higher status . This speech and its prejudices
were expressed in the title of Nancy Sahli's article "Smashing: Women's Relationships Before the Fall". They were
developed more widely in Surpassing the Love of Men [Overcoming Love for Men] , Lillian Faderman. 1975's
original essay by Caroll Smith Rosenberg deliberately confused some of the distinctions between categories of
lesbianism as statussexual and other types of relationships between women, but avoided using romantic friendship
as a model by which lesbianism should be based. I think the most common simplification of this "lost paradise"
discourse in the history of lesbianism is found in the work of Sheila Jeffrey.
JB: But then Rich's idea of the continuum, I imagine you ...
GR: Rich's article shares many of the same elements and hypotheses that appear in historical work. I was not
against historical research on these relationships, but I considered it a mistake to privilege them in defining the
category of "lesbianism", either historically or in a contemporary context, and to judge other forms of lesbianism as
deficient, degraded or inferior. For example, reading Surpassing the Love of Men,it is concluded that "male
lesbians" were forged by sexologists in a plot to debunk romantic friendship. Furthermore, in Sahli's and
Faderman's analysis it is implied that the conditions that allowed the emergence of sexually conscious lesbians,
self-conscious lesbian identities, and lesbian subcultures in the late 19th century are pitiful, because they have
destroyed old innocent passions and friendships pure. So, nothing very good happened for lesbians until the
emergence of lesbian feminism in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, this period of darkness coincides with the
beginnings of the development of lesbian cultures, literatures, identities, self-awareness and politics.
This speech oversimplified the complexities of those friendships, obscured their class components and obliterated
many important distinctions. It is too long a discussion to fit here, but what I want to highlight is that this
categorical system buried many historical and social complexities in a romantic, politicized and limited notion of
lesbianism. In addition, he replaced sexual preference with a kind of gender solidarity. This substitution was moral
and analytical. Relationships and solidarity between women are important and somewhat coincide with lesbian
erotic passions, but they are not isomorphic and require a series of more subtle distinctions.
Another problem in the late 1970s arises from the politics of male homosexuals. Feminism was also widely used as
the political theory of male homosexual politics, and it did not work very well. Very little of the behavior of
homosexual men was approved by feminism. Most male homosexual culture practices were rejected by many
feminists, who cruelly condemned transvestism, homosexual sex in public, promiscuity, leather, anal fist
penetration, the practice of "hunting", and practically everything that homosexuals did. I could not accept the
reasons why all this was considered to be a terrible and anti-feminist thing and I thought that they were often just
an expression of a redivive homophobia. In the late 1970s, there was a corpus of theoretical political writings on
topics related to the sexual practice of male homosexuals. I found this literature fascinating. It was useful for
thinking about the sexuality of homosexuals, and moreover it had an influence on the politics of the sexual practice
of lesbianism.
And then there was the whole issue of sexual difference. I am using the terminology of "sexual difference" here to
refer to what would otherwise be called perversion, sexual deviation, sexual variation or sexual diversity. In the
late 1970s, almost all sexual variations were presented somewhere in feminist literature in negative terms, with a
feminist rationalization. Transsexualism, male homosexuality, promiscuity, public sex, transvestism, fetishism and
sadomasochism - all of which were condemned by feminist rhetoric, and each of them was given a certain
responsibility in creating and maintaining women's subordination. In a way, these poor sexual deviations suddenly
became the most absolute expression of patriarchal domination. I found this disconcerting: on the one hand, this
thesis took sexual practices and populations relatively small and without great strength and elected them as the
most important enemy of women's freedom and well-being. At the same time, it took the responsibility of the most
powerful institutions - an expression of male supremacy - and the traditional space of feminist agitation: the
family, religion, discrimination at work and economic dependence, forced reproduction, biased education, lack of
rights, thecivil status etc.
JB: Well, let's go back a little bit. You spoke a little while ago about how you were forced to rethink the concept of
prostitution, and I understand that now you see it from a very different angle. You talked about rethinking
prostitution by looking at it as a labor issue and as a matter of women's work. So you talked about the
desexualization of lesbians and also about how the policy of female homosexuality took feminist theory as its own,
although that theory did not really fit the practices that homosexual men engaged in.
GR: In the late 1970s and early 1980s, just before AIDS attacked and changed everyone's concerns, there was an
emerging literature on the political theory of male homosexuality about sexuality. Much of this literature appeared
in the best gay / lesbian newspapers in North America at the time, The Body Politic and GGN ( Gay Community
News ) .There were articles about sex in public, fist penetration, love between man and boy, promiscuity, sexual
"hunting" and sexual ads. Homosexuals (men) were articulating a political theory specific to their sexual culture (or
cultures). This work evaluated male homosexual behavior on its own terms, rather than appealing to feminism as
justification or condemnation.
In retrospect, it seems clear to me that many things were happening at almost the same time. In a way, the
political conditions of sexual practice were changing in the late 1970s, and the emergence of a political theory of
male homosexuality was part of that. The most portentous event was the phenomenal growth of the New Right. In
the late 1970s she was ostensibly and successfully mobilizing around issues related to sex. The New Right had a
strong program with sexual themes: increasing punishments against young people for sexual activity, preventing
homosexuals (men and women) from obtaining equality in terms of social and civil rights, forcing women to
reproduce and so on. against. So,Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media ) was founded around 1976-
77, and WAP ( Women Against Pornography ) in 1979. Samois, the first SM (sadomasochistic) lesbian organization,
was founded in 1978. Something very profound was happening. ; a broader and more subterranean change in the
way in which sexuality was experienced, conceived and organized. "Thinking Sex" was just a response to this
change in the political and social climate. I think my work has changed because something different was happening
and my arsenal of assumptions and tools was not enough for me to deal with these changes.
JB: I understand that you also disagreed with the language used to describe those to whom sexual deviations were
attributed.
GR: I observed those who had the so-called "sexual deviations", and frankly they did not seem to me to be the
supreme of the patriarchy. On the contrary, they appeared to be people with a whole series of specific problems,
generated by a dominant system of sexual politics that seriously threatened them. They did not seem to me to be
the avatars of society's political and social power. So I asked myself what was wrong with the picture they
presented to us. It seemed to me that many feminists had simply assimilated stigmas and antipathies against
certain unconventional sexual practices, rearticulating them within their own theoretical universe.
I was beginning to be dissatisfied with the predominance of certain types of psychoanalytic interpretations of
