When we began working with the transvestite community in 1989, one of our principal aims was to learn more about transvestites‟
sexual culture, along with the risk factors associated with the spread of HIV in this population. Another aim was to gather information about this sexual culture in a specifically Latin American context, as a means of filling what is in effect a highly significant gap in the literature. Moreover, these two concerns remained at the fore as we embarked upon the second set of interviews in 1997. This work, therefore, seeks to analyse the sexual culture and risk factors which place transvestites and their customers at risk of contracting HIV.
Apparently, there has been very little change in the risk factors present over the course of the past seven years. However, by the same token it is clear that very significant changes have occurred in other aspects of participants‟ lives. This in turn led us to formulate a third objective for our study: the impact of
„ paqueteo‟1 upon the etiology of sexual orientation. We believe that the latter provides valuable information on the plasticity of sexual orientation, along with the influence of cultural factors in its etiology. As well, it reinforces the view that we should not merely look to a person‟s genitals and those of his or her partner in order to determine sexual orientation; any number of cultural, erotic and emotional factors are equally important in this regard.
Of course, the debate on the determinants of sexual orientation is an old one, with the earliest studies being undertaken in Germany in the mid-nineteenth century. This early work was grounded in an
„essentialist‟ understanding of the origins of homosexuality. Quite simply, it was believed that homosexuality (and, by extension, heterosexuality) was congenital, inherited and hormonally-based.
Thus, for writers like Hirshfeld, homosexuals were intermediate beings - „zwishenstufen‟ in German - byproducts of „disorders‟ in the level of estrogens and androgens found in their system. Men who had an over-abundance of female hormones, for example, would develop female souls, while in women the opposite would 1
‘ Paqueteo’, in the street language of transvestites, refers to the act of deceiving, of pretending, of feigning, in short of transforming oneself into something else. In this world, a transvestite who is successful in paqueteo is one who is able to pass for a woman.
6
occur; homosexuality was thus an inversion whereby male bodies were inhabited by female souls, and vice-versa. In view of the fact that onset of homosexuality came at such an early stage of an individual‟s development, it was believed that there was very little that could be done to alter one‟s sexual orientation.
However, an opposite position would be taken up by subsequent writers, Sigmund Freud most notable among them2. For the father of modern psychology, homosexuality was as much the product of cultural factors as it was of genetic predisposition. Although Freud believed that the degree of „passivity‟ or „activity‟ in a child was hereditary and that this in turn played an important role in determining
sexual
orientation,
he
nonetheless
devoted
considerable
attention
to
non-constituent
factors:
most
significantly, interpersonal relations. According to the Viennese doctor, all children go through a phase in which they feel love and desire for their parent of the opposite sex. This phase is usually resolved „successfully‟ with the acquisition of a heterosexual orientation. However, cultural factors such as possessiveness on the part of the mother, indifference on the part of the father, jealousy among siblings, guilt feelings and aggression can serve to influence a child‟s development and potentially engender
„deviations‟, of which homosexuality is just one.
2
Sigmund Freud, The Complete Works, Vol. II, Mexico City, Iztaccihuatl Publishing House, 1985.
7
For Freud, the implantation of sexual orientation takes place at such an early phase of development - between three and five years of age - and in such an unconscious manner that, once established, it is almost impossible to change. Thus, he did not believe that psychiatry should be employed for this purpose. However, not all of his followers agreed with him on this point, with some going on to try to „cure‟ individuals of their so-called „deviation‟ from heterosexuality. Ferenczi, for example, believed that a homosexual male was in reality a „repressed heterosexual‟, someone who is both neurotic and „tormented and plagued by obsessions‟, and as such in need of psychoanalytic intervention3.
Along similar lines, Bieber, a New York psychiatrist, claimed that homosexuality was so unnatural that it could only be a learned behaviour. Moreover, given that it was a learned behaviour, it could also be „unlearned‟. In order to do this, he elaborated a series of interventions designed to remedy homosexuality‟s
„causes‟, that is to say by combatting the mother‟s „aggressiveness‟
and the father‟s „passivity‟4.
In turn, the post-war years might be characterized as a period of renaissance for „cultural‟ explanations of the causes of homosexuality. However, despite the best efforts of the mainstream psychiatric community, the techniques developed at this time to transform homosexuals into heterosexuals proved incapable of achieving satisfactory results. Few psychiatrists were able to „cure‟ their patients, despite the application of any number of courses of treatment (or torture?), from aversion therapy to psychoanalysis, from hormone therapy to lobotomy. Moreover, not only were they unsuccessful in their attempts to alter sexual orientation, but they also failed to demonstrate, in the numerous laboratory studies undertaken at the time, that homosexuals‟
mental health or family histories differed from those of non-homosexuals. In this way, Evelyn Hooker was unable to establish the fact that specialists would be able to judge the sexual orientation of individuals based upon their medical history folders, despite the fact that the men who participated in the study had been 3
Sendor Ferenczi, ‘Nosology of Homosexuality in Men’ in Homosexuality in Modern Society, Heindrick M. Ruitenbek, Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI Publishers, 1973, p.19.
4
Irving Bieber et al., Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytical Study, Mexico City, Pax Publishing House, 1967.
8
given standard „tests‟ to determine their sexual orientation5.
Similarly, Weinberg and Hammersmith found no difference in the family histories of heterosexual and homosexual individuals; both groups had the same proportion of „possessive mothers‟ and
„distant fathers‟6. These failures, combined with the gathering momentum of the gay liberation movement, would lead the psychiatric community in 1971 to abandon the position that homosexuality was a pathology in urgent need of treatment7.
5
Evelyn Hooker, ‘Adaption of the Manifestly Homosexual’ in Homosexuality in Modern Society, Heindrick M. Ruitenbek, Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI Publishers, 1973, pp.181-204.
6
Allen P. Bell, Martin S. Weinberg and Sue Kiefer Hammersmith, Sexual Preference: Its Development in Men and Women, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1981.
7
Ronald Bayer, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry, New York, Basic Books, 1981.
9
During the past two decades, however, a number of scientists have again tried to ground homosexuality in biology. Günter Dörner, for one, claimed that a homosexual orientation is the product of hormonal imbalances during pregnancy8. Along somewhat different lines, Professor D.F. Swaab9 contended that a particular area of the hypothalamus, known as the suprachiasmatic region, is
„sexually disphormic‟, that is to say that it varies according to gender and sexual orientation. Moreover, in 1991, Simon LeVay10
discovered yet another nucleus in the hypothalamus (INAH 3) that was thought to be larger in heterosexual men than in either women or homosexual men. However, at the same time, LeVay stressed that, aside from the INAH 3 nucleus, he could find no evidence to support the contentions of Swaab; as far as he was concerned, the hypothalami of men and women were similar. Then, in 1992, Laura Allen would discover another area of the brain, called the anterior commissure (a group of fibres attached to the hypothalamus and connected to the temporal lobes), which differs in size according to gender and sexual orientation11. Meanwhile, E.O. Wilson sought to infer cultural behaviour patterns from the laws of genetics and the survival of the fittest12. In this way, homosexuality was said to be caused by a gene, transmitted from one generation to the next through a process known as „superior enhanced heterozygote adaption‟. A similar position underlay the work of Hamer and Copeland, who in 1993 discovered a genetic marker (known as Xq28) on the X chromosome that was found in significant numbers of gay brothers13.
8
G. Dörner, W. Rohde, F. Stahl, L. Krell and W.G. Masius, ‘A Neuroendoctrine predisposition for homosexuality in men’, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 4, 1975, 1-8.
9
D.F. Swaab and M.A. Hofman, ‘An enlarged suprachiasmatic nucleus in homosexual men’, Brain Research, 537, 1990, 141-148.
10
S. LeVay, ‘A difference in hypothalamic structure between heterosexual and homosexual men’, Science, 257, 1991, 620-621.
11
L.S. Allen and R.A. Gorski, ‘Sexual orientation and the size of the anterior commissure in the human brain’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 89, 1992, 7199-7202.
12
E.O. Wilson, Sociology: The New Synthesis, Cambridge, Belknap, 1975.
13
D.H. Homer, S. Hu, V.L. Magnuon, N. Hu and A.M.L
Pattatuchi, ‘A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and 10
the male sexual orientation’, Science, 261, 1993, 321-327. See also Dean Hammer and Peter Copeland, The Science of Desire, the Search for the Gay Gene and the Biology of Behaviour, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1994.
11
Needless to say, the scientists whose work is described above all assume that human society is comprised of discrete groups of homosexual, bisexual and heterosexual individuals, whose genes, hypothalami and neuron paths are all readily comparable.
However, if this was not the case, their work would instantly lose much of its meaning and significance. What then is one to make of their assumptions?
Cultural or biological factors?
As one might imagine, any analysis of the sexual culture of Costa Rica‟s transvestite community underscores the plasticity of sexual orientation and, by extension, calls into question the validity of essentialist assumptions. Most notably, this is seen in the apparent impact of accidental changes in San José‟s sexual geography upon the likelihood that heterosexual men and women will engage in sexual relations with transvestites. Instead of explanations rooted in hormones, genes and hypothalami, one might argue that a simple relocation in the working zone of transvestites holds enormous consequences for the sexual lives of heterosexual men and women. In short, we will show how physical space, combined with „ paqueteo‟, plays a highly significant role in promoting changes in sexual orientation.
We believe that our research also serves to undermine attempts to categorize people according to their sexual orientation. As De Cecco14 makes clear, by no means should such attempts be based upon patterns of physical activity alone, which is of course typical of essentialist writings. Quite simply, instead of classifying individuals merely on the basis of the genitals of the person with whom they are having sex, one must also take stock of their desires and emotions. After all, it is quite possible to be heterosexual in one‟s sexual practice but homosexual in one‟s passions or desires.
However, it is not the aim of our research to create further labels to describe these boundary-crossing individuals, but rather to document their existence and to subvert the simplistic division of people into traditional psychiatric categories.
14
John P. De Cecco, ‘Definition and meaning of sexual orientation’
in Nature and Causes of Homosexuality: A Philosophical and Scientific Inquiry, Noreta Koertge, New York, Haworth Press, 1983, pp.51-86.
12
If one require proof that these categories are incapable of grasping the complexities of human sexual practices, one need only reflect upon their patent inability to help us as we seek to answer questions about the main characters in this book. How is one to classify a married heterosexual man who likes to dress as a woman while at home? Or a lesbian who has sexual relations with a transvestite because she likes his masculine eroticism? Or a heterosexual woman who has sexual relations with a transvestite because she is emotionally attracted to him? Are we to consider a transvestite to be heterosexual when he penetrates a woman for money?
Background on Transvestitism
Contemporary conceptions of transvestitism originated in the nineteenth century. However, the phenomenon is as old as civilization itself, with ancient accounts of the practice surviving to the present day, despite the best efforts of Judeo-Christian religions to „erase‟ from history any evidence of men and women dressing in clothes belonging to the opposite sex.
Thus, Bullough and Bullough15 provide ample proof to support the claim that transvestitism has been a constant in both the West and East. Jewish leaders condemned it precisely because of its link with the fertility rites of pagan religions, in which noblemen dressed as women would engage in sex with either men or women in order to guarantee prosperity or a bountiful harvest. However, in spite of their prohibition, many continued to engage in pagan rituals in the West, including that of cross dressing for ceremonial or ritualist reasons. Indeed, one might argue that the legacy of these ancient festivities is preserved to the present day in the celebration of Halloween or the Mardi Gras carnival. As well, rituals continue to be practised, as is the case of Greek funerals and lay festivities, whereby men and women dress themselves in the clothing of the opposite sex.
15
Vera L. Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, Cross Dressing, Sex and Gender, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
13
Moreover, there is also a long tradition of women in the West who cross-dressed in order to escape gender restrictions, with Joan of Arc being perhaps the best known example of a woman executed for dressing as a man. Along somewhat different lines, many noblemen in European courts would cross-dress as a means of becoming more attractive to their female counterparts. It is for this reason that transvestism became associated with heterosexual promiscuity.
In America, there is a long tradition of transvestism embodied in the figure of the „beardache‟16. These were men who cross-dressed and were given the role of healer or political leader. In India, Burma and Pakistan, individuals who cross-dressed were deemed to comprise a „third sex‟, with special posts in society being reserved for them. In India‟s Dhed community, men dress as women and as such are temporarily possessed by female gods or demons17. Meanwhile, traditional Tahitian culture encompasses the figure of the „mahu‟, the town homosexual, who was in effect a transsexual who had elected to become an „honorary‟ woman, garnering respect from the wider community in the process18.
Historical reasons for cross-dressing 16
Walter C. Williams, The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture, Boston, Beacon Press, 1986.
17
Sudhir Kakar, The Inner World: A Psychoanalytic Study of Childhood and Society in India, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1981.
18
N. Besnier, “Polynesian Gender liminality through time and space”. In Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond sexual disphormism in culture and history, edited by G. Herdt, 285-328. New York, Zone Books, 1994.
14
People who cross-dress do so for many different reasons. In Europe, there are many accounts of „libertines‟ dressing as women in order to seduce nuns and virgins. A similar ruse was employed by French aristocrats, with one famous example being the king who would cross-dress in order to pass unnoticed into the maids‟
quarters. For women who cross-dressed, their reasons tended to be rather more political rather than sexual: male attire allowed them to travel, work and live independent lives in an era in which the movement and activities of women were highly circumscribed. In Medieval Holland for example, many women dressed as men fought in the armed forces19. Similarly, there are hundreds of documented cases of women going to battle in the American Civil War20. Others lived religious lives as men and were later canonized as female saints. Some have even suggested that one or two of the Medieval popes may have been women in disguise21.
Moreover, during the colonial era, many Dutch women were reported to have cross-dressed in order to travel to their country‟s overseas territories. Then, once disembarked, they changed attire and married their male immigrant counterparts22. Interestingly, a similar phenomenon is reported to have taken place in the Old West of the United States. Women who wished to break free of ascribed gender roles used male dress in order to live as „passing women‟ in remote farms or ranches. Others of course did it for the opposite reason. In the face of a widespread interdiction in pre-modern Europe against female employment in the theatre or opera, hundreds of men were castrated in order to play the female parts23.
Moreover, writers such as Ackroyd have noted that the Japanese 19
J. Wellright, Amazons and Military Maids: Women who Dressed as Men in Pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness, London, Pandora Press, 1989.
20
E.L. Meyer, ‘The soldier left a portrait and her eyewitness account, Smithsonian, 24 (10), 96-104, 1994.
21
Clement Wood, The Woman who was Pope, New York, William Faro, 1931.
22
R.J. Dekker and L.C. van de Pol, The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe, New York, St Martin’s Press, 1989.
23
R. Judd, Origins of Cross-Dressing: A History of Performance en transvesti, Doctoral dissertation, Clayton University, 1988.
15
had a similar tradition as well24. Of course, in addition to the reasons outlined above, it is clear that some men cross-dressed because they were what we would now call gay. For them, cross-dressing was a way to attract men at a time when „sodomy‟ was severely punished.
Who are today’s transvestites?
24
P. Ackroyd, Dressing Up. Transvestism and Drag: The History of an Obsession, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1979.
16
We are in what might be described as a middle-class home in the middle of a San José neighbourhood. It has all the conveniences of modern life: colour TV, washing machine, microwave oven and so on. „This is my hair-dryer‟, announces Javier, the home-owner. I look at it, but it doesn‟t really register in my mind, as I‟m busy admiring his weight-machines instead. „This is my small gym‟, says the owner, when he realizes what I‟m doing. „Are you into weight-lifting yourself?.' I reply that I like to pump iron, that I find it exhilarating, even though I can tell that he is not really interested in my response. „Well, I like to wash my hair everyday and straighten it with this hair-dryer. I hate my curls.' Clearly, this body-builder is more interested in his curls than his muscles.
Javier is a big man. He has well-developed biceps and a muscular body. His chest is large and firm. His buns are as hard as steel.
At 32, he is both beautiful and sexy. His face is masculine: Semitic nose, curly black hair (when not straightened), well-defined cheek bones, large white teeth, Mediterranean mouth and small ears. In short, he is the typically good-looking Costa Rican male that has made this country justly famous. As a foreign diplomat once said to me earnestly, „Costa Rica is better known for its men than its women, though because of machismo, no one will admit it.'
