Male prostitute body in professional and homoerotic relations

Abstract

Through the body, sex can be a place of profit and business, configured with both a market dimension and as a space for the circulation of desire. In this sense, the objective of this paper is to analyze the fictional representations of the working male prostitute body of the character Benício (call-boy, gigolo) and the relationships he establishes with his homosexual clients in the novel As flores do jardim da nossa casa (2007), by Marco Lacerda. For this, our theoretical-critical contribution sought an approximation and interlocution between literary and cultural studies. The analyses carried out allowed us to assert that there is: A gendered process in / of the sex business through the monetization of hegemonic masculinity; an explication of societal ills pertaining to public health and the vulnerability of contamination by sexually transmitted infections HIV/aids; and an occurrence of power relations and games between the subjects participating in the sex market evidenced by tensions and crossings age (young/old), somatic (patterns of hegemonic corporeality/abject bodies) and socioeconomic (different social classes).