gender

gender Order Description Question: "How has ONE of the following shaped the way you think about gender: your parents OR the internet OR studying at university write a reflection paper base on this question and this reading, do not use outside source,only need the reading and use the concept and cite from the reading the whole reflection paper is about you own idea, do not use someone else , maximum 150 words The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Signs. http://www.jstor.org The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles Author(s): Emily Martin Source: Signs, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Spring, 1991), pp. 485-501 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174586 Accessed: 02-06-2015 17:55 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174586?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE EGG AND THE SPERM: HOW SCIENCEH ASC ONSTRUCTEDA ROMANCEB ASEDO N STEREOTYPICAL MALE-FEMARLEO LES EMILY MARTIN The theoryo f the humanb ody is always a parto f a worldpicture.... The theoryo ft heh umanb odyi s alwaysa parto f a fantasy. [JAMESH ILLMANT,h e Myth of Analysis]' As an anthropologisIt ,a m intriguedb y the possibilityt hatc ulture shapes how biologicals cientistsd escribew hatt heyd iscovera bout then aturawl orld.I f thisw ere so, we would be learninga boutm ore thant he naturalw orldi n high school biologyc lass; we would be learninga boutc ulturalb eliefsa nd practicesa s ift heyw ere parto f nature.I n the course of myr esearchI realized thatt he pictureo f egg and spermd rawni n populara s well as scientifica ccountso f reproductivbe iologyr elies on stereotypesc entralt o our cultural definitionosf m ale and female.T he stereotypeism plyn oto nlyt hat Portions of this article were presented as the 1987 Becker Lecture, Cornell University. I am grateful for the many suggestions and ideas I received on this occasion. For especially pertinenth elp with my argumentsa nd data I thank Richard Cone, Kevin Whaley, Sharon Stephens, Barbara Duden, Susanne Kuechler, Lorna Rhodes, and Scott Gilbert. The article was strengthened and clarified by the comments of the anonymous Signs reviewers as well as the superb editorial skills of Amy Gage. 'James Hillman, The Myth of Analysis (Evanston, Ill.: NorthwesternU niversity Press, 1972), 220. [Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1991, vol. 16, no. 3] ? 1991 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0097-9740/91/1603-0003$01.00 485 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Martin / EGG AND THE SPERM femaleb iologicalp rocessesa re less worthyth ant heirm ale counterpartsb uta lso thatw omena re less worthyth anm en.P arto fm yg oal in writintgh isa rticlei s to shinea brightli ghto n theg enders tereotypes hiddenw ithint he scientifilca nguageo fb iologyE. xposed in such a light,I hope theyw ill lose mucho ft heirp owert o harmu s. Egg and sperm:A scientififca iryt ale At a fundamentalle vel, all majors cientifict extbooksd epict male and femaler eproductiveo rgansa s systemsf ort he productiono f valuable substances,s uch as eggs and sperm.2I n the case of women, the monthlyc ycle is described as being designed to producee ggs and preparea suitablep lace fort hemt o be.f ertilized and grown-all to the end of makingb abies. But the enthusiasm ends there.B y extollingt hef emalec yclea s a productivee nterprise, menstruatiomn ustn ecessarilyb e viewed as a failureM. edical texts describe menstruationas the "debris" of the uterinel ining,t he resulto fn ecrosis,o r death oft issue.T he descriptionsim plyt hata systemh as gone awrym, akingp roductso f no use, nott o specification, unsalable, wasted, scrap. An illustrationin a widely used medicalt exts howsm enstruatioans a chaoticd isintegratioonf f orm, complementingth e manyt extst hatd escribe it as "ceasing,"" dying', "losing,"" denuding,"" expelling."3 Male reproductivpeh ysiologyis evaluatedq uited ifferentlOyn. e of the textst hats ees menstruatioans failedp roductione mploysa sorto fb reathlessp rosew hen it describest he maturationof s perm: "The mechanismsw hichg uide ther emarkablec ellulart ransformationf roms permatidt o matures permr emainu ncertain. ... Perhaps them osta mazingc haracteristiocf s permatogenesiiss itss heerm agnitude: t he normalh umanm ale maym anufactursee veralh undred million spermp er day."4I n the classic textM edical Physiology, edited by VernonM ountcastle,t he male/femalep, roductive/destructivec omparisoni s more explicit:" Whereas the females heds onlya singleg ametee ach montht, hes eminiferoutsu bulesp roduce hundredso f millionso f sperme ach day" (emphasis mine).5T he 2 The textbooks I consulted are the main ones used in classes for undergraduate premedical students or medical students (or those held on reserve in the library for these classes) during the past few years at JohnsH opkins University.T hese textsa re widely used at other universities in the country as well. 3 Arthur C. Guyton, Physiology of the Human Body, 6th ed. (Philadelphia: Saunders College Publishing, 1984), 624. 4 ArthurJ .V ander,J ames H. Sherman,a nd DorothyS . Luciano, Human Physiology: The Mechanisms of Body Function, 3d ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1980), 483-84. Vernon B. Mountcastle, Medical Physiology, 14th ed. (London: Mosby, 1980), 2:1624. 486 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Spring1 991 / SIGNS femalea uthoro fa nothert extm arvelsa tt hel engtho ft hem icroscopic seminiferoutsu bules,w hich,i f uncoiled and placed end to end, "would span almosto ne-thirdo f a mile!" She writes," In an adult male these structureps roduce millionso f spermc ells each day." Laters he asks," How is thisf eata ccomplished?"N6 one oft heset exts expressess uch intensee nthusiasmf ora ny femalep rocesses.I t is surelyn o accidentt hatt he "remarkable"p rocesso f makings perm involvesp reciselyw hat,i n them edicalv iew,m enstruatiodno es not: productiono f somethingd eemed valuable.7 One could arguet hatm enstruatioann d spermatogenesiasr e not analogousp rocessesa nd,t herefores,h ouldn otb e expectedt o elicit the same kindo fr esponse.T he properf emalea nalogyt o spermatogenesis, biologically,i s ovulation.Y et ovulationd oes not merit enthusiasmin these textse ither.T extbookd escriptionss tresst hat all of the ovarianf olliclesc ontainingo va are already presenta t birthF. ar fromb eingp roduced,a s sperma re,t heym erelys ito n the shelf,s lowlyd egeneratinga nd aging like overstockedi nventory: "Atb irth,n ormalh umano variesc ontaina n estimatedo ne million follicles [each], and no new ones appear after birth. Thus, in markedc ontrasto them ale,t hen ewbornf emalea lreadyh as all the germc ells she will everh ave.O nlya few,p erhaps4 00, are destined to reach full maturityd uringh er active productivel ife. All the othersd egeneratea t somep ointi n theird evelopments o thatf ew,i f any,r emainb y the time she reaches menopausea t approximately 50 yearso f age."8N ote the "markedc ontrast"t hatt hisd escription sets up between male and female: the male, who continuously producesf reshg ermc ells,a nd thef emale,w ho has stockpiledg erm cells by birtha nd is facedw itht heird egeneration. Nor are the femaleo rganss pared such vivid descriptionsO. ne scientistw rites in a newspaper article that a woman's ovaries become old and worno ut fromr ipeninge ggs everym onth,e ven thought hew omanh erselfis stillr elativelyy oung:" Wheny ou look througha laparoscope ... at an ovary that has been through hundredso f cycles,e ven in a superblyh ealthyA mericanf emale, you see a scarred,b atteredo rgan."9 To avoid the negativec onnotationtsh ats ome people associate with the female reproductives ystem,s cientistsc ould begin to describe male and femalep rocesses as homologous.T hey might 6 Eldra Pearl Solomon, Human Anatomy and Physiology (New York: CBS College Publishing, 1983), 678. 7 For elaboration, see Emily Martin, The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction (Boston: Beacon, 1987), 27-53. 8 Vander, Sherman, and Luciano, 568. 9 Melvin Konner, "Childbearing and Age," New York Times Magazine (December 27, 1987), 22-23, esp. 22. 487 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Martin / EGG AND THE SPERM credit females with "producing" mature ova one at a time, as they're needed each month,a nd describe males as havingt o face problems of degenerating germ cells. This degeneration would occur throughout lifea mong spermatogoniat, he undifferentiategde rmc ells in the testes thata re the long-lived,d ormantp recursorso f sperm. But the texts have an almost dogged insistence on casting female processes in a negative light. The texts celebrate sperm production because it is continuousf romp ubertyt o senescence, while they portraye gg production as inferiorb ecause it is finished at birth. This makes the female seem unproductive,b ut some textsw ill also insist that it is she who is wasteful.'?I n a section heading for Molecular Biology of the Cell, a best-sellingt ext,w e are told that" Oogenesis is wasteful." The text goes on to emphasize that of the seven million oogonia, or egg germc ells, in the female embryo,m ost degenerate in the ovary.O f those thatd o go on to become oocytes,o r eggs, manya lso degenerate,s o thata t birtho nlyt wo millione ggs remaini n the ovaries. Degeneration continues throughout a woman's life: by puberty 300,000 eggs remain,a nd onlya few are presentb y menopause. "During the 40 or so years of a woman's reproductivel ife,o nly 400 to 500 eggs will have been released," the authorsw rite." All the restw ill have degenerated. It is stilla mysteryw hy so manye ggs are formedo nly to die in the ovaries."'1 The real mysteryi s why the male's vast production of sperm is not seen as wasteful.12 Assuming that a man "produces" 100 million (108) sperm per day (a conservative estimate) during an average reproductive life of sixty years, he would produce well over two 10I have found but one exception to the opinion that the female is wasteful: "Smallpox being the nasty disease it is, one might expect nature to have designed antibody molecules with combining sites that specifically recognize the epitopes on smallpox virus. Nature differs from technology, however: it thinks nothing of wastefulness. (For example, rather than improving the chance that a spermatozoon will meet an egg cell, nature finds it easier to produce millions of spermatozoa.)" (Niels Kaj Jerne, "The Immune System," Scientific American 229, no. 1 [July 1973]: 53). Thanks to a Signs reviewer for bringing this reference to my attention. " Bruce Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell (New York: Garland, 1983), 795. 12 In her essay "Have Only Men Evolved?" (in Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill B. Hintikka [Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983], 45-69, esp. 60-61), Ruth Hubbard points out that sociobiologists have said the female invests more energy than the male in the production of her large gametes, claiming that this explains why the female provides parental care. Hubbard questions whether it "really takes more 'energy' to generate the one or relatively few eggs than the large excess of sperms required to achieve fertilization."F or furtherc ritique of how the greater size of eggs is interpreted in sociobiology, see Donna Haraway, "Investment Strategies fort he Evolving Portfolioo f Primate Females," in Body/Politics, ed. Mary Jacobus, Evelyn Fox Keller, and Sally Shuttleworth (New York: Routledge, 1990), 155-56. 488 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Spring1 991 / SIGNS trillions permi n his lifetimeA. ssumingt hata woman" ripens"o ne egg per lunarm onth,o r thirteenp er year,o ver the course of her forty-yearre productiveli fe,s he would totalf iveh undrede ggs in her lifetimeB. ut the word "waste" implies an excess, too much produced.A ssumingt woo rt hreeo ffspringfo, re veryb abya woman produces, she wastes only around two hundred eggs. For every babya manp roduces,h e wastesm oret hano ne trillion(1 012s) perm. How is itt hatp ositivei magesa re deniedt o theb odies ofw omen? A looka tl anguage-int hisc ase,s cientifilca nguage-providest hef irst clue. Taket hee gga nd thes perm.1I3t is remarkablheo w "femininely" thee gg behavesa nd how "masculinelyt"h es perm.'T4 he egg is seen as largea nd passive.1I5t does notm oveo rj ourney, but passively" is transported",i"s swept,"'o6r e ven" drifts"a'7lo ngt hef allopiantu be.I n utterc ontrasts,p erma re small," streamlined1,"8a nd invariablyac tive. They "deliver"t heirg enes to the egg, "activatet he developmental programo f the egg,"1a9n d have a "velocity"t hati s oftenr emarked upon.2 Their tails are "strong"a nd efficientlpyo wered.21T ogether witht he forceso f ejaculationt, heyc an "propelt he semen intot he deepestr ecesseso ft hev agina."2F2o rt hist heyn eed "energy,""f uel,"3 so thatw itha "whiplashlikem otiona nd stronglu rches"2t4h eyc an "burrowt hroughth ee gg coat"5a nd "penetrate"it .26 13 The sourcesI used fort hisa rticlep rovidec ompellingi nformatioonn interactionsa mongs perm.L ack ofs pace preventsm e fromt akingu p thist hemeh ere,b ut thee lementsi ncludec ompetitionh,i erarchyan, d sacrificeF. ora newspaperr eport, see MalcolmW . Browne," Some Thoughtso n Self Sacrifice,N" ew YorkT imes( July 5, 1988),C 6. For a literaryr enditions,e e JohnB arth," Night-SeaJ ourney,i"n his Lost in theF unhouse( GardenC ity,N .Y.: Doubleday,1 968),3 -13. 