Queer Argentina - Movement Towards The Closet in A Global Time (2017, Palgrave Macmillan US)

QUEER
ARGENTINA
M o v e m e n t To w a r d s t h e
Closet in a Global Time
M AT T H E W J . E D WA R D S
[NEW DIRECTIONS IN LATINO AMERICAN CULTURES]

New Directions in Latino American Cultures
Series Editors
Licia Fiol-Matta
Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies
Lehman College
Bronx, New York, USA
José Quiroga
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Aims of the Series
The series will publish book-length studies, essay collections, and read-
ers on sexualities and power, queer studies and class, feminisms and race,
post-coloniality and nationalism, music, media, and literature. Traditional,
transcultural, theoretically savvy, and politically sharp, this series will set
the stage for new directions in the changing field. We will accept well-
conceived, coherent book proposals, essay collections, and readers.
More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/14745
Matthew J. Edwards
Queer Argentina
Movement Towards the Closet in a Global Time
Matthew J. Edwards
University of Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri, USA
New Directions in Latino American Cultures

ISBN 978-1-137-58159-4 ISBN 978-1-137-57465-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57465-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016955812
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To Solange, Maira, and Simon
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Queer Argentina began a long time ago, before I knew who the authors
and artists discussed in the following chapters were, and when I was not
thinking of Buenos Aires, but rather traveling to Montreal and Mexico
City, Santiago de Chile and Atlanta. This has always been a project about
feeling uncomfortable at home. Yet I need to thank my family and friends
for letting me leave, and allowing me to return; for hearing my stories,
and repeating them as their own. But most of all for their support as I
continue to move.
There are many people who have formed part of this story as it began
to take shape. The conversations I was able to have with them and the
inspiration I was able to take for myself, from them, has been invaluable
in gaining the courage to speak about what I see, hear, and feel. In par-
ticular, I need to thank María Mercedes Carrión who, many years ago,
spoke to me candidly about how to express my thoughts over coffee in
Salamanca—I still hear your advice; Karen Stolley, who, not only listened
to this project come to life in conversations and over email exchanges
but also commented on a number of these chapters in their earlier ver-
sions—your patient guidance and support go well beyond these pages,
just as does my gratitude; and José Quiroga, whose questions, from the
beginning, have made me think about why it was so important for me to
talk about Queer Argentina, and not simply marginality in other times and
places—our conversations continue to motivate me to develop an inde-
pendent critical voice.
I am thankful to have had many people listen to me speak about these
authors and artists when I was unsure of how to do so. Michael Moon,
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Angelika Bammer, Luis Cárcamo-Huechante, Larry LaFontain-Stokes,

Viviane Mahieux, Brad Epps, José Arnaldo Larrauri, Omar Granados,
Margarita Pintado, Vanessa Nelsen—you all have a place in these pages.
Your thoughtful engagement with different parts of this project at confer-
ences, across seminar tables, or over glasses of wine have allowed me to
continue, and arrive at something that seemed so distant. Heather Love,
your work inspires me to understand queerness as a place, as a state of
being that everyone belongs to. Thank you for taking the time, which I
understand to be so very precious, to read about this book project and
help focus my thoughts in its early stages. Pablo Farneda, thank you for
pointing me toward San Telmo. Juan Ariel Gómez, our continued discus-
sion of queer Argentine authors over the past three years has been excep-
tional, motivating, enlightening: thank you for reaching out. Juan Poblete
and Victor Goldgel, your comments pushed me through the final edits of
this manuscript: thank you for looking at Naty Menstrual’s tees with me
in Madison, Wisconsin. Kathy Krause, and Scott Baker, your advice and
guidance have been essential over the past five years and has helped not
only to clarify arguments I was trying to establish, but also, and maybe
more importantly, to acquire funding for this final stage of the manu-
script writing. Lindsy Myers you have been a special interlocutor for me
as I approached completion. Your willingness to listen, read, and actively
cross over, and move through disciplines in order to engage this project
and follow me to Queer Argentina has inspired me to speak clearly about
my goals and carefully map my travels. I am especially indebted to Shaun
Vigil, at Palgrave Macmillan, and Caitlin Keenan, as well as to those read-
ers who have gone unnamed: your comments and guidance have ener-
gized me throughout the last stages of this journey.
Margaret Boyle, Sandra Navarro, Valeria Manzano, and Mauro
Pasqualini, you have been my go-to people for a decade now. Your contin-
ued support and friendship despite the growing pressures in all of our lives
has provided me with a model to follow. Thank you for everything. Please
know that I am so very grateful for your patient, continued dedication and
critical vision of all that I do.
Since Queer Argentina is not a place that is easily found on a map, I
would particularly like to thank the sources that have funded my quest
for it. The West Virginia Humanities Council, Concord University, the
University of California, at Los Angeles’ Latin American Institute pro-
vided funding that allowed me access to archives, without which I would
not have been able to look through María Moreno’s first columns and
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
Copi’s early sketches of his Seated Woman. The support I have received at
the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and specifically from the College
of Arts and Science, and the Department of Foreign Languages and
Literatures has been constant and has provided necessary stability in order
to work on a project founded on (my own) unsure movements. In particu-
lar, I would like to thank the University of Missouri’s Research Board for
recognizing the value of time and for funding a sabbatical that permitted
me to finish this manuscript.
A very special thank you to Fedérico Botana, Raúl Colombres, and
Josefina Ros at the Fundación Landru, for their kindness and patience,
and for allowing me to reproduce images of Copi’s cartoons in these
pages. Naty Menstrual, I am so grateful for your continued support and
engagement with this project. In particular, thank you for allowing me to
include your artwork alongside my discussions of it. Nicólas Fernández
and Marieta Vazquez, thank you both for taking amazing pictures—they
are beautiful.
Arriving in Queer Argentina admittedly has been a difficult journey
that has required a certain amount of sustained and prolonged struggle.
Because of this I am most thankful to those who have come along with
me. They know that I am not easy to travel with. Thank you for your
patience, for your energy, for your strength: without it I would not have
left home.
CONTENTS
1 Introduction: Same-Sex Marriage and the Collective Moving

Toward Difference 1
2 Interested in Copi 27
3 Disabled Attractions in Kiss of the Spider Woman 61
4 María Moreno’s Model Behavior 93
5 The Queer Consumption of Naty Menstrual 125
6 Conclusion: César Aira and Queer Movements in Crisis 159
Index 195
xi
LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 2.1 Literary Estate of Copi, Raúl Colombres. Tía Vicenta 2.29 (1958) 32
Fig. 2.6 Literary Estate of Copi, Los pollos no tienen sillas (Buenos
Aires: El cuenco de la plata, 2012) 10–11 37
Aires: El cuenco de la plata, 2012) 68 38
Fig. 4.1 Gabriel Levinas El Porteño, 1.1 (1982), 32 100
Fig. 5.1 Fernando Varas Toledo (Naty Menstrual), personal
photograph, 2013 130
Fig. 5.2 Fernando Varas Toledo (Naty Menstrual), personal
photograph, 2013 132
Fig. 5.3 Fernando Varas Toledo (Naty Menstrual), gift to author
(M.J. Edwards), 2013 132
Fig. 5.4 Fernando Varas Toledo (Naty Menstrual), gift to author
(M.J. Edwards), 2013 136
Fig. 5.5 Naty Menstrual, Batido de trolo (Buenos Aires: Milena
Cacerola, 2012). Cover page 150
Cacerola, 2012). 13 151
xiii
xiv LIST OF FIGURES

Cacerola, 2012). 27. Photo by Nicolás Fernández 152
Cacerola, 2012). 146. Photo by Marieta Vazquez.
www.marietavazquez.com.ar 153
Cacerola, 2012). 198. Photo by Marieta Vazquez.
www.marietavazquez.com.ar 154
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Same-Sex Marriage

and the Collective Moving Toward
Difference
STOP TIME, PAUSE FOR CHANGE

On July 14, 2010, Argentina paused and waited. After more than eight
years of debates, petitions, controversy, and marches, 63 of the nation’s
senators were taking the issue of civil marriage for same-sex couples to
Congress. Over the next 15 hours, the social and political activists and
interested parties who had protagonized this exchange waited in anxiety
and anticipation outside the closed doors of the nation’s congressional
building. The spectacle that accompanied the debate over civil marriage
rights had come to an end, at least for now.1
The mise-en-scène that had staged the negotiation of so many differing
perspectives gave way to an awkward sharing of space; antagonisms were
silenced as proponents and opponents of the normative sexual guidelines
were stripped of their central roles and forced to wait, together. While
ideological gaps continued to exist, the performance of difference came
to a halt. In the face of political process, social activism, controversy, and
contempt were powerless. Time had stopped. The curtains had closed.
Behind the doors of Congress, however, activity raged as the nation
symbolically gathered in the ritual of political debate. The performance of
political process becomes synonymous with the orderly, monolithic rep-
resentation of public opinion: The Speaker of the house, in his role as
congressional stage director, reminds those present of their positions and
© The Author(s) 2017 1

M.J. Edwards, Queer Argentina,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57465-7_1
2 M.J. EDWARDS
roles both on and off stage. The microphone raises each senator’s voice
above the murmur of performative preparations and forces each to be
considered in isolation. Any formal reaction to the speakers must wait, as
ritualized stage directions insist that communication and heated debate be
performed through a slow, disconnected process where detailed mono-
logues replace the fragmented, back-and-forth exchange of natural argu-
ment. What remains at the end of the pageant is a unique sequence of
complete ideological affirmations—chronologically situated, in their tran-
scribed version, in Congress’s libretto.
As the debate inside Congress began, the theatrics that once character-
ized the lively protests, confrontations, and emotions in the public sphere
were safely reduced to the notes set out before each senator in an open-
faced archive. Solid, clear, immutable, the story each senator possessed
gave form to a philosophical discussion on the place of tradition and the
consequences of change. Unlike the oscillating negotiation of power that
characterizes glances and gestures in the public forum, the story laid out
before each senator served as a guide to social interpretation; epistemo-
logical systems of knowledge founded on clarity gave order to the pages.
The debate began with Senator Liliana Alonso de Negre (Bloque
Justicialista of San Luis). She had been charged during the preceding
month with the holding of meetings throughout the nation to poll pub-
lic opinion regarding same-sex marriage. Alonso de Negre had hosted
a total of 17 sessions—eight in Buenos Aires and nine in different pro-
vincial cities—and had filmed and transcribed over 100 hours of debate.
Her brief introductory words describing this experience were followed
by a 10-minute video synthesis of these discussions. Although the video
Alonso de Negre presented has been criticized widely by the national
media as propagandistic and superficial,2 what interests me here is not her
problematic use of multimedia, but her concluding words, uttered after
approximately 60 minutes on Congress’s center stage:
No me preocupa que las personas homosexuales, si se quieran casar, se

casen, sino el efecto sobre terceros. Me preocupa que vamos a hacer con
la educación sexual, porque a partir de este proyecto de ley la sexualidad se
construye. (…)
Lo que no comparto es este manual que empieza a repartir ahora el
Ministro de Educación de la Nación y que se llama “Educación Afectivo-
Sexual en la Educación Primaria”. No lo comparto. El manual señala que
los objetivos son conocer el cuerpo y tomar conciencia del crecimiento del
INTRODUCTION: SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AND THE COLLECTIVE MOVING... 3
mismo reconociendo diferencias con el otro sexo y con las personas adultas
desarrollando hábitos de bienestar corporal, asumiendo el cuerpo como
fuente de sensaciones, comunicación y placer como una identidad sexual
libre de elementos de género discriminatoria. Esto no lo comparto, señor
presidente.
Mi mayor preocupación es el impacto que va a tener sobre la edu-
cación. En el manual figura un niño y una niña desnudos y cositos para ir
aplicándoles en cada uno, depende de cómo uno quiere construir el sexo,
la construcción sexual. Acá dice: Debemos cuestionar las características con-
sideradas culturalmente como propias de uno u otro sexo…Cuestionar. Esto
está preparado para los chicos del primario. Cuestionar las características
consideradas culturalmente como propias de uno u otro sexo, cuidando no
reforzarlas y desarrollando actividades de compensación que contribuyan a
eliminar estas actitudes y comportamientos discriminatorios, favoreciendo
con ello la asunción positiva de la identidad sexual.
Acá está eso que estaba mostrando: figuras con las partes del cuerpo.
Entonces, las van llenando los chicos, depende de lo que quieran ser: hom-
bre o mujer, nena o varón.
Esto es lo que más me preocupa de este proyecto de ley: qué va a ser la
educación sexual a partir de ahora. Porque ahora no hay una sola sexuali-
dad. Ahora vamos a tener que enseñarles también a nuestros niños qué es
el lesbianismo, qué es gay, qué es bisexual, qué es transexual. Les vamos a
tener que enseñar eso a los niños. Ya no les vamos a enseñar únicamente
hombre y mujer. No cómo nacemos hombre y mujer, sino que les vamos a
enseñar, a partir de esta ley y de lo que está en este manual del Ministerio de
Educación, que el sexo es una construcción social.3
(My concern is not with the ability of homosexual people, if they want to
get married, get married, but with how this affects third parties. I am wor-
ried about what we are going to do with sexual education, because after this
project, sexuality is constructed.(…) What I do not agree with is this manual
that the Minister of Education of the Nation begins to hand out now, pro-
posed to be called “Affective-Sexual Education within Primary Education.”
I don’t agree with that. The manual suggests that the objectives [of sexual
education in primary education] are [for children] to understand the body
and become conscious of its growth and recognize the differences with the
other sex and with adults while developing habits of physical well-being
that understand the body as the source of sensations, communication and
pleasure, as a sexual identity free from gender discrimination. I don’t agree
with this, Mr. President.
My greatest preoccupation is the impact this will have on education.
The manual shows a boy and girl naked, with things that can be applied
to each according to how they would like to construct their sex, the sexual
4 M.J. EDWARDS
construction. Here it says: We should question the characteristics that are

considered culturally as belonging to one or the other sex…Question. This
is what has been prepared for children in primary school. To “question the
characteristics that are considered culturally as belonging to one or the other
sex,” by taking measures not to reinforce [these cultural conventions] and
by developing compensatory activities that contribute to the elimination
of these attitudes and discriminatory behaviors, while favoring the positive
acceptance of sexual identity.
Here is what I was showing: images with parts of the body. The children
then continue to complete them depending upon what they want to be:
man or woman, girl or boy.
This is what most bothers me about this law: What is going to happen to
sexual education from this point forward. Because now there isn’t just one
sexuality. Now we are also going to have to teach our children what lesbian-
ism is, what gay is, what bisexual is and what transsexual is. We are going to
have to teach that to our children. We are not only going to teach them man
and woman. Not how we are born man and woman. What we are going to
teach them, from this law forward, and from what is in this manual from the
Ministry of Education, is that sex is a social construction.)
Senator Alonso de Negre’s comments confront—and, in this case,

oppose—sexual equality in a surprising way. Although her staunch adher-
ence to Argentina’s heteronormative tradition is non-negotiable, she
demonstrates that understanding sexuality as a social construct is not an
impossible feat by any means: in fact, she grasps the idea rather well. What
is problematic, according to Alonso de Negre, is that understanding sexu-
ality as a social construct necessarily complicates an otherwise organized
ideological system with new information and different perspectives. The
textbook she references, seems to read from, and finally holds in her hand
for her colleagues to look at, becomes quickly emblematic of the rigidity of
dominant ideology, where change is maligned for the complexities it raises:
complexities of updating new editions, disseminating them throughout
the nation, and learning how to deal with a new series of pedagogical dis-
cussions aimed at elaborating such new themes.4 Although she does not
seem to doubt society’s capacity for change, her comments and textual
references represent a definitive preference for stability in a very textual
sense. Her use of the textbook as evidence not only provides a prop that
reinforces the theatrical backdrop of the political arena, but more impor-
tantly insists that we consider both notions of community and nationhood
as dependent upon the subject’s positioning within a textual realm. The
complications associated with queer subjectivity position members of the

