The politics of male identity and intimacy in Mexico

Abstract

The point of departure of this dissertation is the identification of the existence of a (historic) realm of affection and eroticism among men in Mexico that have not been accounted for neither by dominant discourses on Mexican men or Mexican homoerotic practices and identities, nor by Anthropological and epidemiological studies of the homoerotic experience: affective and/or erotic relations that take place outside dominant categories like gay, homosexual, joto or mayate (or other terms used for sexual deviants) and contesting the heterosexual ideal of manhood. Far from explaining and identifying this realm of intimacy, the dissertation makes an ethnographically and theoretically informed criticism on how these dominant discourses, and their sexual and gender categories, work to sustain the sex/gender system by render them invisible. The dissertation explores masculinity identity as a heterogeneous space of power and resistance. Masculine identity is considered to be a contradictory space where intimate relations may take place and even where homophobia can be resisted. At the same time, the dissertation shows the heterogeneous character of the homoerotic experience in Mexico; a heterogeneity that contest the theoretical effort to construct a single narrative as pretended by the terms "homosexual subjectivity" or "gay world".