Discourses are a part of sexual culture. They must coexist with the contradictions that they themselves generate, the resistance of those who oppose them and the material and technological realities that offer possibilities for their implantation. It is from these interactions that a sexual culture, such as that of the truckers, is established. In other words, they may have machista ideas, but their culture will not necessarily reflect these automatically. These must be negotiated with the milieu to be transformed in many ways, some of them almost unrecognizable. Moreover, they can also establish a compartmentalized culture in which certain ideas predominate in a given time or space, and other contrary ones in others. This explains why machismo is more accentuated in one area, such as the home, than in another, such as the street.
These transformations create confusion. The most obvious one is the confusion between discourse and culture. If we disregard the relationship that exists between one and the other, we could attribute cultural aspects to machismo that to do not belong to it. For instance, machismo as a discourse is not opposed to the flesh nor does it regard sex as a sin. However, it coexists with a Christian tradition that does see it that way. Thus, many of the truckers’ attitudes, such as the dirty way of looking at sexuality do not originate in it.
Another less obvious confusion is that between resistances and discourse. Some have linked machismo to promiscuity, for example, understanding the latter to mean having a large number of sexual partners. However, this behavior is rather a way of resisting the discourse. By having many women, macho men end up associating with the more liberal ones who are less constrained by the gender discourse. This means that promiscuity erodes machismo instead of sustaining it.
One common mistake is to interpret all truckers’ behavior as machista. In view of the fact that macho men can take vacations, as we shall see, and make exceptions, many of the behaviors that we associate with this discourse do not belong to it. When we interviewed truckers in their homes, they paradoxically turned out to be more machista than when we interviewed them on the road. In fact, when on the road, truckers are less sexist than other men, as we shall see. But some tend to link behavior on the road with the machista discourse. One example is in relation to liquor consumption. Truckers drink liquor not because they are machos but to have non-sexist relationships.
The fact that macho beings can coexist with the principles of other discourses can lead to the error of mistaking the latter as part of an alien discourse. If macho men profess devotion to their families (a religious principle), for example, social researchers might conclude, as Mirandé did, that machismo is an ideology that is concerned with family values, when in reality it is not.
The combination of different discursive practices can lead to the error of attributing certain behaviors to the wrong discourse. Truckers, as we shall see, tend to seek out prostitutes. A very common mistake is to conclude that this is because of machismo. However, as this book shows, the relationship between prostitutes and truckers is not “machista” in the sexist sense of the word. On the contrary, the relationship responds more to a greater need for symmetry than exploitation, as it has traditionally been portrayed.
Contradictions establish a relationship between two discursive propositions so that if one is admitted to be true the other is false, or in other words, given one proposition there is another one that is directly opposed.
Truckers’ culture is full of contradictions. Some contradictions may be deduced directly from the discourses. Truckers, for example, expect their women to stay at home and take care of the children. However, their wives and daughters are exposed to discourses that question their dependence and their domesticity. “Ever since my wife’s been watching the Cristina Show, she’s had these really strange ideas about getting a job and earning her own money,” Carlos tells us. Mario admits that at school his daughter is taught to compete with boys and “it makes my wife question everything I say.”
Others can be deduced from contact with reality. “Now it’s not possible to have a wife and a lover like before,” Cirino tells us. He says that in the old days financial needs were less and a man could afford the luxury of establishing two homes. “That’s no longer possible,” he says, “only a few people have enough money to keep two women,” he ends up telling us. According to this trucker, this factor has made lovers “more independent”.
Truckers consider themselves to be God-fearing men who practice their religion. However, the Church’s ban on family planning cannot be followed as before. Most are aware that “it’s impossible to maintain five or six kids, as our parents did,” says Ricardo. The modernization of the Central American societies has increased children’s need for education and with it the need to invest large sums of money. “My parents didn’t need to send me to school because in those days you could get a job without much education. Now I have to send my three kids to elementary school, high school and if possible to university, so that they can compete,” Roberto tells us. “One more kid, and there’s no way we could do it,” he adds.