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Transgendered, Intersex, and Queer
(LGBTTIQ) community naturally outside normative notions of collec-
tivity. Alonso de Negre’s hesitation to explain queer sexuality stems from
her desire to reinforce this marginal status, to prohibit queer identifica-
tion from occurring within the sexual education classroom; in taking this
stand, Alonso de Negre took her position as a representative of the chain
reactions associated with the consequences of heteronormative traditions.
Next to speak was Jujuan senator Liliana Beatriz Fellner (Frente para
la Victoria). In her response, Fellner insisted on the necessity for the law
to reflect reality, and argued vehemently that reality itself already reflected
and supported this legislative proposal. For Fellner, legislation surround-
ing marriage should exemplify the shift implicit in social relationships over
time; the proposed changes to Argentina’s Civil Code would represent the
official record of such change. In this sense, Fellner assured the Congress
that “[e]l matrimoinio civil es una construcción. No cabe ninguna duda”
(civil unions are a construction, there is no doubt.).5 However, she con-
tinued, it is precisely the constructed nature of such traditions that allows
for change to occur:
Ha sido modificado a través del tiempo. El matrimonio civil es una con-

strucción social, cultural y económica en un determinado tiempo y en un
determinado espacio. Y al ser fruto de una construcción social y cultural
tiene un carácter dinámico porque la base es el hombre, y éste es cambiante
social y culturalmente en el tiempo. (…) Algunos ejemplos muy claros, para
ver cómo ha ido cambiando este concepto de matrimonio adecuándose a
la realidad de las distintas épocas. Antiguamente, los padres arreglaban los
matrimonios de los hijos. Por eso, justamente, el artículo 172 del Código
Civil dice que el matrimonio exige el consentimiento expresado. Hoy eso
resulta una obviedad, pero tiene que ver con esto que estoy diciendo, que
antiguamente los matrimonios se arreglaban entre los padres, con quiénes
se debían casar estos hijos y esas hijas. En algunos estados era impensable
que dos personas de distinta raza se pudiesen casar y hoy lo estamos viendo.
Era impensable que no fuera indisoluble. Y todo ha ido variando, porque las
implicaciones y lo que significa ese matrimonio se ha ido adaptando a reali-
dades distintas de esta misma sociedad, a situaciones diferentes y, en muchos
casos, a derechos que han sido ganados por esa sociedad. De ninguna forma
se puede seguir con el concepto de que el matrimonio civil es estático. Al
revés, tiene que ser en beneficio de esa sociedad que va cambiando.6
6 M.J. EDWARDS
(It has changed throughout time. Civil marriage is a social, cultural

and economic construct in a determined time and space. As civil union
is the fruit of a social and cultural construction, it is inherently dynamic:
because the base is man, and man is socially and culturally changeable in
time. (…) [I wish to provide] a few very clear examples of how marriage
as a concept has changed over time, adjusting itself to the different reali-
ties of each epoch. Some time ago, fathers arranged marriages for their
children. And it is because of this, precisely, that article 172 of the Civil
Code states that marriage requires expressed consent. Today, that seems
obvious, but it has to do with what I am saying, that in an earlier time,
marriages were arranged between the parents of the sons or daughters who
would be married. Likewise, in some states, it was unthinkable that two
people of different races could be married, and today we are seeing this.
It is unthinkable now that this union wasn’t binding. Everything changes,
because what marriage means has been adapting to the different realities of
this very society, to different situations, and in many cases, to rights that
have been won by this society. In no way can we continue to think that civil
marriage is static. On the contrary, it has to be a benefit of this society that
it continues to change.)
Despite Fellner’s explicit distancing of herself from de Negre’s ideologi-

cal position, her discourse continues to locate marginal subjects (here in
the form of interracial couples and the children of patriarchal order), as
outside the law and outside textuality. The flexibility Fellner attributes to
the Civil Code—and to marriage in particular—while appealing to liberal
epistemologies, places social alterity and the queer subject in an extra-
textual space. Here, the normal continues to be what is understood and
documentable, while the unknown is misunderstood, undocumented,
waiting in the wings to be included in a textual reality that is favored for
its tangible, concrete, and solid nature.
The significance of Fellner’s speech in response to same-sex marriage in
Argentina does not solely lie in her consequent “yea” vote nor does it lie in
her reproach of De Negre’s staunch opposition. Rather, her speech is most
useful in helping us understand the ways in which dominant heteronor-
mative traditions present themselves on a discursive level as an ideological
foundation for social interaction.
Inclusion within dominant traditions is what allows shared experiences
to take place, whether it be within the classroom or a marriage ceremony.
However, if notions of community are clearly linked to shared textual
experience, the inverse applies as well: marginality, otherness, and queer
subjectivity are inseparable from textual invisibility. And this is nothing

new. Marginal subjectivity has historically been characterized by its
peripheral existence—its partial, incomplete, or incorrect interaction with
dominant ideologies. What is unique and noteworthy about Fellner’s
speech (and the debate on same-sex marriage in Argentina in general)
is the conscious effort being made to understand and (re)position queer
subjectivity within dominant systems of knowledge. Queer subjects have
traditionally been purged from official spaces, or at least remained hid-
den and ignored within them—yet here, we witness an explicit attempt
to openly incorporate issues concerning the nation’s LGBTTIQ commu-
nities into Argentina’s official discourse.7 Moreover, unlike at any other
moment in Argentina’s history, this movement involved an effort (albeit
embraced only by a slight majority of the senators present on July 14,
2010) to positively understand and stabilize Argentina’s queer population
in time and space.
Engaging queer culture has its consequences, however. As the con-
gressional session progressed, the attempt to understand queer culture
became synonymous with discursive “cruces, declaraciones picantes, sor-
presas y hasta chistes” (crosses, cheap declarations, surprises, and even
jokes).8 No longer was the political process a strictly serious, straight mat-
ter. In How to Be Gay (2012), David Halperin argues that melodrama and
camp aesthetics are central descriptors of contemporary representations
of gay culture. Rather than a phenomenon strictly concerned with sexual
orientation, Halperin explains that gay culture, like any culture, includes
a set of routine behaviors, attitudes, and actions. While straightness is
understood as serious, official, and formal—a necessary part of the per-
formance of dominant traditions as important and essential elements of
life—gayness embraces laughter and irony as performative mechanisms of
separation.
Straight sentimentality—especially when its arm-twisting emotional power

seems calculated to mobilize and to enforce a universal consensus, to
impose a compulsory moral feeling—is just begging for an ironic response,
and gay male culture readily provides it by treating such sentimentality
as a laughable aesthetic failure, thereby resisting its moral and emotional
blackmail.9
Read in light of Halperin’s interpretation of gay culture, we can see

how the discussion of queerness in Argentina became quite queer
8 M.J. EDWARDS
itself. The passionate arguments in favor of and against same-sex mar-

riage, elaborated on June 14, 2010, charged the debate with discursive
excess, complication, and the inconsistent aura of uncertainty and con-
tradiction. The unanimous precision, detail, and tact typically present
in discussions of the nation’s poor or the human rights trials associated
with the most recent military dictatorship (1976–1983) were absent.10
The Congress’s open discussion of how to understand and engage with
contemporary queer subjectivity, not only legislatively but also histori-
cally, socially, and culturally, proved to require an equally queer discur-
sive format.
The push to stabilize queer communities within dominant discourse by
legalizing same-sex marriage can be seen as a symbolic attempt to decon-
struct hegemony. Journalist Alejandro Modarelli suggests that admission
of the gay and lesbian communities into the institution of civil union
forces an ideological intermingling. This intermingling takes place within
a notably neutral linguistic sphere, where “[e]l Vecino Naturalmente
Indignado (…) entiende ahora que las uniones entre los raros pueden
tener su reconocimiento jurídico sin que a él le cueste un peso, y que esa
cierta repugnancia que le despiertan sus maneras y sus amores no tiene
por qué estar también rubricada por el Estado” (the Naturally Appalled
Neighbor (…) understands now that unions between the strange can have
their judicial recognition without that costing him a peso, and that this
certain repugnance to his ways of life, to his lovers, are not included in this
legislative move and needn’t be considered an official matter be governed
by the State.).11
For Modarelli, the expansion of the term matrimonio represents
a significant shift in the understanding of familial relations beyond the
“entrepierna” (inner-thigh).12 Marriage has become more than a marker of
heteronormativity and a link to notions of procreation, legacy, and familial
continuity. Thus, rather than simply including LGBTTIQ communities
into heteronormative spaces, the Argentinean debate and resultant vote in
favor of same-sex marriage represented an epistemological shift in perspec-
tive that forced a reconceptualization of contemporary notions of subjec-
tivity altogether. Because of its epistemological significance, the debate
on same-sex marriages in the Argentinean Congress provides a helpful
point of departure from which to reflect upon the implications and con-
sequences of interest in and engagement with queer communities across
the Americas.
CALLS IN THE DARK: INTERPELLATING EPISTEMOLOGICAL

DIFFERENCE
Social engagement has always been marked by the negotiation of power
relations between different systems of knowledge and modes of cul-
tural identification. The congressional debate on same-sex marriage in
Argentina, which culminated ultimately in a vote in favor, represented a
willingness to expand the etymological significance of “marriage” (includ-
ing both the term itself and its institutional qualities) and signaled a
coming together of otherwise divergent discourses to (queerly) engage
issues concerning LGBTTIQ communities. However, it may be argued
that the actions of Argentina’s public and political leaders in this case did
not represent a true move toward social and sexual equality, but simply
called attention to the traditional status of marriage and other dominant
institutions. The malleability of our definition of marriage in recent years
suggests a need to better understand the framework behind ideological
flexibility as a whole and to examine the significance of the increasing vis-
ibility and influence of queer culture within society.
Although the congressional debate demonstrated a clear push to
include LGBTTIQ communities in dominant discourses, it also (ironi-
cally) underscored the enduring association between queer subjectivity
and notions of difference and alterity. Through the senators’ monologues,
which approached queer identity politics through narrative fragmentation,
confusion, incomprehension, anger, anxiety, and, at times, humor, we can
see how queerness is understood as synonymous not just with difference
or with a particular marginal social status, but with the epistemological
and affective responses to what is not understood. For Senator Agustin Rossi
(Frente de la Victoria), the emotive positioning of one subject in the place
of a less fortunate other offered a way to cross cultural frontiers while
maintaining the narrative distance necessary to recognize the immobil-
ity of social differences. Rossi closed his argument in favor of same-sex
marriage by reading from the epilogue of Ozvaldo Bazán’s Historia de la
homosexualidad en la Argentina (2004).
Finalmente, quiero decir dos cosas más. Una: creo que, además, damos una
respuesta no solamente a aquellos que reclaman por los derechos. Estoy
pensando en ese joven o en esa joven que, en la pubertad o en la adolescen-
cia, está definiendo su orientación sexual; que la ha descubierto. Porque no
es una elección voluntaria. No es deliberado. No se elige ser homosexual o
10 M.J. EDWARDS
heterosexual como se elige un postre u otro. Entonces, ese joven ¿no se va a

sentir mejor; no va a tener mejores relaciones humanas con su entorno, con
su familia, siendo miembro de una sociedad que ha igualado el matrimonio
para todos? ¿No estará más al abrigo en la esfera pública? Creo que vamos
hacia una sociedad mejor, hacia una sociedad en la que la determinación
de homosexual y heterosexual puedan entenderse solamente como algo del
pasado una vez más. Me permito terminar mi alocución – ahora sí – ley-
endo sólo el final de un libro de Osvaldo Bazán: Historia de la homosexu-
alidad en la Argentina. Él imagina una situación –como yo imaginé lo de
“LeGeBiTTi”–, donde un joven le dice a los padres: “Viejos, quería decirles
que estoy de novio”. “¡Qué alegría, nene!”, le dice uno de los padres, y
agrega: “¿Con un chico o con una chica?” “Algún día va a ocurrir…”, dice
optimista Osvaldo Bazán, y agrega: “Me gustaría estar ahí. Por eso escribí
este libro, porque la homosexualidad volverá a ser lo que nunca debió dejar
de ser: nada.”13
(Finally, I have two more things that I would like to say. One: I believe
that [in passing this legislation], we are not only responding to those who
are demanding rights. I am thinking of the young man or the young woman
who, in puberty or adolescence, is defining their sexual orientation—discov-
ering it. Because this is not a voluntary choice. It is not deliberate. One does
not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual as one chooses one dessert or
another. So, this young person, won’t they feel better, won’t they have bet-
ter human relations with the people around them, with their family, being a
member of a society that has made marriage equally available to all? Would
they not be more protected by society? I believe that we are moving towards
a better society, towards a society that can understand the determination of
heterosexual and homosexual identities solely as something of the past, once
again. I would like to end my reflection—this time, for sure—by reading
just the end of a book by Osvaldo Bazán: The History of Homosexuality in
Argentina. He imagines a situation—like I imagined that of the LGBT—
where a young man says to his parents: “Mom and Dad, I want you to know
that I am seeing someone.” “That’s great, my boy,” says one of his parents,
and adds, “A girl or a boy?” “One day this will happen…” Osvaldo Bazán
says optimistically, and adds: “I would like to be there. This is why I wrote
this book, so that homosexuality would become again something that it
should never have stopped being: nothing.”)
Based on this excerpt from his argument, Rossi appears to understand

queer subjectivity and to have thought seriously about best practices
in social engagement in order to ensure the well-being of queer com-
munities. Although his placement of marriage as the holy grail of social
interaction continues to suggest the heterosexual dominion of the socio-