14S ee Carol Delaney," The Meaningo f Paternityan d the VirginB irthD ebate," Man 21, no. 3 (September1 986): 494-513. She discusses the differencbe etween thiss cientifivci ewt hatw omenc ontributgee neticm ateriatl ot hef etusa nd thec laim ofl ong-standinWg esternf olkt heoriest hatt heo rigina nd identityof t hef etusc omes fromt he male,a s in the metaphoro fp lantinga seed in soil. "5F or a suggestedd irectl inkb etweenh umanb ehaviora nd purportedlpya ssive eggsa nd actives perm,s ee ErikH . Erikson", Innera nd OuterS pace: Reflectionosn Womanhood,D"a edalus 93, no. 2 (Spring1 964): 582-606, esp. 591. 16 Guyton( n. 3 above),6 19; and Mountcastle(n . 5 above), 1609. '7 JonathanM iller and David Pelham, The Facts of Life (New York:V iking Penguin,1 984),5 . 18 Alberts et al., 796. 19I bid., 796. 20 See, e.g.,W illiamF . Ganong,R eviewo fM edicalP hysiology7,t he d. (Los Altos, Calif.:L ange Medical Publications1, 975),3 22. 21 Albertse t al. (n. 11 above), 796. 22G uyton6, 15. 23 Solomon (n. 6 above), 683. 24V anderS, hermana, nd Luciano (n. 4 above),4 the d. (1985),5 80. 25 Alberts et al., 796. 26A ll biologyt extsq uoted above use the word" penetrate." 489 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Martin / EGG AND THE SPERM At its extreme, the age-old relationship of the egg and the sperm takes on a royal or religious patina. The egg coat, its protective barrier,i s sometimes called its "vestments,"a termu sually reserved for sacred, religious dress. The egg is said to have a "corona,"27a crown, and to be accompanied by "attendant cells."28I t is holy, set apart and above, the queen to the sperm's king. The egg is also passive, which means it must depend on sperm for rescue. Gerald Schatten and Helen Schatten liken the egg's role to that of Sleeping Beauty: "a dormant bride awaiting her mate's magic kiss, which instills the spiritt hat brings her to life."29S perm, by contrast,h ave a "mission,"30w hich is to "move throught he female genital tracti n quest of the ovum."31O ne popular account has it that the sperm carry out a "perilous journey" into the "warm darkness," where some fall away "exhausted." "Survivors" "assault" the egg, the successful candidates "surroundingt he prize."32P art of the urgency of thisj ourney,i n more scientifict erms,i s that "once released from the supportive environment of the ovary, an egg will die within hours unless rescued by a sperm."33T he wording stresses the fragilitya nd dependency of the egg, even though the same text acknowledges elsewhere that sperm also live for only a few hours.34 In 1948, in a book remarkable for its early insights into these matters,R uth Herschberger argued thatf emale reproductiveo rgans are seen as biologically interdependent, while male organs are viewed as autonomous, operating independently and in isolation: At present the functional is stressed only in connection with women: it is in them that ovaries, tubes, uterus, and vagina have endless interdependence. In the male, reproduction would seem to involve "organs" only. Yet the sperm, just as much as the egg, is dependent on a great many related processes. There are secretions which mitigatet he urine in the urethrab efore ejaculation, to protect the sperm. There is the reflex shutting off of the bladder connection, the provision of prostatic secretions, and various types of muscular propulsion. The sperm is no more inde- 27 Solomon,7 00. 28 A. Beldecos et al., "The Importance of Feminist Critique for Contemporary Cell Biology," Hypatia 3, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 61-76. 29G erald Schatten and Helen Schatten, "The Energetic Egg," Medical World News 23 (January2 3, 1984): 51-53, esp. 51. 30A lberts et al., 796. 31 Guyton (n. 3 above), 613. 32 Miller and Pelham (n. 17 above), 7. 33 Alberts et al. (n. 11 above), 804. 34I bid., 801. 490 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Spring1 991 / SIGNS pendento f its milieu thant he egg, and yetf roma wish that it were,b iologistsh ave lent theirs upportt o the notiont hat the humanf emale,b eginningw itht he egg, is congenitally mored ependentt hant he male.35 Bringingo ut anothera spect oft he sperm'sa utonomya,n article in thej ournalC ell has the spermm akinga n "existentiadl ecision" to penetratet he egg: "Sperm are cells with a limitedb ehavioral repertoireo,n e thati s directedt owardf ertilizinegg gs. To execute the decision to abandon the haploid state,s perms wim to an egg and therea cquire the abilityt o effectm embranef usion."3I6s thisa corporatem anager'sv ersiono f the sperm'sa ctivities-"executing decisions" while fraughtw ith dismayo ver difficulot ptions that bringw itht hemv eryh ighr isk? Therei s anotherw ayt hats perm,d espitet heirs malls ize, can be made to loom in importanceo ver the egg. In a collection of scientifipc apers,a n electronm icrographof an enormouse gg and tinys permi s titled" A Portraiot f the Sperm."3T7h is is a littlel ike showing a photo of a dog and calling it a picture of the fleas. Granted,m icroscopics perma re hardert o photographt han eggs, which are just large enough to see with the naked eye. But surely the use oft he term" portrait,a" worda ssociatedw itht he powerful and wealthyi,s significanEt.g gs have onlym icrographosr p ictures, not portraits. One depictiono fs perma s weak and timid,i nsteado fs tronga nd powerful-theo nlys uch representatioinn westernc ivilizations, o fara s I know-occurs in Woody Allen's movie EverythingY ou Always Wanted To Know About Sex* *But Were Afraid to Ask. Allen, playingt he parto f an apprehensives permi nside a man's testiclesi,s scaredo ft hem an'sa pproachingo rgasmH. e is reluctant to launchh imselfin tot hed arknessa, fraido fc ontraceptivdee vices, afraido f windingu p on the ceilingi ft he man masturbates. The morec ommonp icture-egg as damsel in distress,s hielded only by her sacred garments;s perm as heroic warriort o the rescue-cannot be proved to be dictated by the biology of these events.W hilet he "facts"o fb iologym ayn ota lways be constructed in culturalt erms,I would argue thati n this case they are. The 35 Ruth Herschberger, Adam's Rib (New York: Pelligrini & Cudaby, 1948), esp. 84. I am indebted to Ruth Hubbard for telling me about Herschberger's work, although at a point when this paper was already in draftf orm. 36 Bennett M. Shapiro. "The Existential Decision of a Sperm," Cell 49, no. 3 (May 1987): 293-94, esp. 293. 37 Lennart Nilsson, "A Portraito f the Sperm," in The Functional Anatomy of the Spermatozoan, ed. Bjorn A. Afzelius (New York: Pergamon, 1975), 79-82. 491 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Martin / EGG AND THE SPERM degree of metaphorical content in these descriptions, the extent to which differencesb etween egg and sperm are emphasized, and the parallels between cultural stereotypes of male and female behavior and the character of egg and sperm all point to this conclusion. New research,o ld imagery As new understandings of egg and sperm emerge, textbook gender imagery is being revised. But the new research, far from escaping the stereotypical representations of egg and sperm, simply replicates elements of textbookg ender imagery in a differentf orm.T he persistence of this imagery calls to mind what Ludwik Fleck termed "the self-contained" nature of scientific thought. As he described it, "the interactionb etween what is already known, what remains to be learned, and those who are to apprehend it, go to ensure harmony within the system. But at the same time they also preserve the harmony of illusions, which is quite secure within the confines of a given thoughts tyle."38W e need to understand the way in which the cultural content in scientific descriptions changes as biological discoveries unfold, and whether that cultural content is solidly entrenched or easily changed. In all of the texts quoted above, sperm are described as penetrating the egg, and specific substances on a sperm's head are described as binding to the egg. Recently, this description of events was rewritten in a biophysics lab at Johns Hopkins Universitytransformingth e egg fromt he passive to the active party.39 Prior to this research, it was thought that the zona, the inner vestments of the egg, formed an impenetrable barrier. Sperm overcame the barrier by mechanically burrowing through, thrashing their tails and slowly working their way along. Later research showed that the sperm released digestive enzymes that chemically broke down the zona; thus, scientists presumed that the sperm used mechanical and chemical means to get through to the egg. In this recent investigation, the researchers began to ask questions about the mechanical force of the sperm's tail. (The lab's goal was to develop a contraceptive that worked topically on sperm.) They discovered, to their great surprise, that the forward thrust of sperm is extremely weak, which contradicts the assumption that 38 Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, ed. Thaddeus J. Trenn and Robert K. Merton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 38. 39 Jay M. Baltz carried out the research I describe when he was a graduate student in the Thomas C. Jenkins Department of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University. 492 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Spring1 991 / SIGNS sperma re forcefupl enetrators.R40at hert hant hrustinfgo rwardt,h e sperm'sh ead was now seen to move mostlyb ack and forthT. he sidewaysm otiono ft he sperm'st ail makest heh ead move sideways witha forcet hati s tent imess trongetrh ani tsf orwardm ovementS. o even if the overall force of the sperm were strong enough to mechanicallyb reak the zona, mosto f its forcew ould be directed sideways rathert han forwardI.n fact,i ts strongestt endency,b y tenfoldi,s to escape by attemptintgo pryi tselfo fft he egg. Sperm, then, must be exceptionallye fficienta t escaping froma ny cell surfacet heyc ontactA. nd the surfaceo f the egg mustb e designed to trapt he sperma nd preventt heire scape. Otherwise,f ew if any sperm would reach the egg. The researcherast JohnsH opkinsc oncludedt hatt hes perma nd egg stickt ogetherb ecause ofa dhesivem oleculeso n the surfaceso f each. The egg trapst he sperma nd adherest o it so tightlyth att he sperm'sh ead is forcedt o lie flata gainstt he surfaceo f the zona, a littleb it,t heyt old me, "like Br'er Rabbitg ettingm ore and more stuck to tar baby the more he wriggles." The trapped sperm continuest o wigglei neffectuallsyid e to side. The mechanicalf orce of its tail is so weak thata spermc annotb reake ven one chemical bond. This is wheret he digestivee nzymesr eleased by the sperm come in. If theys tartt o softent he zona just at the tip oft he sperm and the sides remains tuck,t hent he weak, flailings permc an get orientedi n the rightd irectiona nd make it throught he zonaprovidedt hati ts bonds to the zona dissolve as it moves in. Althought hisn ew versiono ft he saga oft he egg and the sperm broket hroughc ulturale xpectationst,h e researcherws ho made the discoveryc ontinuedt o writep apers and abstractsa s if the sperm were thea ctivep artyw ho attacksb, inds,p enetratesa,n d enterst he egg. The onlyd ifferencwe as thats permw ere now seen as performing these actions weakly.4' Not until August 1987, more than three yearsa ftert he findingsd escribeda bove, did these researchersr econceptualizet he processt o give the egg a morea ctiver ole. They began to describet hez ona as an aggressives permc atcherc, overed 40F ar less is known about the physiology of sperm than comparable female substances, which some feministsc laim is no accident. Greater scientifics crutinyo f female reproduction has long enabled the burden of birth control to be placed on women. In this case, the researchers' discovery did not depend on development of any new technology. The experiments made use of glass pipettes, a manometer, and a simple microscope, all of which have been available for more than one hundred years. 41 Jay Baltz and Richard A. Cone, "What Force Is Needed to Tether a Sperm?" (abstract for Society for the Study of Reproduction, 1985), and "Flagellar Torque on the Head Determines the Force Needed to Tether a Sperm" (abstract for Biophysical Society, 1986). 493 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Martin / EGG AND THE SPERM with adhesive molecules that can capture a sperm with a single bond and clasp it to the zona's surface.42In the words of their published account: "The innermost vestment, the zona pellucida, is a glycoprotein shell, which captures and tethers the sperm before they penetrate it. ... The sperm is captured at the initial contact between the sperm tip and the zona .... Since the thrust [of the sperm] is much smaller than the force needed to break a single affinityb ond, the firstb ond made upon the tip-firsmt eeting of the sperm and zona can result in the capture of the sperm."43 Experiments in another lab reveal similar patterns of data interpretationG. erald Schatten and Helen Schatten set out to show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the "egg is not merely a large, yolk-filled sphere into which the sperm burrows to endow new life. Rather, recent research suggests the almost heretical view thats perm and egg are mutually active partners."4T4 his sounds like a departure from the stereotypical textbook view, but further reading reveals Schatten and Schatten's conformity to the aggressive-sperm metaphor. They describe how "the sperm and egg firstt ouch when, fromt he tip of the sperm's triangularh ead, a long, thin filaments hoots out and harpoons the egg." Then we learn that "remarkably,t he harpoon is not so much fireda s assembled at great speed, molecule by molecule, froma pool of protein stored in a specialized region called the acrosome. The filamentm ay grow as much as twenty times longer than the sperm head itself before its tip reaches the egg and sticks."45W hy not call this "making a bridge" or "throwing out a line" rather than firing a harpoon? Harpoons pierce prey and injure or kill them, while this filament only sticks. And why not focus, as the Hopkins lab did, on the stickiness of the egg, rathert han the stickiness of the sperm?46L ater 42 Jay M. Baltz, David F. Katz, and Richard A. Cone, "The Mechanics of the Sperm-Egg Interaction at the Zona Pellucida," Biophysical Journal 54, no. 4 (October 1988): 643-54. Lab members were somewhat familiar with work on metaphors in the biology of female reproduction. Richard Cone, who runs the lab, is my husband, and he talked with them about my earlier research on the subject from time to time. Even though my current research focuses on biological imagery and I heard about the lab's work from my husband every day, I myself did not recognize the role of imagery in the sperm research until many weeks after the period of research and writing I describe. Therefore, I assume that any awareness the lab members may have had about how underlying metaphor might be guiding this particular research was fairly inchoate. 