Subversion by Sex: Anti-communist Representations during the Dictatorship in Brazil

Abstract

Supported by the research of military pronouncements and documents produced by the "information and security communities", the article analyzes the sexual moral anti-communism disseminated throughout the dictatorship in Brazil. For these subjects, communists used sex to manipulate young people by way of a subversive strategy of destroying the family, mainly through sexual promiscuity. From this perspective, we demonstrate the politicization of sex and the use of gender demarcators to disqualify the university student movement and / or student behaviors that deviated from the morals defended by the military. These representations were not a monopoly of the Brazilian dictatorship. Some researches show the spread of this anti-communist agenda in the Americas. This article points out the need for an approach that investigates the transnational circulation of this anti-communism.