political sphere, it is his ability to imagine the implications of social, politi-
cal, and cultural limitations—and ultimately, to empathize with the queer
subject—that validates his vote in favor of same-sex unions. His empa-
thy allows Rossi to first question dominant ideological positions and then
openly support otherness. However, Rossi’s insistence on the association
of sexual identity with puberty demonstrates the reductive nature of his
stance: it refutes queerness as a cultural category in favor of a sexual period
one could only hope to avoid. For Rossi, it is precisely at this moment, at
the time when the subject apparently becomes queer, that we must provide
help, support, and comfort: offering up “marriage” in solace, apparently,
will do exactly that.
Rossi’s empathetic push in support of difference becomes particularly
noteworthy when he pairs his own anecdote against one provided by
openly gay journalist, author, and activist Osvaldo Bazán. The similari-
ties between the two narratives are superficial and rest solely upon their
thematic support of same-sex unions; the most compelling difference is
seen in Bazán’s engagement with LGBTTIQ identity politics through
love and the collective expression of emotional unions (over and above
the social implications of sexual intimacy highlighted by Rossi). However,
it is noteworthy that, by mentioning, quoting from, and insinuating that
his example is like Bazán’s anecdote, Rossi not only includes but also
attempts to emulate queer discourse. The transition from empathy to
emulation serves as a useful bridge toward cultural understanding and
becomes essential in validating Rossi’s argument in favor of same-sex mar-
riage in Argentina.
In a book-length study of same-sex marriage in Latin America, The
Politics of Gay Marriage in Latin America: Argentina, Chile and Mexico
(2015), Jordi Díez attempts to explain the cross-national policy varia-
tions across same-sex marriage reforms in Latin America. Taking as case
studies the debates and legislation in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, Díez
pinpoints the gay marriage debate in Latin America as one of the most
dynamic “moral policy” debates in recent years.14 Díez is particularly
interested in gay marriage as a measure of the limitations of democracy
and citizenship in the Global South. He points out that, in the context
of gay and lesbian rights, “mobilization has been central in the formation
and sustainability of networks, and identity and ideological compatibility
appear to play a central role in linking myriad state and non-state actors.”15
In the Argentine context, in particular, he argues that
12 M.J. EDWARDS
policy change on the gay marriage front is the result of the ability of gay
and lesbian activists to weave extensive and affective networks in their push
for policy reform and to convince policy makers of the merits of their policy
objective in a manner that resonated with larger social debates. Key to policy
reform was the permeability of the political system by networks in support
of gay marriage and the lack of veto points by opponents. In the case of
Argentina, such permeability was significantly facilitated by the existence of
socially progressive state allies belonging to left-leaning parties, especially
smaller ones.16
Díez admires intense grassroots mobilization and reads Argentina’s vote

in favor as an example of the upward movement from community-based
protest to formal legislative change. However, while Díez’s description
of Argentina’s political networks recognizes an exchange of information
and a mutual support, it focuses, once again, on queer movement toward
normative fixtures.
While parts of Agustin Rossi’s speech mirror this perception, his
engagement with Osvaldo Bazán’s La historia de la homosexualidad en la
Argentina also reveals another phenomenon, where empathy and emu-
lation suggest movement in a different direction. Osvaldo Bazán’s text
provides methodological guidance for Rossi in his quest to understand
queer cultural perspectives and approach marginal discourses. Rossi clearly
regards Bazán as an expert on queer culture, but rather than exoticize the
different (as Rossi’s initial comments do), Bazán’s insight into queer cul-
ture negates difference by understanding the queer subject as “nothing” at
all. Nothing, in this case, implies continuity, sameness, and even the homo-
geneous; indeed, Bazán’s insistence on this point pervades his research.
Across the 600 years that mark the formal temporal boundaries of his
thesis, Bazán rereads dominant versions of the past to decodify a legacy
of hidden, censored, and encapsulated queer protagonists. For Bazán,
queer subjects must be uncovered so that nothingness can be made tan-
gible through the filters imposed by ritualized social norms. As Bazán
locates queerness in the indistinguishable geographic, narrative, and epis-
temological spaces that homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals
occupy, he employs irony, humor, and sadness as essential elements to
make queerness intelligible for his public. Bazán’s reading of the history of
homosexuality in Argentina does not reduce its marginal status in any way,
but rather allows for the theatrics of marginality to be amplified—and, as
a result, become the object of Rossi’s emulation.
Bazán’s book itself comes complete with a list of works cited and alpha-
betized index and is organized in thematic sections. His thematic narra-
tive is guided by chronological time and by a narrative voice that weaves
its way in and out of a variety of genres and myriad primary sources. The
encyclopedic entries and extensive endnotes support a technical engage-
ment with the past that fades as the reader loses track of the difference
between fact and fiction, past and present. Here, queer historiography is
at its best as Bazán insists on blurring the narrative and discursive limits
traditionally associated with historical prose and locates the queer subject
within chronological ambiguity.
By contextualizing the “invention of homosexuality” in Argentina on
a global scale, Bazán engages queerness in a direct dialogue with other
historical traditions. As he traces its tale from the biblical mythology of
Sodom and Gomorrah right through to the arrival of the Spanish in the
New World, the narrator serves as historical translator, interpreter, and
guide to the often-overlooked gay protagonists of these stories. While
chapter thematics create chronological scaffolding, the stories Bazán tells
permit the homosexual subject to multiply from within an otherwise nor-
mative perception of time to populate other symbolic systems.
Bazán’s discussion of fin de siècle Argentina, for example, presents a
sort of coming-of-age story where the homosexual enters into maturity as
Social Enemy Number One. The story of Aurora, in particular, weaves a
historical circuit that joins contemporary historiography by authors Donna
Guy and Jorge Salessi with primary texts like Archivos de Psiquiatria,
Criminologia y Ciencias Afines (Archives of Psychiatry, Criminology, and
Like Sciences) (Buenos Aires 1902) by military psychiatrist Francisco De
Veyga and José Ingenieros. Bazán’s role as queer historiographer identifies
the doctor–queer patient relationship documented in De Veyga’s reports
as a repository for queer stories, for queer history:
Podría quizás hablarse de predestinación, de caminos astrales, de rutas traza-

das en el cielo. O por ahí sabía o intuía de qué se trataba. El muchachito
paraguayo de 25 años cayó a un hotelito de mala muerte en el epicentro
de vicio, en el Paseo de Julio, cuando el siglo XIX terminaba. Buscaba
trabajo, no conocía a nadie en Buenos Aires. Estaba entrando a su hotel
en la Recova, cuando escuchó que lo llamaban desde atrás. (…) El tipo le
dijo cosas lindas y le hizo una proposición claramente sexual. El muchacho
no supo qué hacer, se enojó, se asombró, se interesó. (…) Con el tiempo
supo que no era el único, que había una “cofradía” porteña con circuitos
14 M.J. EDWARDS
de encuentro y diversión y se largó a la carrera. De ahí en más, se llamaría

“Aurora” y gastaría gran parte del dinero conseguido con la prostitución en
ropa y maquillaje.17
(One could maybe speak of destiny, of astral pathways, of plans traced
in the heavens. Or maybe he just knew, or imagined what it was all about.
The twenty-five-year-old Paraguayan boy arrived at a shit-hole of a hotel in
the epicenter of temptation, on Paseo de Julio, as the nineteenth century
was coming to an end. He was looking for work, he didn’t know anyone in
Buenos Aires. He was entering the hotel in Recova, when he heard them call
from behind. (…) The guy said nice things to him and made him a preposi-
tion that was clearly sexual. The boy didn’t know what to do, he got angry,
he calmed down, he became interested. (…) Over time he realized that he
wasn’t the only one, that there was a Buenos Aires “brotherhood” with a
circuit for meeting people and having fun, and he dived in, head first. From
this point on he would be called “Aurora” and he would spend a large part
of the money earned in prostitution on clothes and makeup.)
Although Bazán makes it clear, through bibliographic referencing in his

footnotes, that this story derives from De Veyga’s medical inventory of
queer community formation, the author intentionally moves beyond the
ideological limitations of that original text in order to identify, decodify,
and describe queer subject formation himself. In Bazán’s account, mar-
ginal, queer belonging is linked to the initial, shared, codified, expression
of desire. Prior to adopting a name, to aesthetically transforming, Aurora
is first yelled at, and then slowly comes to understand desire. Bazán locates
Aurora’s integration into the queer community at the point where desire
is recognized as mutual. Bazán encrypts contemporary notions of queer
subjectivity as he proposes the decodification of hinted-at-desire as the key
to homosexual existence.
Didier Eribon explains, in his book Insult and the Making of the Gay Self
(2004), that the marginal position attributed to gay men (and specifically
to the author himself, as a homosexual) emerges when “I discover that I
am a person about whom something can be said, to whom something can
be said, someone who can be looked at or talked about in a certain way
and who is stigmatized by that gaze and those words.”18 Social interaction
identifies a person as other or marginal by the bestowing of names, spoken
or called out, that carry social significance. Eribon insists that, in the case
of the gay man, these names are often intended as insults, and that over
time, these insults have come to represent, refer to, and define homo-
sexuality. “The insult preexisted me. It was there before I was, and it has
always-already (as Althusser puts it so well) subjugated me to the social

and sexual order that it simply expresses and recalls.”19 That which names
the subject and grants it meaning is therefore history itself, or at least, the
“historical” story behind a specific linguistic act. Eribon continues:
The social and sexual order that language carries within it, and of which
insult is one of the most pointed symptoms, produces the subject simul-
taneously as subjectivity and as subjection-subjectivation—that is to say, as
a person adapted to all of the socially instituted rules and hierarchies. Gay
subjectivity is thus an ‘inferiorized’ subjectivity, not only because of the infe-
rior social position in which gay people find themselves in society, but also
because that very society produces those subjects: it is not a question of, on
the one hand, a preexisting subjectivity, and, on the other, a social imprint
that comes along later to deform it. The subjectivity and the social imprint
are one and the same: the individual ‘subject’ is produced by the interpella-
tion, that is to say, by the cognitive (and therefore social) structures of which
it is the vector.20
The process that Eribon describes here reveals the important place nor-
mative historical narratives hold within traditional notions of subject for-
mation. Interpellation, as Eribon describes it, understands the subject as
the product of a normative past. The insult, when used, evokes a domi-
nant historical narrative, told from and activated within the present via the
dominant discourses that position homosexuality and the gay man within
marginality. Marginal subjectivity thus depends not only upon the name-
calling process but also on the name’s meaning as defined by dominant
epistemologies. How we speak about the past, just as much as what we
speak about, is essential to creating marginal subjects; our language forms
the foundation upon which the limitations that restrict social movement
are created.
The insult, here, is understood as a mechanism for establishing and
distinguishing power hierarchies. What happens, then, if we alter the con-
text of the insult’s use? What happens if we understand it outside of this
historical narrative of power relations and as part of the initial expression
of desire that marked Aurora as part of a queer community? If Eribon’s
insult were used to express a push toward passion or as part of the codified
language of affection (“dirty language” in the bedroom or street corner,
for example), would it not assume a totally different significance, founded
upon a totally different historical narrative—one that tells of physical and
emotional ecstasies as opposed to mechanisms of inferiority? Could we not
16 M.J. EDWARDS
understand this same insult to express a different relationship to the past

and to subjectivity itself? After all, as Bazán’s text demonstrates, words,
much like the subjects they are meant to describe, are in constant flux;
their meaning changes according to the particularities of their enuncia-
tion. We must recognize, then, that speech about marginality is integrally
tied to the naturally codified character of language, which allows mean-
ing itself to change and be tampered with. In speaking about marginal
subjects, we must consider how the narrative structures of language both
form and deform the subject as they create meaning: a sort of “epistemol-
ogy of the margins” after the manner of Eve Sedgewick’s famed essay
Epistemology of the Closet (1990).
Such discursive redirection is key to understanding Bazán’s own ven-
ture into queer historiography. As a homo-historian, Bazán is able to read
into, understand, and maybe even identify with Aurora’s story. The past
that is activated when Bazán encounters Aurora is not dependent upon the
classification of homosexuality as marginal and sick—per De Veyga’s offi-
cial medical discourse—but upon Bazán’s unique ability to see into, and
understand queer rituals, social codes, and habits. Whereas the documen-
tation that traces the historical legacy of Argentina’s dominant discourse
is cited piecemeal within Bazán’s text and listed neatly in bibliographic
form in the footnotes, Bazán’s participation is strictly anecdotal. His queer
historiography is untraceable and unverifiable within normative rituals of
textual citation and documentation. Queer authority comes from being
in the know, on the up and up, and Bazán is the only one in this text
that meets these criteria. As the authority figure, then, Bazán is free to
extrapolate on the examples of traditional, dominant forms of social docu-
mentation in order to introduce speculation as a valuable historical tool.
His textual presence allows for queer expressions and interactions, such
as Aurora’s initial encounter with homosexual desire, to be noticed, for
its meaning to be explained, and for lessons in queer historiography to be
presented to his eager reader (represented here in the person of Senator
Agustin Rossi).
Bazán’s narrative voice dominates his entire text, his narrative elabora-
tions reducing De Veyga’s medical discourse to textual citation. Through
citation, we understand De Veyga’s text as the primary source for Bazán’s
queer account of nineteenth-century Buenos Aires. In this original text,
De Veyga documents his medical analysis and evaluation of a group of local
queer subjects. Yet Bazán consistently finds something more in De Veyga’s
transcribed interviews and narrative renditions of these encounters. The
queer subject’s encounters with De Veyga are read subversively by Bazán,

and confession becomes performative, creating from the telling of queer
desire a mode of historical self-rendition. In De Veyga’s accounts, individ-
uals like Aurora voluntarily met with the doctor to tell their stories—and
Bazán insists that they are also seeking to write themselves within domi-
nant histories, where their tales “[h]oy podrían formar parte de un show
travesti en Buenos Aires,” ([t]oday could be part of a drag show in Buenos
Aires).21 Bazán’s anecdotes remind the reader that engaging with a queer
past requires recognizing historical narration as a façade charged with
“ocultamientos, sobreentendidos y palabras no dichas,” (concealment,
exaggeration and things left unsaid).22 Breaking through this obfuscation
requires not only that the historian question traditional representations
of the past but also that he be able and willing to read between the lines
to identify the double entendres of codified social interaction. Accessing
queer history thus requires a certain amount of preparation at both an
ideological and pragmatic level.
The manner in which Bazán reflects upon these episodes and traces the
codified existence of queer communities breaks from the closet epistemo-
logical perspective used to define marginal subjectivities in other times and
geographic spaces. With La historia, Bazán brings queerness out from hid-
ing and into view as his narrative voice reveals its presence, always-already,
within the heteronormative public sphere. The shame and anxiety associ-
ated with queer stories of self-identification is replaced by Aurora’s nar-
rative encryption within De Veyga’s medical narrative and the discursive
(mis)understanding of the queer subject’s confession. Instead of dwelling
on the traditional social repercussions of coming out, Bazán historicizes
the closet and validates the spatial poetics that characterize queer identifi-
cation. The closet becomes not a way of defining the individual, but rather
a means of registering, documenting, and preserving historical material.
The queer genealogies located within the archival closet are not easily
traceable; rather than manifesting themselves in a linear trajectory through
time, they appear through a much more vertical notion of legacy. Bazan’s
engagement with historical documents, literary representations, and other
cultural pieces—not through the closet door, but through a stylized sun-
roof—allows his queer subjects to literally pop up-and-out from hiding,
and from underneath heteronormative discourse. The close readings that
characterize La historia are inspired by Bazán’s analytical tracing of notions
of queer legacy; as they combine with the seemingly natural levity of queer
themes, queer stories rise from hiding into a plain straightforward histori-
18 M.J. EDWARDS
cal view. This process is marked by a controlled violence—in the insistent

