Productive pleasures across binary regimes: Phenomenologies of bisexual desires among Latino men

Introduction

… Only to [gay friends] can one explain how one lives, get it all out … one cannot just talk to any person about it. However, I have left many [gay] friends because then they argue with me, they tell me “… that you are gay, that you don't accept yourself,” and I respond to them “I am not, I am not gay, I am not homosexual, I am bisexual …” So then they say more things … further meddling in my life … and so what I do is I stop speaking to them … (Claudio, 43, from a town near Toluca, Mexico)

Butler and others have argued that “the [modern] heterosexualization of desire requires and institutes the production of discrete and asymmetrical oppositions between ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine,’ where these are understood as expressive attributes of ‘male’ and ‘female’” (1990: 17; Laqueur, 1990). The historical conditions setting this process in motion are complex but partly related to the differentiation of the family from its traditional politico-economic productive role and its modern institutionalization as a separate unit of emotional-cathectic reproduction within capitalist orders (D’Emilio, 1992: 3–16; Katz, 2007). In this context, the relentless heterosexualization of male desire of the last two centuries—in particular, the confounding of masculinity with exclusive female attraction—was contingent upon erasing bisexuality as an intelligible practice.

And yet some men, even in modern heteronormative regimes, are able to negotiate bisexual desires in productive and generative ways without undermining their sense of masculinity and sexual agency. Using qualitative methods I explore the sexualities of a group of these men—Latino men who have sex with men and women—as they navigate a heteronormative world in southern California. Comparing sexual narratives across male and female partners, I show how these men find liminal spaces within the interstices of binary regimes that generate new and amplified pleasures of elusive categorization.

Recent scholarship critically interrogates the “unmarked” modern categories of heterosexuality and hetero-masculinity locating their (re)production in complex institutional histories rather than simple evolutionary reductionisms. Moreover, far from considering heterosexuality as a monolithic site of domination resistant to social change, this scholarship rejects the notion that heterosexuality is always compulsory and oppressive, resting on the subordination of women. In contrast, heterosexuality is theorized as a site of pleasure, fluid and productive, including intimate experiences that fuel agency leading to social change. In this light, critical heterosexualities (Dean, 2011, 2013; Fisher, 2013) and heterodox hetero-masculinities studies (Anderson and McCormack, 2015; Beasley, 2015a, 2015b; McCormack, 2012; McCormack and Anderson, 2010) argue against conflating heterosexuality with heteronormativity. They find much diversity among heterosexualities and highlight new hetero-masculine expressions as transgressive, sexually inclusive, exploratory of homosocial “tactilities,” intimate contacts, and gay peer acceptance.

According to Beasley in many studies “hetero-masculinity is overdetermined as a source of domination, while at the same time it is under-researched and under-theorized as a site for social change” and pleasure (2015a: 135). Beasley uses the term heterodoxy to draw attention to non-normative possibilities that include not only macro social change (social movements) but also the emancipatory potential of a micro-politics of sexuality to “find fissures in the supposed monolith of hetero-masculinity” (2015a: 137). Some heterodox heterosexual practices may involve everyday activities that are not always unequivocally in opposition to the normative (Brook, 2015; Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). Yet hetero-masculine practices may also include unconventional or transgressive pleasures and desires that offer great opportunities for social change. In short, innovation and agency within the confines of hetero-masculinity for this scholarship are not the “oxymoron” unimaginable in some strands of gender and sexuality studies (Beasley, 2015b: 146). ²

