Queer masculinities

Prieur, Annick. Mema's house, Mexico City: on transvestites, queens, and machos. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Prieur's book is based on rich ethnographic evidence and contains her reflections on the role of homosocial and homoerotic male desire in the construction of masculinities in Mexico. She argues that homophobia, machismo and male bisexuality are all at the same time imbricated in the construction of masculinities: Prieur shows the concrete ways that masculinities are constituted in the stories of 'mayates', men whose bisexual practices do not make them think of their identities as "gays" or less masculine. Since these men can retain the power of labeling others (as homosexuals) they can get involved in bisexual relations without 'losing' their masculinity. Some authors (Carrier, Lancaster) have indicated that given the extension of male bisexuality it ought to be a largely tolerated practice in Latin America. Prieur introduces more complexity to these claims by demonstrating that male bisexuality is a tolerated practice as long as it remains invisible, "so long as it is kept within a purely male context, so long as it is not talked about, so long as certain rules are respected, and so long as it is euphemized." (189) Prieur also points at the ways that the practice and discourse of 'mayates' are in open conflict; they either deny, condemn their own practices, and/or go to great lengths to self-explain and justify their behavior. Conversely, 'jotas' and 'vestidas' need to assert their transgender femininity by only admitting to having a passive sexual role even though they frequently penetrated 'mayates'.

In the same way that masculine men can label other men as homosexual to assert their own masculinity, they also have the power to define women through the practice of 'piropos' (addressing a passing woman in a sexualizing way, often aggressive). Prieur agrees with authors that suggest that sexual intercourse is frequently used as a metaphor for exploitation, or that in general, references to the body must be seen in the context of their use as references to the social body. However, she reminds us that this should not mean that gender and sexual metaphors are only a metaphor for something else, as these metaphors also signify something about gender and sexuality. In this way, when Mexican men tease each other about their (homo) sexuality they are using the language of gender and sexual difference to subvert class domination but also signifying something about gender and sexual relations.