varying sexualities and with the general assumption that psychoanalysis was the privileged field for interpreting
differences in sexual conduct. Despite its limitations and problems, psychoanalysis has a certain strength and
usefulness in the analysis of issues related to gender identity and gender difference. In contrast, the
psychoanalytic approach to sexual variation, also called perversion, seemed to me, to a large extent, surprisingly
reductionist and simplifying. In addition, many of these traditional approaches to "perversion" arrived at feminism
practically uncritically. For me,
For example, consider something like fetishism and say that it has to do with castration and lack, or that it may be
the awareness of castration, or who knows the price you pay for that knowledge, or something that takes the place
of that knowledge. well, it all tells me very little about fetishism.
When I think about fetishism I want to know about many other things. I don't see how one can talk about
fetishism, or sadomasochism, without thinking about rubber production, the techniques and accessories used for
handling horses, the shine of military shoes, the history of silk stockings, the cold and official character of the
medical instruments or the fascination of motorcycles and the deceptive freedom to leave the city to hit the road.
By the way, how can we think about fetishism without considering the impact of cities, certain streets and parks,
areas of prostitution and "cheap fun", or the seduction of department store shelves, with their desirable and
glamorous stacks of goods (Judith Walkowitz, Kathy Peiss, Jann Matlock)? For me, fetishism raises a whole series
of issues related to the change in the production of objects, to the historical and social specificities of social control
and etiquette, or intrusions into the body and millimeter-graded hierarchies. If all that complex social information
is reduced to castration and the Oedipus complex or to know or not to know what should be known, I think
something important is lost.
I want to know about the topographies and political economies of erotic significance. I think that we acquired a lot
of our grammar of eroticism at a young age, and that psychoanalysis has very strong models for active acquisition
and for personal transformations of meaning in very young people. But I do not think that the conventional
concerns of psychoanalysis are so enlightening when it comes to the changing social and historical content of those
meanings. Much of the information - to use a made phrase - is omitted, denied or displaced. There are many
interesting, creative and intelligent psychoanalytical works. But when I wanted to reflect on sexual diversity,
psychoanalytical approaches seemed less interesting to me.
In addition, it appeared that many psychoanalytic-inspired approaches raised a number of hypotheses about
certain variant erotic practices or preferences. These interpretations, mostly taken a priori from the literature, were
then applied to large contingents of individuals who adopted the aforementioned practices, without checking
whether these interpretations were relevant and valid.
There is also a kind of degradation of psychoanalytic approaches when language and concepts are applied with
great enthusiasm and little discernment. Instead of gross Marxism, we now have a kind of gross Lacanianism. Even
the best ideas born from truly creative minds can be misused and debased. I remember attending a conference
and thinking that there was then a " phallus ex maquina", a kind of dramatic technique for clarifying academic
dissertations. I remembered an image from a famous Japanese print in which the men had those huge cocks, and
one of them had such a gigantic member that he carried it in a wheelbarrow. I imagined that speech being taken to
the podium in a wheelbarrow. I heard too many communications in which the speech (or lack thereof) was
presented as if it provided a deep analysis or a sudden illumination. On many of these occasions it did not provide
either .
At a certain point, I went back to reading some older texts on sexology and realized that Freud's comments on
sexual aberrations were a brilliant but limited intervention in a pre-existing literature that was quite dense, rich
and interesting. His brilliance and fame, and the role of psychoanalytic explanation within psychiatry, gave his
comments on sexual variation a kind of canonical status . While many of your followers have ignored or subverted
your insights,Freud's prestige was used to legitimize later psychoanalytic literature as the privileged discourse on
"perversions". This eclipsed Freud's vast, more or less contemporary sexological enterprise, which was more
concerned than this, and more directly, with sexual "aberrations."
Early sexology has its own problems. In addition to being sexist and anti-homosexual, this sexology practically
considered as a pathology any sexual practice other than that of heterosexuality for purposes of procreation. Even
oral sex was considered a perversion. The predominant models were derived from evolutionism, mainly from a kind
of Lamarckist social evolutionism based on ideologies of the notorious superiority of white European societies. But
sexology, especially after Krafft-Ebing, really observedthe sexual variety, choosing sexual "aberrations" or
"perversions" as its main object. Sexologists began to collect cases and record studies on homosexuals and
perverts. Data collection was very irregular - some were more efficient at this than others. And many historians
have pointed out the limitations of their empirical practices. For example, in her work on the Alice Mitchell trial,
Lisa Duggan discussed how sexologists used journalistic stories, or reports by other sexologists, as the primary
source of information. Robert Nye and Jann Matlock analyzed ideas and prejudices, especially about men and
women, who shaped the most remote configurations of the categories of fetishism and sexual perversion.
Regardless of, sexology books are an incredible source to explore. Even Krafft-Ebing is useful. For example,
"inverted" and "perverted" read his first works and wrote to him. They sent him the story of their lives, their
anguished self-analysis and their harsh social criticisms. Some have been published in the latest editions
ofPsychopathia Sexualis. Thus, there are these surprising voices, like those of the first homosexual activists, who
eloquently denounce the social and legal sanctions against homosexuality. And there is also a description of a
"enemies of women" ball, which was actually a drag ball in Berlin from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.
The detailed description notes that the dance was accompanied by "an excellent orchestra" and that many
"women" who were magnificently attentive, suddenly lit cigarettes or spoke in a deep baritone voice.
JB: What other sexologists were you thinking about?
GR: Well, Havelock Ellis is one of the best among them. Magnus Hirschfeld was also very important. Ellis and
Hirschfeld probably did their utmost, before Freud, to treat normal and de-stigmatize homosexuality and other
sexual variations. One can get an idea of Ellis' strength as a polemicist by reading the famous letter that Freud
wrote to an American mother horrified by her son's homosexuality. Freud assured him that many important
individuals were homosexuals and that homosexuals should not be persecuted. He recommended, if you did not
believe him, that you read "the books of Havelock Ellis" (Abelove, 381).
Both Ellis and Freud acknowledged a great debt to Hirschfeld. Virtually everyone who writes about homosexuality
at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century cites Hirschfeld's magazine, Jahrbuch für sexuelle
Zwischenstufen[Magazine for Intermediate Sexual Internships]. Other important sexologists are Albert Moll, Albert
Eulenberg and Iwan Bloch. In the first footnote to his famous essay on sexual aberrations, Freud lists many of the
most influential sexologists. Those are the authors with whom he dialogues. Each has its own point of view, and