Recent research among non-exclusive “straight-identified” white men who meet online finds considerable same-sex behavior in some populations, debunking the popular myth that “down low” sex is circumscribed to men of color. Ward (2008: 421, 2015), for instance, captures the phenomenon of “dude-sex” among “str8” men as a “less desirable, but ‘easy,’ alternative to sex with women,” and a racial signifier of their whiteness. Silva (2017a: 53, 2017b) defines “bud-sex” among rural men as behavior that reinforces “their straightness through unconventional interpretations of same-sex: as ‘helpin’ a buddy out,’ relieving ‘urges’ …” and that cements their rural masculinity and heterosexuality. Carrillo and Hoffman (2016, 2017) find considerable “heteroflexibility” among a sample of straight-identified men seeking other men online. These men report a range of secondary identities and strategies to distinguish themselves from gay and bisexual men, including asserting their primary attraction to women as well as devaluing sex with other men as less pleasurable or not emotionally significant. Carrillo and Hoffman (2017: 2) argue that in the process of maintaining their identities as straight, “these men change the definition of heterosexuality, in effect turning it into a considerably elastic category,” and thus analysts should reconceptualize the category to fully capture these men's lived experience. These studies argue that participants’ same-sex desire is a constitutive part of their “straight” self-identities as long as—in the men's own interpretations—romantic or emotional attachment to a male partner is avoided. The latter attachments would signify to them the limits of their heterosexual “elasticity.”

It is in the context of heterodoxy and critical heterosexualities that this study also problematizes monolithic understandings of hetero-masculinity. However, far from conceptualizing same-sex behavior of straight or bisexual men as ultimately reinforcing heteronormative masculinities, I take the argument a step further and interrogate the limits of the emic categories themselves to fully capture men's productive and transgressive sexual experiences. Thus, the experiences of the Latino men of this study—some self-identified as bisexual, others as heterosexual—are uneasily classified as part of monosexual or bisexual identities or orientations. As will be discussed later, these men's desires open windows into liminal spaces that I argue move beyond indirect reproduction of heteronormative masculinity. They involve liminal pleasures and cathectic attachments that resist binary definition and redefine masculinity in “non-heterosexual” ways, reconfiguring gender relations without undermining strong desire for women in the process. In this regard, a significant contribution of this study is the finding that these behaviorally bisexual men experience having sex with other men to be at times more “awesome” and pleasurable than with women in unexpected ways, and even some establish intense emotional connections with their male partners. Moreover, their same-sex experiences do not diminish their sense of masculinity.

Latino men who have sex with men and women have been typically studied as part of the larger group of Latino men having sex with men. Mounting research on Latino behavioral bisexual men has revealed the complexities of this group's sexualities (Gonzalez, 2007; Munoz-Laboy, 2004; Munoz-Laboy and Dodge, 2007, 2005). This qualitative study contributes to this body of research by examining at a fine-grain level of micro-interactional analysis the sexual organization of these men's desires and practices. To my knowledge few studies have captured at this level of detail bisexual men's own reflexive comparisons of sexual encounters between men and women. Participants of this study have experiences rooted in their migration histories that articulate with their current lives in the USA, and that ultimately destabilize rigid constructs of modern and traditional sexualities. ³

To the same extent that gendered pasivo/activo models of Latino/Latin-American homosexualities have been challenged by new (and not so new) forms—such as gay or homosocial sexualities and their hybrid combinations (Carrillo, 2002, 2017; Carrillo and Fontdevila, 2014; Nunez Noriega, 1999 [1994]; Vidal-Ortiz et al., 2010)—this study also challenges stereotypes of working-class, Latino bisexual men as if they were a homogeneous group engaging in rigid hetero-masculine roles. Participants of this study are mostly working class, do not identify as gay—in fact most never intersect with gay venues—and yet at least half do not practice exclusive anal-insertive roles. Many negotiate their same-sex desire in homoerotic ways—including being anal-receptive or establishing emotional attachments to men—while still strongly desiring women. In short, participants of this study challenge conventional categories of identity politics—gay, heterosexual—and instead engage in productive ways of generating pleasure. Following methods and sample description, I turn to the thematic findings emerging from the qualitative analysis.

Methods

The author conducted 20 in-depth interviews in Orange County, California, with Latino men who have sex with men and women. Participants were recruited in 2010 via community-based organization networks, magazine ads, internet sites, day laborer sites, snowballing, and flyers where men seek other men (e.g. streets, porn bookstores, parks). Eligible participants were at least 18, sexually active with men and women in the past 12 months, and self-identified of Latin or Hispanic origin.

