Abstract
This ethnography research attempts to detect the male perception and behavior on sexual and gender relations in a small and simple life style fishing village on the south Atlantic Coast of Brazil. The fieldwork lasted six months and consists of personal participant observation and long personal interviews with 41 men ranging in terms of sexual orientation from 0 to 6 according to Kinsey’s scale. In summary, perceptions and behaviors in this “simple society” are very atypical in relation to professional middle class in urban area of southeast of Brazil. In this society even many “straight” men customarily have sex with local “gay” men. The local “gay” men, called “paneleiros”, present a homosexual behavior typical to other societies. In comparison to other cross-cultural research the outcome of this case study suggests that it is possible to have at least three different categories of male sexuality: men who have sex only with other men, men who have sex only with women, and men who have sex with men and women; In addition it brings more concrete evidence to the current literature that suggests some kind of universal homosexual identity at least for people who are close to 6 in Kinsey’s scale.
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Assistant professor at Santa Catarina State University (Brazil) and scholarship and grant recipient from CAPES (Brazil).
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Cardoso, F.L. “Fishermen”: Masculinity and sexuality in a Brazilian fishing community. Sexuality and Culture 6, 45–72 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-002-1009-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-002-1009-8