some are more interesting than others. Despite its limited theoretical tools, this literature reflects a rich social,
historical and cultural complexity, which is lost in many later psychoanalytic writings.
I have the impression that Freud was not very interested in "perverts" or "inverts"; he seemed to be much more
concerned with neurosis and the psychic cost of sexual "normality." Nevertheless, his interventions in sexology at
the turn of the 19th-20th century eclipsed the context in which he wrote and the memory of this vigorous and
fascinating literature. In any case, instead of departing from Freud or psychoanalysis at a more advanced stage, I
thought it a good idea to refer to that literature that existed before the psychoanalytic branch became dominant.
Maybe I could learn from the topics and materials relevant to those who first looked at sexual diversity as the main
object of study.
JB: And I imagine that Foucault offered you an alternative to psychoanalysis. You were also reading the first
volume of Foucault 's History of Sexuality at that time.
GR: Yes. It was published in English in 1978. It immediately fascinated me. As you can see from this copy of mine,
all marked and full of folds. It was a very important book. I think that, because of the undeniable importance of its
author, another work in the field of sexuality is retrospectively attributed to him. Recently there was a debate on
the lists of gay studies on the Internet, in which Foucault was attributed the role of creator of the theory of "social
construction". The crucial roles of people like Mary McIntosh, Jeffrey Weeks, Kenneth Plummer and a legion of
other historians, anthropologists and sociologists have been largely overlooked in the context of the discussion. It
amazes me how quickly people forget even the most recent history, and how they fervently wish to project past
attitudes of the moment, in a fictional chronological sequence. I was influenced by Weeks in the same way as by
Foucault. Weeks is one of the great underestimated figures in gay studies and the social theory of sexuality. He
published his basic thesis on the social construction of homosexuality in 1977, a year beforeFoucault's History of
Sexuality to be translated.
Many others working in the field of gay history and lesbianism were quickly reaching the same conclusions. I had
been researching the history of lesbianism in the early 1970s, and I soon realized that there was a certain
discontinuity in the types of data available and the type of people who were classified as "lesbians" before and after
the late 19th century. . There were older records of women who had relationships with women, and of women who
crossdressed. But there seemed to be no self-conscious lesbians, nor lesbian associations, nor a lesbian political
critique, until the late 19th century.
In 1973, I took another course that changed my life - "The urbanization of Europe, 1500-1900", taught by Charles
Tilly (also at the University of Michigan). Tilly showed how industrialization caused the massive transfer of rural
populations to cities, how urban life was transformed as a result, and how the forms of spontaneous association
within the reach of city dwellers differed from the possible ways in peasant villages. Another important theme of
the course was how the language and repertoire of political action changed in different historical periods. We spent
a lot of time studying the different patterns of revolutionary action and political protest in France, observing how
they changed over time and acquired their own characteristics due to specific historical periods. Another theme of
the course was the way in which individual consciousness was changing along with all these transformations. We
discussed EP Thompson's work on changing the way people experienced time, and I was already aware of
Althusser's discussions about different forms of historical individuality (Reading251-53). From discussing these
issues - the impact of urbanization and industrialization on the repertoires of political protest, on time conventions
and forms of historical individuality - to think about how different forms of sexual identity and subjectivity resulted
from the same broad social changes scale, it was a step. These ideas seemed to harmonize with what I was
discovering in my research on the history of lesbianism. I don't classify any of this as "social construction", but I
was looking for ways to address these issues. Many other scholars were taking common approaches to social
history, anthropology and sociology, and applying them consistently to the theme of homosexuality.
I didn't know how much Foucault had to do with this new paradigm, but I thought he was doing research on
sexuality and homosexuality. I later met Foucault, when I was studying in France in the summers of 1972 and
1973. I had a friend who was a wonderful man named Larry Shields. We were both completely obsessed with
"structuralism", which was how we classified, then, much of contemporary French thought. We had read Lévi-
Strauss and what existed about Lacan, and Foucault's books like The Words and the Things.But there was little
material available and we wanted to go to the sources. We got a grant to go and research structuralism in Paris.
Larry diligently sat in the main reading room of the Bibliothèque Nationale and read Godelier, Lyotard, Kristeva and
Baudrillard.
But I found that my French was too precarious for the task. In a kind of game to find my way in the labyrinthine
catalog of the Bibliothèque Nationale, I started looking for obscure lesbian-inspired novels that I had not had
access to when I was writing my thesis on lesbian literature. When I found out they had Idylle Sapphique, by Liane
de Pougy (her romance with the clefabout her affair with Natalie Barney), I went up to the special collections room
to read it. I found a whole series of books by Natalie Barney and Renée Vivien's group, with many notes on the
margins containing incredible biographical information about the characters. So I ended up spending the summer
in the special collection room, dictionary and verb book in hand, reading obscene lesbian novels.
GR / JB: (at the same time) My / your French could do it!
GR: Well, one day Larry spotted Foucault in the main reading room, and then we got brave and invited him over
for coffee. We were totally stunned when he accepted. So we went out for coffee, and he asked us what we were
doing. Larry spoke enthusiastically of his studies of avant-garde theorists. When Foucault asked me what I was
doing, I shyly confessed that I was reading lesbian novels in the special collection room. To my surprise, he looked
absolutely baffled and just said, "Oh, I've been studying sodomy convictions." He explained that sodomy laws were
in most of Europe's history books, but were only applied sporadically. This was absolutely unexpected; I was
perplexed.
He was incredibly friendly and approachable and gave us his address and phone number. I didn't think about it any
more until I saw the History of Sexuality in 1978. I had barely started my research on the gay male leather
community of San Francisco. I was about to go to France to attend a feminist conference. I sent Foucault the rough
draft of my dissertation proposal and told him how much I liked his new book. I thought that my book might
interest him on a theoretical level, but that he would be disturbed by specific things, such as the study's emphasis
on sadomasochism for male homosexuals. Once again he surprised me by inviting me to dinner. Only when I went
to dinner with him did I realize that he was a homosexual, that he was perfectly comfortable with the subject of
sadomasochism and that he would not be offended.
JB: And what was it about Foucault that you found useful in reflecting on sexual practices and sexuality in general?
GR: I understood that your discussion of the emergence of a new relationship between alliance systems and
sexuality, at least in certain Western industrialized countries, was very insightful. You know, I said a little while ago
that a lot of people seem to have misinterpreted the last pages of "Thinking Sex". There, I did not claim that
