At home, Jose never swears or drinks. “Kids learn everything, and they shouldn’t see their parents’ bad habits,” he says. Carlos is of the same opinion, because his wife is “very religious and detests any bad language in the house.” Emilio would never think of having a beer, because “in our neighborhood it’s considered very strange to drink alone at home”. However, when truckers are on the road, the reality is very different. Their trips are filled with liquor and with vulgar language and behavior. But this obscene language is nothing more than the language of a new discourse that prevails in the street. In it, the bodies of men and women become completely erotic and no organ is forbidden/exempt from pleasure. Nobody is diminished for wishing to enjoy the body. It is exhibited and displayed to attract both sexes. Alcohol and drugs are stimulants for the senses. The traveler’s discourse is Eros.
“What does speaking obscenely mean and why do you do it?” we ask Jose, a 29 year-old Honduran trucker. “For me, the trucker’s rough language is a way of calling things by their real name and not trying to disguise them, like the more educated people do,” he says with sincerity. “Why call a dick a penis, if it sounds nicer to say it like it is?” he continues. “If I tell a woman, „I want to touch your pussy’, the broad will be turned on, she’ll know for sure that I’m not going to examine her, but that I want her for sex, and that’s more appropriate,” he says. “One day a girl got into my truck. I tried to seduce her with nice words, but got nowhere. But when I got mad and told her to either show me her tits or get out of the truck, the fool did what I asked. It shows that women like dirty talk,” he adds. “I don’t think that’s what made her react,” I contradict, “maybe what really had an effect was that you pressured her to do it or else you’d throw her out of the truck.” “Don’t be so naïve!” he retorts, “What do you expect me to say? „Show me your mammary glands?’ he concludes.
The language of Eros is not forbidden to women in the way that gender language is. Juan tells us that one of the most enjoyable aspects of sexual encounters on the road is “to ask a woman to tell me what she wants in a vulgar way.” When we ask what he considers “vulgar”, he answers: “I love to hear a woman telling me to get out my „dick’, without using the decent word”.
Not only is there a certain vulgarity in the language used, but also in the clothing worn.
Truckers are no good. Out of a hundred, there might be a few decent ones, but most of them are rough, they have no respect, they’re vulgar. Some don’t dress properly, but go around looking a mess. I think there should be controls on the way they dress and that’s something the authorities should do. I remember that in the old days you couldn’t go around in a low-cut t-shirt because the traffic cops didn’t allow it. Now they even go around naked. (Daniel).
Traveling half-naked is a way of counteracting the heat of Central America, but, aside from the climate, it also has sexual overtones. Cirino, for example, always likes to drive shirtless. Sometimes, even when the weather is cold, he proceeds to undress. “If I see a couple of girls hitching a ride on the road, I take off my shirt and take my pants down before I stop. I have to do it quickly so they don’t see. I wear short, tight underpants. When the girls get in, I pretend I’m feeling very hot so they won’t suspect. If they don’t say anything or complain about how I’m dressed, I let the conversation get interesting and provoke a great erection in me. It’s impossible for women not to look down, and as soon as I see them doing it, I put my hand on their legs.”
Daniel not only likes to wear tight clothing in his truck but also in the rest areas. According to him, women always look at men’s packages, even though they do it furtively. To impress them, he wears denim shorts, sufficiently tight so that no detail is lost. “But Daniel, are you sure that women notice that, or are these just ideas of yours?” we ask. “Notice? Sure they notice!” he says confidently. “I’ll tell you a story. The older women who’ve had kids go around measuring sizes to find a dick that don’t make them feel they’re loose. Like this old woman in Costa Rica who likes to go to dancing in truckers’ bars. She’s a well-known professional and her name – I’ll give her a name that isn’t hers – is Yiselera. When she sees a package like mine, you have to say „hey, lift your head up, honey, my eyes are up here!”
Another way of being vulgar is through sex. As they themselves admit, truckers not only speak in vulgar terms, but they are also obscene in their sexual practices. We ask Carlos how he thinks this vulgarity is expressed.
We like the fruit game. We put pieces of papaya and banana into a basket and cover our eyes. Each person takes a fork and takes a piece of fruit. If you get papaya, you have to suck a vagina, if you get a banana, you have to suck a dick, whether man, woman or animal.
Carlos has an explanation for the truckers’ vulgarity.
I’ll tell you something. Just as there are vulgar people, there are those of us who aren’t vulgar. When people see a trucker talking dirty to a woman, they think we’re all like that. But we’re not all the same.