readings of the author and the supposed “lightness” of the subject mat-
ter—that distinguishes queer historical engagement altogether.
As Bazán reveals the ever-presence of the queer subject to an unaware
reader, the historiographer’s astute eye defines within that presence a
queer genealogy, also traced in terms of vertical motion. The up-and-
down movement that is essential to Bazán’s queer discoveries insists that
subjectivity be considered as three-dimensional, temporally, spatially, and
in terms of the communicative strategies of survival. For Bazán, this depth
assigned to social encounters is necessary precisely in order to perforate
the horizontal, chronological trajectory of dominant discourses and reveal
the subversive reactions (or simply survival tactics) of marginality itself.
Since the fall of Argentina’s most recent military dictatorship in 1983,
the nation as a whole has been dedicated to the act of accessing past events
and recovering memories previously condemned by the dominant systems
of knowledge. Even after 25 years of research and discovery, Argentina
remains preoccupied with historical engagement and, more importantly,
with the recognition of the legacy of marginal communities in the nation-
building process. La historia de la homosexualidad en la Argentina forms
part of the bibliography dedicated to recuperating queer experiences dur-
ing this period of military repression (and throughout Argentina’s his-
tory). While it shares thematic orientation with other studies in this same
movement, Bazán’s text represents a unique model for historical engage-
ment, where legacy and cultural understanding is achieved through epis-
temological transference. Bazán makes it clear that decodification and
translation are necessary antecedents to accessing queer archives and read-
ing queer experiences. Non-queer communities must learn the parame-
ters of queer epistemologies before they can hope to understand the full
complexity of queer traditions. The mere presence of Bazán’s text in the
debate on matrimonio igualitario demonstrates a significant attempt to
bridge this gap.
Bazán’s narrative engagement with the queer themes, icons, and subject
matter of Argentina’s history suggests that equality is synonymous with
historical visibility and the freedom (rather than the obligation) to choose
to participate in normative institutions like marriage. However, the peda-
gogical appeal of his text and its use within the congressional debates on
same-sex unions insist that the importance of La historia extends beyond
the idyllic telling of human-rights triumphs. Bazán’s historical narrative
not only reveals to its reader the presence of queer subjects over time, but
(more importantly here) provides a guide and model for further queer
recognition to take place. By instructing the reader in the ups and downs
of queer existence, La historia lectures on how to engage not only with the
LGBTTIQ communities but with marginal stories as a whole. As a manual
on engaging with social alterity, Bazán’s text and its methodology extend
well beyond queerness.
QUEER IS HERE
Despite its unique character, Argentina’s public interest in queer peo-
ple, places, and things cannot be separated from the nation’s most
recent military dictatorship and its transition into democratic gover-
nance in the early 1980s. 23 Neither can it be separated from the events
of December 2001, when public outrage over Argentina’s economic
crisis and sky-high unemployment rates caused massive public pro-
tests and political instability, leading ultimately to the resignation of
President Fernando de la Rua on December 20. The ties that joined
this later economic crisis to the military government in power from
1976 through 1983 have since solidified the widespread criticism of
the country’s dominant political and economic discourses, and have
helped welcome marginal subjects into popular debates and discus-
sions. While the testimony of political prisoners and victims of mili-
tary repression remains the focus of political and media elites, the
vast quantities of video and textual accounts of De la Rua’s ousting
in 2001 continue to argue for the power and validity of independent,
non-normative epistemologies. Aside from this treasure trove of his-
torical content stands the explicit, ongoing work of grassroots orga-
nizations like the Madres y Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo (The Mothers
and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo) and Los escraches (The
Taggers), who utilize silent protest and spray-painted tags, respec-
tively, to call for justice and insist that the political repression and
institutionalized violence related to the dictatorship be remembered
critically. The individual efforts of journalists, authors, and activists
have collectively helped to educate the general public on near-forgot-
ten historical events, and thus fight against social amnesia and state-
driven confusion.
The debate over the legalization of same-sex marriage, held in
Argentina’s Congress on July 14, 2010, is emblematic of the country’s
ongoing efforts to increase civil liberties. A clear connection can be
20 M.J. EDWARDS
traced between the views expressed by the senators in this debate and
other attitudes and activities associated with recent economic crises and
the post-dictatorial era. The discussion that took place that day formally
exemplified Argentina’s institutionalized desire for inclusion and integra-
tion of marginal subjectivities into dominant discourses. However, the
nature of the debate that took place also suggests that engaging marginal
discourses requires and results in epistemological change. Humor, rather
than severity—chaos, rather than clarity and order—have become impor-
tant markers characterizing Argentina’s open attempts at understanding
queer subjectivity. The instability surrounding same-sex marriage pushed
Senator Agustin Rossi, for example, to learn more—to read, and eventu-
ally imitate and admire, the stories told by queer author Osvaldo Bazán.
By including Bazán’s work in the congressional hearings, Rossi made of his
Historia de la homosexualidad en la Argentina a guide to further engaging
not only the pasts of LGBTTIQ communities but marginal subjectivity in
its entirety. Bazán’s text thus became a model for reading queer systems
of knowledge through the unverifiable and confidential nature of personal
experience; his opinions, speculations, and assumptions were revealed to
be essential elements to his narrative, providing valuable insight into mar-
ginal subjectivities by systematically outing their otherwise hidden and
codified stories and traditions.
Overall, the debate on same-sex marriage in Argentina formalized a
cognitive path that leads from a thematic interest in marginal subjectivity
to an attempt to understand that subjectivity: from the location of queer
cultural production to the creation of a (queer) pedagogical model that
encourages epistemological reflection and hopes for ideological change.
It is this cognitive path and its consequences that I attempt to trace in the
present book. Many critics have addressed “what it means to be queer”
and have shed important light on the characteristics of queer subjectivity.
In the chapters that follow, I take this work in a slightly different direction;
I extrapolate and broaden queer theory by asking “What does it mean to
be interested in queer people, places, or things? What are the implications
of the traffic that we observe moving back and forth, in and out of ‘closet’
epistemologies?”
Each of the following chapters attempts to expand upon the obser-
vations presented in this introduction by exploring the implications sur-
rounding explicit, open interest in all things queer. Each chapter breaks
open closet epistemologies to discuss a corpus of queer people, places, and
things whose success, notoriety, and popularity over the past three decades
indicate a larger cultural movement dedicated to learning about queer sto-
ries. The queer entities I discuss range from new editions and publications
of the otherwise-censored works of queer artists, to the Centro Cultural
Ricardo Rojas of the University of Buenos Aires, to newspapers including
Pagina/12 and Clarin, to a new generation of independent editorials that
have collectively helped ignite and maintain interest in works of, by, and
about queer characters.
The lengthy protocol associated with the legalization of same-sex
marriage that I touched on in this introduction, together with the
more recent passing of the Gender Identity Law of 2013, suggests that
queer culture in Argentina has developed a dedicated following within
the general public. The time, energy, and patience involved in over two
decades of political activism on the subject of marriage equality is proof
in and of itself of the public’s dedication to these issues. Moreover, the
financial commitment exhibited by both the public and private sec-
tors to purchase queer-themed artistic production and found landmark
institutions like the Oscar Hermes Villordo Library and Museum dem-
onstrates the concrete reality of Argentina’s investment in all things
queer. By tracing queer interest through the chapters of this book, I
hope to unpack somewhat the thought process that connects contem-
porary interest in marginal subjectivity to the search for alternative
systems of knowledge—a search inspired by the indeterminate network
of relationships that mutually supports and creates interest in queer
culture.
Chapter 2 opens by presenting a concrete example of the public
interest in queer culture in Argentina: a 1988 conference series given by
César Aira at the University of Buenos Aires on the artistic production
of cartoonist, author, and actor Copi, titled Cómo leer a Copi or “How
to read Copi.” The conference itself addressed the life and times of Copi
(Raúl Damonte Taborda) and suggested the benefits of approaching his
body of work through certain biographical moments and themes, such
as exile and sexuality. However, above and beyond making a clear con-
nection between marginal ideologies and queer cultural production, the
conference positioned Copi himself as a central axis to such debates. The
chapter takes Aira’s own investment in the subject matter as its guide,
exploring the innovative representation of marginal lifestyles through
the first representations of Copi’s famed cartoon character, The Seated
22 M.J. EDWARDS
Woman, as seen in the Argentine magazine Tía Vicenta (1953 to1964)

and the Parisian magazine Le Nouvel Observateur (1965 to 1967). I
discuss the stark contrast between these images and Copi’s first dramatic
and narrative pieces, Loretta Strong (1976) and Le bals des folles (The
Queen’s Ball) (1977), which comment on the impossibility of clearly
and concisely expressing queer subjectivities. I show how Aira’s initial
intent to “read” Copi leads to a foundational model for engagement
with marginal, queer subject matter, conceptualized in communicative
terms.
Copi’s insistence on the codified nature of queer tales—and the
absence of cross-cultural techniques capable of deciphering these non-
traditional modes of storytelling—justifies a return, in Chapter. 3, to
Manuel Puig’s iconic novel El beso de la mujer araña (Kiss of the Spider
Woman) (1976). As critical inquiry attests, Puig’s novel is dedicated
to the telling of marginal stories. To drive this point home, his prison
narrative, which centers on a dialogue between two cellmates, meta-
phorically transforms its readers, forcing them, through the lack of
textual indicators and narrative guidelines, to acknowledge their place
as outsiders. Marginality, here, becomes synonymous with discursive
invisibility and with the necessity of deciphering and decodifying com-
municative strategies. Puig’s text clearly addresses the difficulties of
engaging marginal—and, particularly, queer—subjectivities as it forces
the reader to accept narrative confusion and chaos in order to access the
previously hidden content located between the lines.
If Chapters. 2 and 3 together represent and expand upon the implica-
tions of engaging queer culture, Chapter. 4 reflects upon the Argentinean
interest in queer people, places, and things, and considers the signifi-
cance of this interest within contemporary society. I focus on cultural
critic, journalist, author, media personality, and celebrated Professor of
Communications at the Centro Ricardo Rojas of the University of Buenos
Aires, María Moreno. I argue that Moreno’s early journalistic work in
the magazine El Porteño (1982), alongside her first formal book-length
publication, El Affair Skeffington (The Skeffington Affair) (1992), posi-
tions Moreno as a fundamental point of origin for the discussion of queer
subjects in Argentina’s post-dictatorship culture. In the years since these
early publications, Moreno’s regular participation in Pagina12’s cultural
supplement, as well as her collections of essays, numerous pieces of nar-
rative fiction, and receipt of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship
for her work on 1970s sexuality and political militancy, make Moreno’s
name synonymous not only with issues of regional and international

queer communities but also with a critical perspective on current events,
cultural trends, and economic, political and social perspectives. Her con-
stant thematic movement, which has become a defining feature of her
cultural production over the past three decades, has made Moreno a
sought-after cultural critic and artist across the Americas. Much as the
senators worked to understand queerness in the congressional hearing
of 2010, outside the closed doors of Congress, others have been actively
engaging with contemporary society as they watch, read, follow, and lis-
ten to María Moreno. I suggest that Moreno be regarded as a model
for contemporary subject formation, as she demonstrates (and embodies
in her persona) the close link between contemporary interest in queer
culture and closet epistemologies and the experiencing of current social,
political, and economic realities.
Chapter 5 directs our critical inquiry past the normative institu-
tions that line Buenos Aires’ central Plaza de Mayo, past the recent
distress signals surrounding the caserolazos of December 2001, past
the presidential building and discussions of inevitable political disen-
chantment, and down the shadowed cobblestones toward the famed
Feria de San Telmo and the place of business of transvestite blogger,
performer, poet, painter, artist, and author Naty Menstrual. Her kiosk
opens up and reveals a variety of transgendered cartoons penned onto
place mats and hand-painted on tee-shirts, all spread out on towels
and clothes-pegged to the string-walls that border her neighboring
vendors. Menstrual’s two formal anthologies, Continuadisimo (2009)
and Batido de trolo (2012), stand alone in small stacks of no more than
ten copies in total, but the portraits found on their covers and within
their pages clearly identify the salesperson standing beside the kiosk
as their author and the artist behind the trans-subjects that surround
her. Menstrual’s explicit (re)presentation of (her own) trans-subjectiv-
ity—through performance, media networking, literary representation,
and graphic design—is clearly not without its marketplace initiatives.
However, her slogan—“Todos somos raros,” We are all strange—has
become emblematic of Menstrual’s ironic response to recent legislative
moves toward sexual and gender equality on a national level, and marks
this artist’s appeal to notions of collectivity and shared experiences that
cross traditional social, political, and sexual boundaries. By embracing
difference as a contemporary cultural experience, Menstrual’s trans-
subjects deliberately confuse dominant epistemological frameworks,
24 M.J. EDWARDS
insisting that the neoliberal experience be reevaluated in order to

