Homoeroticism in Men and Women in the Colombian Coffee Axis: an Interpretation Using the Biographical Approach

• Main Authors: Gabriel Gallego Montes, Sebastián Giraldo Aguirre, Claudia Patricia Jaramillo Ángel, José Fernando Vasco Álzate
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad Nacional de Colombia 2016-01-01
• Series: Revista Colombiana de Sociología
• Subjects: biografías sexuales; Colombia; hombres; homoerotismo mujeres; sexualidad; trayectorias.
• Online Access: https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/recs/article/view/56346

As background to the study, the article highlights the use of biographical surveys as a recent application in the field of sexuality; for this reason it has been an approach little used to understand socio-sexual events and transitions in men or women engaging in homoerotic practices. In this study, a retrospective survey (biographical) of 408 men and 301 women between 18 and 55 years of age engaging in homoerotic practices was applied in the Colombian Coffee Axis in 2012. The information was analyzed using birth and pairing variables, a key strategy for interpreting biographical information. A review was also done of the press and literature for 1921-1985 with regards to homoeroticism. The findings show that until the 1960s, the written press in the Coffee Axis had few references to homosexuality, and any that were made were associated with loss of moral and good customs, with a call to the authorities to exercise control. In the Seventies the transvestite body emerges, associated with transgression of gender and criminality. Subsequently, the 1985-2011 period is marked by a strong institutionalization of erotic and affective life, expressed in the growing preponderance of gay bars and the internet as a setting that configures socio-sexual interactions. Similarly, there is a trend to a shorter duration of relationships between people of the same sex. In terms of pairing, 63% of women have sexual biographies permeated by heterosexuality; in men this proportion reaches 40%; men are more monogamous when they establish a same sex relationship than women (86.5% vs. 74.5 %). In it’s conclusions the study highlights the complex network of homoeroticism in a particular region, where diverse sexual practices, simultaneous and sometimes non-exclusive, interweave; this implies the overcoming of the dichotomous view of homoeroticism and heterosexuality as isolated camps.