kinship, gender, feminism or psychoanalysis no longer mattered. What I was saying was that there were systems
other than kinship that acquired a kind of autonomy and could not be reduced to kinship, at least in the sense that
Lévi-Strauss attributes to it. When I wrote about it, I always had the History of Sexuality part in mindwhere
Foucault says: "Starting in the 18th century, mainly, Western societies created and developed a new apparatus
that overlapped the previous one" (106). He never says replaced, he says "overlapped."
JB: Yes, it is true.
GR: "And that, without completely replacing the previous one, contributed to diminish its importance." That is the
real phrase. The apparatus does not replace the previous one, it simply diminishes its importance. "I'm talking
about the development of sexuality: like the expansion of unions, it connects to the circuit of sexual partners, but
in a different way. The systems can be opposed term by term." And then he says: "For the first" - this is the union
- what matters is the connection between partners and defined statutes. The second is concerned with the
sensations of the body, the quality of pleasures and the nature of the impressions, however faint or imperceptible
they may be. "On the next page he explains that"he did not obliterate it or render it useless. Furthermore,
historically it was along with the expansion of the union, and based on it, that the development of sexuality was
built " (my emphasis). And then he continues:" Since then he has never stopped acting in conjunction with a
system of union on which he relied "(108). He goes so far as to say that the family is the" exchange "of sexuality
and union." It expresses the law in the legal dimension of the development of sexuality, and expresses the
economy of pleasure, and the intensity of sensations, in the alliance regime. "He says family is" the most dynamic
place of sexuality "(109). Echoing this discussion, I never imagined that one could think that I defended the idea
that kinship or family,no importance. The things he said helped me to think about the contours of another system
with different dynamics, different cartography, and different lines of force. Throughout this passage in Foucault's
book, you can hear the echoes of his conversations with Lévi-Strauss and Lacan. I felt that his assessment of those
relationships was original, insightful and accurate. I liked a lot of things in that book - the talent and the
descriptive richness of his prose, the way he rearranged the prevalent concepts of sexuality, his interpretations of
Freud, Lacan, Reich and Lévi-Strauss, the surprising insights , his models of social power , his ideas about
resistance and revolution, the depth of his commitment to social and historical causality.
Ele criou expressões maravilhosas – com a da proliferação das perversões. Ele me inspirou novas idéias,
apresentou-me uma linguagem realmente vívida e clara, e confirmou que as preocupações que eu tinha à época
não eram de todo absurdas. Fiz algumas palestras sobre o surgimento do lesbianismo e do homossexualismo
modernos, e muitas pessoas que as ouviram provavelmente imaginaram, com todo respeito, que eu estava
delirando. Observar que Weeks, em Coming Out, e Foucault, em A história da sexualidade tinham chegado a
conclusões semelhantes, e que tinham uma visão semelhante de uma série de temas históricos e teóricos, foi algo
muito estimulante e me ajudou a elaborar meu trabalho posterior.
JB: Entendo que você não queira subestimar a força do parentesco, mas não temos aqui uma outra questão, isto é,
a do desenvolvimento de um vocabulário para articular as configurações contemporâneas do parentesco? Acho que
outro problema, para mim, é saber se as várias redes de apoio mútuo, dentro da comunidade gay e lésbica, não
podem ser consideradas como formas contemporâneas de parentesco.
GR: Você as pode ver assim, mas então você está usando o termo parentesco de uma forma muito diferente.
Quando as pessoas falam sobre o parentesco gay, por exemplo, elas estão usando um modelo diferente de
parentesco. Esse modelo não se baseia em Lévi-Strauss, mas antes no trabalho de David Schneider, que escreveu
sobre parentesco na América. Você tem que usar o termo de forma muito precisa. No sentido usado por Lévi-
Strauss, o parentesco é uma maneira de gerar uma estrutura social e política por meio da manipulação do
casamento e descendência. Num sentido mais comum, especialmente em sociedades complexas como esta, o
parentesco pode significar simplesmente as relações sociais de ajuda, intimidade e ligação duradoura. Essa forma
de usar o termo parentesco é muito diferente da concepção de parentesco de Lévi-Strauss.
JB: Sim, claro que sim. Mas isso não revela o conservadorismo da concepção de Lévi-Strauss?
GR: Sim, mas o que estou dizendo é que os termos não são equivalentes. Na teoria feminista, muita coisa se
baseia nessa concepção de parentesco de Lévi-Strauss, que não pode simplesmente transmudar-se numa noção
mais fluida de sistemas de parentescos modernos ou de tipo gay. Por isso é preciso ter cuidado quanto ao que se
quer dizer sobre parentesco nesse outro sentido. Um sistema de associação voluntária é muito diferente de um
sistema em que casamentos obrigatórios criam sistemas dinásticos e outras formas de organização política.
Lévi-Strauss está falando sobre sociedades nas quais essas relações de casamento e descendência são a estrutura
social. Elas organizam quase toda a vida social ou então constituem o mais importante e visível aparato
institucional. Nos sistemas modernos, o parentesco já é uma estrutura cuja importância institucional se reduziu
bastante. Não é radical dizer, em antropologia, que o parentesco não funciona nas sociedades urbanas modernas
como funcionava nas culturas pré-modernas. Além disso, o parentesco gay se assemelha muito ao que os
antropólogos chamariam de "parentesco informal" ou "fictício". Esses sistemas de parentesco informais ou fictícios
são ainda menos institucionalizados e estruturalmente estáveis do que as relações amparadas pela autoridade do
Estado.
JB: Exato. Certamente o parentesco não pode ser a principal forma de buscar entender a complexidade da vida
social e sexual contemporânea. Quer dizer, isto me parece claro. Por outro lado, parece-me que a historiografia de
Foucault, que você acabou de comentar, toma como certa a concepção de parentesco de Lévi-Strauss e entende
que essa forma de parentesco é algo do passado.
GR: Não. Não quis dizer isso. Mais uma vez, a questão é como estamos definindo o parentesco.
JB: Ok. Porque se entendemos o parentesco como relações obrigatórias, ou se pensamos em sociedades
governadas por relações de parentesco obrigatórias, então certamente podemos dizer que isto não se coaduna com
a vida social tal como a vivemos atualmente. Por outro lado, parece-me que o parentesco em si mesmo deve ter
perdido um pouco daquele status obrigatório, ou o está perdendo. E eu me pergunto se vale a pena nos
prendermos ao termo "parentesco" para documentar essa mudança na forma pela qual a vida social da sexualidade
é reconfigurada e mantida.
Suponho que isso é importante quando as pessoas desejam dizer que o feminismo, especialmente em sua forma
psicanalítica ou estruturalista, pode falar sobre o parentesco. Mas esse discurso particular certamente não pode dar
conta da complexidade de arranjos mais modernos ou dos poderes reguladores que governam a sexualidade. E
acho que o problema é que algumas pessoas entenderam essa distinção como sendo a base da distinção entre o
que o feminismo deveria fazer, isto é, lidar com questões como parentesco, gênero e psicanálise, e o que os
estudos de sexualidade devem fazer. E, então, algumas pessoas, acho, deram esse passo à frente e afirmaram que
a sexualidade é o verdadeiro "objeto", por assim dizer, dos estudos gays e lésbicos, e basearam toda a distinção
metodológica entre feminismo e estudos lésbicos e gays na aparente autonomia desses dois campos. Assim, talvez
fosse melhor você abordar essa questão agora.
GR: Aqui a gente tem vários temas. Para abordar uma questão bastante pertinente à época em que escrevi