address the motivation for engaging and classifying marginality in the
first place.
The queer persons, places, and things that guide these discussions
occupy positions along a cognitive trail that traces the implications of
recent attempts at engaging queer cultural production. As such, both “out-
ing” (making visible) and going “out” into (engaging with) contemporary
queer culture are extremely important pursuits in the context of this book.
On the one hand, “coming out” is a thematically charged activity, marked
by an LGBTTIQ past peppered with repression, confinement, and secrecy.
On the other hand, the process of “outing” counters closet ideologies and
signals an open, publicly visible representation not just of sexuality but
also other social modes that favor self-identification. As it did for Osvaldo
Bazán, the in and out, up and down movement signaled here allows this
book to expose the ways in which negotiating visibility is essential to our
understanding of marginal subjectivities. Throughout the book, I regard
such outings as historic both in terms of their importance (“of historic
regard”) and in terms of their critique of dominant, historically situated
traditions of documenting and understanding the queer subject. Closet
epistemologies are changing; the present book is an attempt to explore
why and how.
NOTES
1. Formal petitions for legalizing civil unions between same-sex couples
began December 11, 2002, when the Comunidad Homosexual Argentina
(CHA) sent an open letter written by its president, César Cigliutti, to
Argentina’s 70 ministers (diputados). The petition was brought before the
Senate on May 18, 2010 as a proposal, written by Eduardo Di Pollina, for
the modification of the Civil code in order to include same-sex
marriages.
2. See Bruno Bimbi, Matrimonio igualitario: intrigas, tensiones y secretos en el
camino hacia la ley (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 2010), 452–506, for a detailed
description of the debates leading up to and including the events of July 14,
2010. His narrative follows Alonso de Negre via testimonial accounts of
participants, summaries of related newspaper clippings, and textual records of
the proceedings (Bimbi 425–506). The video shown by Alonso de Negre
was posted by Noticias del Congreso Nacional (NCN.com) on Youtube in
two parts: 1). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HghJcB57JFI and 2).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHryzp9_0w4.
3. Cámara de Senadores, 14ª Reunión, 9ª sesión ordinaria—14 y 15 de junio,
2010 (Debate sobre el matrimonio igualitario), 25. http://www.senado.
gov.ar:88/9078.pdf.
4. See Osvaldo Bazán, La historia de la homosexualidad en la Argentina
(Buenos Aires: Marea, 2010), 556. Referencing Senator Alonso de
Negre’s monologue, he notes that she held the textbook in her hands dur-
ing the last paragraph of this speech. Bazán’s participation in and descrip-
tion of the scene allows for Alonso de Negre’s textual references to assume
a performative character.
5. Cámara de senadores, Matrimonio igualitario, 28.
6. Ibid.
7. See Salessi, Jorge Salessi, Médicos maleantes y máricas (Buenos Aires:
Bestriz Viterbo, 1995) and Gabriel Giorgi, Sueños de exterminio (Buenos
Aires: Beatriz Viterbo, 2004). Salessi and Giorgi provide, respectively, an
account of the desire to purge queer spaces and of the undercover prosper-
ing of homosexual communities in Argentina.
8. “Los momentos más picantes de la sesión.” La Nacion.14 de Julio 2010.
Online. Accessed on April 2, 2016.
9. David M. Halperin, How to be Gay (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2014) 140.
10. See Alejandro Fernández Muaján. Dir, Memorias del saqueo (ADR
Productions, 2004) and Nunca más: Informe de la Comisión Nacional
sobre la Desaparición de Personas (Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 2006). Both are
noteworthy examples that emphasize the country’s serious engagement
with issues concerning Argentina’s marginalized communities.
11. Alejandro Modarelli, “La calle y la palabra,” Página12, July 16, 2010.
Online. Accessed on April 15, 2016.
12. Ibid.
13. Cámara de senadores, Matrimonio igualitario, 90.
14. Jordi Díez, The Politics of Gay Marriage in Latin America: Argentina,
Chile and Mexico (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 5.
15. Díez, The Politics of Gay Marriage, 9.
16. Díez, The Politics of Gay Marriage, 111.
17. Osvaldo Bazán, La historia de la homosexualidad en la Argentina: De la
Conquista al siglo XXI (Buenos Aires: Marea, 2006), 127.
18. Didier Eribon, Insult and the Making of the Gay Self (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2004), 16.
19. Eribon, Insult, 58.
20. Eribon, Insult, 58–9.
26 M.J. EDWARDS
21. Bazán, Historia, 142.

22. Bazán, Historia, 171.
23. See Meccia, Ernesto. La cuestión gay: Un enfoque sociológico (Buenos Aires:
Gran Aldea, 2006) for a description of the politicization of queer sexuali-
ties inspired by the transition to democracy in 1983. State ties to the
Catholic Church prohibited the entrance of gay issues into the political
forum until the second half of the 1990s (60–1). Interest in queer issues
begin with the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1990s and can be largely attrib-
uted to the presence and influence of international and national LGBTTIQ
and Human Rights organizations. By partnering with other political and
cultural entities, the queer community began to gain visibility in the media
as well as in the political realm (63).
CHAPTER 2
Interested in Copi
In 1988, César Aira gave a series of four lectures at the University of

Buenos Aires that called to the fore the life and artistic production of
Argentine author, dramaturge, actor, and cartoonist, Copi. Collectively
titled “Cómo leer a Copi” (How to Read Copi), Aira’s lectures offered
insights into the various phases of Copi’s life—his family history, his per-
manent exodus from Argentina in 1962, and his life in Paris until his
death in 1987—to help readers engage with and appreciate the symbolic
quality and depth of a body of work largely overlooked by the nation’s
intellectuals.
As a lecture series, “Cómo leer a Copi” was a resounding success. In it,
Aira revealed himself to be the authority on Copi, splendidly instructing
his public through innovative textual analysis and thoughtful anecdotes
on how to read and understand Copi’s work. However, it quickly became
clear that Aira’s pedagogical intentions went well beyond literary criticism.
As the title of the lecture series itself suggests, Aira viewed it as his task
to elucidate how to achieve the skills necessary to appreciate the context
of Copi’s life and times in his writing. Aira’s pedagogical approach to his
lectures highlights several noteworthy points. First of all, Aira’s decision to
instruct his public establishes a social hierarchy within which the accumu-
lation of knowledge about Copi assigns authority. By assuming the author-
ity to deliver these lectures, Aira automatically takes his place atop this
“Copi-an” pyramid, leaving his public, in the same motion, at the bottom.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57465-7_2
28 M.J. EDWARDS
Perhaps even more interesting than the power dynamics of Aira’s lec-
ture series, however, is the fact that “Cómo leer a Copi” took place at
all. The very event itself attests to the growing celebrity of César Aira in
the realm of Argentine literature in the late 1980s, to the point where his
rising fame justified him hosting a lecture series on another author. It is
astonishing that the prestige associated with Aira’s name as guest speaker
at the University of Buenos Aires was significant enough to warrant four
separate lectures on Copi’s theme (indeed, it was the prestige of this event
that brought me upon his study of Copi as well). Undoubtedly, it was
public interest in César Aira and his own literary production that brought
people to this lecture series in the first place—yet this should not be taken
to signify that the public did not also come to listen particularly to Aira’s
comments on Copi. Much like Aira himself, the Argentine literary public
of the time was both invested in and capable of encountering the unfamil-
iar—Copi, in this case—and of understanding Copi’s life story and artistic
production as legitimate objects of interest and study.
In Tiempo Pasado, Beatriz Sarlo traces what she deems a recent shift in
the way marginal subjects are treated in post-dictatorship Argentina. Since
Argentina’s transition to democracy in 1983, Sarlo argues, the marginal
subject has quickly become the center of intellectual and juridical investiga-
tion. The marginal being is regarded as exceptional: “se distinguen por una
anomalía (el loco, el criminal, la ilusa, la posesda, la bruja), porque presen-
tan una refutación a las imposiciones del poder material o simbólico” (they
are distinguished as an anomaly [the crazed, the criminal, the dreamer, the
possessed, the witch] because they refute the impositions of material and
symbolic power).1 This quote highlights an interesting contrast between
Sarlo’s approach to marginality, which at once negates the voice of the
political margins and questions the place of (and for) the contemporary
intellectual, and the stance of Aira himself. Sarlo recognizes the validity of
the marginal subject only through its own objectification, as the subject of
intellectual research. Aira, on the other hand, presents himself as part of a
collective, an intimate member of an inseparable body-politic, searching for
cultural difference. Positioned at the vanguard, Aira’s movement toward
Copi identifies the margins as a place of interest, a topic of discussion,
rather than an object to be held, to silence, to observe. Indeed, Aira quickly
lets Copi speak for himself, assuming a secondary position as observer of
his cultural legacy. The (re)presentation, the retelling of Copi’s story in
order to convey who and what Copi was to the interested, and uninformed
public, then, came to define the central goal of this lecture series.
INTERESTED IN COPI 29
However, representing marginal subjectivity—literally copying Copi—

proves to be a difficult task. From the opening of his first lecture, Aira
comments on the difficulty of articulating Copi’s story. In the preface to
the textual version of his lectures (titled simply Copi2), Aira elaborates on
his difficulties: “[O]pté” (I opted), he explains, “por presentarla [la obra
de Copi], en sucesión más o menos cronológica, contando y describiendo
sus novelas y piezas teatrales, algunas con todo detalle. Los comentarios,
improvisados y digresivos, seguían sólo ese hilo. Los resúmenes han sido
suprimidos aquí; los saltos en el texto indican su desaparición. El régimen,
con todo, es el de la lectura continua” (to present it [Copi’s work] in
relatively chronological succession, telling and describing his novels and
theatrical pieces, some in precise detail. The comments, improvised and
digressive, follow this sole thread. The summaries here have been reduced;
the jumps in the text represent their disappearance. The end goal, taking
everything together, is that of continual reading).3 In other words, Aira’s
main objective in presenting his lectures is literally to speak about Copi in
the most continuous way possible. Whereas a slow, carefully paced read-
ing would imply difficulty and complexity, misunderstanding and voids in
knowledge, continuity is synonymous here with comprehension and the
ability to speak confidently, without pauses to think, reason, or consider
new details.
Aira structures his tale around the publication of several of Copi’s texts.
The preference to speak about his literary production suggests Aira’s com-
fort with the genre and his wariness to approach Copi through personal
history and biography. His fear of slowing down, or even stopping his
discussion—and thereby risking (what he implies to be) the onset of con-
fusion—seems to be directly related to his hesitancy to engage with Copi’s
biography and understand his role as social subject. The movement from
one textual moment to the next is essential to Aira’s presentation; by map-
ping Copi’s life onto publication dates and explicitly according to notions
of chronological time, he endeavors to facilitate his account of a clearly
difficult story.
As Aira suggests in his introductory words, representing Copi’s tale
chronologically has significant consequences. First and foremost, the sta-
bility Aira creates by tracing Copi’s life from one publication date to the
next establishes order where no order should be. His choice suggests that
chronological filtering will promote understanding of Copi’s stories—yet,
in a sense, Aira’s desire to make Copi comprehensible ultimately sacrifices
the initial purpose of his lectures. As his title suggests, “reading” Copi
30 M.J. EDWARDS
requires engaging with Copi: opening unknown books to engage with

different social orders, different epistemological systems, and ultimately a
different social representation.
It was, as I have mentioned, the international acclaim associated with
César Aira’s own literary production that brought me, and probably many
others, into contact with Copi for the first time. Indeed, it was probably
Aira’s own acclaim, and his 1988 lecture series, that provided the neces-
sary push that brought Copi’s work into international discussion. This
chain reaction of fame begetting fame is of particular interest in the con-
text of this book. In what follows, I attempt to place in context Aira’s need
for stability as a means of drawing people toward Copi while also illustrat-
ing the importance of expressing the chaos implicit in understanding Copi
in historical terms.
HAVE A SEAT: READING COPI’S LE FEMME ASSISE

Aira’s lectures make it clear that speaking about Copi is not a simple task.
The title he gives his lectures insists that Copi’s life involves much more
than a list of accolades. Before we begin to engage Copi’s past, argues
Aira, we must understand that simply being Copi is sufficiently complex
to confuse any attempt at narrative stability. First of all, the mere mention
of his name, “Copi,” obfuscates representation: this name is actually an
apodo, or nickname, given to him as a child by his grandmother, Salvadora
Medina Onrubia, and laden with symbolism. Immediately, we lose touch
with the man’s given name—Rául Damonte Taborda—and with the stable
social identity offered to him by birth registries, certificates, and census
data. Instead, we must confront a naming system that defies familial rela-
tions and disrupts any possible legacy established through lineage. The
apodo becomes emblematic of Copi’s separation from traditional patriar-
chal institutions of social identification, instead lending favor to anecdotal
narratives as a basis for social integration and representation. Copi’s claim
over his nickname marks him, as well as his place in time, via a social regis-
try capable of appreciating the unique instability of defining subjectivity as
a product of loving relationships, affective ties, and not the institutional-
ized rigidity of patriarchal rule.
The phonetic similarities between the word itself, copi, and the Spanish
copiar and French copier, both meaning “to copy,” also pushes away
from traditional attempts to fix the subject in time and space. Copi, as
a name, inspires a mimetic game that questions social representation
and identification, driving home the instability in social representations

between the social entity and its symbolic “copy”: its name. The struggle,
and the game, in the assignment of meaning lies in accepting the imperfect
union between any one symbol and the object it attempts to represent. To
refer to Copi as an exile, an innovative cartoonist, a dramaturge, a novelist,
or even a homosexual requires one to engage in this same playful name-
game, where the subject’s distance from the norm complicates traditional
symbolic means of representation.
In the case of Copi, the name reflects the person: difference defines
Copi, necessitating an understanding of his social interactions that moves
beyond traditional models. To begin to understand Copi, we should begin,
like Aira, by appreciating the intricacies and details of his immediate fam-
ily. His father, Raúl Damonte Taborda, was a radical journalist and politi-
cian who was openly critical of dominant national discourses. Author of
Ayer fue san Perón, 12 años de humillación argentina, Damonte Taborda
was renowned for his harsh critiques not only of fascism and Argentina’s
dominant regime of the time, but for his heated exchanges with Perón
himself.4 Meanwhile, Copi’s mother, Georgina, was the youngest daugh-
ter of Natalio Botana, the founder of the well-known daily newspaper
Critica, published in Buenos Aires from 1913 to 1963. Copi’s maternal
grandmother and the wife of Natalio, Salvadora Onrubias, was both a
declared feminist and a successful dramaturge. The outspoken political
involvement of Copi’s family forced them into exile during the ascent of
Peronism. In Copi’s case, then, we can see that familial legacy goes beyond
the presence—or absence—of hereditary surnames. From the beginning
of his existence, Copi’s family marked him ideologically, geographically,
and culturally as an exile.
While ideological dissidence characterized his family and the social rela-
tionships they engaged in, social and political difference ultimately ignited
Copi’s artistic career. Upon his return to Buenos Aires from Paris in 1955,
Copi came into contact with Juan Carlos Colombres, journalist, cartoon-
ist, editor, and creator of the revolutionary graphic humor magazine Tía
Vicenta. Soon thereafter, Copi began publishing comic strips as a member of
a large cast of contributors to Colombres’ magazine, which included then-
unknown cartoonist Quino, of Mafalda fame, as well as songwriters and
musicians like Maria Elena Walsh. Together, the magazine’s contributors
worked to introduce a transgressive form of graphic humor into Argentina’s
contemporary cultural landscape. In his partnership with Tía Vicenta, Copi
quickly discovered and took advantage of the political and aesthetic liberties
32 M.J. EDWARDS
that defined the magazine’s philosophy, carving out a space for his sketches
among a collage of other cartoons and sharp textual commentaries. In Tía
Vicenta’s pages, Copi drew men, women, children, and animals and spoke
of their inevitable encounter with dominant discourses. Whether it be the
image of a grown man who discovers that he too is confined by the same
glass enclosure that reduces his model schooner to a bottled collectible5
(see Fig. 2.1), or Argentina’s national icon, the cow, posing symbolically in
military garb for a photo shoot6 (see Fig. 2.2), Copi’s cartoons raise ques-
tions from the outset about the hidden dynamics of social relations.
Within the images shown here, the dominant male finds himself liter-
ally encapsulated by his own cultural place and time, while the female cow
illustrates, in a gender-conscious move, that authority itself is as variant
and indeterminate as (and indeed, is ultimately decided by) the clothes
on one’s back. Through his cartoons, Copi seems to question the impact
dominant discourse has on representation itself. Over and above his own
personal experience, the subject is presented in these initial cartoons as
being openly critical of hegemonic forms of representation.
It was here too, in the pages of Tía Vicenta, that Copi gave birth to
the character that would later come to define him as an internationally
recognized cartoonist. Here, we find the first sketches of a middle-aged
woman with straight, shoulder-length hair, a large nose, and beady eyes,
who forces the viewing public to contemplate implicit issues of gender,
economic, and political power relations.7 Whether this character is seen in
a selfless, servile role (milking a cow only to present the animal, and not
herself, with the beverage),8 (see Fig. 2.3), or as victim of the violence
Fig. 2.1 Literary Estate of Copi, Raúl Colombres. Tía Vicenta 2.29 (1958)
Fig. 2.3 Literary Estate

of Copi, Raúl Colombres.
Tía Vicenta 2.32 (1958)
34 M.J. EDWARDS
of an angry child (who wishes to repossess an estranged pacifier),9 (see

