Love in the Gay World: Negotiating Intimate Relationships in Lima´s Middle-Class Gay Scene

ABSTRACT

This article explores how young gay men who are involve in Lima’s middle-class gay scene made sense of their intimate relationships regarding discourses about sexuality, intimacy, and love. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 14 such men, I found that diverse and seemingly conflicting discursive configurations coexisted and intertwined within aspects of their relationships such as monogamy, sex-role positioning, and interpretations of sexual intimacy. Although participants mostly endorsed “modern” categories, more attuned with global messages of gender equality and egalitarianism, they also combined them with discourses that were more “traditional”—gendered and related to romantic love. Participants negotiated these tensions through a pattern of reflexive and unreflexive (dis)identifications, which were embedded in structural socioeconomic conditions. These findings acknowledge the complexities of Latin American middle-class gay sexualities and challenge rigid models of same-sex desire, as well as arguments about the exceptionally reflexive qualities of “modern” gay identities.

KEYWORDS:

• Gay relationships
• young gay men
• reflexivity
• gay scene
• romantic love
• intimacy
• Peru

Acknowledgments

Part of the data presented draws from the author’s undergraduate thesis titled “Representaciones sociales de las relaciones de pareja en hombres jóvenes gays de Lima,” supervised by Ph.D. Fernando Ruiz of the Faculty of Psychology, Universidad de Lima. Further data recollection and analysis were carried out for the preparation of this article. I want to thank Benjamin Montoya for his comments on an earlier version of this paper. Lastly, I want to thank all the young men who allowed me to share their stories and lend their voices to this research.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no potential conflict of interest

Notes

1. I use the term homoerotic to refer to the sexual and/or romantic desire toward individuals of the same sex, thus differentiating it from gay or homosexual, which alludes to identity categories (Lozano-Verduzco & Rocha, 2015).

2. Racial politics in Peru respond to a complex historical process of miscegenation and colonial influence, in which individuals have employed different practices (e.g., interracial marriage, nobility titles, clothing, etc.) to negotiate a white identity (Kogan & Galarza, 2015). Thus, being blanco is a sociopolitical construction attained by differentiating oneself from non-hegemonic racial groups.

3. As Motta’s study (2001) indicates, homoerotic men from working class backgrounds have been accessing gay spaces such as discos and LGBT+ youth organizations, which has resulted in the incorporation of “modern” elements to their understandings of sexuality. Internet and social media probably has accelerated this process. However, to my knowledge, no research has tackle this issue in Peru for the last 10+ years. Further research is needed to understand the relationships between class and interpretations of homoerotic sexualities.