In-depth interviews lasted two hours on average and followed a semi-structured conversational format that explored a participant's current and past social and sexual life, including a comparison of two sexual narrative “events” in the past year (one narrative of vaginal or anal sex with a female sex partner, another narrative of anal sex with a male sex partner). A short demographic/behavioral survey was completed at the end. Participants were compensated $50 each. The university's Institutional Review Board approved the study. Interviews were professionally transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were then summarized and systematically coded by the author across the whole sample using NVivo qualitative analysis software. Through detailed analysis of open and axial coding in sequential iterations, the author obtained a growing thematic tree that was further refined by memoing and selective coding. This article examines themes related to evaluations contrasting sexual encounters between male and female sex partners. Selected quotations are illustrative of important thematic findings. Two interviews were conducted in English and 18 in Spanish. Passages were translated by the author from the Spanish original. All participants' names are pseudonyms.

Study participants were on average 38 years old (range 25–48). Most (n = 15) did not have a high-school degree; two were college graduates. Most (n = 15) were born in Mexico, two in Central America (Guatemala, Honduras), one in Peru, and two in the USA. Almost half (n = 9) were unemployed. Those working reported jobs including construction, custodian, maintenance, cook, landscaping, moving, shipping, mail clerk, and day laborer. Eight participants were married to a woman currently or in the past. Seven reported a female steady partner and two reported a male steady partner in the past year. Asked about sexual orientation, most (n = 12) identified as bisexual. ⁴ The rest reported a range of heterosexual-oriented identities, including derecho—straight—(n = 3), heterosexual (n = 2), normal (n = 2), and hombre—man—(n = 1). None reported a gay sexual orientation or identity.

Finding sex in southern California

Participants reported that seeking sex across genders was interactionally very different, involving distinct venues and spaces in southern California. Participants met their male sex partners at porn bookstores, via magazine/newspaper ads, internet sites, gyms, friends' networks, house parties, parks, local bars, and on the street. Only one participant, Gerardo, a 25-year-old man from Mexico City, actively sought men at gay bars in southern California's gay urban areas, such as West Hollywood or Long Beach. The rest never patronized gay bars or had never even been to a gay bar. Many disliked public displays of affection between men. To illustrate a typical cruising ritual between men, Julian, a 46-year-old man from Santa Ana, California, describes a sexual encounter with a man at a porn bookstore:

… there is little booths, and say it was you, you walked in a booth, and go, ‘hey, what's up,’ ‘hey, what's up, come here’ … by that time everybody already has their pants down or [are] jacking it off … and then usually whoever is going to go down on you, goes down on you, you know, … ‘do you want to fuck?’

Same-sex practices of bisexual men

Emerging from the analysis of male cruising rituals, I find three analytical types of same-sex practices showing consistent repertoires: homoerotic, heterogendered, and situational. I make no ontological claims since some participants combined features of various practices depending on context. Note that all participants were sexually attracted to their female sex partners as well—concurrently or sequentially.

Phenomenologies of bisexual desires ⁶

Conclusion

Across both homoerotic and heterogendered-practicing men of this study emerges the widespread finding that male sex partners belong in a sexual space that signifies “rougher” and physically unrestrained sexual pleasures—including “tighter” anal sex and readily available oral sex. For the homoerotic group in particular, sexualized spaces may involve playful mutual penetration, open intimate communication, and the full experience of masculine bodies. Moreover, men—in contrast to women—are perceived across both bisexual groups to require fewer interactional demands, including less impression management in relation to cruising rituals and less pressure to please sexually. Finally, male partners do not often require the same level of moral respect that women command and hence men are arguably less fragile symbolically and ritualistically.

In light of these findings, I contend that for these men sexual acts with women appear to be “burdened with an excess of significance” (Rubin, 1992 [1984]: 279) that is not experienced when they have sex with other men. Such burdens involve also the high-stake demands of hetero-masculine self-presentations vis-à-vis female partners (Fontdevila, 2006). ⁷ Sexual practices with women—in contrast to men—involve performances that are interactionally more fragile and step-wise where “breaches” can occur at any juncture. This gender asymmetry regarding female moral, cruising, and sexual demands is the performative expression on the ground of discourses of “proper/improper” femininity and gender double standards that circulate unabated and are heavily regulated at the normative level.

