Abstract
From a political point of view, the couple relationships between gay men has been allowed by the Brazilian State since 2011. However, in social terms, obstacles to the affective engagement of those who do not meet the perpetuated traditional normative expectations seem to remain. Facing this scenario, even though the spaces used for the construction of gay men conjugality have historically changed, a kind of ghettoization (segregation by sexual orientation) remains, propitiated by the need of security in an oppressive and normative social context. If same-sex conjugality is more dynamic and fluid today than it used to be, the social support networks of gay men continue to be a fundamental aspect for ensuring emotional health, also affecting current forms of conjugality. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to discuss the historical-social aspects of the couple dynamics of Brazilian gay men.
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Notes
- 1.
The term “ghetto,” as a concept, was used by the Chicago School between the years 1920 and 1930 to designate “narrow circumscribed and demarcated spaces or territories, usually peripheral and marginal, in which minorities (ethnic-racial, sexual, religious, and/or social) were incapsulated and segregated” (Camargo & Moraes, 2011, p. 978).
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The authors thank the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) for funding the research that gave rise to this chapter through a master’s scholarship (process no. 2014/02927-7) granted to the first author, under the guidance of the second author.
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de Souza Santos, Y.G., dos Santos, M.A. (2021). Social Transformations and Couple Relationships in Brazilian Gay Men. In: Morais, N.A.d., Scorsolini-Comin, F., Cerqueira-Santos, E. (eds) Parenting and Couple Relationships Among LGBTQ+ People in Diverse Contexts. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84189-8_7
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