Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

The terms bugarrón & pinguero represent 2 facets of MSM (men who have sex with men) identity in Cuba that have been shaped by Spanish colonialism & geopolitical conflicts. They link the historical and contemporary struggles of undocumented queer migrants who find opportunity through invisibility.

Paper long abstract:

The term bugarrón has European antecedents (the French word bougre referencing a sodomite, and often accusations of male pedophilia). Brought to the Caribbean through Spanish colonialism, it has re-emerged with new connotations and functions that are frequently invisible to heteronormative institutions and policies. In Cuba, this term traditionally arises in reference to father-son type relationships where an older single man informally adopts a young orphaned boy into his home, resulting in rumours of pedophilia. In contemporary Cuba, it is a reference to men who move from rural locations to Havana without residency permits. They sell their bodies to older sexually passive Cuban men in exchange for temporary housing and the opportunities to find/create money to send to their rural families. Their heterosexuality is not questioned, both because of the hypermasculinity that is imposed on black bodies as well as the notion that hypermasculinity and heterosexuality are dictated by the desire to penetrate and dominate any body regardless of sex or gender. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Cuba's ensuing economic crisis (1991), the Castro government opened the country to international tourism, which resulted in a surge in sex work and the emergence of the term pinguero, i.e. a bugarrón who primarily targets tourists, often with the goal of creating networks outside of Cuba for longer term economic stability and migration to Europe. I will look at these two terms in relation to their origins and social functions from Europe to Cuba and back again.