Que gay sou eu? Interseccionalidades em praias gays do Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This research has the field of study two stretches of beaches in the city of Rio de Janeiro considered "friendly" to homosexuals: Bolsa de Valores, or simply Bolsa, in Copacabana, and Farme in Ipanema. With direct and indirect observation in the field, selection of informants and theoretical framework, the aim of this study is to analyze, based on the relationships established in these environments and also outside them, the multiplicity of "subgroups" hidden under the category "homosexual", as well as the tensions that are created based approaches and differences between gay male in these interaction spaces. If identities are formed from the differences, as Hall (2007), these differences approach and repel the actors according to their representation, in the sense established by Goffman (2011), in Bolsa, Farme and its surroundings. These representations, however, are characterized by intersectionalities between different social markers of difference. If the body emerges as the most obvious marker on a beach, besides him there are other factors that influence these relationships, such as gender, social class, generation, race, origin and even place of residence. So, the intersectional junctions create in these beaches territorialized spaces of conflicts and transitions. In some situations, environmental pollution can be used as justification for moving away from social pollution, as Douglas (2012). But in general, which seems to be at stake is a symbolic capital establishing a kind of "gay hierarchy", especially with regard to masculinity and performativity, citing Butler (2013). Such differences may also be part of a style, according to Facchini (2008 and 2011), and have marketing origin, considering the analysis of França (2012). And may even cause the spatial displacement of certain groups to areas where they can maintain their distinctiveness and its hegemony in what we may call "gay subculture". The attempt to occupy new spaces in the "democratic" territory of Rio beach, however, may not materialize as initially planned, due to the dominant compulsory heterosexuality. After all, although the boundaries between “gay” and “straight” beaches are fluid, the “territorialization” of these spaces is not acquired without conflicts and claims that often become effective only in political and historical processes.