“Na minha época não tinha escapatória”: Teleologias, temporalidades e heteronormatividade

Abstract

This article aims to examine some recurring elements that were present in the narratives that were collected throughout my ethnography. My research, in turn, focused on men between 45 and 70 years old who kept homoerotic sexual practices and / or who identified themselves as homosexuals. These narratives focused on social pressures towards the achievement of certain biographical milestones conceived as heterosexual and taken as essential to access happiness and fulfillment along the life course. In a dialogue with a contemporary branch of the north american queer studies which is often called “queer time” and “queer temporalities” – while also presenting a review of these debates – I try to critically discuss how the transitions between the different periods of life are conceived and imagined as well as how they have some normative bases. Finally, from these analysis and theoretical dialogues, I propose the notion of "heteronormative teleologies” in order to open the debate about the heterosexual prescriptive bases that tend to persuasively organize how the life course – in its transitions and in its entirety - is understood and negotiated in the contemporary.