43 Ibid., 643, 650. 44 Schatten and Schatten (n. 29 above), 51. 45 Ibid., 52. 46 Surprisingly,i n an article intended fora general audience, the authors do not point out that these are sea urchin sperm and note that human sperm do not shoot out filaments at all. 494 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Spring1 991 / SIGNS in the article, the Schattens replicate the common view of the sperm'sp erilousj ourneyi ntot hew armd arknesso ft hev agina,t his time fort he purpose of explainingi ts journeyi nto the egg itself: "[The sperm]s tillh as an arduousj ourneya head. It mustp enetrate fartheirn tot hee gg's huge sphereo fc ytoplasman d somehowl ocate the nucleus, so that the two cells' chromosomesc an fuse. The spermd ives down intot hec ytoplasmi,t st ail beating.B ut it is soon interruptebdy the sudden and swiftm igrationo f the egg nucleus, which rushest owardt he spermw ith a velocityt riplet hato f the movemento fc hromosomeds uringc ell division,c rossingt hee ntire egg in about a minute."47 Like Schatten and Schatten and the biophysicistsa t Johns Hopkins,a notherr esearcherh as recentlym ade discoveriest hat seem to pointt o a morei nteractivve iew oft he relationshipo f egg and sperm.T his work,w hich Paul Wassarmanc onductedo n the sperma nd eggs of mice, focuseso n identifyintgh e specificm olecules in the egg coat (the zona pellucida) that are involved in egg-spermin teractionA. t firstg lance, his descriptionss eem to fit the model ofa n egalitarianr elationshipM. ale and femaleg ametes "recognizeo ne another,a"n d "interaction.s. . takep lace between sperma nd egg."48B ut the articlei n ScientificA mericani n which thosed escriptionsa ppear begins witha vignettet hatp resagest he dominantm otifo f theirp resentation": It has been more than a centurys ince Hermann Fol, a Swiss zoologist,p eered into his microscopea nd became thef irspt ersont o see a spermp enetratea n egg, fertilizei t and formt he firstc ell of a new embryo."4T9h is portrayaolf t he sperma s the activep arty-theo ne thatp enetrates andf ertilizest he egg and producest he embryo-is notc ited as an example of an earlier, now outmoded view. In fact, the author reiteratest he pointl ateri n the article:" Many spermc an bind to and penetratet he zona pellucida, or outerc oat,o f an unfertilized mouse egg, but onlyo ne spermw ill eventuallyf usew itht he thin plasma membranes urroundingt he egg proper (inner sphere), fertilizintgh e egg and givingr ise to a new embryo."50 The imageryo fs perma s aggressoris particularlsyt artlinign this case: the maind iscoveryb eing reportedi s isolationo fa particular molecule on the egg coat thatp lays an importanrto le in fertilization! W assarman'cs hoice ofl anguages ustainst he picture.H e calls the molecule thath as been isolated,Z P3, a "spermr eceptor."B y 7 Schatten and Schatten, 53. 8 Paul M. Wassarman, "Fertilization in Mammals," Scientific American 259, no. 6 (December 1988): 78-84, esp. 78, 84. 49 Ibid., 78. 50 Ibid., 79. 49s This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Martin / EGG AND THE SPERM allocating the passive, waiting role to the egg, Wassarman can continue to describe the sperm as the actor,t he one thatm akes it all happen: "The basic process begins when many sperm firsta ttach loosely and then bind tenaciously to receptors on the surface of the egg's thick outer coat, the zona pellucida. Each sperm, which has a large number of egg-binding proteins on its surface, binds to many sperm receptors on the egg. More specifically,a site on each of the egg-binding proteins fitsa complementarys ite on a sperm receptor, much as a key fitsa lock."51W ith the sperm designated as the "key" and the egg the "lock," it is obvious which one acts and which one is acted upon. Could this imagery not be reversed, letting the sperm (the lock) wait until the egg produces the key? Or could we speak of two halves of a locket matching, and regard the matching itself as the action that initiates the fertilization? It is as if Wassarman were determined to make the egg the receiving partner. Usually in biological research, the protein member of the pair of binding molecules is called the receptor, and physically it has a pocket in it rather like a lock. As the diagrams that illustrate Wassarman's article show, the molecules on the sperm are proteins and have "pockets." The small, mobile molecules that fiti nto these pockets are called ligands. As shown in the diagrams, ZP3 on the egg is a polymer of"keys"; many small knobs stick out. Typically, molecules on the sperm would be called receptors and molecules on the egg would be called ligands. But Wassarman chose to name ZP3 on the egg the receptor and to create a new term, "the egg-binding protein," for the molecule on the sperm that otherwise would have been called the receptor.52 Wassarman does credit the egg coat with having more functions than those of a sperm receptor. While he notes that "the zona pellucida has at times been viewed by investigators as a nuisance, a barrier to sperm and hence an impediment to fertilization,"h is new research reveals that the egg coat "serves as a sophisticated biological security system that screens incoming sperm, selects only those compatible with fertilizationa nd development, prepares sperm for fusion with the egg and later protects the resulting embryo from polyspermy [a lethal condition caused by fusion of more than one sperm with a single egg]."53A lthough this description gives the egg an active role, that role is drawn in stereotypically 51 Ibid., 78. 52 Since receptor molecules are relatively immotile and the ligands that bind to them relatively motile, one might imagine the egg being called the receptor and the sperm the ligand. But the molecules in question on egg and sperm are immotile molecules. It is the sperm as a cell that has motility,a nd the egg as a cell that has relative immotility. 53W assarman,7 8-79. 496 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Spring1 991 / SIGNS femininet ermsT. he egg selectsa n appropriatem ate,p reparesh im forf usiona, nd thenp rotectst her esultingo ffsprinfgr omh arm.T his is courtshipa nd matingb ehaviora s seen throught he eyes of a sociobiologist:w oman as the hard-to-gept rize, who, following unionw itht hec hoseno ne, becomesw omana s servanta nd mother. And Wassarmand oes not quit there. In a review article for Science,h e outlinest he" chronologyof f ertilization."N5e4a rt hee nd oft hea rticlea re twos ubjecth eadings.O ne is "SpermP enetration," in whichW assarmand escribesh ow the chemicald issolvingo ft he zona pellucida combines with the "substantialp ropulsive force generatedb y sperm."T he nexth eading is "Sperm-EggF usion." This sectiond etails what happens inside the zona aftera sperm "penetrates"i t. Sperm" can makec ontactw ith,a dheret o,a nd fuse with( thati s, fertilizea) n egg."5W5 assarman'ws ordc hoice,a gain,i s astonishinglsyk ewedi n favoro ft he sperm'sa ctivityf,o ri n then ext breathh e says thats perml ose all motilityu pon fusionw ith the egg's surfaceI.n mousea nd sea urchine ggs,t hes perme ntersa t the egg's volition,a ccordingt o Wassarman'sd escription": Once fused withe gg plasma membrane[ the surfaceo f the egg], how does a sperme ntert he egg? The surfaceo f both mouse and sea urchin eggs is coveredw itht housandso fp lasmam embrane-bounpdr ojections, called microvilli[ tiny" hairs"]. Evidence in sea urchins suggestst hat,a fterm embranef usion,a group of elongated microvillic lustert ightlya round and interdigitatoe ver the sperm head. As these microvillai re resorbed,t he spermi s drawni ntot he egg.T herefores,p ermm otilityw, hichc eases at thet imeo ff usioni n boths ea urchinsa nd mice, is not requiredf ors perme ntry."5T he sectionc alled "Sperm Penetration"m ore logicallyw ould be followed bya sectionc alled "The Egg Envelops,"r athert han" Sperm- Egg Fusion." This would give a parallel-and more accuratesense thatb otht he egg and the spermi nitiatea ction. Anotherw ay thatW assarmanm akes less of the egg's activityis by describingc omponentso ft he egg but referrintgo the sperma s a whole entityD. eborah Gordonh as describeds uch an approacha s "atomism" ("the part is independento f and primordialt o the whole") and identifiedit as one oft he "tenaciousa ssumptions"o f Westerns cience and medicine.5W7 assarmane mploysa tomismt o 4 Paul M. Wassarman, "The Biology and Chemistry of Fertilization," Science 235, no. 4788 (January3 0, 1987): 553-60, esp. 554. 55I bid., 557. 56Ibid., 557-58. This finding throws into question Schatten and Schatten's description (n. 29 above) of the sperm, its tail beating, diving down into the egg. 57D eborah R. Gordon, "Tenacious Assumptions in Western Medicine," in Biomedicine Examined, ed. Margaret Lock and Deborah Gordon (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988), 19-56, esp. 26. 497 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Martin / EGG AND THE SPERM his advantage.W henh e referst o processesg oingo n withins perm, he consistentlyre turnts o descriptiontsh atr emindu s fromw hence these activitiesc ame: theya re parto f spermt hatp enetratea n egg or generatep ropulsivef orce.W henh e referst o processesg oingo n withine ggs, he stops there.A s a result,a ny active role he grants thema ppearst o be assignedt o the partso ft he egg, and nott o the egg itself.I n the quote above, it is the microvillit hat actively clustera roundt hes perm.I n anothere xample," thed rivingf orcef or engulfmenotf a fuseds permc omes froma regiono fc ytoplasmju st beneath an egg's plasma membrane."58 Social implicationsT: hinkingb eyond All three of these revisionista ccounts of egg and sperm cannot seem to escape the hierarchicali mageryo f older accounts.E ven thoughe ach new accountg ives the egg a largera nd more active role, taken togethert heyb ringi nto play anotherc ulturals tereotype: woman as a dangerousa nd aggressivet hreat.I n the Johns Hopkins lab's revised model, the egg ends up as the female aggressorw ho "capturesa nd tethers"t he spermw ith her sticky zona, ratherl ike a spiderl yingi n wait in her web.59T he Schatten lab has the egg's nucleus "interrupt"t he sperm's dive with a "sudden and swift" rush by which she "clasps the sperm and guides its nucleus to the center."6W0 assarman'sd escriptiono f the surfaceo f the egg "covered witht housandso f plasma membranebound projectionsc, alled microvilli"t hatr each out and clasp the sperma dds to the spiderlikei magery.61 These images grantt he egg an active role but at the cost of appearingd isturbinglayg gressive.I mages ofw omana s dangerous and aggressive,t he femmef atalew ho victimizesm en, are widespread in Westernl iteraturea nd culture.6M2 ore specific is the connectiono fs pideri mageryw itht hei dea ofa n engulfingd,e vouring mother.6N3e w data did not lead scientistst o eliminateg ender stereotypeisn theird escriptionso f egg and sperm.I nstead,s cien- 5 Wassarman, "The Biology and Chemistry of Fertilization," 558. 59 Baltz, Katz, and Cone (n. 42 above), 643, 650. 60S chatten and Schatten, 53. 61 Wassarman, "The Biology and Chemistry of Fertilization," 557. 62 Mary Ellman, Thinking about Women (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968), 140; Nina Auerbach, Woman and the Demon (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), esp. 186. 63 Kenneth Alan Adams, "Arachnophobia: Love American Style," Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology 4, no. 2 (1981): 157-97. 