Finally, obscenity is associated with drinking. Truckers have the reputation of being great drinkers and, when they are drunk, they tend to shout, swear and hurl insults. Juan, a 34 year-old Nicaraguan, explains:
There’s nothing more pathetic than truckers drinking. All you hear is swearing everywhere. Every five minutes, someone yells an insult at whatever bothers him.
In the case of truckers, alcohol and drug consumption helps them to drop their inhibitions until they lose control. To begin with, we could say that drinking is a widespread habit among truckers, since 76% admitted to consuming alcohol often (Table 9). This figure is as high as that obtained in another survey among sex workers in the region (76%)88, though lower than that obtained among men who have sex with other men (86%).89
During our observations we were able to confirm a high level of alcohol consumption. At times, meals are accompanied by liquor. At night, drinking increases, when truckers visit entertainment spots such as nightclubs, brothels, „cantinas’ or bars, restaurants, discos and similar places. The managers or owners of the nightspots that we interviewed expressed satisfaction at their presence since they bring more profits to their business. However, they also remarked that when truckers get drunk there are problems between groups because “they get feisty and sometimes end up fighting each other,” according to Sergio, a bar owner.
Truckers felt more inclined to speak about how drink loosens their inhibitions and how they lose control, to the point of not remembering anything the following day.
When I drink liquor, like a few beers, I don’t know, but I feel like it affects my hormones, like there’s a great fire inside me, whatever, but I get real horny. After a few drinks I dance with a girl, and my hormones get all excited and that’s when I need pleasure. (Marcos).
Luis tells a similar tale.
Well, I like to drink my beers at night after I’ve parked the truck. The problem is, when I’ve had about four drinks I get the urge. I mean, I start looking for a woman. I don’t always do it, and when I do I don’t always find a woman. But it happens.
Vargas not only loses his inhibitions, but he also admits to losing control.
When I drink nothing matters to me. I see naked women and they all look good. When your mind is focused, without liquor, you think differently, you think of the consequences. As they say, the problem is that „when that thing down there stands up, the thing up here doesn’t work’, even less with booze.
Rudico gets alarmed because the following day he cannot remember what happened.
I go into a cantina good and healthy and begin to drink. Then I start to seduce some woman there. Sometimes I end up sleeping with her and I can’t remember any of what happened.
With regard to other types of drugs such as marihuana, cocaine, heroine, crack etc., it seems things are different. Barbas explains.
No, in this job there’s not much drug use. There are some truckers who do it, and I know a few. But most of them don’t do it. Here the thing is booze and cigarettes.
Nevertheless, drugs are used. Mario says he knows truckers who smoke marihuana and Paul gives the following account:
I have a friend who likes to go around with veteran drivers who travel all over Central America. At first my friend wasn’t into that (drugs) and was rejected by that group. The old guys smoked marihuana and they also snorted cocaine. When my friend began doing the same he was accepted in the group.
Castro was one of the few truckers who admitted to currently taking some type of drug, even considering it something spiritual and something that helps him to get women.
Drugs inspire me. I think coke gives more spirit to the human being, makes you feel more human. I’m quite a shy person with women. But when I’ve had a few drinks and done some coke, I become a poet, a minstrel, and I can seduce any woman in a matter of seconds.
The results of our regional sample revealed that 27% of truckers have tried some type of drug, mainly marihuana (24%) and cocaine (7%)) (Table No.9). Moreover, 9% admitted that they currently use some drug, mainly marihuana (7%), followed by cocaine (1%). The percentages for other drugs were lower.
Alcohol and sometime drugs are part of a trucker’s menu not so much because machos are well regarded as drunks, but also because it helps to open and close mental compartments. Indeed, we could say that liquor serves to “de-compartmentalize” truckers’ minds. In other words, it allows them to express feelings or desires that they know are forbidden or are incapable of combining at the same time.
We asked Cirino, for example, to tell us what he does when he is drunk that he does not do when he is sober. He tells us that liquor helps him to dance with women in a seductive way. In the macho world, dancing is seen as a feminine activity, especially when bodies are swaying provocatively and sex is insinuated. Cirino says he knows that women like him to move his hips in a certain way so that they can feel the rhythm of intercourse and also his backside in a sensual manner. But Cirino, why are you inhibited from doing this when you’re sober?” we ask. He replies that macho men “shouldn’t move their ass” or their hips like a “faggot”. We persist, “but you like to move it, don’t you?” “Well, let’s say that I know women like my ass because it’s big and sticks up. I know they love me to show them my packet first and then for me to turn around sensually and show them my butt. I do it because I know it turns them on,” he replies. “So you know that you have a nice backside, right?” we continue. “Yes, I know that even men joke about it saying things like „what a nice rump you have’,” he finally admits. “Then the backside is also a man’s sexual organ,” we conclude. “Yes but a drunk man. You have been real crazy to let anyone touch it, whether men or women,” he says.