In this context, same-sex practices for these bisexual men, I argue, constitute transgressive spaces where they experience stronger liminality than different-sex practices. These liminal spaces generate same-sex pleasures and desires that are less discursively regulated than their different-sex ones—from unrestrained “rougher” sex, anal and oral sex availability, to more relaxed intimate communication and emotional cathexis depending on context. They constitute temporary and relative anti-structures á la Victor Turner (1969) that ritually decouple agency from structure—heterosexual gender structure—and hence are experienced as intensely pleasurable and playful. If meaning-making is increasingly understood to rise from the interstices between boundaries, then navigating across gender boundaries produces liminal, in-between spaces that are highly meaningful to these men (Lamont and Molnar, 2002). ⁸

In Foucauldian parlance (1990 [1978]), I consider these liminal spaces to be points of resistance. Not because they are outside power but because they are in the interstices of it. Sex with other men—like study participants discover and learn to perform ⁹ —attains a transgressive liminality that resists identity definition and is likely the reason for its productive pleasure and recurrent attraction. Following Beasley (2015a: 138), I contend that in seeking out fissures in the supposed monolith of their hetero-masculinity, many men of this study—homoerotic but heterogendered-practicing men as well—find “heterodoxical opportunities for pleasure and social change.” Rather than reinforcing heteronormativity, I argue that many bisexual men are resisting its hegemony and reframing it. In the process they generate unexpected and amplified pleasures of elusive categorization that expand and ultimately enrich their relationship to both genders. Even among heterogendered men who devalue sex with other men, same-sex practices open spaces to sexual pleasures unconstrained by the face-to-face demands of “doing gender” with women. In these non-heterosexual arenas, these men's masculine desires are not just reproducing heteronormativity but simultaneously expanding erotic self-discovery within the interstices of the modern binary.

Same-sex and different-sex practices have co-existed—in various degrees of institutional and semiotic signification—throughout history, emerging from diverse psychosexual etiologies across and within cultures (Herdt, 1997). According to Hacking (1999, 2002), our modern classifications of sexual orientation—homosexual, heterosexual—are not based on “causal histories” in the ontological sense and hence should not be conceptualized as “natural kinds.” Certainly these taxonomies are of the “interactive kind” in that they loop back on the classified individuals transforming them in the process. As he explains, “let a new way to classify human beings emerge, and let people become aware of how they are classified, then they will often behave differently … The truths about that category of people will change because the people have changed … that is, classifications interact with the classified” (Hacking, 2002: 104).

Nevertheless, I would add that “interactive” taxonomies never exhaust the range of sexual practice as lived experience. In as much as post-Victorian binary classifications may have interacted with the “classified” and shaped participants' interpretations, the phenomenologies of bisexual desires—the capacity to navigate genders and find enjoyment in both—experienced by the men of this study are still quite refractory to established taxonomies in significant ways. I here use the trope “phenomenologies of bisexual desires” to convey the understanding that many of these men experience not only subjective phenomena specific to their bisexual lifeworlds but also a sort of “phenomenological reduction” that partially suspends taken-for-granted heteronormative binary structures as they transgress into same-sex practices (Schutz, 1967 [1932]). Within such reduction, they experience deep layers of desire not fully shaped by the discursive presuppositions of contemporary heteronormative masculinity. In the process they temporarily unveil new experiences of pleasure and transform their selves while discovering that same-sex desire does not necessarily undermine their own masculinity.

In crossing boundaries these men generate pleasures that are of elusive categorization. Any attempt to analytically “erase” their desires as either “truly” homosexual or heterosexual—or reduce them to a newly self-contained political category of “bisexual identity”—will prove self-defeating and likely miss the richness and complexity of their everyday lived sexual experience, which includes explorations, contradictions, and resistances. The dangers of closed classificatory systems are that they refocus energies from pleasure to identity. I thus conclude with Foucault's (1996: 385) insights on the limits of identity for sexual life:

If identity becomes the problem of sexual existence, and if people think they have to ‘uncover’ their ‘own identity’ and that their own identity has to become the law, the principle, the code of their existence; if the perennial question they ask is ‘Does this thing conform to my identity?’ then, I think, they will turn back to a kind of ethics very close to the old heterosexual virility … [The] relationships we have to have with ourselves are not ones of identity, rather they must be relationships of differentiation, of creation, of innovation.