498 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Spring1 991 / SIGNS tistss implyb egan to describe egg and spermi n differentb,u t no less damaging,t erms. Can we envisiona less stereotypicavl iew? Biologyi tselfp rovides anotherm odelt hatc ould be applied to thee gg and thes perm. The cybernetimc odel-with itsf eedbackl oops,f lexiblea daptation to change,c oordinationo ft he partsw ithina whole,e volutiono ver time,a nd changingr esponse to the environment-isc ommoni n genetics,e ndocrinologya,n d ecologya nd has a growingi nfluence in medicinei n general.4T his model has the potentialt o shifto ur imagery from the negative, in which the female reproductive systemi s castigatedb othf orn otp roducinge ggs afterb irtha nd for producing( and thusw asting)t oo manye ggs overall,t o something morep ositive.T he femaler eproductives ystemc ould be seen as respondingt o the environmen(tp regnancyo r menopause),a djusting to monthlych anges( menstruationa)n, d flexiblyc hangingf rom reproductivitayf terp ubertyt o nonreproductivitlayt eri n life.T he sperma nd egg's interactionco uld also be describedi n cybernetic terms.J . F. Hartman'sr esearchi n reproductiveb iology demonstratedf ifteeny earsa go thati f an egg is killed by being pricked witha needle, live spermc annotg et throught he zona.65C learly, this evidence shows thatt he egg and spermd o interacto n more mutualt ermsm, akingb iology'sr efusalt o portrayth emt hatw ay all the more disturbing. We wouldd o well to be aware,h owevert, hatc ybernetiicm agery is hardlyn eutral.I n the past, cyberneticm odels have played an importanpt art in the impositiono f social control.T hese models inherentlypr ovidea way of thinkingab out a "field"o f interacting componentsO. nce the fieldc an be seen, it can become the object of new formso f knowledge,w hichi n turnc an allow new formso f social control to be exerted over the components of the field. During the 1950s, for example, medicine began to recognize the psychosociael nvironmenotf t hep atientt: hep atient'sf amilyan d its psychodynamicPs.r ofessionsu ch as social workb egan to focuso n this new environmenta,n d the resultingk nowledgeb ecame one way to furthecro ntrolt he patient.P atientsb egan to be seen nota s isolated,i ndividualb odies, but as psychosociale ntitiesl ocated in an "ecological" system:m anagemento f "the patient'sp sychology was a new entreet o patientc ontrol."66 64W illiam Ray Arney and Bernard Bergen, Medicine and the Management of Living (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). 65 J. F. Hartman, R. B. Gwatkin, and C. F. Hutchison, "Early Contact Interactions between Mammalian Gametes In Vitro," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) 69, no. 10 (1972): 2767-69. 6 Arney and Bergen, 68. 499 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Martin / EGG AND THE SPERM The models thatb iologistsu se to describet heird ata can have importansto ciale ffectsD. uringt hen ineteenthce nturyt,h es ociala nd naturals ciences stronglyin fluencede ach other:t he social ideas of Malthusa bouth ow to avoidt hen aturailn creaseo ft hep oori nspired Darwin'sO rigino fS pecies.6O7n ce theO rigins tooda s a descriptionof then aturawl orld,c ompletew ithc ompetitioann d marketst rugglesi,t couldb e reimporteidn tos ocial sciencea s social Darwinismi,n order toj ustifyth es ocialo rdero ft het imeW. hatw e ares eeingn owi s similar: the importatioonf culturali deas about passive femalesa nd heroic males intot he "personalitieso" f gametes.T his amountst o the "implantingof s ociali mageryon r epresentatioonfsn atures o as tol aya firm basisf orr eimportinegx actlyt hats amei mageryas naturael xplanations of social phenomena."6 Furtherr esearchw ould show us exactlyw hats ocial effectsa re beingw roughtf romt heb iologicali mageryo fe gg and sperm.A tt he very least, the imagery keeps alive some of the hoariest old stereotypesa bout weak damsels in distressa nd theirs trongm ale rescuers.T hat these stereotypesa re now being writteni n at the level oft he cell constituteas powerfuml ovet o maket hems eem so naturala s to be beyonda lteration. The stereotypicali magerym ight also encourage people to imaginet hatw hatr esultsf romt he interactionof e gg and sperm-a fertilizede gg-is the resulto f deliberate" human" action at the cellularl evel. Whatevert hei ntentionos ft heh umanc ouple, in this microscopic" culture" a cellular "bride" (or femmef atale)a nd a cellular "groom" (her victim) make a cellular baby. Rosalind Petcheskyp oints out thatt hroughv isual representationssu ch as sonograms,w e are given "images of youngera nd younger,a nd tiniera nd tinierf, etusesb eing 'saved.' " This leads to "the pointo f visibilityb eing 'pushed back' indefinitely."E6n9 dowing egg and spermw ith intentionaal ction,a key aspect of personhoodi n our culture,l ays the foundationf ort he pointo fv iabilityb eing pushed back to the momento f fertilizationT.h is will likelyl ead to greater acceptanceo f technologicald evelopmentsa nd new formso f scrutinya nd manipulationf, ort he benefito f these inner "persons": court-ordererde strictionosn a pregnantw oman'sa ctivitiesi n order to protecth er fetus,f etals urgerya,m niocentesisa,n d rescindingo f abortionr ightst, o name but a fewe xamples.70 67 Ruth Hubbard, "Have Only Men Evolved?" (n. 12 above), 51-52. 8 David Harvey, personal communication, November 1989. 69 Rosalind Petchesky, "Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction," Feminist Studies 13, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 263-92, esp. 272. 70R ita Arditti,R enate Klein, and Shelley Minden, Test-Tube Women (London: Pandora, 1984); Ellen Goodman, "Whose Right to Life?" Baltimore Sun (November 500 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Spring1 991 / SIGNS Even ifw e succeed in substitutinmg oree galitariani,n teractive metaphorst o describet he activitieso fe gg and sperm,a nd manage to avoid the pitfallso f cyberneticm odels,w e would stillb e guilty ofe ndowingc ellulare ntitiesw ithp ersonhood.M ore crucial,t hen, thanw hatk indso fp ersonalitiesw e bestowo n cells is the veryf act thatw e are doing it at all. This processc ould ultimatelyh ave the mostd isturbingso cial consequences. One clear feminiscth allengei s to wake up sleepingm etaphors in science, particularlyth ose involvedi n descriptionso f the egg and the sperm.A lthought he literaryc onventioni s to call such metaphors" dead," theya re not so muchd ead as sleeping,h idden withint he scientifico ntento ft exts-and all them orep owerfufl or it.7W1 akingu p such metaphorsb, y becominga wareo fw hen we are projectingc ulturali mageryo nto what we study,w ill improveo ur ability to investigate and understand nature. Waking up such metaphorsb, y becominga wareo ft heiri mplicationsw, ill robt hem oft heirp owert o naturalizeo ur social conventionsa bout gender. Departmento f Anthropology JohnsH opkinsU niversity 17, 1987); Tamar Lewin, "Courts Acting to Force Care of the Unborn," New York Times (November 23, 1987), Al and B10; Susan Irwin and Brigitte Jordan, "Knowledge, Practice, and Power: Court Ordered Cesarean Sections," Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1, no. 3 (September 1987): 319-34. 71 Thanks to Elizabeth Fee and David Spain, who in February 1989 and April 1989, respectively, made points related to this. 501 This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:55:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Wiley and American Anthropological Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Anthropologist. http://www.jstor.org The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes Author(s): Don Kulick Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 99, No. 3 (Sep., 1997), pp. 574-585 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/681744 Accessed: 02-06-2015 17:58 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions One of the basic things one quickly learns from any analysis of Latin American sexual categories is that sex between males in this part of the world does not necessarily result in both partners being perceived as homosexual. The crucial determinant of a homosexual classification is not so much the fact of sex as it is the role performed during the sexual act. A male who anally penetrates another male is generally not considered to be homosexual. He is considered, in all the various local idioms, to be a Uman"i;n deed, in some communities, penetrating another male and then bragging about it is one way in which men demonstrate their masculinity to others (Lancaster1 992:241;c f. Brandes 1981:234).Q uite different associations attach themselves to a male who allows himself to be penetrated. That male has placed himself in what is understood to be an unmasculine, passive position. By doing so, he has forfeited manhood and becomes seen as something other than a man. This cultural classification as feminine is often reflected in the general comportment, speech practices, and dress patterns of such males, all of which tend to be recognizable to others as effeminate. A conceptual system in which only males who are penetrated are homosexual is clearly very different from the modern heterosexual-homosexual dichotomy currently in place in countries such as the United States, where popular understanding generally maintains that a male who has sex with another male is gay no matter how carefully he may restrict his behavior to the role of penetrator.3 This difference between Latin American and northernE uro-Americanu nderstandingso f sexuality is analyzed with great insight in the literature on male same-sex relations in Latin America, and one of the chief merits of that literature is its sensitive documentation of the ways in which erotic practices and sexual identities are culturally organized. Somewhat surprisingly, the same sensitivity that informs the literature when it comes to sexuality does MALES WHO ENJOY being anally penetrated by other males are, in many places in the world, an object of special cultural elaboration. Anywhere they occur as a culturally recognized type, it is usually they who are classiEled and named, not the males who penetrate them (who are often simply called men"). Furthermore, to the extent that male same-sex sexual relations are stigmatized, the object of social vituperation is, again, usually those males who allow themselves to be penetrated, not the males who penetrate them. Anywhere they constitute a salient cultural category, men who enjoy being penetrated are believed to think, talk, and act in particular, identifiable, and often cross-gendered manners. What is more, a large number of such men do in fact behave in these culturally intelligible ways. So whether they are the maVus, hijras, kathoeys, xaniths, or berdaches of non-Western societies, or the mollies and fairies of our own history, links between habitual receptivity in anal sex and particular effeminate behavioral patterns structure the ways in which males who are regularly anally penetrated are perceived, and they structure the ways in which many of those males think about and live their lives.l One area of the world in which males who enJoy being anally penetrated receive a very high degree of cultural attention is Latin America. Any student of Latin America will be familiar with the effervescent Elgure of the effeminate male homosexual. Called mar>con, cochon, joto, marzea, pajara, loca, frango, bicha, or any number of other names depending on where one Emds him (see Murray and Dynes 1987 and Dynes 1987 for a sampling), these males all appear to share certain behavioral characteristics and seem to be thought of, throughout Latin America, in quite similar ways.2 DONK ULICiKs a n associatep rofessorin the Departmenotf Social AnthropologyS,t ockholmU niversity1,0 691 StockholmS, weden. AmencanA nthropologist99(3):574-585.C opyrigh6t 3 1997, AmericanA nthropologicaAl ssociation. DON KULICK / STOCKHOLUMN IVERSITY The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Dllnetitllte This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BRAZILIANT RANSGENDEREDPR OSTITUTES / DON KULICK 575 not extend to the realm of gender. A question not broached in this literature is whether the fundamental differences that exist between northern Euro-American and Latin American regimes of sexuality might also result in, or be reflective of, different regimes of gender. This oversight is odd in light of the obvious and important links between sexuality and gender in a system where a simple act of penetration has the power to profoundly alter a male's cultural deEmition and social status. Instead of exploring what the differences in the construction of sexuality might mean for differences in the construction of gender however analysis in this literature falls back on familiar concepts. So just as gender in northern Europe and North America consists of men and women, so does it consist of men and women in Latin AmericaXw e are told. The characteristics ascribed to and the behavior expected of those two different types of people are not exactly the same in these two different parts of the world, to be sure, but the basic gender categories are the same. This article contests that view. I will argue that the sexual division that reseachers have noted between those who penetrate and those who are penetrated extends far beyond sexual interactions between males to constitute the basis of the gender division in Latin America. Gender, in this particular elaboration, is grounded not so much in sex (like it is, for example, in modern northem European and North American cultures) as it is grounded in sexuality. This difference in grounding generates a gender conElguration different from the one that researchers working in Latin America have postulated, and it allows and even encourages the elaboration of cultural spaces such as those inhabited by effeminate male homosexuals. Gender in Latin America should be seen not as consisting of men and women, but rather of men and not-men, the latter being a category into which both biological females and males who en,ioy anal penetration are culturally situated. This specific situatedness provides individuals-not just men who enJoy anal penetration, but everyone with a conceptual framework that they can draw on in order to understand and organize their own and others' desires, bodies, affective and physical relations, and social roles. The Body in Question The evidence for the arguments developed here will be drawn from my fieldwork in the Brazilian city of Salvador, among a group of males who enJoy anal penetration. These males are effeminized prostitutes known throughout Brazil as travestis (a word derived from transvestir, to cross-dress).4 Travestis occupy a strikingly visible place in both Brazilian social space and in the Brazilian cultural imaginary.5 All Brazilian cities of any