Fig. 2.4), this character is found dismantling traditional social hierarchies.
In both cases, the normative power structure that situates human over
beast and parent over child becomes a point of departure for understand-
ing power relations as a social dynamic founded upon the mere act of
interpretation. Through his cartoons, Copi comically exaggerates how we
understand typical social relations and reveals the hidden strengths of the
marginal subject.
Copi’s iconic character appears in multiple scenarios in the pages of
Tía Vicenta between 1956 and 1962, and she is undoubtedly at her most
powerful when sitting on a chair (see Fig. 2.5).10 From this position, she
is able to manipulate, deform, and poke fun at traditional power relations
Fig. 2.5 Literary Estate

of Copi, Raúl Colombres.
Tía Vicenta 2.28 (1958)
in one fell swoop. It is on her chair, for example, that she sits comfort-
ably revealing to an anxious male suitor that her face is but a reflection of
the carnival-style mask—used simultaneously to encourage mystery and
disbelief and subvert hegemony. While her partner’s awestruck gesture
questions her deceit, Copi’s protagonist proudly smiles, affirming herself
in a unique act that embraces her teetering stance as both beauty and
beast. Mimicking Mikhail Bakhtin’s description of carnival, where laugh-
ter is capable of reinventing and inverting social order, the chair becomes
a throne and Copi’s seated protagonist the King of her own social iden-
tity. Yet Copi’s protagonist manages to avoid the repetition and rebirth
implicit within the carnivalesque tradition by making it clear that it is the
chair, and nothing else, that assigns authority. For Copi, the chair quickly
becomes the symbolic pedestal upon which social and political institutions
set their ideals, aspirations, and requisite limitations. Redirecting attention
from the dominant sociopolitical subject—the male suitor, in this case—
to the liberties associated with positions of privilege—the taunting smile
permitted by the chair—allows Copi to allegorically push his audience
to understand location (both spatial and temporal) as central to defining
power relations and subject formation.
In light of the social commentary his art was already creating, it was
certainly no coincidence that, in 1962, Copi decided to leave Buenos
Aires and the institutionalized repression of the Ongania administration
to establish himself permanently in Paris. While Tía Vicenta continued
with its humoristic mission until its closure in 1965, Copi’s female pro-
tagonist and the stories she told emigrated with the artist, garnering inter-
national acclaim upon their debut in 1964 in Paris’s political magazine
Le Nouvel Observateur. Copi’s protagonist presented herself “como la
Sara Bernhardt de la historieta, la filósofa de la burguesía. Pero por sobre
todas las cosas e[ra] la observadora de un mundo cada vez más convul-
sivo, cada vez más decadente” (like the Sara Bernhardt of the comic strip,
the philosopher of the bourgeoisie. But more than anything else, she was
an observer of an increasingly convulsive, increasingly decadent world).11
Together, Copi and his female protagonist found their place in print, on a
chair, alongside contributions by Roland Barthes and Jean-Luc Goddard
as well as the daily news. Exile, by way of Le Nouvel Observateur, was not
synonymous with marginal social standing, but represented a unique place
within the French national popular culture.
By 1966, Copi had become a well-respected cartoonist, and alongside
his weekly place in Le Nouvel Observateur he had published two collections
36 M.J. EDWARDS
of drawings: L’humour secret (1965) and Les poulets n’ont pas de chaises
(1966). In all of these works, Copi offered up to his public the same
female protagonist who sat—comic strip after comic strip—calmly on her
chair, awaiting the action that her author was to bring her way.12 In many
cases, the chair itself became the thematic guide for the conversations,
framing the struggles and debates held within the comic strip’s panels. But
it was not the chair alone that provided the thematic pull to Copi’s narra-
tive. Instead, many of the stories focused on the sitter: who sits on Copi’s
chair is a question that takes on great social significance in his cartoons.
Much like the implicit question asked by his anthology’s title—Les poulets
n’ont pas de chaises (Chickens do not have chairs)—his comics demand to
know why a woman, or any other sexually marginalized subject, deserves
to occupy a central position not only within Copi’s cartoons, but more
importantly, within social frameworks as a whole.
For Copi, the question of who sits on the chair brings into focus a series of
social norms that revolve around the figure of the patriarch. It is this patri-
arch that he truly wishes to question. By giving the woman the chair, Copi
gives her much more than the central role in his narrative. When this chair
is separated from the ever-so-significant kitchen table—where night after
night we see the traditional hetero-social roles sit down for dinner—Copi’s
protagonist acquires a formal role outside expected normative settings. The
chair upon which Copi’s spinster sits is located outside, in the public sphere,
distanced from her traditional place within the house. Although this chair
must not be confused with the dominant male’s throne, its presence in the
outside world nevertheless serves as a disruption to the foundation upon
which such dominant positions are situated. By insisting on the female’s sto-
ryline (and, in particular, on the chair that she possesses), Copi reveals the
imperfections, confusions, and instability present within normative frame-
works. If the patriarch is completely absent from Copi’s cartoons, where is
his throne? If he is sitting at the head of the table, who is with him? And,
if the public sphere is being occupied by leisure-seeking females, just who
made the meal he is eating? The centrality of Copi’s traditionally marginal-
ized protagonist opens up a series of doubts, concerns, and anxieties sur-
rounding the private lives of otherwise dominant public icons and—without
casting judgment—corrupts the purity of such spaces and identities.
Despite this subtext, Copi’s cartoons are not (explicitly) concerned
with dominant social figures. Instead, Copi’s focus rests primarily on the
foundation of social hierarchies that support, uphold, and define differ-
ence culturally: represented, in this case, by a chair. By situating narrative
Fig. 2.6 Literary Estate of Copi, Los pollos no tienen sillas (Buenos Aires: El
cuenco de la plata, 2012) 10–11
attention on the chair, Copi’s work turns traditional power structures into
an object of jest, located at the center of a debate about who is able and
willing to sit upon that icon.
Consider the situation in Fig. 2.6, for instance. The female protagonist
settles into her usual place of leisure, silently watching as another character
enters the frame.13 Mirroring the book’s title, the figure that enters is a
chicken, which proceeds to ask why it doesn’t have a chair. The question
is negotiated by the woman and the chicken, who together determine that
the chair should belong to the one that accomplishes the functional pur-
pose of the cartoon: to make people laugh. Now the question becomes,
of course: who makes people laugh? Copi brings his characters through
a simple causal calculation of who does what, deciding that the woman
doesn’t make people laugh—although perhaps the simple act of separating
a recognizable character from her even-more-recognizable chair is funny
in itself. On a deeper level, however, what the cartoon ultimately points
fun at is the struggle for social protagonism engaged in by marginalized
subjects. The joke does not truly lie in “who” sits on the chair, but instead
in the fact that the chair doesn’t really mean anything when it is divorced
from the current struggles for its occupation.
38 M.J. EDWARDS
cuenco de la plata, 2012) 68
In another strip in the same collection, the chicken, the woman, and
her chair are all thrown out of Copi’s narrative frame (see Fig. 2.7).14
When the struggle for the chair is itself deemed boring or just not funny
by its author, the protagonists literally lose their jobs and are forced out
of the storyline. Scattered with market-oriented thematics, this comic
paints a clear picture of the struggle for narrative protagonism: where the
weak—and definitely not funny—story lines are substituted (much like a
lazy worker) for different (more appealing/productive) narratives. In this
strip, the apparent conflict established earlier between the chicken and
the female protagonist vanishes, giving way to class-based loyalty. Here,
the two characters unite under the watchful eye of the narrative panop-
ticon in order to achieve the desired comical product.15 However, much
like the mediocre joke told by the female protagonist earlier that left
her sitting on the floor, Copi literally sends his counterproductive work-
ers packing. Although the strip is complete, we are left with the daunt-
ing thought of Copi sitting on his own chair, immersed in the power
relations of this cartoon world. There is a close link here between Copi
himself and the chicken and woman, both of whom clean out their desks
and leave the cartoon’s frame in a scene reminiscent of two vagabonds

trekking through the streets. Does this sequence not cast Copi as the
evil office manager—the cold-hearted businessman looking to cut loose
ends? The symbolic nature of the cartoon characters’ exit—both the
chicken and the woman return to Copi’s comics—loses its comic nature
when we see how it references the “real” consequences of failing to meet
productivity goals set forth by society’s dominant social, economic, and
political forces.
Remember, here, that what is funny for Copi are not the jokes told or for-
gotten by his protagonist; rather, in Copi’s comics, fun occurs at the expense
of the strict limitations used to narrate social interaction and the process by
which this narration expresses and captures societies’ marginalized subjects
(if indeed it does at all). Once again, it is the chicken and the seated woman
that allow Copi to address this issue (see Fig. 2.8a, b).16 Here, we witness an
unusual beginning to a typical story. In the first frame, the woman asks what
seems to be a very simple question. Already, however, things are strange:
the chicken and the woman have interacted with each other so many times
before that it seems certain that such an introduction must have already
occurred. The woman’s question to the chicken is significant in several
40 M.J. EDWARDS
respects. First of all, the question, “Are you a chicken or a duck?” implies
that the chicken can only choose to be one of the two, either a chicken or
a duck. It is a question that, when posed, restricts its interlocutor to two
options for self-identification in society. At the same time as it prevents
the chicken from defining itself in its own terms, the question forcefully
imposes acceptable, pre-established social identities for the chicken to fol-
low. The framing of the question, therefore, not only requires the chicken
to adhere seamlessly to the woman’s notion of what it is, but also dictates
and normalizes all of the chicken’s future actions, proscribing them within
what the woman has defined as the chicken’s social limitations.
However, as the strip continues, the chicken rejects these limiting social
definitions, labeling itself a pheasant (faisán) (notably “peacock” [paon]
in the original French edition).17 When the “chicken” affirms that it is a
“pheasant/peacock,” it blurs any normative characteristics associated with
its traditional role as social protagonist. The result is a new subject forma-
tion, not externally imposed, but outlined thoughtfully as an independent
endeavor that not only includes the naming of oneself, but, in the con-
text of the French original, also the necessary spreading of one’s wings
(intriguingly, in a symbolic parade of colorful feathers that anticipates the
rainbow of Gay Pride). This comic strip becomes emblematic of a debate
central to Copi’s own artistic production, viewed in terms of the repeated
tension over who or what can sit on the chair and why. This cartoon, like
the others, questions how one occupies that chair, and what sitting in a
central position permits or prohibits when it comes to social representa-
tion and a subject’s agency.
In one particularly noteworthy cartoon, these same issues of narrative
expression, subjectivity, and normative limitations consolidate themselves
into a single coherent storyline (see Fig. 2.9a, b). Here, this same female
protagonist sits beside a little pond, only to have her tranquility disrupted
by a fish that jumps out of the water and takes her spot on the chair.18 At
first glance, this strip seems to tell the comical tale of a woman who tries,
to no avail, to catch a little fish. However, as Copi has shown us, the non-
(hetero)normative storylines that swim beneath his comics’ surface are
much more complex. Copi begins this comic strip, as he does so many, by
establishing the protagonist’s continued struggle to stay on her chair. The
story (again, typically for Copi) is then intersected by the new, unknown
story of another character: in this case, a fish. As the two narratives collide,
the fish is quickly integrated into the original storyline and becomes one of
many characters who have sought to rob Copi’s protagonist of a chair that
she has claimed in previous cartoons. However, in a departure from the
narrative structure of Copi’s other strips, here, the woman not only loses
her spot on the chair through the fish’s intrusion, but, upon diving into
the water, actually becomes part of the fish’s untold reality herself. In the
final sequence, Copi’s famous female protagonist is pulled underwater and
out of the narrative limits of the cartoon, leaving in her place unanswered
questions about her new experiences in an otherwise mysterious world.
The fact that the visual field remains focused on the fish in the chair and
does not deviate in order to follow the woman into the water reaffirms the
lesson: that speaking about any character as a social subject requires that
that character exist within the already established and well-documented
narrative. Dominant systems of knowledge are posited here as limitations
and restrictions on the understanding of subject formation. Social mobil-
ity, change, and flexibility are irrelevant, for they are invisible.
42 M.J. EDWARDS
IMAG(IN)ING NARRATIVES: COPI AND THE IMPOSSIBLE