Pepe believes that alcohol helps him say things that he cannot say when he is sober. For example, he would never whisper “compliments” and “sweet things” to women when he makes love if he were not drunk. When we ask him why he thinks that saying something beautiful is difficult for him, he answers that “romantic and poetic language is for women and faggots, not for when I’m about to penetrate a woman.” At that point, he says, “poetry makes me lose my erection”. “Can you give me an example?” I ask. “Well, if I’m telling a woman that I like her cunt, and want to shove my whole dick in it, for example, I feel very bad if she says she loves me. This makes me droop. One night I was with a trucker’s wife and I was screwing her from behind. Instead of exciting me, the woman was telling me how she wanted to be mine forever and to have my kid. That made me lose my erection immediately,” he confesses.
Julio says that alcohol enables him to ask women “to put their finger in my rectum”. He says he is very ashamed of this predilection he has, and feels it is “un-macho”. He would never do it when sober. Mario has similar feelings about oral sex. He cannot lick a woman’s clitoris unless “I’ve had more than half a liter of firewater and so I have no misgivings”. He thinks oral sex is “something no real macho should have to do to a woman. What woman is going to respect you if you suck her as if she were your boss?” he says. “But why would you see your partner as your boss?” I ask in surprise. “Because a real macho is the one who receives oral sex, not the one who gives it,” he replies.
If alcohol does not suffice to do away with truckers’ inhibitions, group pressure is. During gatherings at rest areas, sodas or restaurants, we noted that some truckers who admitted to not having had sex during their journey were called “gays”, “faggots” or “queers” (pejorative terms to describe homosexuals) by their colleagues and were constantly harassed. Pablo describes the atmosphere he has felt.
I don’t know, but an atmosphere has been created in which if we don’t talk about women, then we’re not men. I’ve noticed it. I’ll be honest, I’ve gotten into the habit of saying things to a broad when she passes by, I bother her and say this and that to her.
Paul is a victim of peer pressure to get drunk and have sex with various women, though he began by saying that he is almost a “saint”.
| Paul: | I’m almost a saint when it comes to women. |
| Interviewer: | And what do you need to be a saint? |
| Paul: | Well, aside from wings (laughter), recently I had a little adventure. |
| Interviewer: | Tell me about it. |
| Paul: | The other night I went off with a girl, because the truth is my girlfriend complains that I’m in this (job) because I feel very manly driving a truck. That’s not true and I don’t like her to say it. |
| Interviewer: | So, your girlfriend is to blame for your little adventure? |
| Paul: | Well, partly, yes, because of what she said. Now she has something to talk about. |
| Interviewer: | So she found out about it? |
| Paul: | No, no, God forbid, because she’d throw me out. |
| Interviewer: | I’m sorry to insist on this, but what else do you need to become a saint? |
| Paul: | Well, I ought to behave a little better. Sometimes, not always, when I’m with the guys and they ask me to go for a drink with them and a woman goes by, I come out with all kinds of stupid things and I fall into that mistake. The problem is, it creates an atmosphere in which you want to stand out, that’s normal. |
| Interviewer: | And what happens if a woman responds to you? |
| Paul: | If a woman responds, then I can’t get out of it. My friends would bug me a lot. |
Enrique explains how truckers pressure others into having sex.
We have this colleague who looks like a sucker, one of those we call „lucky idiots’. This guy has the most gorgeous chicks chasing after him, and they guy’s not interested. Not because he’s such a saint, but because he’s an idiot, it’s obvious. He’s the kind who arrives and meets a chick and wants to start a „real relationship’. Imagine! The truth is, an old trucker who’s into that is kind of strange, it’s like he’s still a baby. He comes over and says, „oh, the poor thing, how could I screw around with her?’ So someone comes up and tells him, „well if you don’t, someone else will, or I will’. Sometimes the fool ends up screwing the chicks and then he complains to us. I don’t understand, he’s just a lucky idiot.
Often, truckers go beyond simple persuasion. If they find out that one of their colleagues is shy with women, they invite him to have group sex and demonstrate his manhood to the others.
Alberto is a colleague who’s a very handsome man, but we never saw any women. That seemed very strange to us. So first we invited him for drinks and then to an orgy with the women from the bar. They guy said he didn’t want to, that he had a girlfriend and didn’t want to be unfaithful to her. So Pedro, who’s a real bully, said if he didn’t do it we’d think of him as a faggot. He said it was very suspicious that we never saw him with a broad in any bar. Since Pedro knows and is a friend of his supervisor, Alberto thought twice about it. Well, last week, they made him join in an orgy with two women and with Pedro, me and two other guys. Pedro gave Alberto first turn with the prettiest one and he was so brazen that he watched all the action. Afterwards he told Alberto that he’d convinced him and that he wouldn’t think anything bad of him again.