size contain travestis, and in the large cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, travestis number in the thousands. (In SalvadorX travestis numbered between about 80 and 250, depending on the time of year.)6 Travestis are most exuberantly visible during Brazil's famous annual Carnival, and any depiction or analysis of the festival will inevitably include at least a passing reference to them, because their gender inversions are often invoked as embodiments of the Carnival spirit. But even in more mundane contexts and discourses, travestis figure prominently. A popular Saturday afternoon television show, for example, includes a spot in which female impersonators, some of whom are clearly travestis, get judged on how beautiful they are and on how well they mime the lyrics to songs sung by female vocalists. Another weekly television show regularly features Valeria, a well-known travesti. Tieta, one of the most popular television novelas in recent years, featured a special guest appearance by Rogeria, another famous travesti. And most telling of the special place reserved for travestis in the Brazilian popular imagination is the fact that the individual widely acclaimed to be most beautiful woman in Brazil in the mid-1980s was ... a travesti. That travesti, Roberta Close, became a household name throughout the country. She regularly appeared on national television, starred in a play in Rio, posed nude (with demurely crossed legs) in Playboy magazine, was continually interviewed and portrayed in virtually every magazine in the country, and had at least three songs written about her by well-known composers. Although her popularity declined when, at the end of the 1980s, she left Brazil to have a sex-change operation and live in Europe, Roberta Close remains extremely well-known. As recently as 1995, she appeared in a nationwide advertisement for Duloren lingerie, in which a photograph of her passport, bearing her male name, was transposed with a photograph of her looking sexy and chic in a black lace undergarment.T he caption read, '4Vocen ao imagina do que uma Duloren e capazf (You can't imagine what a Duloren can do). Regrettably, the fact that a handful of travestis manage to achieve wealth, admiration, and, in the case of Roberta Close, an almost iconic cultural status says very little about the lives of the vast majority of travestis. Those travestis, the ones that most Brazilians only glimpse occasionally standing along highways or on dimly lit street corners at night or read about in the crime pages of their local newspapers, comprise one of the most marginalized, feared, and despised groups in Brazilian society. In most Brazilian cities, travestis are so discriminated against that many of them avoid venturing out onto the street during the day. They are This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 576 AMERICAANN THROPOLOG*IS VTO L.9 9, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBE1R9 97 regularly the victims of violent police brutality and murder. 7 The vast maJority of them come from very poor backgrounds and remain poor throughout their lives, living a hand-to-mouth existence and dying before the age of 50 from violence, drug abuse, health problems caused or exacerbated by the silicone they inJect into their bodies, or, increasingly, AIDS. The single most characteristic thing about travestis is their bodies. Unlike the drag performers examined by Esther Newton (1972) and recently elevated to the status of theoretical paragons in the work of postmodernist queer scholars such as Judith Butler (1990), travestis do not merely don female attributes. They incorporate them. Sometimes starting at ages as young as 10 or 12, boys who self-identify as travestis begin ingesting or inJecting themselves with massive doses of female hormones in order to give their bodies rounded features, broad hips, prominent buttocks, and breasts. The hormones these boys take either are medications designed to combat estrogen deficiency or are contraceptive preparations designed, like the pill," to prevent pregnancy. In Brazil such hormones are cheap (a month's supply, which would be consumed by a travesti in a week or less, costs the equivalent of only a few dollars) and are sold over the counter in any pharmacy. Boys discover hormones from a variety of sources. Most of my travesti friends told me that they learned about hormones by approaching adult travestis and asking them how they had achieved the bodies they had. Others were advised by admirers, boyfriends, or clients, who told them that they would look more attractive and make more money if they looked more like girls. Hormones are valued by travestis because they are inexpensive, easy to obtainy and fast working. Most hormones produce visible results after only about two months of daily ingestion. A problem with them, however, is that they can, especially after prolonged consumption, result in chronic nausea, headaches, heart palpitations, burning sensations in the legs and chest, extreme weight gain, and allergic reactions. In addition, the doses of female hormones required to produce breasts and wide hips make it difficult for travestis to achieve erections. This can be quite a serious problem, since a great percentage of travestis' clients want to be penetrated by the travesti (a point to which I shall return below). What usually happens after several years of taking hormones is that most individuals stop, at least for a while, and begin inecting silicone into their bodies. Just as hormones are procured by the individual travestis themselves, without any medical intervention or interference, so is silicone purchased from and administered by acquaintances or friends. The silicone available to the travestis in Salvador is industrial silicone, which is a kind of plastic normally used to manufacture automobile parts such as dashboards. Although it is widely thought to be illegal for industrial outlets to sell this silicone to private individuals, at least one or two travestis in any city containing a silicone manufacturing plant will be well connected enough to be able to buy it. Whenever they sense a demand, these travestis contact their supplier at the plant and travel there in great secrecy to buy several liters. They then resell this silicone (at a hefty profit) to other travestis, who in turn pay travestis who work as bombadeiras (pumpers) to irMecitt directly into their bodies. Most travestis in Salvador over the age of 17 have some silicone in their bodies. The amount of silicone that individual travestis choose to iIuect ranges from a few glasses to up to 18 liters. (Travestis measure silicone in liters and water glasses (copos), six of which make up a liter.) Most have between two and five liters. The maiiorityh ave it in their buttocks, hips, knees, and inner thighs. This strategic placement of silicone is in direct deference to Brazilian aesthetic ideals that consider fleshy thighs, expansive hips, and a prominent, teardrop-shaped bunda (buttocks) to be the hallmark of feminine beauty. The majority of travestis do not have silicone in their breasts, because they believe that silicone in breasts (but not elsewhere in the body) causes cancer, because they are satisfied with the size of the breasts they have achieved through hormone consumption, because they are convinced that silicone inections into the chest are risky and extremely painful, or because they are waiting for the day when they will have enough money to pay for silicone implants (protese) surgically inserted by doctors. A final reason for a general disinclination to inJect silicone into one's breasts is that everyone knows that this silicone shifts its position very easily. Every travesti is acquainted with several unfortunate others whose breasts have either merged in the middle, creating a pronounced undifferentiated swelling known as a pigeon breast" (peito de pomba), or whose silicone has descended into lumpy protrusions just above the stomach. The Body in Process Why do they do it? One of the reasons habitually cited by travestis seems self-evident. Elizabeth, a 29- year-old travesti with ll/2 liters of silicone in her hips and one water-glass of silicone in each breast, explained it to me this way: To mold my body, you lmow, be more feminine, with the body of a woman." But why do travestis want the body of a woman? When I first began asking travestis that question, I expected them to tell me that they wanted the body of a woman because they felt themselves to be women. That was not the answer I received. No one ever offered the This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BRAZILIATNR ANSGENDERPERDO STITUTE/S DONK ULICK 577 explanation that they might be women trapped in male bodies, even when I suggested it. In fact, there is a strong consensus among travestis in Salvador that any travesti who claims to be a woman is mentally disturbed. A travesti is not a woman and can never be a woman, they tell one another, because God created them male. As individuals, they are free to embellish and augment what God has given them, but their sex cannot be changed. Any attempt to do so would be disastrous. Not only do sex-change operations not produce women (they produce, travestis say, only bichas castradas, castrated homosexuals), they also inevitably result in madness. I was told on numerous occasions that, without a penis, semen cannot leave the body. When trapped, it travels to the brain, where it collects and forms a Zstone"t hat will continue to increase in size until it eventually causes insanity. So Roberta Close notwithstanding, travestis modify their bodies not because they feel themselves to be women but because they feel themselves to be feminine" (femtntno) or Ulike a woman" (se sentir mulher), qualities most often talked about not in terms of inherent predispositions or essences but rather in terms of behaviors, appearances, and relationships to men.8 When I asked Elizabeth what it meant when she told me she felt feminine, for example, she answered, I like to dress like a woman. I like when someone when men admire me, you know?. . . I like to be admired, when I go with a man who, like, says: 'Sheez, you're really pretty, you're really feminine.' That . . . makes me want to be more feminine and more beautiful every day, you see?" Similar themes emerged when travestis talked about when they first began to understand that they were travestis. A common response I received from many different people when I asked that question was that they made this discovery in connection with attraction and sexuality. Eighteen-year-old Cintia told me that she understood she was a travesti from the age of seven: I already liked girls' things, I played with dolls, played with . . . girls' things; I only played with girls. I didn't play with boys. I just played with these two boys; during the afternoon I always played with them . . . well, you know, rubbing penises together, rubbing them, kissing on the mouth. [Laughs.J Forty-one-year-old Gabriela says that she knew that she was a travesti early on largely because since childhood I always liked men, hainr legs, things like that, you know?" Banana, a 34-year-old travesti, told me the [understanding that I was a] travesti came after, you know, I, um, eight, nine years, ten years old, I felt attracted, really attracted to men." The attraction that these individuals felt for males is thus perceived by them to be a maiior motivating force behind their self-production as travestis, both privately and professionally. Travestis are quick to point out that, in addition to making them feel more feminine, female forms also help them earn more money as prostitutes. At night when they work on the street, those travestis who have acquired pronounced feminine features use them to attract the attention of passing motorists, and they dress (or rather, undress) to display those features prominently. But if the goal of a travesti's bodily modifications is to feel feminine and be attractive to men, what does she think about her male genitals? The most important point to be clear about is that virtually every travesti values her penis: aThere's not a better thing in the whole world," 19-year-old Adriana once told me with a big smile. Any thought of having it amputated repels them. aDeus e maist (God forbid), many of them interject whenever talk of sex-change operations arises. bWhat, and never cum (i.e., ejaculate, gozar) again?!"t hey gasp, horrified. Despite the positive feelings that they express about their genitals, however, a travesti keeps her penis, for the most part, hidden, aimprisoned"( presa) between her legs. That is, travestis habitually pull their penises down between their legs and press them against their perineums with their underpanties. This is known as making a cuntX (fazer uma buceta). This cunt is an important bodily practice in a travesti's day-to-day public appearance. It is also crucial in another extremely important context of a travesti's life, namely in her relationship to her marido (live-in boyfriend). The maridos of travestis are typically attractive, muscular, tattooed young men with little or no education and no jobs. Although they are not pimps (travestis move them into their rooms because they are impassioned lapaixonadal with them, and they eject them when the passion wears thin), maridos are supported economically by their travesti girlfriends. All these boyfriends regard themselves, and are regarded by their travesti girlfriends, as homens (men) and, therefore, as nonhomosexual. One of the defining attributes of being a homern (man) in the gender system that the travestis draw on and invoke is that a man will not be interested in another male's penis. A