XIV. HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONS

A Tale of Two Cities

It was the best of times for homosexuals; truckers would pick them up on the road, and they would get to travel and have sex. It was the worst of times: truckers hated them, and never gave them a ride.

Two versions coexist regarding truckers’ relationship with homosexuals. The official story is that most truck drivers despise gays and reject them. The unauthorized version maintains that this is not always true. Before exploring what the truth might be, let us analyze the myth about the macho man’s hate of homosexuals.

Homophobia

One of the most common assumptions in Latin America is that homophobia is a result of men’s machismo.¹²⁰ According to this notion, the fact that men are dominant and see women as inferiors makes them also scorn effeminate men, whom they associate with homosexuality. Homophobia, seen from this vantage point, is linked to sexism.

Although the present survey did not study the correlation between homophobia and machismo, we carried out an earlier study in 1990, in Costa Rica, in 1990.¹²¹ Homophobia was defined as the rejection of homosexuals’ civil rights and social participation. People who thought that homosexuals should not have the same rights as everyone else, and should not be tolerated by Costa Rican society, were classified as homophobic.

At the same time, a machismo index was developed on the basis of a series of questions concerning acceptable behavior in men and women. Those who displayed a double standard in their responses, tolerating certain forms of behavior in men but not in women, were considered to have machista attitudes. The index was accordingly based on behavior that was found acceptable for men but unacceptable for women in such areas as premarital and extramarital sex, multiple partners and prostitution. Men and women who believed that „what is good for the goose is not good for the gander’ were identified as “macho”.

Contrary to our expectations, no significant correlation was found between homophobia and machismo. Macho individuals may or may not be willing to support gay rights. The finding was important, we wrote, since

[…] it has been hypothesized that it is Costa Rican machismo that impedes tolerance towards homosexuals. However, [survey] results suggest that macho individuals are not necessarily more homophobic, and that both men and women can have different attitudes towards the rights of women and homosexuals.¹²²

It Was the Worst of Times

When we asked truckers for their thoughts on homosexuality, their responses were hostile. For instance, Julio and Ramiro refused to talk about it . “Not that subject,” Julio stated categorically, and it was impossible to get him to discuss the issue. Others did speak, but only to disparage gays. Napoleon said, “I hate cock-suckers, I simply hate them.” Macondo said they sickened him.

For me it’s the lowest a man can sink, because the truth is, that’s why men and women exist. It has to be done by a man and a woman. Just thinking about it makes me sick, and I don’t like to have them as friends. I reject them.

Mario spoke with similar passion:

I don’t like homosexuals. It’s in my blood: one of them could be dying on the road and I wouldn’t give him a ride. God has cursed these guys, just like the mule. God cursed the mule and it cannot procreate. The same thing happens to fags, because he who sleeps with a man is accursed in the sight of God.

Carlos was even more explicit:

I reject faggots. I hope I never run into one, because if I do I will break the bastard’s neck. I don’t know what happened to God, why he lets them exist.

Juancho, on the other hand, finds homosexuals repellant because “God made things the way they are, but we sometimes try to change them.” Perhaps Rafael expressed this point of view most clearly when he was asked what he thought of gays.

Another group sees homosexuality as the result of mental illness.

Well, I think they’re men who are mentally ill. It’s an abnormal and repulsive habit that corrupts people and at the very least makes them smoke marijuana or take drugs. I think they should get treatment, but like I said, they should be treated like people. (Beto)

They’re people who are mentally affected. I know that the mind can build but it can also destroy. (Marco)

Others are more progressive. Carlos, for instance, thinks that homosexuals “are sick from birth [but] they’re also human. They have the right to life like any other person.” For Juan, homosexuality is “a weakness” gays have from the time they were children. “It’s not their fault they are the way they are; we shouldn’t reject them or hurt them because of it.”

Diego has a different point of view, not at all typical of his fellow truckers:

I’ve seen kids grow up and when they reach poverty it suddenly develops in them. Maybe for some it’s a lifestyle, though I don’t see how that would benefit them. What I can tell you is that it’s a delicate matter, because no one should discriminate against them because of the way they are. I’ve talked to them and all I try to do is to understand them, though I don’t share their preference for a man over a woman. They think that way, and I respect it.

Gonzalo was similarly tolerant. He has gay friends, and sees homosexuality as something natural.

In our survey, only two of the 46 respondents disagreed with the traditional condemnation of homosexuality.