"Traffic", havia uma certa tendência ingênua a fazer afirmações gerais sobre a condição humana que muita gente,
inclusive eu, agora prefere evitar. Quando você lê Lévi-Strauss ou Lacan, percebe que eles fazem generalizações
pomposas. Além disso, eles nunca hesitam em chamar algo de a teoria disto, a teoria daquilo. Muitas vezes me
pergunto se esse uso reflete uma grandiosidade que já não é mais possível, ou se se trata apenas de uma questão
de tradução. Em francês tudo vem precedido de artigo. Assim, "la théorie", em francês, pode ser algo muito
diferente de the theory, em inglês. Em "Traffic", eu simplesmente assimilei a linguagem e o universalismo inocente
da época. À época em que escrevi "Thinking Sex", eu pretendia fazer afirmações mais modestas. Foi por isso que
observei, em "Thinking Sex", que as formulações de Lévi-Strauss e de Lacan podiam ou não ser exatas no que se
refere a outras sociedades, ainda que eu estivesse certa de que sua aplicação à nossa própria sociedade padecia de
limitações. Eu ficara um tanto cética quanto à universalidade daqueles modelos.
Quanto a essa grande divergência de que você falava entre o feminismo e os estudos gays e lésbicos, não estou
bem certa de que iria aceitar essa distribuição de interesses, atividades, objetos e métodos. Não vejo nenhuma
razão pela qual o feminismo tenha que se limitar ao parentesco e à psicanálise, e nunca afirmei que ele não
deveria trabalhar com a sexualidade. Eu disse apenas que ela não deveria ser vista como o lugar privilegiado para
se trabalhar a sexualidade. Não posso imaginar estudos gays e lésbicos que não se interessem por gênero e pela
sexualidade e, como você observa em seu trabalho, há muitas outras sexualidades a explorar além do
homossexualismo masculino e o lesbianismo. Mas não estou convencida de que haja uma ampla aceitação dessa
divisão do trabalho intelectual entre o feminismo, por um lado, e os estudos gays e lésbicos. E nunca foi minha
intenção estabelecer uma barreira disciplinar mutuamente excludente entre o feminismo e os estudos gays e
lésbicos. Eu não estava tratando dessa questão. Eu estava tentando conseguir um espaço para trabalhar com a
sexualidade (e mesmo com gênero) que não supunha o feminismo como a abordagem obrigatória e suficiente. Mas
eu não estava buscando criar um novo campo. Isto porque, àquela época, a institucionalização dos estudos
lésbicos e gays era um sonho dourado que parecia muito longe das possibilidades imediatas. Não obstante, os
estudos lésbicos e gays, enquanto tarefa, já tinham deslanchado. "Thinking Sex" era parte desse processo em
pleno andamento.
O contexto que deu origem ao "Thinking Sex" foi, em parte, determinado pelo projeto, então já em curso, dos
estudos lésbicos e gays, especialmente a história e a antropologia gay e lésbica. Agora parece existir uma espécie
de amnésia em relação àqueles primeiros estudos lésbicos e gays, como se esse campo só tivesse surgido no início
ou em meados da década de 1980. Isso não é verdade. Há toda uma série de trabalhos sobre o assunto que datam
do início da década de 1970 e que foram produzidos pelo movimento de liberação gay. Estes, por sua vez, se
constituíram a partir de uma pesquisa ainda mais antiga, baseada no movimento homofílico. Os trabalhos de
erudição gay não se encontravam institucionalizados na academia e muitos dos que os produziram na década de
1970 pagaram um preço muito alto em suas carreiras acadêmicas. Os estudos lésbicos e gays com certeza não
começaram comigo, nem numa data tão recente.
Por exemplo, o Projeto de História Lésbica e Gay de San Francisco iniciou-se em 1978. Muitos trabalhos se
iniciaram no calor daquele momento: o trabalho de Allan Bérubé sobre gays nas forças armadas, o de Liz Kennedy
e Madeline Davis sobre a comunidade lésbica de Buffalo, e minha pesquisa sobre o leather masculino gay – todos
eles começaram nessa época. Àquela altura, muitos outros estudiosos estavam participando da discussão, e muitos
de nós mantínhamos contato e dialogávamos uns com os outros e intercambiávamos os trabalhos que estávamos
desenvolvendo.
O livro Gay American History, de Jonathan Ned Katz, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities, de John d'Emilio, The
Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Germany, de Jim Steakley e Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain,
de Jeffrey Weeks são ainda mais antigos. Havia um outro livro sobre o movimento pelos direitos gays da
Alemanha, escrito por John Lauritsen e David Thorstad, publicado em 1974. Logo no início da década de 1970,
especialistas em lesbianismo começavam a desenvolver estudos a partir dos trabalhos de vanguarda de Jeannette
Foster e Barbara Grier. Menciono esse trabalho para mostrar que os estudos lésbicos e gays precederam "Thinking
Sex" e que já havia um florescente trabalho nesse campo muito antes de começarem a ser institucionalizados.
JB: Conte-nos o que você tinha em mente quando desejou declarar o status provisoriamente autônomo da
sexualidade como um campo específico.
GR: Eu queria ter um maior conhecimento sobre a sexualidade, e uma gama maior de idéias sobre esta do que o
que eu tinha à mão. Eu queria ser capaz de articular uma política sexual que não considerasse o feminismo a
última palavra e a sagrada escritura sobre o assunto. Assim como uma década antes eu procurava pensar a
opressão de gênero como algo distinto da opressão de classe (embora não necessariamente dissociadas ou
contrapostas), mais tarde, eu queria ser capaz de pensar sobre a opressão com base no comportamento sexual ou
no desejo ilícito como algo distinto da opressão de gênero (embora, também neste caso, não necessariamente
dissociadas ou contrapostas). Eu achava que tínhamos que ser capazes de articular as estruturas da estratificação
sexual e torná-las visíveis para contestá-las. Eu achava que se não o fizéssemos, gente progressista iria agir,
involuntariamente, em favor de um programa sexual reacionário, o que, infelizmente, muitas vezes aconteceu. Eu
temia que se não houvesse uma análise independente da estratificação sexual e da perseguição erótica, feministas
bem-intencionadas e outros progressistas sofreriam uma abusiva, tirânica e imerecida caça às bruxas.
Acho que, então, um certo tipo de ortodoxia feminista se tornara um edifício com alguns dos mesmos problemas
que tinham acometido o marxismo. Em vez de classe, o gênero, muitas vezes, foi considerado a contradição
fundamental da qual derivam os problemas sociais. Havia a crença de que o feminismo tinha as respostas para
todos os problemas que o marxismo não soubera resolver. Lembro-me de que um estudioso do marxismo fez um
magnífico comentário sobre determinada abordagem do marxismo, que tive a impressão de que já era aplicável
também a um certo tipo de feminismo. Não lembro quem fez o comentário, mas acho que foi Martin Nicolaus. Ele
censurava os marxistas que tratavam O Capital como se fosse um limão. Estes achavam que, espremendo-o bem,
dele escorreriam todas as categorias da vida social. Em princípios da década de 1980, havia muitas pessoas que se
acercavam do feminismo dentro desse mesmo espírito. Para alguns, o feminismo se tornara o sucessor do
marxismo, e era a grande teoria de toda a miséria humana. Sou cética quanto a qualquer tentativa de privilegiar
um conjunto de instrumentos analíticos em detrimento de todos os outros; sou cética também em relação
quaisquer pretensões de onipotência teórica e política.
Acerco-me de sistemas de pensamento como instrumentos que as pessoas fazem para lidar com determinados
problemas e resolvê-los. Não acredito em instrumentos universais. Um instrumento pode funcionar muito bem para
algumas tarefas e ser menos útil para outras. Eu não considerava o feminismo como o melhor instrumento para
enfrentar convenientemente o problema da variação sexual.
Nunca pretendi que "Thinking Sex" fosse um ataque contra o feminismo, assim como não concebi "Traffic" como
um ataque ao marxismo. "Traffic" foi, em larga medida, endereçado a um público encharcado de marxismo e pode
facilmente ser mal compreendido numa época em que as preocupações são tão diferentes. Acho o atual descaso
com o marxismo uma tragédia, e espero assistir a um revival do interesse pela obra de Marx. Marx era um