man, in this interpretative framework, will happily penetrate another male's anus. But he will not touch or express any desire for another male's penis. For him to do so would be tantamount to relinquishing his status as a man. He would stop being a man and be reclassified as a viado (homosexual, faggot), which is how the travestis are classified by others and how they see themselves. Travestis want their boyfriends to be men, not viados. They require, in other words, their boyfriends to be symbolically and socially different from, not similar This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 578 AMERICANA NTHROPOLOGIS*T VOL. 99, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBER1 997 to, themselves. Therefore, a travesti does not want her boyfriend to notice, comment on, or in any way concern himself with her penis, even during sex. Sex with a boyfriend, consists, for the most part, of the travesti sucking the boyfriend's penis and of her boyfriend penetrating her, most often from behind, with the travesti on all fours or lying on her stomach on the bed. If the boyfriend touches the travesti at all, he will caress her breasts and perhaps kiss her. But no contact with the travesti's penis will occur, which means, according to most travestis I have spoken to, that travestis do not usually have orgasms during sex with their boyfriends. What surprised me most about this arrangement was that the ones who are the most adamant that it be maintained are the travestis themselves. They respect their boyfriends and maintain their relationships with them only as long as the boyfriends remain Umen-"If a boyfriend expresses interest in a travesti's penis, becomes concerned that the travesti ejaculate during sex, or worst of all, if the boyfriend expresses a desire to be anally penetrated by the travesti, the relationship, all travestis told me firmly, would be over. They would comply with the boyfriend's request, they all told me, because if someone offers me their ass, you think Im not gonna take it?" Afterward, however, they were agreed, they would lose respect for the boyfriend. You'll feel disgust (nojo) toward him," one travesti put it pithily. The boyfriend would no longer be a man in their eyes. He would, instead, be reduced to a viado. And as such, he could no longer be a boyfriend. Travestis unfailingly terminate relationships with any boyfriend who deviates from what they consider to be proper manly sexuality. This absolute unwillingness to engage their own penises in sexual activity with their boyfriends stands in stark contrast to what travestis do with their penises when they are with their clients. On the street, travestis know they are valued for their possession of a penis. Clients will often request to see or feel a travesti's penis before agreeing to pay for sex with her, and travestis are agreed that those travestis who have large penises are more sought after than those with small ones. Similarly, several travestis told me that one of the reasons they stopped taking hormones was because they were losing clients. They realized that clients had begun avoiding them because they knew that the travesti could not achieve an erection. Travestis maintain that one of the most common sexual services they are paid to perform is to anally penetrate their clients. Most travestis eruoy this. In fact, one of the more surprising findings of my study is that travestis, in significant and highly marked contrast to what is generally reported for other prostitutes, enJoy sex with clients.9 That is not to say they enoy sex every time or with every client. But whenever they talk about thrilling, fulfilling, or incredibly fun sex, their partner is always either a client or what they call a vtcio, a word that literally means vice" or uaddiction"a nd that refers to a male, often encountered on the street while they are working, with whom they have sex for free. Sometimes, if the vicio is especially attractive, is known to have an especially large penis, or is known to be especially versatile in bed, the travesti will even pay him. The Body in Context At this point, having illustrated the way in which the body of a travesti is constructed, thought about, and used in a variety of contexts, I am ready to address the question of cultural intelligibility and personal desirability. Why do travestis want the kind of body they create for themselves? What is it about Brazilian culture that incites and sustains desire for a male body made feminine through hormones and silicone? By phrasing that question primarily in terms of culture, I do not mean to deny that there are also social and economic considerations behind the production of travesti bodies and subjectivities. As I noted above, a body full of silicone translates into cash in the Brazilian sexual marketplace. It is important to understand, however particularly because popular and academic discourses about prostitution tend to frame it so narrowly in terms of victimization, poverty, and exploitationthat males do not become travestis because they were sexually abused as children or just for economic gain. Only one of the approximately 40 travestis in my close circle of acquaintances was clearly the victim of childhood sexual abuse. And while the vast mqority of travestis (like, one must realize, the vast majority of people in Brazil) come from working-class or poor backgrounds, it is far from impossible for poor, openly effeminate homosexual males to find employment, especially in the professions of hairdressers, cooks, and housecleaners, where they are quite heavily represented. Another factor that makes it problematic to view travestis primarily in social or economic terms is the fact that the sexual marketplace does not require males who prostitute themselves to be travestis. Male prostitution (where the prostitutes, who are called miches, look and act like men) is widespread in Brazil and has been the topic of one published ethnographic study (Perlongher 1987). Also, even transgendered prostitution does not require the radical body modiElcations that travestis undertake. Before hormones and silicone became widely available (in the mid-1970s and mid- 1980s, respectively) males dressed up as females, using wigs and foam-rubber padding (pirelli), and worked successfully as prostitutes. Some males still do this today. This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BRAZILIANT RANSGENDEREPDR OSTITUTES / DON KULICK 579 Finally, it should be appreciated that travestis do not need to actually have sex with their clients to earn money as prostitutes. A large percentage (in some cases, the bulk) of a travesti's income from clients is derived from robbing them. In order to rob a client, all that is required is that a travesti come into close physical proximity with him. Once a travesti is in a client's car or once she has begun caressing a passerby's penis, asking him seductively if he Uquerg ozar"( wants to cum), the rest, for most travestis, is easy. Either by pickpocketing the client, assaulting him, or if she does have sex with him, by threatening afterward to create a public scandal, the travesti will often walk away with all the client's money (Kulick 1996a). Thus it is entirely possible to derive a respectable income from prostitution and still not consume hormones and inJect silicone into one's body. In addition to all those considerations, I also phrase the question of travestis in terms of culture because, even if it were possible to claim that males who become travestis do so because of poverty, early sexual exploitation, or some enigmatic inner psychic orientation, the mystery of travestis as a sociocultural phenomenon would remain unsolved. What is it about the understandings, representations, and definitions of sexuality, gender, and sex in Brazilian society that makes travesti subjectivity imaginable and intelligible? Let me begin answering that question by noting an aspect of travesti language that initially puzzled me. In their talk to one another, travestis frequently refer to biological males by using feminine pronouns and feminine adjectival endings. Thus the common utterance Uela ficou doida" (she was furious) can refer to a travesti, a woman, a gay male, or a heterosexual male who has allowed himself to be penetrated by another male. All of these different people are classified by travestis in the same manner. This classiElcatory system is quite subtle, complex, and context sensitive; travestis narrating their life stories frequently use masculine pronouns and advjectivael ndings when talking about themselves as children but switch to feminine forms when discussing their present-day lives. In a similar way, clients are often referred to as she," but the same client will be referred to with different gendered pronouns depending on the actions he performs. When a travesti recounts that she struggled with a client over money or when she describes him paying, for example, his gender will often change from feminine to masculine. The important point here is that the gender of males is subject to fluctuation and change in travesti talk. Males are sometimes referred to as she" and sometimes as "he." Males, in other words, can shift gender depending on the context and the actions they perform. The same is not true for females. Females, even the several extremely brawny and conspicuously unfeminine lesbians who associate with the travestis I know, are never referred to as "he" (Kulick 1996b). So whereas the gender of females remains Elxed, the gender of males fluctuates and shifts continually. Why can males be either male or female, but females can only be female? The answer, I believe, lies in the way that the gender system that the travestis draw on is constituted. Debates about transgendered individualss uch as 18th-centurym ollies, Byzantinee unuchs, Indian huras, Native American berdaches, U.S. transsexuals, and others often suggest that those individuals constitute a third, or intermediate, gender, one that is neither male or female or one that combines both male and female.lo Journalists and social commentators in Brazil sometimes take a similar line when they write about travestis, arguing that travestis transcend maleness and femaleness and constitute a kind of postmodern androgeny. My contention is the opposite. Despite outward physical appearances and despite local claims to the contrary, there is no third or intermediate sex here; travestis only arise and are only culturally intelligible within a gender system based on a strict dichotomy. That gender system, however, is structured according to a dichotomy different from the one with which many of us are familiar, anchored in and arising from principles different from those that structure and give meaning to gender in northern Europe and North America. The fundamental difference is that, whereas the northernE uro-Americang ender system is based on sex, the gender system that structures travestis' perceptions and actions is based on sexuality. The dominant idea in northern Euro-American societies is that one is a man or a woman because of the genitals one possesses. That biological difference is understood to accrete differences in behavior, language, sexuality, perception, emotion, and so on. As scholars such as Harold Garfinkel (1967), Suzanne Kessler and Wendy McKenna (1985[1978]), and Janice Raymond (1979) have pointed out, it is within such a cultural system that a transsexual body can arise, because here biological males, for example, who do not feel or behave as men should, can make sense of that difference by reference to their genitals. They are not men; therefore they must be women, and to be a woman means to have the genitals of a female. While the biological differences between men and women are certainly not igncxredi n Brazil, the possession of genitals is fundamentally conflated with what they can be used for, and in the particular conElguration of sexuality, gender and sex that has developed there, the determinative criterion in the identification of males and females is not so much the genitals as it is the role those genitals perform in sexual encounters. Here the locus of gender difference is the act of penetration. If one only penetrates, one is a man, but if one gets This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 580 AMERICAANN THROPOLOG*IS VT OL. 99, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBE1R9 97 penetrated, one is not a man, which, in this case, means that one is either a viado (a faggot) or a mulher (a woman). Tina, a 27-year-old travesti, makes the parallels clear in a story about why she eventually left one of her ex-boyfriends: 1. TINA: For three years [my marido] was a man for me. A total man (foi homtssimo). Then I was the man, and he was the faggot (viado). 2. DON: What? 3. TINA: Do you see? 4. DON: Yes.... But no, how? 5. TINA: For three years he was a man for me, and after those three years he became a woman (elefoi mulher). I was the man, and he was the woman. The Elrst three years I was together with him, do you see, he penetrated me (ele me comia) and I sucked [his penis]. I was his woman. 6. DON: Yeah . . . 7. TINA: And after those three years, I was his man. Do you understand now? Now you get it. 8. DON: But what happened? What, what made him . . . 9. TINA: Change? 