Considering the truckers’ total earnings, we found that in general their monthly income is just over $300. However, in Nicaragua it does not exceed $200 a month. An estimate of average truckers’ incomes shows a great variation, ranging from US $42 in Nicaragua to as much as US $ 1,156 in Costa Rica. The purchasing power of the currency in each country determines the social and labor condition with respect to their income. The sums are obviously only sufficient to maintain one family.
This means that as parents, truckers express many concerns. Despite the fact that they have paid work, the difficult economic situation in the countries of the region means that, in general, they feel anxious about the future of their jobs and maintaining their families. Even so, those who engage in other activities to boost their earnings are few (12% of the total) (Table 4). This can be logically explained by the fact that given the nature and hours of their job, they have little opportunity to take additional work to help them earn more money.
Another source of tension is that truckers are macho men who have been raised to conquer women, who are expected to do the opposite. Women who yield are despised. This produces a contradiction between men’s desires and those that are acceptable in their wives. “It’s not well regarded for one’s wife to know a lot about sex,” says Jose. “If she does, it’s because she’s a loose woman,” he concludes severely. This double standard, then, creates a permanent tension between couples, where one partner must desire and the other must reject, one must know and the other must not, one must enjoy and the other must conceal all desire.
Contradictions also arise in the parallel sexual relationships that are established. Despite the truckers’ machismo, the prostitutes they associate with are very different women from their wives and girlfriends. They display qualities of independence and self-assurance to which truckers are not accustomed in their homes.
Other contradictions may be inferred from reality. The Church preaches against birth control, yet governments build popular homes with only two bedrooms. Truckers know perfectly well that if they have large families they will have trouble obtaining a home. “Religion tells you not to plan on the one hand, but on the other hand, the government forces you to limit your family,” says Pepe. He tells us that he has searched for a house but all he can afford is a small house, made for only two children. “This is a great contradiction, because they force you to plan through the design of popular housing,” he adds.
Contradictions generate resistances. Resistances are disseminated, to a greater or lesser degree, in time and space. Their task is to answer back, confront, contradict, question, and temporarily or permanently displace the established discourses. In the process, resistance fosters new ideas, principles, notions, myths or symbolisms. It light up certain parts of the body or certain moments in life, and promotes and establishes particular types of sexual behavior.
Just as the network of power relations ends up weaving a dense web that runs through apparatus and institutions without exactly being located in them, so too the formation of resistances runs through social stratifications and individual units. And without a doubt, it is the strategic codification of those points of resistance that makes possible a revolution.78
In the case of truckers, it is evident that they encounter opposition to their machismo from their wives and daughters, as well as from institutions such as schools and sometimes, the Church. They do not derive the same benefits from a culture that treats them as second-class citizens and they oppose machismo. Maria, Miguel’s wife, will not accept that men should not help with domestic chores. “I’m tired of cleaning the whole house on my own. Why don’t you put your machismo to one side and help me do it? she asks angrily. Rosita, Noe’s eldest daughter, asks her father why he won’t let her mother work in an office. “Mom could have more independence and more money if you gave her more freedom,” she says.
Another form of rational resistance is to modify the discourses. Although the general precepts do not contradict each other, their interpretation changes in some cases. Jose tells his wife Carmen that he’s the boss of the household because it says so in the Bible, which also says “woman shall be silent and not speak in public.” Maria, for her part, does not agree with this “macho interpretation”. According to her, the Bible also says that for God there are no differences because of sex. Teresita tells her boyfriend, Pedro, that although machismo dictates that women must respect men, it also maintains that men must protect their families, and one way of doing so is by “giving more freedom to women so that they can help with the bills”.
Emphasizing some precepts more than others is a rational way of resisting. The acceptance of certain forms of family planning by many truckers is one example of this. Some truckers defend homosexuals considering that they are all “children of God”, while others say that they deserve to die like the people of “Sodom and Gomorrah”.
Finally, another form of resistance is escape. The traveling culture established by truckers is a clear example of resistance to changes taking place in the home. “When I can’t take domestic life and my old lady’s complaints anymore, traveling is a way of escaping all that and doing whatever I want,” explains Erick. Pedro also regards travel as a form of resistance. “To be honest, I’m bored at home. I have to pay the bills, listen to problems, and see my wife every day. I get bored and fed up. After a few days, I can hardly wait to escape from it all.” Emilio has similar views: “Men aren’t here to be domesticated. I quickly get fed up with the kids, the crying the television. Soon my hormones wake up and call for action,” he tells us.
Many truckers expressed ambivalent feelings towards their absence from home. During our visits to their rest areas and from the informal conversations we had with them it was possible to conclude that their lack of participation in important family celebrations, such as birthdays, causes them pain, and they tolerate it because their work enables them to make the necessary money to survive.
The families complain about the truckers’ absence and they are aware that they use travel as a means of escape. Rodrigo, a father of six, explains, “I feel good and bad about this. I’d like to be closer to home and see more of my kids.” Juan’s eldest son complains to his father, “We only see you one day a week. Why can’t you spend more time with us?”
Likewise, Juan tells us that when his wife is angry she asks, “how can we live as a family when you’re never here?” Resigned, Juan accepts the criticisms and the complaints, though he looks visibly uncomfortable when he remarks, “at least I go home and bring them food. I’d like to do more, but I can’t divide myself into pieces.”
Many truckers recognize that their wives complain about their jobs and blame them for their children’s various problems, such as alcohol, drugs, gangs, poor academic performance or for dropping out of school.
On the other hand, not all truckers feel guilty about traveling. Some consider that their families are solid and that respect, in every sense, is reciprocal. Rafa says “when I go home, I dedicate all my time to my family, and on the week-ends I spend here we go out together. I spend all my time with them.” Gonzalo is another one who says, “My family is happy about me and my job.”
We also found evidence of a small number of truckers, mainly single men with no commitments, who assume that their families are used to their absences and, as Carlos says, “when I’m home for more than a week, I feel uncomfortable and want to take off.”
However, there are also families who regard the trucker’s job as worthy of admiration and are proud that their father, son, brother or son-in-law is a trucker. This is the case of Guayaba, who is head of his household.
My family…they feel proud when they see me driving something big, nothing out of this world, but it’s something not many people do. My family and neighbors are pleased and all the time they tell me „take care, be very careful, watch out because loading all those things could give you a hernia!
In fact, it is common to find families that regard this job as a tradition or something that is inherited, a legacy passed on to a man from his grandfather, to his father to him, and then from him to one of his own sons. When Carlos was asked how he learnt to drive a truck he answered, “Yes, it was one of my brothers, the eldest, he taught me how to drive when I was at school.” Napo explains it more clearly.
Our family has always been truckers, so my grandfather, my father and all the rest of them taught me. I liked driving trucks from the time I was small. I’ve always liked it.
Finally, truckers find other ways of resisting such as practices or activities that do not fit in with these discourses. Men who allow themselves to be seduced by women, men who have sex with other men, women who establish the sexual rules and group sex, are ways of resisting the more traditional discourses. The proposal of new alternatives may be interpreted as resistances, such as transport in return for sex, or having a “second front”. There are also exceptional periods, in other words, festive occasions (birthdays, anniversaries, or just celebrations) or, in the case of truckers, trips, when the established rules can be broken.
The relations of power that are promoted though the proliferation of discourses, with their contradictions and resistances, turn sexual culture into the sum of disjointed/unconnected parts with isolated traits, mutually disassociated. In some communities, places such as schools, home and Church, suppress the expression of sexual desire. In others, such as truck yards, the countryside or bars, sexuality has greater license to express itself. The difference between home and the road establishes a dichotomy in sexual matters: the bedroom and licentiousness, in other words, the licit and the illicit, the secret and the scandalous, and on occasion, boredom and excitement. For the truckers, these are perhaps the most opposed compartments.
When a sexual culture cannot reconcile the contradictions and resistances to the discourses, or it lacks the means to do so, people have two options. One is to reject outright the mandates that they do not consider rationally appropriate. The other is to accept the principles, but practice them at different times or in different spaces. This is what we term “compartmentalization” and it refers to the process of practicing different discourses in such a way that their contradictions and limitations appear less evident.
The mind organizes itself, then, to respond to culture and this produces a tendency to harbor opposing or different thoughts or feelings that should be related: thoughts and feelings end up belonging to different areas or compartments of the mind. In other words, a situation arises where a group of thoughts or feelings that have a certain unity with each other, lose most of their relations with the rest of the personality and function more or less independently.
The saying “Sunday saint, weekday sinner” shows the result of compartmentalization. Individuals who experience a different kind of pleasure when engage in sexual practices with a prostitute than when they are with their usual partner, workers who sexually harass their colleagues but advocate respect and solidarity on other occasions, men who become feminized from time to time, people who seek fortuitous sexual encounters at weekends, “heterosexual” women who have sexual experiences with other women, “heterosexual” men who engage in sexual practices with other men, and others who make exceptions in their condom use with certain partners, are some examples of the results of compartmentalization.
These “cuts” between categories, even when done in a reasoned manner, are not questioned. They are simply experienced. Compartmentalization functions as an attempt to alleviate the tensions of an individual who cannot submit him/herself to contradiction that he or she cannot resolve. And perhaps most important of all, it helps the individual to avoid coming to terms with his or her inner contradictions. Thus, the preferred way of avoiding this confrontation is to divide one’s sexuality into “compartments” and put in them the different discourses and practices.
Truckers’ sexual relations are compartmentalized. Generally, they have “normal” sex with their wives, in other words vaginal sex. But with others, the sky is the limit. When Angel was asked why he engaged in different sexual practices with his wife and a sex worker he answered:
No, I don’t like to, if I start doing that kind of thing with my wife she would get an idea of what goes on in the street, you understand, so you can’t show a lack of respect.
When Carlos said that his sexual relations with his wife were different than with his other sexual partners we asked him why.
They have to be totally different, because in most cases it happens because of a fleeting sexual attraction, a thing of the moment. A person who’s away from home has sex for money, pays and leaves. There are some (women) who do it well, but it’s only sex, there are no feelings.
Francisco explains that he has “normal” sexual relations with his wife.
| Interviewer: | Well, now, when you have intercourse with your wife, what kind of sexual practices do you use? |
| Francisco: | Normal |
| Interviewer: | What do you mean by normal? |
| Francisco: | Nothing weird, just normal. |
| Interviewer: | You don’t do it any other way? |
| Francisco: | No, just normal. For example, I don’t do it from behind or in her mouth, because it might ruin her. |
| Interviewer: | So, there’s no oral sex. |
| Francisco: | I love her, so no, there’s no oral sex or any of that. |
| Interviewer: | And how do you do it? |
| Francisco: | Only vaginal (sex) because you have to respect your wife so that she will respect you. |
Later, when Francisco was asked in what way his wife would be ruined if they had different kinds of sexual practices, such as those he has with sex workers, he answered: “she could go off the rails and have sex with someone else”. Guayaba also explains why sex is different with his wife and his “second front” (mistress).
| Interviewer: | What kinds of sexual practices do you have with your mistress? |
| Guayaba: | Everything. |
| Interviewer: | Could you be more specific? |
| Guayaba: | Yes, from in front, from behind, whatever she wants. |
| Interviewer: | And do you do it in her ass? |
| Guayaba: | Of course, because if I don’t do it, someone else will. |
| Interviewer: | Do you make her suck you? |
| Guayaba: | Yes, we all suck each other. |
| Interviewer: | And what do you do with your wife? |
| Guayaba: | I do it normal. |
| Interviewer: | What is normal? |
| Guayaba: | Well, on top of her. |
Others such as Victor feel freer under the effects of liquor, allowing him to do many things.