It Was the Best of Times

In spite of the homophobia expressed by many, homosexuals are part of the truckers’ environment. “Homosexuals are everywhere,” says Juan. “In every town we go through there are prostitutes and homosexuals, you see them everywhere,” says Mario. In the random sample of 400 truckers selected throughout the region, 75% said they had spotted homosexuals on the road (Chart 14). Jorge claims they are found in border towns, especially in restaurants and truck stops. Caliche even admits that he has been sexually accosted:

Yeah, I’ve seen them everywhere. Personally I don’t go for that, but I have seen them. I’ve seen them all through Central America. In our countries, there are a lot of homosexuals. Sometimes they try to mess with you, but I’m not that way, so I don’t give them a ride in my truck.

Barbas has had a similar experience.

Once a well dressed guy, with one of those executive briefcases, asked me for a ride at a gas station, to go a particular place. I offered him a ride, so he got in the truck and we started rolling. The problem is, along the way he started insinuating things. He was apparently a very respectable gentleman. But the moment came when I had to stop and ask him to get out of the truck. I only gave him a ride because he was well dressed and looked presentable. I wanted to do him a favor. But from that to wanting to do things with him, no way, never, God forbid.

Pedro had a different kind of surprise when he picked up what he thought was a female prostitute.

When I’d been truck driving for three months, I was stopped by a slim brunette. I used to feel hot all the time back then, though the truth is, I still have do, ha ha ha. The brunette was wearing a miniskirt and she had good legs. Besides, her hair was long and black. I stopped the truck and she got in. When she climbed in all I could do was stare at those great legs she had. Then I started talking and said I was horny and needed someone to help me out. She replied immediately that that was what she was there for, but she did it with a very strong voice, like the voice of a man. Then I looked at her face and froze in horror: it was a transvestite, with a man’s face he’ll never get rid of. I swear I was so shocked I felt like jumping out of the truck. But when he asked me if there was a problem, I told him kindly that I’d made a mistake. I stopped the truck and asked him to get out. I did it politely and I didn’t hurt him, because I don’t like hurting anyone. The bad thing was, as he was getting out and yelling a bunch of obscenities, at me all the cars that drove by would honk their horns and the drivers would yell at me, „Faggot!’ So it wasn’t just the shock, but also the embarrassment of having all those people staring at me. I learned my lesson, and now I pay more attention.

Many truck drivers insist that, although they often run into homosexuals, they are not themselves gay. But others – in fact, most – admit that some of their colleagues are indeed homosexual. Carlos knows friends who engage in gay sex. Mario says that some colleagues stop every day at the border, in gay establishments, where “things are wild and depraved.”

Pablo claims that gay sex is more frequent among truckers than is ordinarily believed. When asked if truck drivers look for homosexuals or transvestites on their journeys, he said:

That’s common, a lot more than you’d think. In fact, there are places where you know there are transvestites and homosexuals, and you see the drivers parking in front and going into those places. Or else they see them on the road and stop to pick them up. That’s normal, routine.

Pedro provides a more detailed account of homosexual practices among truckers.

Well, I’ve got married buddies and they’ve got pretty wives that anyone would want to enjoy. One time, one of these friends of mine stopped the truck and picked up a faggot. The truth is, he’ll pick up women, whether they’re prostitutes, homosexuals or queers, to suck him off while he’s driving. Other times, I’ve seen queers approach the truck and tell the driver, “I’ll suck you for three hundred.” They get into the cabin and that’s it. Some drivers are known faggots; what they like is to shove it up some bastard’s ass. Now that’s falling real low.

Among truckers it is known that some of their number engage in homosexual practices. In the survey, 74% responded that some truckers have sex with other men. When asked if they had ever given a ride to a homosexual, 20% said yes (Table 10). This might be interpreted as indirect confirmation of this factor.

Homosexual Practices

At this point, we might ask the question: how common are homosexual practices among truckers?

During the in-depth interviews, respondents admitted that homosexual relations occur in their environment and that some truckers engage in homosexual practices. But when asked directly if they had ever participated in such activities, the replies could not have been more forceful. “Hell no, God forbid, never!” said Enrique. “No! Never! Never! That, never!” said Ramiro. Carlos was asked whether he had ever mistaken a transvestite for a woman.

No, no, no! Truckers are real sharp. Ha, ha, ha, we notice these things. How could you not know that a man pretending to be a woman is still a man? No, no, no, no! You just know. You recognize it; you notice it. With a man, never, ha, ha, ha!