10. DON: Change, yeah. 1l. TINA: It changed with him touching my penis.... He began doing other kinds of sex things. UYou don't have to cum [i.e., have orgasms] on the street [with clients]" [he told me], UI can jerk you off (eu bato uma punhetinha pra voce). And later on we can do other new things." He gives me his ass, he gave me his ass, started to suck [my penis], and well, there you are. Note how Tina explains that she was her boyfriend's woman, in that he penetrated me and I sucked [his penis]" (line 5). Note also how Tina uses the words vtado (faggot) and mulher (woman) interchangeably (lines 1 and 5) to express what her boyfriend became after he started expressing an interest in her penis and after he started "giving his ass" to her. This discursive conflation is similar to that used when travestis talk about their clients, the vast majority of whom are believed by travestis to desire to be anally penetrated by the travesti a desire that, as I just explained,d isqualifiest hem from being men and makes them into viados, like the travestis themselves. Hence they are commonly referred to in travestis' talk by the feminine pronoun ela (she). Anal penetration figures prominently as an engendering device in another important dimension of travestis' lives, namely, their self-discovery as travestis. When I asked travestis to tell me when they first began to understand that they were travestis, the most common response, as I noted earlier, was that they discovered this in connection with attraction to males. Sooner or later, this attraction always led to sexuality, which in practice means that the travesti began allowing herself to be penetrated anally. This act is always cited by travestis as crucial in their self-understanding as travestis. A final example of the role that anal penetration plays as a determining factor in gender assignment is the particular way in which travestis talk about gay men. Travestis frequently dismiss and disparage gay men for pretending to be men" (landar/passar] como sefosse homern), a phrase that initially confounded me, especially when it was used by travestis in reference to me. One Sunday afternoon, for example, I was standing with two travesti friends eating candy in one of Salvador's main plazas. As two policemen walked by, one travesti began to giggle. They see you standing here with us,"s he said to me, Uandth ey probablyt hink you're a man." Both travestis then collapsed in laughter at the sheer outrageousness of such a profound misunderstanding. It took me, however, a long time to figure out what was so funny. I finally came to realize that as a gay man, a viado, I am assumed by travestis to dar (be penetrated by men). I am, therefore, the same as them. But I and all other gay men who do not dress as women and modify their bodies to be more feminine disguise this sameness. We hide, we deceive, we pretend to be men, when we really are not men at all. It is in this sense that travestis can perceive themselves to be more honest, and much more radical, than "butch" (machuda) homosexuals like myself. It is also in this sense that travestis simply do not understand the discrimination that they face throughout Brazil at the hands of gay men, many of whom feel that travestis compromise the public image of homosexuals and give gay men a bad name. What all these examples point to is that for travestis, as reflected in their actions and in all their talk about themselves, clients, boyfriends, vicios, gay men, women, and sexuality, there are two genders; there is a binary system of opposites very firmly in place and in operation. But the salient difference in this system is not between men and women. It is, instead, between those who penetrate (comer, literally uto eat" in Brazilian Portuguese) and those who get penetrated (dar, literally to give"), in a system where the act of beingpenetrated has transformative force. Thus those who only eat" (and neverigive") in this system are culturally designated as "men"; those who give (even if they also eat) are classified as being something else, a something that I will call, partly for want of a culturally elaborated label and partly to foreground my conviction that the gender system that makes it possible for travestis to emerge and make sense is one massively oriented towards, if not determined by, male subjectivity, male desire, and male pleasure, as those are culturally elaborated in Brazil: Unot men-" What this particular binarity implies is that females and males who enJoy being penetrated belong to the same classificatory category, they are on the same side of the gendered binary. They share, in other words, a gender. This sharing is the reason why the overwhelming majority of travestis do not self-identify as women and This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BRAZILIANT RANSGENDEREPDR OSTITUTES / DON KULICK 581 have no desire to have an operation to become a woman even though they spend their lives dramatically modifying their bodies to make them look more feminine. Culturally speaking, travestis, because they enXioyb eing penetrated, are structurally equivalent to, even if they are not biologically identical to, women. Because they already share a gender with women, a sex-change operation would (again, culturally speaking) give a travesti nothing that she does not already have. All a sexchange operation would do is rob her of a significant source of pleasure and income. It is important to stress that the claim I am making here is that travestis share a gender with women, not that they are women (or that women are travestis). Individual travestis will not always or necessarily share individual women's roles, goals, or social status. Just as the worldviews, self-images, social statuses, and possibilities of, say, a poor black mother, a single mulatto prostitute, and a rich white businesswoman in Brazil differ dramatically, even though all those individuals share a gender, so will the goals, perspectives, and possibilities of individual travestis differ from those of individual women, even though all those individuals share a gender. But inasmuch as travestis share the same gender as women, they are understood to share (and feel themselves to share) a whole spectrum of tastes, perceptions, behaviors, styles, feelings, and desires. And one of the most important of those desires is understood and felt to be the desire to attract and be attractive for persons of the opposite gender.ll The desire to be attractive for persons of the opposite gender puts pressure on individuals to attempt to approximate cultural ideals of beauty, thereby drawing them into patriarchal and heterosexual imperatives that guide aesthetic values and that frame the direction and the content of the erotic gaze.l2 And although attractive male bodies get quite a lot of attention and exposure in Brazil, the pressure to conform to cultural ideals of beauty, in Brazil as in northern Euro-American societies, is much stronger on females than on males. In all these societies, the ones who are culturally incited to look (with all the subtexts of power and control that that action can imply) are males, and the ones who are exhorted to desire to be looked at are females. In Brazil, the paragon of beauty, the body that is held forth, disseminated, and extolled as desirable in the media, on television, in popular music, during Carnival, and in the day-to-day public practices of both individual men and women (comments and catcalls from groups of males at women passing by, microscopic string bikinis, known throughout the country asfio dentat [dental floss], worn by women at the beach) is a feminine body with smallish breasts, ample buttocks, and high, wide hips. Anyone wishing to be considered desirable to a man should do what she can to approximate that ideal. And this, of course, is precisely what travestis do. They appropriate and incorporate the ideals of beauty that their culture offers them in order to be attractive to men: both real men (i.e., boyfriends, some clients, and vicios), and males who publicly pretend to be men" (clients and vicios who enJoy being penetrated). Conclusion: Penetrating Gender What exactly is gender and what is the relationship between sex and gender? Despite several decades of research, discussion, and intense debate, there is still no agreed-upon, widely accepted answer to those basic questions. Researchers who discuss gender tend to either not define it or, if they do define it, do so by placing it in a seemingly necessary relationship to sex. But one of the main reasons for the great success of Judith Butler's Gender Trouble (and in anthropology, Marilyn Strathern's The Gender of the Gift) is surely because those books called sharp critical attention to understandings of gender that see it as the cultural reading of a precultural, or prediscursive, sex. And what is 'sex' anyway?" asks Butler in a key passage: Is it natural, anatomical, chromosomal, or hormonal, and how is a feminist critic to assess the scientific discourses which purport to establish such facts" for us? Does sex have a history? Does each sex have a different history, or histories? Is there a histoxy of how the duality of sex was established, a genealogy that might expose the binary options as variable construction? Are the ostensibly natural facts of sex discursively produced by various scientific discourses in the service of other political and social interests? If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called sex" is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all. [1990:S7] It is only when one fully appreciates Butler's point and realizes that sex stands in no particularly privileged, or even necessary, relation to gender that one can begin to understand the various ways in which social groups can organize gender in different ways. My work among travestis has led me to define gender, more or less following Eve Sedgwick (1990:27-28), as a social and symbolic arena of ongoing contestation over specific identities, behaviors, rights, obligations, and sexualities. These identities and so forth are bound up with and productive of male and female persons, in a hierarchically ordered cultural system in which the male/ female dichotomy functions as a primary and perhaps a model binarism for a wide range of values, processes, relationships, and behaviors. Gender, in this rendering, does not have to be about men" and women." It can just as probably be about amen" and anot-men," a slight but extremely significant difference in social This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 582 AMERICAANN THROPOLOG*IS VT OL. 99, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBE1R9 97 classification that opens up different social configurations and facilitates the production of different identities, understandings, relationships, and imaginings. One of the main puzzles I have found myself having to solve about Brazilian travestis is why they exist at all. Turning to the rich and growing literature on homosexuality in Latin America was less helpful than I had hoped, because the arguments developed there cannot account for (1) the cultural forces at work that make it seem logical and reasonable for some males to permanently alter their bodies to make them look more like women, even though they do not consider themselves to be women and (2) the fact that travestis regularly (not to say daily) perform both the role of penetrator and penetrated in their various sexual interactions with clients, vicios, and boyfriends. In the first case the literature on homosexuality in Latin America indicates that it should not be necessary to go to the extremes that Brazilian travestis go to (they could simply live as effeminate, yet still clearly male, homosexuals), and in the second case, the literature leads one to expect that travestis would restrict their sexual roles, by and large, to that of being penetrated.l3 Wrong on both counts. What is lacking in this literature, and what I hope this essay will help to provide, is a sharper understanding of the ways in which sexuality and gender con- Elgure with one another throughout Latin America. My main point is that for the travestis with whom I work in Salvador, gender identity is thought to be determined by one's sexual behavior.l4 My contention is that travestis did not just pull this understanding out of thin air; on the contrary, I believe that they have distilled and clarified a relationship between sexuality and gender that seems to be widespread throughout Latin America. Past research on homosexual roles in Latin America (and by extension, since that literature builds on it, past research on male and female roles in Latin America) has perceived the links to sexuality and gender to which I have drawn attention (see, for example, Parker 1986: 157; 1991:43-53, 167), but it has been prevented from theorizing those links in the way I have done in this article because it has conflated sex and gender. Researchers have assumed that gender is a cultural reading of biological males and females and that there are, therefore, two genders: man and woman. Effeminate male homosexuals do not fit into this particular binary; they are clearly not women, but culturally speaking they are not men either. So what are they? Calling them 66not quite men, not quite women," as Roger Lancaster (1992: 274) does in his analysis of Nicaraguan cochones, is hedging: a slippage into third gender" language to describe a society in which gender, as Lancaster so carefully documents, is structured according to a powerful and coercive binary. It is also not hearing what cochones, travestis, and other effeminate Latin American homosexuals are saying. When travestis, maricas, or cochones call each other Ushe"o r when they call men who have been anally penetrated ashe," they are not just being campy and subcultural, as analyses of the language of homosexual males usually conclude; I suggest that they are perceptively and incisively reading off and enunciating core messages generated by their cultures' arrangements of sexuality, gender, and sex. I realize that this interpretation of travestis and other