| Victor: | Yes, I’ve always liked booze and with women I feel freer and do all kinds of things. But I won’t suck or do it from behind. |
| Interviewer? | And why don’t you like it from behind? |
| Victor: | No, man, because it’s not right. Women have a place for that. Some like it, though, and I’ve done it, but I don’t like it. |
| Interviewer: | And with your wife? |
| Victor: | With her only in the vagina, and that’s it. |
The language of the bedroom is totally different from the language of the street. With their wives, truckers only say “nice things” when they make love, such as “I love you very much” and „my life”, “my queen”, “my angel”. In the street, the sexual organs are mentioned, invoked and turned into food, such as “banana”, “papaya”, “clam shell”, “plantain”, or into instruments such as “pick”, “beater”, “bat”, “glove” and others.
Another difference between sex at home and sex outside is not just in the specific sexual practices but also in the speed with which it takes place. Napoleon explains.
| Interviewer: | How long does it last? |
| Napoleon: | At least five minutes, according to how the body’s feeling (he refers to the pleasure he feels), if the body’s feeling good, we take longer, and when it’s ready to come, well that’s it. |
| Interviewer: | Tell me honestly, who does it feel better with? Napoleon: Well, for me, it’s better with whores… |
Discourses tend win converts through the groups that benefit most from them. Thus it happens that in a particular sexual culture, there is a constant attempt to convince the undecided and win over adepts. This makes people aware of other alternatives or ways of doing things. Some, then, will seek to experience these at times when they have difficulty sticking to their old principles, are bored or find themselves outside of the prevailing sexual cultural.
Truckers, for example, tend to “take vacations” from the macho discourse when they travel on the road. We could regard this as a period of “exception”, in other words a kind of “time out” in the realm of sexuality. Just as Dr Richard Parker considers the Brazilian carnival as an exception to the predominant sexual culture, where for three days of the year people explore new terrain of their sexuality, so our truckers do the same during their weeks of travel through Central America.79
Truckers acquire their status through the long journey that breaks with everyday life. In other words, the most respected drivers are those who make journeys between countries and who travel more towards the North than the South. “Every trucker wants to make long journeys. Those of us who make it to the United States are the most respected.” This long journey constitutes a break between “normal” life and a trucker’s life on the road.
The long trips associated with masculinity take truckers across the borders of several countries and into new sexual adventures. A trucker might cover the same distance in his own country, without crossing into another. But this would not gain him greater respect from his colleagues. “The idea of a long trip is accompanied by the notion of passing from one country to another, from one woman to another,” Cirino tells us. “No sailor is going to be admired for going from one port to another in his own country. It’s being international that gives you prestige,” he adds. We ask Gilberto, a Honduran truckers, the same question.
| - | If you do a thousand kilometers in your own country or five hundred crossing borders, what gets the most admiration from colleagues? |
| - | Crossing borders, without a doubt. |
| - | Why do think that?Because it’s not the same to go round a lake in circles as to throw yourself into the sea. |
| - |
Arturo, a 23 year-old Nicaraguan, says the length of a journey is measured like a penis: “when you say you have a great dick it’s because it’s a good size, measured lengthwise. It’s the same with the trips. You measure towards the front, along the length. Nobody’s going to be proud of a penis that’s all doubled up and doesn’t seem to go anywhere,” he concludes.
But what do truckers escape from when they hit the long road and where does it lead? Truckers say they are escaping from the boredom of domestic life, from family demands and from pressures in their communities. However, when they flee, our truckers conform to a very different culture from the one they leave behind.
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78 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality I: An Introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984, p15.
79 Richard Parker, Bodies, pleasure, passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.