Practices and knowledges on the bodies and sexualities

During its 10 years of existence, Sexualidade, Saúde e Sociedade - Revista Latino-Americana, has contributed with the diffusion of research results from diverse countries, having the Latin American contexts as a point of view and reflection. The number 33 is composed by nine articles and one book review, as well as the dossier “Parenthood, Family, and Diversity: public controversies and ethnographic reviews”, organized by Naara Luna and Leandro Oliveira.

The articles which, beside the dossier, are part of this number present a perspective on knowledges and its effects on conceptions and practices regarding sexuality, such as in the medical field, specifically the gynecological discipline, and within pedagogy, psychoanalysis, law, and communications. As we will see, these articles have in common reflections and theoretical analysis, as well as a constructive criticism of these knowledges, promoting a society with more justice, less violence and with a compromise towards sexual and gender diversity.

This issue’s first article, by Heloisa Buarque de Almeida, analyzes the effects of Brazilian campaigns on sexual harassment, initially disseminated through alternative media. With an ethnographic perspective and inspired by Honneth (2003) and Fraser 1996), the author describes processes of demand for social recognition. She argues that, as an unplanned effect, cultural changes regarding the perception of sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women generated the emergence of a new penal category, “sexual importuning”.

The following two articles, by Virgínia Cano and Núria Calafell Sala, engage gynecology as a disciplinary field of knowledge-power, which medicalizes and pathologizes with a particular incidence over women’s bodies. The work by Cano, based on Foucault, presents the medical field of gynecology as formed by a collection of knowledges with a normative violence and exclusionary practices through the transformation into cisgender heterosexual bodies a whole diversity of bodies and experiences. Its effects, argues the author, is a (dis)attention production and precariousness of lesbian, trans, bi and pansexual bodies and lifestyles, among others. In contrast to a science that excludes and invisibilizes, Núria Calafell Sala presents editorial experiences spreading practices and principles of “natural gynecology”. For the author, to visibilize and understand this movement is to bet on a decolonizing perspective on bodies and experiences that can produce decentralization effects of medical knowledge and its authority on women.

The subject of gynecology remains in the following article, about traditional midwives in the rural region of the Amazonas state, in Brazil, form Oliveira, Peralta and Souza. Through interviews, the authors analyze the work of midwives in more than 10 rural communities providing assistance to parturients and their families, referencing Tornquist’s (2005) perspectives on the relationship between the midwives and rural, riverside, native and urban peripheries specificities. Midwifery assistance, in many cases, is combined with medicalized care, which the authors analyze in terms of “matches and mismatches” between knowledges. The article concludes by pointing out the importance of midwives in the reproductive health of women in rural communities, emphasizing that this reality must be known and incorporated in public policies formulation for Amazon populations.

In “Social Limitations on the Sexuality of People with Down Syndrome”, Luna Zaenz and Jácome Mora focus their analysis on norms and specialized knowledges, but also the fears and prejudices as elements impacting the exercise of sexuality and the subjectivity construction of people with Down Syndrome. Analyzing scientific works published in Spain, Argentina and Colombia, the authors highlight the main elements that condition or limit the satisfaction of people with Down Syndrome affective and sexual needs. Family and society emerge as sources of obstacles produced by fear, stigma and myths about the sexuality of these persons. The subject of emotions and subjective perceptions reappears in the following text, from authors Serna Botero, Cárdenas e Zamberlin. Addressing the “conscientious objection phenomenon,” an argument put forward by health professionals who refuse to perform procedures related to sexual and reproductive health, the authors demonstrate the high costs that are incurred on women’s lives when there is a refusal of the professionals involved. In the three countries where the research was conducted (Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia), the health professionals interviewed reproduce representations about women and their bodies as some form reproductive machines, according to research findings.

The article by Ávila de Garay presents criticism and makes interesting suggestions regarding the centrality of gender in the psychoanalytic process. Based on her clinical experience as a psychoanalyst in Mexico, the author proposes that gender is constitutive of the subject’s own formation process, not only those who manifest some conflict regarding their gender expression or sexual orientation. In addition to the theoretical contributions, the article collaborates with psychoanalytical clinic.

The differences between countries with colonial heritage, such as in Latin America, and countries that do not share such heritage, such as the Nordic countries, were explored in Motta and Campos’ work on social welfare policies and their effects on gender. The authors demonstrate that, despite the strengthening of public policies in Latin American countries in recent decades-which they call a “pink wave”-one can attest the corroboration of familist policies that interpret the care of children and the elderly as a “family” theme and thereby promote maternity and/or paternity leave. This model’s counterpoint is represented by the Nordic countries experience, where the social democratic tradition has resulted in the provision of public and collective services and structures, such as day care centers, spaces for the care of the elderly and other policies that encourage women’s presence in the job market.

The colonial context and the expectation of social change reappear in the last article of the issue, which deals with experiences of violence related to heteronormativity in schools in Mexico. Authored by Enrique Bautista Rojas, the article can be understood as an invitation for reflection and pedagogical transformation, a task not only for the school community, but for the entire population.

Referencias Bibliográficas

• FRASER, Nancy. 1996. “From distribution to recognition - Dilemmas of justice in a ‘post-socialist’ age” New Left Review, 212, July/August 1996, pp.68-93.
• HONNETH, Axel. 2003. Luta por reconhecimento: A gramática moral dos conflitos sociais. São Paulo: Ed. 34.
• TORNQUIST, Carmen Susan. 2005. “Parteiras populares: entre o folclore e a escuta”. Gênero. 1º sem. 2005. Vol. 6, n. 1, p. 61-80.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  10 Feb 2020
• Date of issue
  Sep-Dec 2019