brilhante pensador social, e acho que a análise política e social tem se debilitado por deixar de incorporar temas
importantes do pensamento marxista.
Da mesma forma, "Thinking Sex" destinava-se a um público amplamente feminista. Ele foi apresentado numa
conferência feminista, dirigido a um público feminista, e escrito no contexto de uma discussão feminista. Eu não o
considero um ataque a nenhum trabalho teórico, nem que seja mais eficiente que estes.
Finalmente, eu queria acrescentar a prática sexual à grande lista das estratificações sociais, e apontar a
sexualidade como um vetor da perseguição e da opressão. Na década de 1960, em geral, se considerava que as
estratificações importantes eram casta, classe e raça. Uma das grandes contribuições do feminismo foi acrescentar
o gênero à lista. No início da década de 1980, ficara claro para mim que não bastava acrescentar o gênero à lista,
era preciso acrescentar a sexualidade, para que os temas da perseguição sexual fossem contemplados.
JB: Seu próprio trabalho se tornara muito rico, do ponto de vista descritivo, especialmente o trabalho etnográfico
e, anteriormente, você elogiara os sexologistas pelos esforços que faziam para apresentar dados descritivos
importantes. Você observa também que eles "examinam" casos e práticas. "Examinar", nesse contexto, significa
uma atividade teórica? Em outras palavras, nós não examinamos através de determinados pressupostos teóricos?
E alguns tipos de prática não são "perceptíveis" ou "imperceptíveis" em função dos pressupostos teóricos que estão
sendo usados? Quem sabe você não quer aproveitar esta oportunidade para falar um pouco mais sobre a relação
entre trabalho descritivo e trabalho teórico.
GR: Sim, claro; sempre que olhamos para alguma coisa já estamos tomando decisões em um certo nível sobre o
que constitui o que é "visível", e essas decisões afetam a forma como interpretamos o que "vemos". Os
paradigmas que informavam os primórdios da sexologia produziram uma série de interpretações e explicações de
que discordo, principalmente a idéia de que a diversidade sexual é o mesmo que patologia sexual. As teses da
sexologia estruturaram muitas das categorias e pressupostos com que ainda lidamos nos dias atuais, como por
exemplo a idéia de que as mulheres são menos capazes, menos inclinadas e menos propensas a perversões
sexuais do que os homens. Ao mesmo tempo, a abordagem dos sexologistas permitiu que estes trouxessem a
diversidade sexual, ainda que mal compreendida, para o seu campo de visão. Ela está, por assim dizer, no foco de
sua lente, no ponto crucial de sua empresa. Freud, por sua vez, tinha uma lente mais precisa e de maior resolução,
mas a diversidade sexual ocupava uma posição mais marginal em seu campo de visão. De certa forma, ela se
manteve nessa posição marginal em muitos trabalhos posteriores, inclusive num grande setor do feminismo.
Mas sua pergunta levanta uma outra questão para mim, que é a forma como a pesquisa empírica e o trabalho
descritivo muitas vezes são considerados atividades de menor valor, e mesmo estigmatizadas, e inferiores à
"teoria". É preciso que haja uma discussão sobre o que se quer dizer exatamente, nos dias atuais, com o termo
"teoria", e o que se considera como "teoria". Gostaria de ver uma atitude menos desdenhosa para com o trabalho
empírico. Há uma preocupante tendência a tratar com condescendência qualquer trabalho que se propõe a lidar
com dados. Isso deriva de críticas absolutamente procedentes ao positivismo e ao empirismo grosseiro. Mas essas
críticas deveriam orientar-se para o aperfeiçoamento das técnicas de coleta e avaliação de informações, em vez de
tornar-se uma racionalização para o fracasso na coleta de informações.
Tenho uma amiga que gosta de dizer: "Todos os dados são sujos." Isso quer dizer que os dados não são apenas
coisas que estão à espera de serem colhidas, com sentidos intrínsecos perfeitamente visíveis. Também os dados
são construídos socialmente, e sempre existem pontos de vista que estabelecem em que consistem os dados ou
que afetam avaliações do que se pode aprender com os dados. É um grande erro, porém, concluir que uma vez
que os dados são imperfeitos, é melhor evitar por completo trabalhar com dados. Fico perplexa com essa tendência
a achar que não dispor de dado nenhum é melhor que dispor de um certo número, ou que lidar com dados é uma
atividade inferior e desonrosa. A falta de um trabalho descritivo consistente, bem pesquisado e cuidadoso pode
levar ao empobrecimento do feminismo e dos estudos gays e lésbicos, tanto quanto a falta de uma rigorosa análise
conceitual. Acho que esse idealismo desvairado é tão inquietante quanto o positivismo grosseiro.
Acho também um contra-senso a idéia de que o trabalho empírico é sempre fácil ou não analítico. Infelizmente, o
trabalho empírico competente, em geral, não é reconhecido. Uma boa pesquisa empírica requer tanta reflexão
quanto uma boa análise conceitual, e constitui um desafio tão grande quanto esta. Em muitos aspectos, constitui
um desafio ainda maior. Sei que essa opinião é absolutamente herética, mas muitas vezes é mais difícil recolher,
assimilar, entender, organizar e apresentar dados originais que trabalhar numa série de textos canônicos que a
esta altura já vêm sendo trabalhados por tanto tempo que muitos deles já foram em larga medida assimilados. Há
muito de "teoria" nos melhores estudos empíricos, ainda que esses estudos muitas vezes deixem de citar a lista
mais recente dos vinte e cinco principais "teóricos" que lhes dão respaldo e os legitimam.
Além disso, muitas pessoas que lidam com dados são orientadas para fazer uma avaliação sofisticada do material
empírico. Alguns dos que proclamam a supremacia da teoria e que desprezam a pesquisa empírica podem se
mostrar totalmente ingênuos em relação ao material usado em seu próprio trabalho "teórico". Muitas vezes, os
dados entram, por assim dizer, pela porta dos fundos. Na falta de pesquisa empírica ou de preparo, alguns textos
flagrantemente teóricos terminam por se basear em hipóteses, estereótipos, histórias triviais, fragmentos de dados
fora de contexto, detalhes imprecisos, pesquisas alheias ou material reciclado de outros pretensos "textos
teóricos". Assim, alguns dados extremamente impuros são venerados como "teoria". A oposição entre o trabalho
"teórico" e o "empírico" é falsa ou, no mínimo, distorcida; o desequilíbrio entre análise conceitual e análise de
dados precisa ser corrigido. Em suma, gostaria de ver um maior questionamento sobre a categoria contemporânea
de "teoria" e sobre as relações entre essa "teoria" e a pesquisa empírica ou descritiva.
Há outro problema específico que vejo em relação à sexualidade. Há um pressuposto corrente de que
determinados tipos de análise conceitual ou de crítica cinematográfica e literária apresentam descrições ou
explanações sobre indivíduos ou populações reais, sem procurar avaliar a importância ou a aplicabilidade dessas
análises àqueles indivíduos ou grupos. Nada tenho contra o fato de as pessoas desenvolverem estonteantes
análises sobre uma série de pressupostos ou de textos para dizer coisas interessantes sobre uma série de
pressupostos ou textos. Nada tenho contra a filosofia, a análise literária, ou a crítica cinematográfica em si. Mas
me incomoda o uso indiscriminado dessas análises para elaborar descrições de populações reais ou explicações de
seus comportamentos.
Por exemplo, há uma tendência a analisar a variação sexual mesclando-se uns poucos textos "teóricos"
selecionados com críticas cinematográficas ou literárias para chegar a afirmações tanto sobre a coisa (exemplo:
"masoquismo"), como sobre as pessoas (exemplo: "masoquistas"). A "teoria" atualmente em voga sobre o
masoquismo é o longo ensaio de Deleuze, de 1971, sobre "masoquismo". Apesar de Deleuze ter baseado muito de
sua análise na ficção, principalmente no romance A Vênus de Casaco de Peles, de Sacher-Masoch, e em alguns
textos de Sade, ele é considerado uma autoridade sobre sadismo e masoquismo em geral. Uma vez que ele é
conhecido como téorico, seus comentários sobre sadismo e masoquismo ficam envoltos na aura da "Teoria".