SOCIAL THEATER
By 1966, Copi had integrated himself into Paris’s thriving world of per-
forming arts, where international playwrights like Bertolt Brecht found
fame in the wake of existentialism’s Theater of the Absurd.19 As he came
into contact with other Latin American artists, Copi became associated
with several prominent Paris-based theater troupes: the first, Pánico, con-
sisting of Jorge Lavelli, Fernando Arrabal, Alejandro Jodorowsky and
Roland Topor; the second was Jerome Savary’s Grand Magic Circus.
However, his first theatrical piece as a solo artist in Paris is said to have
been an abstract sketch, five minutes in length, titled Saint Genevieve
dans sa baignoire, or “Saint Genevieve in Her Bathtub.” The sketch
was directed by fellow Argentine expatriate, Jorge Lavelli. In it, Copi
found himself, for the first time, on stage as both author and protagonist.
Frédéric Martel recalls Copi sitting naked in a bathtub with only hints
of talcum powder covering his body.20 Assuming the symbolic charge of
Paris’ patron, Saint Genevieve, Copi’s naked body becomes synonymous
with a regional heritage of female martyrdom of which he is historically
not a part. Copi’s presence in the piece draws the essence of the produc-
tion’s very title into question, forcing his public to find meaning in the
incongruences caused by being other: by immigration, migration, exile,
and translation. Copi’s naked body casts into the spotlight the conse-
quences of intercultural crossings as it lightheartedly refuses the audi-
ence’s unexamined confidence in a name-game founded on histories of
inclusion, sameness, and cultural legacy. The symbolic rigidity of the
title, Saint Genevieve dans sa baignoire—the cultural traditions implic-
itly framed by these words—becomes incompatible with the images pre-
sented on Copi’s (social) stage.
Copi’s theatrical production embodied an epistemological framework
founded on the conflicts produced by social realities. Here, the visual
image empowers Copi’s (own) marginal subjects as it represents a fleeting,
unpredictable, unscripted social engagement. In Copi: sexo y teatralidad
(2003), Marcos Rosenzvaig describes Copi’s theatrical performances as
“drawn”—as though they were themselves comics. Rosenzvaig observes
that “[n]o hay descanso, todo es un continuo separado entre cuadro y
cuadro, entre dibujo y dibujo. Copi dibuja con los actores, y esta manera
de concebir el teatro lo hace ser creador de un lenguaje” (there is no rest,
everything is a continual separation from one frame to the next, between
drawing and drawing. Copi draws with the actors, and this way of con-
ceiving theater allows him to be creator of a language).21 As Rosenzvaig
describes this unique, personalized language, he identifies a poetics of
marginal representation particular to Copi’s work: “Él logró trasvolar sus
imágenes como dibujante para hacer de la letra un dibujo, una imagen ver-
tiginosa. La historia de un cómic se resuelve en pocos cuadros, en pocos
cuadros se cuenta una historia. No está interesado por aclarar el pasado de
sus personajes ni de dónde vienen” (He was able to fly over his images as a
cartoonist so as to make of the written word a drawing, a dizzying image.
He is neither interested in clearing up his characters' past nor speaking of
where they are coming from.)22 Cultural histories reinforce the develop-
ment of normative guidelines that push toward social cohesion, and Copi
rejects this. For Copi, marginal realities are characterized by epistemologi-
cal movement and, as such, naturally break with the rigidity of normative
forms of representation.
In Loretta Strong (1974), which premiered May 30, 1974 at the Theatre
Gaîté-Montparnasse in Paris, the symbolic quality of the text surpasses the
limits of social performance, rendering the representation of marginal (hi)
stories an impossible endeavor.23 In the play, Copi’s protagonist, Loretta,
leaves a distraught planet Earth in search of an alternative place to live
where she can harvest gold. The piece is a delirious monologue that traces
Loretta’s odyssey through a series of one-sided, continuous telephone
conversations with numerous people, animals, and aliens, both on and off
her spaceship, exposing the audience to her self-induced, profit-oriented
social alterity.
Loretta Strong is immersed in the incoherence and miscommunica-
tion of exile and cultural transition. Her circumstances force her to speak
from the margins, from the end of worldly realities—and this proves to be
a strange and uncomfortable task. However, as the protagonist searches
for a stable connection and stable communication, she discovers the
freedom of being in between. Unable and unwilling to follow traditional
foundational narratives of civilizations modeled after the sinful union of
Adam and Eve or the abusive cultural impositions of territorial conquest,
Strong explodes outward into a space of her own. Once again, coming out
acquires new meaning, marking an alternative symbolic system and a turn
away from cultural expectations.
The play begins by questioning the performance of gender. In an inter-
view with José Tcherkaski, Copi explains how his friend and director, Jorge
Lavelli, was faced with the critical decision of choosing the actor who
44 M.J. EDWARDS
would represent Loretta Strong: “Jorge quería hacerlo [Loretta Strong]

con una actriz, así que me abrí y lo hice yo solo” (Jorge wanted to do it
[Loretta Strong] with an actress, so I opened up and did it myself).24 Copi’s
response to Lavelli’s directorial misstep clarifies Copi’s own attitude to
the complexities behind social difference.25 According to Copi, Loretta
Strong was a woman—but her womanhood was merely a detail to be per-
formed. Contrary to Lavelli’s imagining of the role, Copi’s representation
of Strong explicitly negated the expected female-gendered protagonism:
the female protagonist is not only played by a man—himself—but a man
dressed as a woman and unable (and unwilling) to represent herself on
Earth. On-stage, a woman can be Copi. On-stage and off-text, a woman
can be essentially anything. Pre-established (social) performances have no
place in Copi’s social theater. Here, expectations are thrown to the wind
and to the imagination.
This rejection of rigid social performance is rendered explicit in the
play, where social interaction itself becomes purely imaginary. The text
begins with its one and only stage—or social—direction: “Loretta Strong y
Steve Morton. Loretta Strong mata a Steve Morton”26 (“Loretta Strong and
Steve Morton. Loretta Strong kills Steve Morton.”27). Here, at the very
outset of the action, Copi/Loretta is ordered by apparently higher, textual
powers to violently prepare the social theater. The forceful omission of the
protagonist’s male counterpart symbolically purges the stage, eliminating
any other metatextual—read, heterosexual—indications. Both Strong and
Copi are now able to face their current missions (a space adventure for
Loretta, a textual journey for Copi) and their future on their own terms:
together, they must safely rebuild the human race without the help of any
man. Here, the dominant male is significantly absent, his role as Adan to
Eve, Father Time to Mother Earth, Conquistador to the imperial subject
left empty. Conquest, social domination, and gold are of no use to Copi
on stage.
What dominates Copi’s text is a desire to speak, to be heard, and to com-
municate despite (and in the face of) social and epistemological disaster. In
a nuanced version of the original “Big Bang,” Copi/Loretta explodes out-
ward, leaving nothing behind. The future of mankind becomes uncertain:
left to rest upon the fruitful loins of a woman who is a man, who is a
chicken, who is Copi. In Loretta Strong, the question is not whether pro-
creation is possible—as we will see, for Copi, anything goes. The question
becomes instead, is procreation representable? Is it worth talking about?
In the introductory essay to his Spanish translation of Loretta Strong,

author and critic Luis Zapata understands Copi’s dramatic work as
intentionally minimalist. He accomplishes everything with words, he
argues. “Se diría que sus obras teatrales se basan exclusivamente en la
fuerza de las palabras, que, aunque no desprecian la teatralidad, muchas
veces la trascienden y pueden leerse como relatos en primera persona,
o a varias voces: es por medio de los parlamentos como nos enteramos
de lo que ha sucedido, de lo que va sucediendo, y sólo las palabras
que salen de los personajes nos ofrecen la información necesaria sobre
ellos” (One could say that his theatrical work is based exclusively on the
strength of words, that even though they do not disregard theatricality,
many times they surpass it and can be read as stories told in the first
person, or through a number of voices: it is through speech that we
learn what has happened, what has been going on, and only the words
that come out of the characters offer us necessary information about
them.).28 Reflecting Zapata’s contention that words are the only things
that remain stable in Copi’s play, on stage, the action in Loretta Strong
takes a back seat to an unsettling telephone monologue. The minimal-
ist quality of the text, revealing only Strong’s side of the conversation,
becomes a unique and necessary mode for Copi’s marginal expression.
After dismantling authorial structures by killing off the play’s stage
directions, Copi turns his attention to representation and to marginal
forms of communication.
In her telephone monologue, Strong comments on, questions, and
debates everything, from the explosion of Earth to masturbation with a
group of rats that she herself apparently births. As the protagonist openly
expresses her thoughts, the potential responses from the other end of the
phone line are left blank, replaced by yet another question, comment, or
problem to be solved. The insistence upon the absent interlocutor con-
fuses the meaning of everything that is being said. Strong’s marginal status
as alone, as exiled, and as other, deforms and reforms traditional notions
of dialogue as a communicative genre.
—¿Bueno? ¿Bueno? ¿Bueno?

—¡Habla una terrícola!
—¿Bueno? ¿Bueno? ¿Bueno?
—¿Quién es usted?
—¿Un hombre mono de la Estrella Polar?
—¿Me quiere ver la cara de pendeja?29
46 M.J. EDWARDS
(Hello? Hello? Hello?

An earthwoman speaking!
Hello? Hello? Hello?
Who are you?
A Monkey-Man from the Polar Star?
Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?30)
Although Loretta constantly asks for confirmation that someone is at the

other end of the telephone line, she is left alone, talking aggressively, anx-
iously, desperately to herself. Her insistent search for communication and
companionship runs up against a distance marked by confusion and disas-
ter.The images she is given in return—of Charlton Heston in The Planet of
the Apes (1968), or the original French version La planète des singes (1963)
by Pierre Boulle—are of no help, and their contextual imaginaries are
rejected. It becomes clear that Strong’s marginal status cannot be saved
by her earthly connections. She prefers marginality, and her unfriendly
response to Monkey-Man confirms it. She does not wish to establish social
relationships with just anyone, or anything. As the play goes on, we dis-
cover that she is waiting specifically to hear from her now-distant friend
Linda, who finds herself in a critical situation, struggling to survive Earth’s
destruction.
Alone in space, Loretta is the perfect other. Her physical displacement
and communicative disconnection represent a reality that, although cho-
sen, is temporary in nature and a constant frustration. Life on Loretta’s
spaceship is chaotic and unsustainable. She is surrounded by conflict,
aggression, personal violation, and discomfort. With nowhere to go but
forward, she pushes on in hope of change.Her gold nuggets, like her bro-
ken telephone conversations, promise something better, something future,
a place with the space available to form a rich community. Otherness, for
Loretta, ties directly into economic riches, social stability, and the com-
munity relationships she hasn’t yet been able to experience. As she waits,
en route to a destination that seems always just out of reach, she is forced
to embody marginality.
—¿Bueno? ¿Bueno?
—¡Perdí el control!
—¿Linda? ¿Linda?
—¡Linda, estoy explotando!
—¡Ay, carajo, tengo que volverme a pegar solita!31
(Hello? Hello?
I’ve lost the controls!
Linda? Linda?
Linda, I’m blowing up!
Oh shit, I’ll have to put all the pieces of me back together myself!32)
Here Loretta’s abject body articulates through its brokenness the con-
sequences of being alone, being other, as she is forced to make herself
over. The loss of control literally breaks Loretta down and blows her up:
her marginality is a distinct operational hazard. In Taylor’s English trans-
lation of the play, Copi’s “control” is objectified, made tangible by the
“lost controls” that seem to lead to Loretta’s social/spatial fragmentation.
Rosenzvaig’s description of Loretta Strong as Copi’s “most childish play”
seems spot on in this case: losing a remote control is irresponsible and
typical of young children.
However, the parallel between Strong’s actions and those of children
strips the context of some of its significance. Rosenzvaig explains that,
as in children’s games, in Loretta Strong “[u]na mesa puede ser una
cápsula espacial; un teléfono, un sacacorchos y un revolver de plástico,
una metralleta intergaláctica. Todo está permitido en el mundo de
los niños. El futuro remoto brinda con el pasado remoto; la frontera
es la infancia” (a table can be a space capsule; a telephone a bottle-
opener, and a plastic hand-gun an intergalactic firearm. Everything is
possible in the world of children. The remote future binds with the
remote past; the border is childhood).33 Children are viewed nega-
tively in Rosenzvaig’s analysis as underdeveloped, unrealistic; yet, if
we accept Strong’s behavior as similarly childish, we can do so only in
the sense that childhood embodies, as Rosenzvaig suggests, a liminal
space, defined by anxious glances toward adulthood. In this context,
the child’s desire to grow up, its uncomfortable place within “devel-
opment” and its eagerness to mature—to arrive at a particular end
point—parallels Strong’s position on the margins of normative (adult)
society.
Despite her confusion and her desire to stay connected with Linda,
Loretta Strong never does reach her destination. She never does plant her
gold or reap the rewards of economic stability and community networks.
Just past the halfway mark in her trek through social marginalization,
Loretta Strong decides to stay put.
48 M.J. EDWARDS
—¡Ya no se ve!
—¡Voy a cambiar de canal!
—¿Bueno, bueno, bueno, Linda?
—¿Qué dice?
—¡Está loca esa mujer!
—¿Qué intermedio?
—¡No hay intermedio! (108)
(You can’t see it anymore!