effeminate male homosexuals as belonging to the same gender as women will seem counterintuitive for many Latin Americans and students of Latin America. Certainly in Brazil, people generally do not refer to travestis as she," and many people, travestis will be the first to tell you, seem to eIuoy going out of their way to offend travestis by addressing them loudly and mockingly as ao senhor" (sir or mister).l5 The very word travesti is grammaticallym asculinei n BrazilianP ortuguese (o travesti), which makes it not only easy but logical to address the word's referent using masculine forms.l6 There are certainly many reasons why Brazilians generally contest and mock individual travestis' claims to femininity, not least among them being travestis' strong associations with homosexuality, prostitution, and AIDS all highly stigmatized issues that tend to elicit harsh condemnation and censure from many people. Refusal to acknowledge travestis' gender is one readily available way of refusing to acknowledge travestis' right to exist at all. It is a way of putting travestis back in their (decently gendered) place, a way of denying and defending against the possibilities that exist within the gender system itself for males to shift from one category to the other.l7 During the time I have spent in Brazil, I have also noted that the harshest scorn is reserved for unattractive travestis. Travestis such as Roberta Close and some of my own acquaintances in Salvador who closely approximate cultural ideals of feminine beauty are generally not publicly insulted and mocked and addressed as men. On the contrary, such travestis are often admired and regarded with a kind of awe. One conclusion I draw from this is that the commonplace denial of travestis' gender as not-men may not be so much a reaction against them as gender crossers as it is a reaction against unattractiveness in people (women and other not-men), whose job it is to make themselves attractive for men. Seen in this light, some of the hostility against (unattractive) travestis becomes intelligible as a reaction against them as failed women, not failed men, as more orthodox interpretations have usually argued. Whether or not I am correct in claiming that the patterns I have discussed here have a more widespread existence throughout Latin America remains to be seen. Some of what I argue here may be specific to Brazil, and some of it will inevitably be class specific. In a large, This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BRAZILIANT RANSGENDEREDPR OSTITUTES / DON KULICK 583 extraordinatily divided, and complex area like Latin America, many different and competing discourses and understandings about sexuality and gender will be available in different ways to different individuals. Those differences need to be investigated and documented in detail. My purpose here is not to suggest a monolithic and immutable model of gender and sexuality for everyone in Latin America. I readily admit to having close Elrsthandu nderstandingo nly of the travestis with whom I worked in Salvador, and the arguments presented in this essay have been developed in an ongoing attempt to make sense of their words, choices, actions, and relationships. At the same time, though, I am struck by the close similarities in gender and sexual roles that I read in other anthropologists' reports about homosexuality and male-female relations in countries and places far away from Salvador, and I think that the points discussed here can be helpful in understanding a number of issues not explicitly analyzed, such as why males throughout Latin America so violently fear being anally penetrated, why men who have sex with or even live with effeminate homosexuals often consider themselves to be heterosexual, why societies like Brazil can grant star status to particularly fetching travestis (they are just like women in that they are not-men, and sometimes they are more beautiful than women), why women in a place like Brazil are generally not offended or outraged by the prominence in the popular imagination of travestis like Roberta Close (like women, travestis like Close are also not-men, and hence they share women's tastes, perceptions, feelings, and desires), why many males in Latin American countries appear to be able to relatively unproblematically enJoy sexual encounters with effeminate homosexuals and travestis (they are definitionally not-men, and hence sexual relations with them do not readily call into question one's self-identity as a man), and why such men even pay to be penetrated by these not-men (for some men being penetrated by a not-man is perhaps not as status- and identity- threatening as being penetrated by a man; for other men it is perhaps more threatening, and maybe, therefore, more exciting). If this essay makes any contribution to our understanding of gender and sexuality in Latin America, it will be in revitalizing exploration of the relationship between sexuality and gender and in pronding a clearer framework within which we might be able to see connections that have not been visible before. Notes Acknowledgments. Research support for fieldwork in Brazil was generously provided by the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSFR) and the Wenner-GrenF oundation for AnthropologicalR esearch. The essay has benefited immensely from the critical comments of Ines Alfano, Lars Fant, Mark Graham, Barbara Hobson, Kenneth Hyltenstam, Heather Levi, Jerry Lombardi, Thais Machado-Borges, Cecilia McCallum, Stephen Murray, Bambi Schieffelin, Michael Silverstein, Britt-Marie Thuren, David Valentine, Unni Wikan, and Margaret Willson. My biggest debt is to the travestis in Salvador with whom I work and, especially, to my teacher and coworker, Keila Simpsom, to whom I owe everything. l. Chauncey 1994; Crisp 1968; Jackson 1989; Nanda 1990; Trumbach 1989; Whitehead 1981; Wikan 1977. 2. See, for example, Almaguer 1991, Carrier 1995, FIY 1986, Guttman 1996, Lancaster 1992, Leiner 1994, Murray 1987, 1995, Parker 1991, Prieur 1994, and Trevisan 1986. 3. One of the few contexts in which ideas similar to Latin American ones are preserved in North American and northern European understandings of male sexuality is prisons. See, for example, Wooden and Parker 1982. 4. This article is based on ll months of anthropological fieldwork and archival research and more than 50 hours of recorded speech and interviews with travestis between the ages of ll and 60 in Salvador, Brazil's third-largest city, with a population of over 2 million people. Details about the fieldwork and the transcriptions are in Kulick n.d. 5. Travestis are also the subject of two short anthropological monographs in Portuguese: de Oliveira 1994 and Silva 1993. There is also an article in English on travestis in Salvador: Cornwall 1994. As far as I can see, however, all the ethnographic data on travestis in that article are drawn from de Oliveira's unpublished master's thesis, which later became her monograph, and from other published sources. Some of the information in the article, such as the author's claim that 90 percent of the travestis in Salvador are devotees of the Afro-Brazilianr eligion candomble, is also hugely inaccurate. 6. In the summer months leading up to Carnival, travestis from other Brazilian cities flock to Salvador to cash in on the fact that the many popular festivals preceding Carnival put men in festive moods and predispose them to spend their money on prostitutes. 7. de Oliveira 1994; Kulick 1996a; Mott and Assuncao 1987; Silva 1993. 8. The literal translation of se senttr mulher is zto feel woman," and taken out of context, it could be read as meaning that travestis feel themselves to be women. In all instances in which it is used by travestis, however, the phrase means to feel like a woman," Zto feel as if one were a woman (even though one is not)." Its contrastive opposite is ser mulher (to be woman). 9. In her study of female prostitutes in London, for example, Day explains that Ua prostitute creates distinctions with her body so that work involves veiy little physical contact in contrast to private sexual contacts. Thus . . . at work . . . only certain types of sex are acceptable while sex outside work involves neither physical barriers nor forbidden zones" (1990:98). The distinctions to which Day refers here are inverted in travesti sexual relationships. 10. Bornstein 1994; Elkins and King 1996; Herdt 1994. 11. One gendered, absolutely central, and culturally incited desire that is almost entirely absent from this picture is the desire for motherhood. Although some readers of this This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 584 AMERICANA NTHROPOLOGIS*T VOL. 99, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBER1 997 article have suggested to me that the absence of maternal desires negates my thesis that travestis share a gender with women, I am more inclined to see the absence of such desire as yet another reflex of the famous Madonna-Whorceo mplex: travestis align themselves, exuberantly and literally, with the Whore avatar of Latin womanhood, not the Mother incarnation. Also, note again that my claim here is not that travestis are women. The claim is that the particular configurations of sex, gender, and sexuality in Brazil and other Latin American societies differ from the dominant configurations in northern Europe and North America, and generate different arrangements of gender, those that I am calling men and not-men. Motherhood is indisputably a crucial component of female roles and desires, in that a female may not be considered to have achieved full womanhood without it (and in this sense, travestis [like female prostitutes?] can only ever remain incomplete, or failed, women). I contend, however, that motherhood is not dete7minative of gender in the way that I am claiming sexuality is. 12. I use the word heterosexuality purposely because tra vesti-boyfriend relationships are generally considered, by travestis and their boyfriends, to be heterosexual. I once asked Edilson, a 35-year-old marido who has had two long-term relationships in his life, both of them with travestis, whether he considered himself to be heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual. I'm heterosexual; I'm a man," was his immediate reply. gI won't feel love for another heterosexual," he continued, significantly, demonstrating how very lightly the northern Euro-American classificatory system has been grafted onto more meaningful Brazilian ways of organizing erotic relationships: [For two males to be able to feel love], one of the two has to be gay." 13. One important exception to this is the Norwegian sociologist Annick Prieur's (1994) sensitive work on Mexican jotas. 14. Note that this relationship between sexuality and gender is the opposite of what George Chauncey reports for early-20th-centuryN ew York.W hereasC haunceya rgues that sexuality and gender in that place and time were organized so that one's sexual behavior was necessarily thought to be determined by one's gender identity" (1994:48), my argument is that for travestis in Salvador, and possibly for many people throughout Latin America, one's gender identity is necessarily thought to be determined by one's sexual behavior. One more point here. I wish to note that Unni Wikan, upon reading this paper as a reviewer for the Amertcan Anthropologist, pointed out that she made a similar claim to the one I argue for here in her 1977 article on the Omani xanith. Rereading that article, I discovered this to be true (see Wikan 1977:309), and I acknowledge that here. A major difference between Wikan's argument and my own, however, is that it is never entirely clear whether Omanis (or Wikan) conceptualize( s) xaniths as men, women, or as a third gender. (For a summary of the xanith debate, see Murray 1997.) 15. The exceptions to this are boyfriends, who often but, interestingly, not always use feminine grammatical forms when speaking to and about their travesti girlfriends, and clients, who invariably use feminine forms when negotiating sex with travestis. 16. In their day-to-day language practices, travestis subvert these grammatical strictures by most often using the grammatically feminine words mona and bicha instead of travesti. 17. The possibility for males to shift gender-at least temporarily, in (hopefully) hidden, private encounters seems to be one of the major attractions that travestis have for clients. From what many different travestis told me, it seems clear that the erotic pleasure that clients derive from being anally penetrated is frequently expressed in veIy specific, heavily gender-saturated, ways. I heard numerous stories of clients who not only wanted to be penetrated but also, as they were being penetrated, wanted the travesti to call them gostosa (delicious/sexy, using the feminine grammatical ending) and address them by female names. Stories of this kind are so common that I find it hard to escape the conclusion that a significant measure of the erotic delight that many clients derive from anal penetration is traceable to the fact that the sexual act is an engendering act that shifts their gender and transforms them from men into not-men. References Cited Almaguer, Tomas 1991 ChicanoM en:A Cartographyo f HomosexualI dentity and Behavior. Differences 3:75-100. Bornstein, Kate 1994 Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us. London: Routledge. 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Wooden, Wayne S., and Jay Parker 1982 Men behind Bars: Sexual Exploitation in Prison. New York: Da Capo Press. This content downloaded from 198.91.32.137 on Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:58:43 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions