My Observations of Masculinity in Brazil

My time in Brazil was a very eye opening experience. It allowed me to see the world through a whole new set of lenses and impacted my perceptions of how gender is played throughout the world.
One of the burning questions for me had to deal with the countries treatment towards it’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and it’s relation to the general heterosexual population. I found it interesting that compared to the United States, many areas of Brazil seemed to be far ahead in its ability for compassion and even acceptance.
Many of my observations come from contrasting my experience in the more traditional carnival in the older part of Salvador and my experiences in the highly energized and packed experience of carnival Bahia style. Both were full of examples that helped me to gain a greater appreciation for the way that the Brazilian society looks at and engages concepts of gender.
My first brush of gender in Brazil actually came the moment I stepped off the elevators that took you from the lower part of the city to the top. The very first thing I saw was a very public and open drag show competition to raise awareness about AIDS. It had an incredible impact on me. For this particular event to take place in a public square in a plaza that was so heavily trafficked, I couldn’t help but observe that it was not only a part of their culture but something that was accepted as a part of the norm.
I did notice however, that at this LGBT movement spectacle there weren’t as many open displays of affection and even more so, very few women present in the crowd. This would go well with one of the informal interviews I conducted with one of our tour guides, Carlos, who expressed in his own way to me, that being gay or lesbian in Brazil is socially accepted, as long as it is out of sight and out of mind. In that, just like mainstream America, it’s something that everyone knows about, but prefers to be left in the closet. Men will have relations with each other, but at the end of the day they go back to their “ordinary” lives complete with wife and child.
Now of course, during carnival, I’m not sure if this is an example of the once a year type of treatment a gay or lesbian person gets to “fit” in, or maybe Carlos’ own homophobia that prevented him from feeling safe enough to attend such an event as the AIDs benefit in the older part of town. I also noted that with several people I spoke with who went to Rio De Janeiro and parts of Salvador, that there were gay areas in town much like Greenwich Village in NYC or the Castro in San Francisco. These parts of town were thriving gay communities and that they were in fact integrated into the society. Another interview conducted with another of our tour guides, Eddie, informed me that gays in Brazil were allowed to legally adopt and if they had been living in the same household for more than 5 years, they then became legally bound to one another.
Looking at these issues through the lens of an outsider, it’s hard to grasp exactly where everyone is at in regards to these issues, especially since it is one of those things that is generally under the table. I can only make informal conclusions about what the gay community must experience and to that extent I can conclude that there are many areas in which the gay and lesbian community is thriving and accepted in Brazil, where at the same time there are many strides to be made to understanding LGBT issues and seeing it as a gender issue. Not unlike the United States.
To tap more into the gender non-conformity aspect of Brazil, I would like to examine too the cross dressing that took place during carnival and its impact on the trans gender community as well as the general society. I found it to be quite enriching and amazing to see some of the most masculine men a society is supposed to have, the police officers, dressing in drag. What an awesome site to see and beyond that, what does that say about this countries views of gender, of gender conformity, etc, etc? Again I point back to the fact that we were there during carnival and wonder how these people would be treated on an average day? What I did notice is that most of these men were dressed in similar fashions, such as many of the police officers, and then I did notice several individuals who were cross dressed, but when I saw them I also noticed some awkward looks and glances of disapproval from people who seemed to be locals. This obviously is an assumption on my part, but I felt like these young men in drag that I saw were taking a greater risk than those police men who, while dressed in drag, were all still wearing the same uniform. I also had the opportunity to witness carnival in a very small town north of Salvador, and I noticed there several men dressed in drag, so it is my assumption as a young man coming from Greeley, CO, that through their acceptance in a small town, they were more accepted than a person doing the same thing in a small town in America. But for the most part, I assume that at least during carnival, a person can let their freak out on a leash and be whatever they want, which is pretty cool.
In regards to the difference between heterosexual men and women, I did notice some gender roles being exhibited that were both surprising and not so surprising. One of the main elements that stuck out to me was the concept of the Gandy’s, or men dressed in white garb who had beads on and would confront women in a very aggressive and open manner to place a kiss on them. Custom would dictate that if you want beads, you just go up to one of them and give them a kiss and they will give you their beads. What I noticed though, is that several of them felt free enough to throw their beads around someone’s head, as if catching them and then plant a big one on them. It reminded me of the scene in Borat where his traditional custom for marriage was to capture his wife in a potatoe sack. The treatment of women as property, the fluidity of sexuality was very apparent during carnival, and the Gandy’s were a prime example of how mostly heterosexual women can have an excuse to make out with as many men a they possible can.
Another component to carnival that I noticed was that there were more men participating in the streets than women, or so it seemed. I couldn’t actually take a poll, but from what I observed it seemed like most of the men were out in the streets, and a lot of the women that I did see were either foreigners or selling things on the side of the road working the event. Now, I did see a lot of women up in the Camorote where I was stationed at, which might have been a place where women might have felt safer away from the assaults in the streets, a place that allowed them to go back and forth between the activities of the street.
The place I did see a lot of women participating in carnival is up in the more traditional part of town where I saw women playing drums, and partaking in every aspect of carnival that the men were. Just as the Gandy’s were up there, I saw lots of women in their traditional garb with the hoops skirts and traditional dress. A lot of it had to do with the religion of Candomble, but I also believe that it was part of their views of women’s roles, which I must say was quite elegant.
Another area that I was able to observe men and women was at the luxurious beaches that we went to in Prior De Forte. What I observed was men’s comfort with the short shorts of the speedo. Now we can all laugh and poke fun at the fact that I of all people noticed such things, but what I also observed was that many women were wearing a wide variety of clothing that did not subscribe to weight, height or beauty. It seemed to me that many people in general in Brazil were not as concerned with their appearances, what people thought of them or the clothes they were, specifically the ones that outlined every inch of their bodies. What this says to me through my lens, is two things…one, that image is not as important to the people of this culture. I didn’t see a lot of overweight people, but also not many people gave a great deal of attention to the way the world perceived them, both men and women. And second, what this tells me is that while there are many images both in our media and in their media, that people of this country are not inundated with things telling them that they must look a certain way, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Images are a very important part of American society, and to be quite honest with you, it is not something I saw a whole lot of in Brazil while I was there. There were not very many billboards in Brazil, and the very few that I did see were not of women in skimpy uniforms and not all sexualizing every product that they sold, including toothpaste. On all of the beer advertisements it was more about the products. It was a great surprise to see, and something that was telling of the cultures’ attitudes towards marketing, how people are treated, etc, etc.
All in all I thought that Brazil was very fluid in it’s gender norms and sexuality. I recognize that my observations were from the perspective of a man in America as well as at a time that the society of Brazil was not at it’s every day pace. So ultimately, my observations are raw and generalized, but I hope that they were somewhat accurate to the actual culture there.