Javier sits down on his sofa and asks me straight-out: „Do you find me attractive?‟ „Well, yes,‟ I reply with some embarrassment. He looks at me. „I find it hard to understand how a man could like another man. I have nothing against it, it‟s just that I can‟t understand it.' „Javier,‟ I respond, „I also find it perplexing that a man like you, married with two children, into sports, can be so fond of the feminine.' As I say this, I can‟t take my eyes off the framed photo, sitting on a table between us, of this hunk along with his wife and two children. „Your wife is very pretty,‟ I tell him.
„Yes, she‟s a very sexy woman,‟ he replies with pride.
The body-builder looks at me intently, and I feel he‟s sizing me up from head to toe before giving me an answer. „Look Jacobo, I resent having to explain to you something that belongs to me and is mine alone, and that you probably won‟t get anyway. There are certain things in a man‟s life that are very private, which no one should ask about, especially a researcher.' Javier is right. Why do we think that there is an explanation for every human action? The interview, like the confession, is designed to induce people to reveal their most intimate secrets. Who said that we have to talk about ourselves? Foucault for one abhorred the intrusiveness of 17
priests, teachers, psychiatrists and researchers into individuals‟
personal lives, an intrusiveness he identified with the Inquisition and the birth of the prison. Nevertheless, as one his biographers contends, Foucault himself confessed before his death to having wished, while a school-boy in occupied France, for the extermination of his Jewish class-mates.
Javier does not speak, nor do I try to make him. To my surprise however, he suddenly takes off his shirt, watching all the while the confused look on my face. He shows me his biceps which are separated by fine tufts of curly hair, his flat stomach without an ounce of fat on it, his long, tanned arms. „This is a macho torso,‟
he tells me, „it has taken me years to develop it.‟ He smiles and winks at me. He is not finished yet. He slowly takes off his jeans, his tight-fitting, beige briefs, his white socks and tennis shoes. He stands stark naked in front of me and still he continues to stare.
I feel that I am sweating and I don‟t know what to say. What is he trying to show me? Where is this leading to? I came here today to find a particular sort of man and perhaps I‟ve made a mistake.
„Javier, I say softly, „what are you trying to tell me?‟ I find it difficult to speak when I‟m feeling so uncomfortable. I try not to stare at his long dick and large balls, but how can I avoid looking at them when they‟re right there in front of me? I think about the social taboos which serve to render our bodies off-limits to the stares of others. Why can‟t we take a good look? Why is this man so intent that I see his genitals and how large they are? Who cares in any case?
The body-builder raises himself from the sofa, goes into the kitchen, where he appears to be looking for something. He then disappears into his bedroom, closing the door behind him as he goes in. „What‟s he doing in there?‟, I ask myself. Us men have very strange relationships with our bedrooms, particularly when we are by ourselves. Masculinity is all about posing for others.
When a man is alone in his bedroom, he can become a movie star, a bull-fighter, a model. I hear Javier shouting at me through the wall: „men are very vain animals. However, the big difference between us and women is that we admire our bodies when we‟re alone, when no one can see us.‟
The door opens. What the hell is going on? Javier is now in drag, wearing a blond wig, a white satin dress and pink bloomers. „Now you can ask me whatever the fuck you want,‟ he says in a low voice. Although I try to look cool, I cannot hide my confusion. I knew Javier liked to cross-dress because a transvestite had given me his phone number. I had called him because I was writing an 18
article on heterosexual cross-dressers. We had made the appointment on a day when his wife and children were away.
Nevertheless, up until this point I was unsure whether or not this guy really was a transvestite. I took a deep breath, and started the interview.
-
When did you start to cross-dress?
-
I started wearing my sister‟s underwear when I was six. I would lock myself in the bathroom and try them on. I loved the bright colours, the smell of perfume, the softness of the fabric. When I became a teenager I began to wear bras and then, when I got married, I started to use lipstick.
-
How do you explain the fact that you like to cross-dress, but are not gay?
-