About the “mundiça” and the “bichas cocotes”

georeferencing and social class in the gay circuits of Recife

Abstract

This article is about the georeferencing of the sociability of men with homosexual practices in the metropolitan region of Recife (RMR), resulting from an ethnography produced with participant observation, interviews, and behavioral survey. The most mentioned places are nightclubs and bars and are located in the center of the capital of Pernambuco. The frequentation of spaces shows marks of age, marital status, religion, work, and social class. We emphasize social class and take as our object the two most cited nightclubs: MKB and Metrópole. The first is described as dirty and disgusting, frequented by ‘promiscuous’ people, who enjoy the darkroom (for sex), by people badly dressed, unhygienic and poor (‘mundiça’), by ‘pocs’– poor and effeminate gays. The Metrópole is described as the elite, luxurious and well frequented by elegant gays (‘bichas cocotes’). The stigmatization process that gives meaning to places has to do with the components of schooling, of social class and uses stigmatized category markers in two other systems – ‘poc’/effeminate/gender and dark room/promiscuous/sexuality.