Deleuze trata as diferenças entre as técnicas literárias de Sade e de Sacher-Masoch como uma prova das notáveis
diferenças entre "sadismo" e "masoquismo". Mas o que são o "sadismo" e o "masoquismo", de que ele fala? São
gêneros literários? Práticas de sádicos e masoquistas de carne e osso? Configurações flutuantes de desejo? Ele faz
generalizações radicais sobre "sadismo" e "masoquismo", como a seguinte: "o sadismo nega a mãe e engrandece o
pai; o masoquismo repudia a mãe e abole o pai... Há um esteticismo no masoquismo, ao passo que o sadismo é
hostil ao ponto de vista estético..." (115). Acho afirmações desse tipo completamente sem sentido, inteligíveis
apenas por causa de uma tradição psicanalítica que igualou constelações particulares de desejo sexual a supostos
universais do desenvolvimento infantil. O que me perturba é que essas generalizações são e serão entendidas
como afirmações descritivas sobre os indivíduos e grupos que podem ser considerados como "masoquistas" ou
"sádicos".
Deleuze é muito inteligente, e também parece claro, pela leitura de seu texto, que ele tem familiaridade com
pessoas que praticam perversões. Mas seu conhecimento empírico entra principalmente como algo anedótico. Ele
parece estar familiarizado com a dominação da mulher, principalmente a que é exercida por Mistresses
profissionais. Ele parece generalizar a partir de uma certa literatura e de uma espécie de conhecimento pessoal
para fazer afirmações sobre "masoquismo" e "sadismo" num contexto mais amplo. O ensaio é fascinante, mas de
modo algum conclusivo. Não obstante, ele está se tornando um texto autorizado para se escrever sobre
masoquismo e sadismo.
Agora se fazem discussões que recorrem a Deleuze para analisar a "estética masoquista", "o texto masoquista", "a
psicodinâmica do masoquismo" ou "o discurso masoquista". Esse uso supõe que o masoquismo é "algo", um
fenômeno unitário, cuja psicodinâmica singular e cujo texto, estética ou discurso não apenas são passíveis de ser
conhecidos como de fato o são. Deixando de lado o sentido que esses termos possam ter, vejo o perigo de que
afirmações sobre o que o "masoquismo", nesse sentido, "é", "faz" ou "pretende" sejam tomados como descrições
ou interpretações do que os masoquistas de carne e osso são, fazem, ou pretendem. Não obstante, a credibilidade
dessas afirmações não deriva de nenhum conhecimento sistemático do masoquismo tal como é praticado pelos
masoquistas. Ela deriva do aparato analítico que se equilibra precariamente sobre o comentário de Deleuze, a
ficção e os escritos filosóficos de Sade, os romances de Sacher-Masoch, escritos psicanalíticos sobre a etiologia do
masoquismo, e muitos outros textos, filmes e casos pessoais.
Sou da velha opinião, inspirada na ciência social, de que afirmações sobre populações de carne e osso devem se
basear em algum conhecimento dessas populações, não em análises especulativas, textos literários,
representações fílmicas, ou pressuposições. Já posso antever a objeção a essas afirmações: "mas Deleuze",
alguém haverá de dizer, "é Teoria".
JB: Gostaria que você falasse um pouco mais sobre o tipo de trabalho que está fazendo atualmente e como ele
resolve essa tensão entre os domínios conceitual e descritivo. Você acaba de concluir s eu estudo sobre a
comunidade de homossexuais masculinos leather de San Francisco. O que você buscava com esse estudo?
GR: Quando iniciei esse projeto estava interessada na questão global da etnogênese sexual. Eu queria entender
melhor como se formam as comunidades sexuais. Essa questão surgiu do meu trabalho sobre a história do
lesbianismo e, inicialmente, eu estava tentando descobrir de onde vieram as comunidades lésbicas, ou como elas
surgiram. Fiquei curiosa de saber sobre comunidades tanto de homossexuais masculinos como de lésbicas. Então
me dei conta de que muitas sexualidades encontravam-se organizadas como as populações urbanas, algumas
ocupando espaço próprio. Comecei a me perguntar sobre que cegonha tinha trazido todas essas populações
sexuais, e como isso se deu. Tudo isso se inseria na reorientação de minha reflexão sobre categorias como
lesbianismo, homossexualismo, sadismo, masoquismo ou fetichismo. Em vez de considerá-los como entidades
clínicas ou categorias de psicologia individual, queria acercar-me deles enquanto grupos sociais com histórias,
territórios, estruturas institucionais, modos de comunicação, etc.
Como antropóloga, eu queria estudar algo contemporâneo. Foram muitas as razões que me levaram a escolher
aquela comunidade, e uma delas foi o fato de que ela se cristalizou à época da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Ainda
havia indivíduos que viveram essa experiência, a partir do final da década de 1940. Tive acesso a eles, e pude
estudar esse fascinante processo pelo qual algumas práticas ou desejos sexuais, que em certa época foram
completamente estigmatizados, escondidos e disfarçados, podiam ser institucionalizados numa subcultura na qual
eram considerados normais e desejáveis. A construção de sistemas subculturais destinados a facilitar sexualidades
não-normativas é um processo interessante.
E, em muitos aspectos, a comunidade de homossexuais masculinos leather é um caso exemplar de formação social
sexual, embora as sexualidades que nela se encontram sejam mais complexas do que eu inicialmente imaginava.
Isso porque o termo "leather" nem sempre significa "SM" (sadomasoquismo). Leather é uma categoria mais ampla
que inclui homens gays que praticam o sadomasoquismo, homens gays que fazem a penetração anal com o punho,
homens gays que são fetichistas, e homens gays que são másculos e preferem parceiros masculinos. O couro
(leather) é um símbolo polivalente que tem sentidos diferentes para diferentes indivíduos e grupos nessas
comunidades. Entre os homens gays, o leather e sua linguagem masculina foram a principal base para o
sadomasoquismo gay masculino desde o final da década de 1940. Outros grupos articulam desejos similares em
diferentes constelações sociais e simbólicas. Por exemplo, o sadomasoquismo heterossexual, durante quase todo
esse período, não estava organizado em torno do símbolo do leather, linguagens masculinas ou territórios urbanos.
"Leather" é uma síntese histórica e culturalmente específica na qual determinadas formas de desejo entre homens
gays foram organizadas e estruturadas socialmente.
Eu também não sabia, quando comecei essa pesquisa, que pelo menos uma prática sexual – a penetração anal
com o punho – parece ter sido uma criação realmente original. Como outros já apontaram, essa prática é talvez a
única prática sexual inventada no século XX. Deve ter sido praticada no início da década de 1960. Mas ela se
tornou realmente popular no final da década de 1960 e começo da década de 70, e então difundiu sua singular
maturação e institucionalização subcultural.
Dentro da comunidade gay "leather", você encontra essa unidade entre preferências sexuais não convencionais
(fetichismo, sadomasoquismo, etc.) e o masculino, o que não ocorre entre heterossexuais ou lésbicas, onde essas
coisas são arranjadas de uma forma diferente. É uma forma bastante peculiar e interessante de combinar
determinadas práticas sexuais.
JB: Que sentido tem a combinação de masculinidade e práticas sexuais não convencionais?
GR: Esse é um tema muito amplo e requer uma discussão muito mais longa do que seria possível aqui. Entre os
homens gays, a adoção da masculinidade é complicada, e tem muito a ver com a rejeição da identificação do
desejo homossexual do homem com a efeminação. Desde meados do século XIX começou a se processar,
gradualmente, uma distinção entre escolha do objeto homossexual e o comportamento transgênero, isto é, a
adoção do comportamento do gênero oposto. A classificação homossexual másculo (assim como lésbica feminina)
outrora era considerada um paradoxo; essas pessoas existiam mas eram "inconcebíveis" em termos dos modelos
hegemônicos de sexualidade e de gênero. O desenvolvimento da comunidade "leather" é parte de um longo
processo histórico no qual a masculinidade foi reivindicada, afirmada e reapropriada pelos homossexuais homens.
O homossexual masculino leather, inclusive os gays sadomasoquistas, codificam os sujeitos desejantes/desejados