Mauricio is not so sure that he would be able to spot a transvestite, at least at first sight. When asked if he had engaged in gay sex, he was firm in his answer: “No.” But he admitted that he was misled once, and if his boss had not warned him who knows what might have happened. He laughed a lot as he told this story:

A year and a half ago I was in Costa Rica and I went into a bar. I’d been there other times. It’s downtown, and it’s big and dark. I knew it was a place where faggots hang out, because I’d been there before. But what attracted my attention this time was how many beautiful women there were. After downing a few drinks I started dancing with this chick, and later I starting kissing her and even fondling her tits. But suddenly my boss shows up and he asks me if we can talk in a corner. He asked me if I was aware of what I was doing, since in that place they were holding a contest for the Queen of the Transvestites or something like that. When he told me I nearly died, because my chick was one of the contestants.

Mauricio’s case raised some questions. Why, for instance, did he go to a bar that he knew was frequented by homosexuals? When asked, he responded defensively and suggested politely that we change the topic, because he had said everything he had to say.

Others, when asked if they had engaged in homosexual practices, acted as if their masculinity was under threat, and responded with affirmations of their virility. “I can boast of being a real man, and therefore I don’t mess around with men,” said Marvin. “I’m a man and no, I’ve never liked that,” said Julio. Vargas was even more emphatic:

I know (homosexuality) exists, but I don’t know what to tell you. So you understand me, I’ll tell you I’m very macho, a real woman chaser, and my balls are in the right place. I only like it with women. With faggots, it would be unthinkable. Transvestites I can’t even look at. I’m a real man and I don’t want anything to do with those fairies.

In the in-depth interviews, only two of the forty-seven respondents admitted to having engaged in gay sex at least once. When Victor was asked, this is what he said:

Rafael was the other one who admitted to these practices.

Pablo’s is an unusual case. “I had homosexual tendencies, but they’ve never led to anything; I’ve managed to run away from them. I feel that these sensations are now latent in me, but that’s due to alcohol consumption,” he says. Ramiro says of some of his colleagues: “When they’ve had a few drinks, many of them don’t feel like males, but like homosexuals.” He went on to explain: “When there’s drinks involved, some guys look for those kinds of practices with other men, because when they’ve had too much to drink their wires get crossed and they turn into ’holes (homosexuals).” Jose agrees with Ramiro. “I know three truckers who, when they have a few, their desire switches over to the other side, and it leaves me stunned.”

The two men who admitted to having had sex with another man spoke quite frankly. They account for 9% of the random sample of truck drivers interviewed in the survey (Table 10).

While none of the truckers admitted in the in-depth interviews that they still engage in homosexual practices, that does not invalidate the existence of such practices. In the structured part of the interviews, which employed anonymous questionnaires, 4% of respondents admitted to currently having sex with other men.

In analyzing the data, it is also worth noting that to truckers, “homosexuals” are transvestites and men who engage in passive anal sex. “Active” participants are considered normal men. As Rodrigo explains, “I’ve got buddies who might get the chance to have a man and they screw them [penetrate them], and they also have sexual relations with women.” He added: “The important thing for some truckers is to shove it in, no matter who with.”

The man who penetrates another man retains his masculinity because he is active, not passive. As Foucault points out, this is a model of penetration and a polarity that places the active in opposition the passive, superiority to inferiority, the dominator and the dominated one, he who conquers and he who is vanquished.¹²³ Other truckers said that some of their colleagues are homosexual, and that playing the active role in sexual relations is not a sign of being more macho. If two men have sex, they said, they are both homosexuals.

Stories of Sodom

According to Francisco, his trucker friends “play faggot jokes on each other”, though he did not want to explain what they were. Mario was more forthcoming. “When a friend bends down to pick up something, they come at him with their cocks, they pinch his butt, or they simply give him a pat to teach him he should not go around tempting people,” he said. Manuel says he will pull out his erect penis and shake it at his friends; he claims he does it to prevent them from playing “faggot” pranks on him. Manuel’s message appears to be: If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll punish you by raping you.” Jose also referred to these games. For him, such behavior does imply that they are homosexual, yet his argument to prove this point is ambiguous: “They play the pranks seriously, they really get into them.” Pancho says it is just fun and games.

My pals start the show and they start grabbing butts, grabbing your cock; if you don’t watch out, they’ll even grab your balls. If a kid is walking down the street, they’ll yell a bunch of insults at him. It’s just part of the fun, just screwing around to kill time.