However, not all truckers succumb to peer pressure. Jesus is one example. When asked what his friends said about his being faithful to his wife he replied:
Oh no. I don’t hang out with them and if they’re going with women I’m not interested. My friends are very capable and very adult and if they do those things, then they know what they’re doing. In my case, if a woman came up to me on the road and I kissed her, then I’d feel bad. Look, the first thing I see when I get home is my little daughter jumping up to kiss me all over. How could I go home and get my face near the kid for her to welcome me? I’d feel immoral, I wouldn’t do it.
Group pressure prompts some to engage in group sex. Macondo explains:
| Macondo: | I’ve seen a single woman take on five truckers and they all do it to her. |
| Interviewer: | Have you ever participated? |
| Macondo: | No, I don’t like doing it in a group, but I’ve seen it. |
| Interviewer: | And what did you see? |
| Macondo: | Well, I didn’t see the action. I saw that they were all drunk when they got into a friend’s truck and they invited me. They said they had a whore to fuck between them all, because it was cheaper. I don’t know what went on inside, or what they did, whether it was oral, anal or vaginal. What they did tell me at the end is that they were satisfied. |
| Interviewer: | And the woman? |
| Macondo: | The woman was grinning from ear to ear and she offered me a discount if I wanted to do it. I imagine that she was smiling because of the money she’d made. I don’t see how you can enjoy it like that. |
Rafael is another who did not participate in group sex. Despite being drunk, almost unconscious and not remembering much of what happened, he can still describe what his companions did.90
| Interviewer: | Have you ever seen group sex among your friends? |
| Rafael: | Yes. |
| Interviewer: | And have you ever participated? |
| Rafael: | No, of course not. I don’t like it. |
| Interviewer: | So, what did you see on that occasion? |
| Rafael: | I saw that they gave it to her from the front, from behind, in the mouth, and as they say, made her into a sandwich. |
| Interviewer: | All of them together? |
| Rafael: | Yes, all together. There were four of them, and I even saw them grab each other. |
| Interviewer: | The men? They grabbed each other’s penises? |
| Rafael: | Yes, but that’s all. I can’t recall too much now, but I think it’s very risky because if someone was sick or if the woman had venereal diseases, then it would be passed to everyone, because none of them used a condom. |
Francisco is another trucker who discussed the subject of group sex, without admitting his participation.
| Interviewer: | Have you witnessed several friends having sex with one woman? |
| Francisco: | I have. |
| Interviewer: | Is this common practice? |
| Francisco: | Yeah, anyone will do it, any drunken trucker. I’ve seen several truckers with one woman. My friends do it and I stay outside the parking lot. |
| Interviewer: | And what exactly do they do? |
| Francisco: | Sex, that’s what they do. |
| Interviewer: | But what type of sexual practices? |
| Francisco: | Well, like I said, I haven’t seen much but I’ve heard conversations where they say, „I gave it to her in the ass…’ (laughter). |
Juancho’s account shows that the truck, when empty, can be used for these experiences.
I tell you, sometimes women think a lot of themselves and underestimate us. They reckon we’re not going to satisfy them, they say we always leave them half-done. One day there were eight of us (truckers) and a woman challenged us saying she could take on five or ten men. We all began laughing and told her to come to a trailer that was empty, because there was no cargo. She got inside with five of my friends and I saw the action. The woman ordered them to line up, and one by one the guys fucked her. The interesting thing was, she left the truck all triumphant, like it was no big deal. Then she found another friend of mine leaving the parking lot and she went to bed with him. The poor guy didn’t know what had happened and she still wasn’t beaten. I ended up thinking that my friends were a bunch of weaklings…
The link between alcohol and body language has traditionally been associated with the macho discourse. However, the phenomenon is linked with Eros. Liquor, sexual language and group pressure are ways of breaking down men’s inhibitions so that they can enjoy their bodies. If, as we have seen, macho men associate pleasure, sensuality and reciprocity with being “effeminate”, they will only be able to enjoy these when drunk or drugged or pressured by group behaviors.
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88 Madrigal Johnny. En las trincheras de la confianza. A survey on condom use among sex workers in Central America. San Jose, Costa Rica: Editorial ILPES. August 1998. p.33.
89 Madrigal Johnny. Caminar entre tinieblas. A survey on condom use among men who have sex with men in Central America. San Jose, Costa Rica: Editorial ILPES. January 1999, p.32.
90 All references to homosexual practices are omitted as these will be analyzed in a subsequent chapter.