e os objetos desejantes/desejados como masculinos. Nesse sistema, um homem pode ser subjugado, reprimido,
torturado e penetrado e, ainda assim, manter sua masculinidade, desejabilidade, e subjetividade. Existe também
uma simbologia do homossexual efeminado sadomasoquista, mas estes são temas relativamente menores nos
cinqüenta anos de homossexualismo masculino leather. Outras comunidades não combinam esses elementos da
mesma forma. Durante quase todo esse mesmo período, os heterossexuais sadomasoquistas se organizaram mais
através de anúncios sexuais, dominação profissional, e alguns clubes sociais privados. Para o heterossexual
sadomasoquista, o leather era um fetiche, mas não o símbolo fundamental em que se baseava a
institucionalização. O heterossexual sadomasoquista tout court não era territorial e as linguagens estilísticas
dominantes eram femininas.
O imaginário do sadomasoquismo heterossexual e do fetichismo inspira-se em larga medida no simbolismo

feminino. A arte erótica dirigida aos heterossexuais homens em geral tem muitos caracteres femininos, e os
poucos caracteres masculinos geralmente são efeminados. Há muitas razões para isso, inclusive as idiossincrasias
da história da regulamentação jurídica da erótica sadomasoquista. Mas evidentemente muitos homens
heterossexuais têm fantasias de ser adoráveis mocinhas. Muitas das "casas de dominação" mais bem equipadas
têm uma sala especial para os clientes homens que se vestem de mulher e pagam muito bem pelo privilégio. Essas
salas de "fantasia" diferem das "masmorras" ou salas "médicas". Muitas vezes são decoradas com babados e
folhos. Num típico cenário heterossexual sadomasoquista, tem-se uma mulher com trajes femininos dominando um
homem que pode ser aberta ou veladamente "efeminado". Não quero dizer que não existam masoquistas ou
sádicos heterossexuais "másculos". Além disso, essa imagética feminina não é tão hegemônica para o
sadomasoquista heterossexual como a imagética masculina para o sadomasoquista gay. Mas um estilo visível e
comum de sadomasoquismo heterossexual compreende uma mulher e um homem efeminado, uma espécie de
casal "lésbico" de fantasia. Entre as sadomasoquistas lésbicas atuais, porém, parece existir uma distribuição
bastante equilibrada de estilos, gêneros, e simbolismo masculinos e femininos.
JB: Gostaria de voltar ao tema do gênero.
GR: Gostaria? Eu diria apenas que nunca afirmei que a sexualidade e o gênero estão sempre dissociados, apenas
que eles não são idênticos. Além disso, suas relações são situacionais, não universais, e devem ser analisadas em
situações particulares. Acho que vou deixar outros comentários sobre gênero por sua conta, na sua qualidade de
"Rainha" do Gênero!
Agosto de 1994
Obras citadas
ABELOVE, Henry. Freud, Male Homosexuality, and the Americans. ABELOVE, Henry; BARALE, Michèle e HALPERIN,
David. (eds.) The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Nova York, Routledge, 1993, pp.381-93.
ALTHUSSER, Louis. Freud and Lacan. New Left Review 55, 1969, pp.48-66.
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* Entrevista © Gayle Rubin

1 Couro, símbolo do masoquismo e de outras práticas afins.
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JB: It was a kind of utopian vision.

JB: I'm certainly to blame for that ...

GR: Was I with one of them?

JB: Yes. You introduced him to me.

GR: I was crazy about that book.

JB: Yes, and you made me stay too ... [laughs]

GR & JB: (in unison) ... regrettable.

GR / JB: (at the same time) My / your French could do it!

JB: Yes, it is true.

O homossexual masculino leather, inclusive os gays sadomasoquistas, codificam os sujeitos desejantes/desejados

O imaginário do sadomasoquismo heterossexual e do fetichismo inspira-se em larga medida no simbolismo

JB: Gostaria de voltar ao tema do gênero.

________. Reading Capital. Londres, New Left, 1970.

POUGY, Liane de. Idylle Saphique. Paris, La Plume, 1901.

* Entrevista © Gayle Rubin

State University of Campinas

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