Frank tells the story of a friend who seems to switch sexual roles from time to time and who occasionally likes to be touched and accosted by other men.

Benemerito will be okay for a month or so: he doesn’t like to be touched because he’ll get mad and punch anyone [who does]. During those times he’ll only go out with women. But the next month he’ll change and he’ll start coming on to his buddies; he’ll touch them and try to get them to touch him. When he gets into the bunks with buddies to watch television or listen to the radio, all you hear is Benemerito screaming and pretending he’s fucking the ones who are inside [with him]. His whole manner changes…

According to Julio, when a woman has group sex with several truckers, the sex is not exclusively heterosexual.

I’ve never participated in an orgy. But my partner told me that about two months ago three buddies picked up a whore. He told me that to get a good erection, they started giving each other hand jobs. Then they started measuring their dicks just for fun. The best endowed would get to be sucked off by the [other] truckers and the woman. My friend was the winner, and he said that just for the hell of it he forced them all to keep their promise. The guy was laughing his head off when he told me how mad his buddies were when they had to „take care of him’. That’s why he told me the story: so I could see how macho he was and how big his tool was.

According to Luis, such incidents are just a game.

I don’t think that when several guys get together with a woman they’re doing homosexual stuff. A friend told me he likes going to bed with more than two guys and several women. But what [the men] generally do is grab each other’s genitals and butts just to annoy each other. He told me that when someone goes too far, [the others] tell him off. I asked him how someone might go too far, and he told me that sometimes, just to upset a buddy, they mount him from behind when he’s on top of the woman.

When asked what “mounting” meant exactly, he said, “Well, they shove in their dick, but they don’t come or anything. It’s just a game.”

Mario is not so sure about the innocence of these practices.

Last year we had an orgy: four truckers and a prostitute. You know, I was the first and I came real quickly. Since the party was still going on I decided to go have a few beers while the others went on. A few minutes later Pepe came; he was one of the guys. I asked him if the other two had stayed with the girl and he said yes. We started chatting and spent a long time at the bar. When we saw that our buddies hadn’t come back, we went to see what was going on. Imagine our surprise when we found the woman asleep and Jose fucking Emilio from behind! „What the hell are you doing?’ we asked angrily. „Well, you know, the chick fell asleep and we started playing,’ said Emilio. I told the fucker to get that cock out of the other guy’s asshole and out of my truck.

Lucrecia Borges, a Honduras transvestite, also tells a different story.

Truckers are famous for chasing after transvestites. Several of us go to the Banana Fiesta, which is very common among the truckers who work for the banana companies. When they come with their load of bananas, we go down to the edge of the highway to wait for them. We don’t usually have to wait long. We get in the trucks and eat all the banana we want, that’s why the Fiesta is given that name. You can imagine by the time we finished we’re really stuffed.

Gonzalo admits that homosexual acts are part of the trucker’s sexual menu.

Truckers are land sailors. We’re just like [regular sailors], we like whores and homosexuals. They’re part of the fauna on the road. The problem is we’re ashamed to admit it. You won’t see a trucker openly leaving a bar with a whore. Much less giving a ride to a transvestite or a faggot. Those are private matters that we won’t share with an interviewer, not even with our best friend. But a gay who gets into a truck will leave it with his mind and his asshole more open.

Truckers have homosexual relations, not because they are machos, but because on the trip they are not. They are so aware of the risk of stigmatization that they engage in these acts quietly, on the sly, hardly ever mentioning the subject. Even if they are not part of the discourse of machismo, when it comes to Eros, homosexual practices are acceptable and pleasurable. Cirino says:

The mouth doesn’t have sexual organs. Who cares about the genitals of the person whose mouth is giving you a phenomenal blow-job?

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¹²⁰ Rafael M. Diaz, Latino Gay Men and HIV: Culture, sexuality, and risk behavior. New York, London: Routledge, 1998.

¹²¹ Johnny Madrigal and Jacobo Schifter, Encuesta Nacional de Sida, Costa Rica: Asociación Demográfica Costarricense, 1990.

¹²² Ibid., p. 92.

¹²³ Michel Foucault, Historia de la Sexualidad, Vol. III: El uso de los placeres (Spanish translation of History of Sexuality, Vol. III: The Use of Pleasures). Mexico: Editorial Siglo XXI, p. 198.