I’m changing the program!
Hello, hello, hello, Linda?
What did you say?
She’s mad!
What intermission?
There isn’t an intermission!)34
In reading or watching Loretta Strong, it is difficult, if not impossible,

to identify any sequence of actions that would help determine plot struc-
ture, climax development, or conclusion. Yet certain sequences within the
play reveal meaningful decision points for the protagonist. In this frag-
ment, Copi suggests that Strong has come to terms with her marginal
status. Her attempt to “change the channel” is an explicit response to her
discontent and to not being able to do, or see, anything anymore. The
act of changing the channel recalls the lost (remote) control of a previ-
ous sequence. If losing control implies chaos, here changing the channel
requires the protagonist to regain that control and choose to shift away
from marginal positioning.However, any apparent deviation from the set
path, from her trajectory to social stability, gold plantations, and earthly
reunions is dismissed when Strong insists that intermissions are out of the
question. Leaving marginalization is both impossible and undesirable.
And while hope for change continues to manifest itself throughout the
play, Loretta’s marginalization continues to provide a place to live and
move, even if uncomfortably.
Loretta’s firm stance within her liminal space of travel, of exiled
movement toward change and better times, is confirmed when she is
(apparently) offered an escape from her plight. In an episode confronting
the theatricality of difference, Strong holds her ground and refuses to exit
her current position as other.
—¡Tome las pepitas de oro y váyase sola a comprar sus helados, yo me quedo
aquí a leer el programa!
—¡Ay, cállese, y váyase sola!
—¡Señorita, un helado!
—¿Dónde estará?
—¡Es sorda!
—¿Me oye?
—¡No grite así!
—¡Señorita un helado!
—¿Bueno, bueno, bueno, bueno?
—¡No sé, Linda, no sé!
…
—¿Bueno? ¿Bueno?
—¡Voy a entrar de nuevo!35
(Take the nuggets and go and buy yourself a choc ice! I’ll stay here and read
the program!
Oh, shut up, and go by yourself!
One choc ice, please, Miss!
Where is she?
Miss?
She’s deaf!
Can you hear me?
Don’t shout like that!
One choc ice, please, Miss!
Hello, hello, hello, hello?
I don’t know, Linda, I don’t know!
(…)
Hello? Hello?
I’m coming back!36)
Throughout her journey, Strong has repeatedly expressed her desire to

plant, harvest, stockpile, and spend her gold. At this point, however, some-
thing special happens. Rather than jump at the opportunity to witness the
exchange value of her gold, she turns her attention toward performance,
preferring introspection to social engagement as the money is offered up
in exchanges for a change of pace. As the episode progresses, purchasing
power—and with it the exchange of money for goods, social relations, and
customer service—appears as an inhibitor to social integration. Much like
50 M.J. EDWARDS
Strong’s marginal spaceship reality, here social engagement produces frus-

tration, anger, and confusion. Rather than provide the possible foundation
for intercultural, intergalactic communication, Strong’s attempt to buy ice
cream results in alienation and a recommitment to marginality.
Loretta Strong’s return to the spaceship acknowledges the appeal of
marginal spaces. Despite her discomfort with the continual disturbances,
confusions, and misunderstandings that plague her journey, it is in her
spaceship, at the margins, that she feels at home. Its place on the outside
marks transition and instability as an unearthly mode of life preferred to all
other universal alternatives.
(CON)TEXTUAL INTERESTS
César Aira’s 1988 lecture series, “Cómo leer a Copi,” formally confirmed
public interest, on a regional level, in Copi’s artistic production. However,
interest itself in Copi was at this point nothing new. The success and rapid
international distribution of Copi’s cartoons alone provides a measure
of the energy that surrounded Copi’s work from early on in his career.
In France, the popularity of Copi’s cartoons was reflected in numerous
Parisian magazines. After initial publication in Le Nouvel Observateur in
1964, Copi’s cartoons were seen in Hari-Kiri and Charlie Hebdo in 1972,
in Libération in 1979, and in Gai Pied in 1984; over the same period, his
work was compiled in five French editions: L’humour secret (1965), Les
poulet n’ont pas des chaises (1966), Le dernier salon où l’on cause (1973),
Et moi, pourquoi j’ai pas une banane? (1975), Le monde fantastique de
gay (1986). The simultaneous and overlapping nature of Copi’s cartoon
production suggests that his work was a frantically consumed and sought-
after good. People wanted to look at his cartoons, read his stories. Copi’s
Seated Woman gained international acclaim, quickly crossing the Atlantic
and appearing in New York’s Evergreen Review, a literary magazine that
published authors like Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Malcolm
X, as well as English translations of works by Antonin Artaud, Roland
Barthes, Juan Rulfo, Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz, Jorge Luis Borges, and
Pablo Neruda. In 1969, Copi’s first English-language compilation was
released by Grove Press. When his 1976 presentation of Loretta Strong as
part of the bicentennial celebrations in New York’s Off-Broadway theater
district is placed alongside these textual success stories, it is clear that Copi
was a vital object of interest.37
Copi’s first novel, Le bal des folles (The Queen’s Ball), also illustrates this
phenomenon. In this work, Copi himself proves to be advertently aware
and conscious of the appeal of his marginal discourses, subjects, and sto-
rylines.38 He serves as both author and protagonist, welcoming followers
to join his adventure in love, passion, violence, and literature, in a process
that identifies social, judicial, and sexual marginality as points of increasing
cultural interest.
The story begins in Paris, approximately a week before October 16,
1976—the day the author claims to have finished this novel. Immediately,
Copi is confronted by his editor, who is seeking reimbursement for a loan
and wants Copi to hurry the production of his next novel as repayment.
The editor expresses his desire to publish a novel about homosexuality
and, more specifically, about Copi’s intimate relationship with a lover
named Pierre, who has just recently passed away. This opening sequence
brings with it a thematic orientation, a prologue of sorts that locates inter-
est in Copi’s art within a market-driven framework where celebrity is not
only assigned according to profit gained, but according to the author’s
knowledge of and ability to convey queer experiences.
According to Copi’s editor, queerness sells—and it surely did in post-
1968 Paris. In The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France Since 1968
(1999), Frédéric Martel describes the search for a revolutionary means of
understanding sexual equality as a hypersexualization of the gay self. In
particular, citing activist and author Guy Hocquenghem, Martel describes
sex as a discursive focal point within homosexual communities during this
historic moment:
From the beginning, the FHAR distinguished itself as a sexual movement.

We talked sex; in fact, we talked only about sex, to the point, some women
told us, where love and human relationships hardly seemed to interest us at
all. I tend to believe that’s true: there is little place, or no place at all, in a
homosexual movement for a psychology of relationships founded on “truly
human love.” If there is such a thing as an anti-humanist movement, this is
it, where the sex machine and organs plugged into other organs make up
almost all the desire that is being expressed. We are cum-machines.39
In this quote, homosexuality in 1970s’ France is portrayed as insepara-

ble from open, public expressions of sexual desire. In Copi’s novel, this
portrayal is made literal as the promise of financial reward is made contingent
upon the autobiographical detailing of the homosexual experience of past
52 M.J. EDWARDS
love lost. The editor’s original petition helps to understand the interest
identified by Copi as both financially and culturally motivated.
While interest in homosexuality helped inspire the public’s enthu-
siasm for Copi’s work, the initial sequence of Le bal des folles outlines
a marginal identity that extends well beyond the author-protagonist’s
sexuality. After his conversation with the editor, Copi recalls his rela-
tionship with Pierre and mourns his lover’s death. It quickly becomes
evident that the outlined publication terms are not welcome. “¿Una
novela sobre homosexuales? ¿Pierre en una novela sobre homosexuales?
Me siento indignado. Salgo de casa de mi editor decidido a no escri-
birla” (A novel about homosexuals? Pierre in a novel about homosexu-
als? I feel outraged. I leave the editor’s home having decided not to
write it.).40 Copi’s disregard for his editor’s proposal reveals him to be
defiant not only of traditional authority figures but also of the pressures
of economic solvency. Neither debt nor unemployment worries Copi.
In place of these dominant frameworks, Copi provides a different set
of guidelines: one that not only changes the projection of the story to
be told but also expands, and breaks through, any structural walls that
would otherwise stand in the way of how his protagonist defines himself
socially. Copi explains: “Estás a punto de inventarte una novela para
ti solo.(…) ¿Hay algo más íntimo que la novela de Pierre? El cuerpo
de Pierre, pienso” (You are about to invent a novel just for you…Is
there anything more intimate than a novel about Pierre? Pierre’s body,
I think.).41 Traditional social narratives are clearly judged unable to
tell the story of the author-protagonist’s intimate relationship with
Pierre; indeed, at the beginning of the third chapter (titled Confesión,
“Confession”), Copi formally notifies the reader that this novel, its
author, and, consequently, its readers, will follow a different path.42
Les diré de antemano que lo que van a leer es una novela policíaca, que hay
varios crímenes y dos culpables, pero nada de policía (es algo que no soporto
en las novelas policiales) y por tanto, tampoco castigo. Y aquí lo que les
propongo para el primer día de trabajo (pues ustedes van a trabajar conmigo
en busca del placer cuando los crímenes ocurran, sin que les proponga, por
supuesto, otro placer que el completamente intelectual).43
(I’ll tell you right now that what you are about to read is a detective
novel, there are a few crimes, a couple of guilty parties, but no police [it’s
something that I just can’t stand in detective novels] and as a result, neither
is there punishment. And this is what I am proposing for the first day of
work [well, you are going to work with me in the search for pleasure when
these crimes take place, without me proposing to you, of course, any other
pleasure that the purely intellectual].)
Here, Copi distances himself and his work from his editor’s proposed the-
matics. However, this move does not detract nor dissuade from society’s
investment in his story. On the contrary, as Copi deviates from the edito-
rial guidelines, his text becomes more explicitly desirable and dependent
upon public interest. Instead of a tale of homosexuality, love and desire,
Copi writes about (and stars in) a tale of crime, confession, and guilt. This
symbolic shift from identification as gay to identification as guilty, despite
his assurance of the absence of such a social qualifier, deliberately associ-
ates both queer sexuality and Copi’s own work with an encompassing
marginality—one that includes all social spheres, not just gender or sexu-
ality. This shift in genre also explicitly includes and implicates the reader,
and the editor himself, in the telling of queer tales, naming them as private
investigator, priest, and judge to Copi’s criminal acts and confessions of
(homosexual) sins.
As the above fragment illustrates, Copi’s narrative openly addresses
the reader as an active and necessary participant, very different from
the silent voyeur imagined by the editor. For Copi, it is the reader that
gives his story narrative and textual cohesion. In fact, after explain-
ing that this text is his third attempt at telling his tale,44 Copi insists
that the reader not only doubt the foundation of this very text, but
also doubt the authority associated with authorship itself. The possibil-
ity that the text being read is the third of three versions deliberately
raises doubts in the readers’ minds—about the existence of additional
versions, about the validity of the information conveyed—and lends a
fleeting quality to Copi’s tale. The ambiguity surrounding the text as
a changing document emphasizes not only the varying levels of author-
ity that exist in the creation of literary texts, but also the meaning and
truth behind social, sexual, and judicial guilt. The reader is directed to
question the significance of the missing prior versions and the extent
to which Copi’s desires are being met in the present version. What
has altered the content of the version at hand? While Copi declares
his inability to clearly recall the prior versions of his story, the lack of
continuity between texts alters the very definition of a “version,” and
54 M.J. EDWARDS
instead presents the communicative relationship as mobile, unsure and

varying. On the strength of his own admission, Copi is stripped of his
authority as author and recast as a suspicious subject.
As the novel progresses, the public interest in Copi is revealed to be
less a result of his literary production, authorial excellence, and economic
power, and more a product of the marginal lifestyles his character lives
and represents. The isolation and silence often associated with the creative
processes—especially writing—helps to identify the author-protagonist as
foreigner, outsider, and loner. In fact, when Copi-as-protagonist decides
to leave the distractions of his apartment and check in at a local pension
to cope with the difficulties associated with writing the story of Pierre,
he casts the job of writer as the most marginal of social roles. “Hago mi
maleta y me traslado en taxi a un hotel del Bd. Magenta. Me toman por
un provinciano que viene a pasar dos semanas a París. Dos semanas, es
mucho…Les digo que pasaré dos semanas escribiendo. Yo soy escritor”
(I prepare my suitcase and I move to a hotel on Magneta Blvd by taxi.
They think I am a countryman who has come to spend two weeks in Paris.
Two weeks, that’s too long.…I tell them that I will spend two weeks writ-
ing. I am a writer.).45 In Copi’s tale, the writer is the marginal actor par
excellence, whose profession offers a natural explanation for strange and
unusual behaviors. Rather than accept the identitarian frameworks associ-
ated with the farmer or countryman, Copi confirms himself to be a writer
and allows his extended stay to be considered within that socio-behavioral
definition.
Nonetheless, Copi’s marginal subjectivity passes; it is but a topic of dis-
cussion, a point of distraction to be dealt with only in moments of crisis.
“La dueña y su hija se dan cuenta de que no estoy en un estado normal,
pero les importa un bledo desde el momento en que no subo a nadie a
la habitación y apenas hago ruido” (The owner and her daughter realize
that I am not in a normal state, but they don’t give a fuck as long as I
don’t bring anyone upstairs and I keep the noise down.).46 Here, interest
in Copi—and in marginality itself—becomes a yardstick against which to
measure the status of dominant traditions. While the silence and symbolic
invisibility of the author-protagonist leaves the pension-owner’s personal
and social spaces intact, so too is the marginal subject left alone. Interest
in the other develops solely as a response to cultural intermingling, and as
long as dominant traditions are left untouched and unengaged, marginal
communities are forgotten.
However, Copi’s conscious definition of himself as a writer soon

becomes inseparable from drug use and violence. His role in a series of
strange criminal events, including the brutal assassination of a clairvoy-
ant, the grotesque mutilation of a colleague, and the discovery of a mass
grave in a local tea room causes a media frenzy. After the first crime,
Copi appears in the newspapers: his image, alongside that of his victim,
is an inaccurate, computerized reproduction that demonstrates little or
no similarity to the author/protagonist. This blurred representation of
Copi becomes emblematic of the disregard (and mis-regard) of dominant
discourses for marginal communities, and it marks the starting point of
a series of attempts among the novel’s Parisian denizens to understand,
name, and represent Copi as other. The sequence of media updates that
follow the original criminal revelation draw a clear association between
interest in Copi and interest in the persecution of criminal acts. Copi’s
marginal status must now be discovered; it is a matter of public safety.
But when marginal identities are not easily (re)presented and understood
(just as Copi’s picture and physical description take some time to manifest
clearly in the public eye), the public’s misunderstanding becomes a place
of refuge for both the protagonist and social alterity alike.
Following his second murder, Copi bears witness to the accumulation
of information that results when many diverse bodies become invested in
learning more about the author-protagonist. Copi turns on the television:
Son las noticias de la una. Desde la edición de las once del France-Soir
Marilyn ha doblado a su madre en popularidad, no han descubierto todavía
que es su hija. Si, en las informaciones de última hora: ¡la francesa encerrada
en Roma por tráfico de drogas es la hija de la vidente de Bd. Magenta! Por
informaciones marginales se descubre que la francesa ha sido actriz, pasan
un trailer de sus películas publicitarias con la boa. ¿Estén relacionados ambos
casos? ¡Sí! Noticia de última hora: el asesino de la madre parece ser el marido
de la francesa encarcelada. Un salto bastante inesperado, el presentador no
sabe muy bien cómo tomarlo: hay que improvisar para poner a videntes
y traficantes de drogas juntos en una misma noticia, eso no se ha hecho
nunca. Pronto encuentran el lazo de unión: yo. Un dibujante humorístico
completamente drogado, enseñan diapositivas de mis dibujos, una foto del
café-teatro en que he trabajado de travestí, otra foto vestido de oso en una
fiesta, otra mía de pequeño en una playa, ninguna se me parece, por este
lado no tengo que temer.47
(It’s the one o’clock news. Since the eleven o’clock edition in France-Soir,
Marylin has become twice as popular as her mother, although they haven’t
56 M.J. EDWARDS
discovered that she is her daughter. Yes, they have now, in a news flash:
The French woman jailed in Rome for drug trafficking is the daughter of
the clairvoyant from Magenta Blvd! Marginal sources reveal that she was
an actress—they show a trailer of her promotional films with her boa. Are
these two cases related? Yes! An update reveals the mother’s murderer seems
to be the husband of the jailed French lady. An unexpected turn; the news
broadcaster doesn’t quite know how to take it: one has to improvise in order
to place fortune-tellers in the same news piece as drug traffickers, this has
never been done before. Soon they discover the point of connection: me. A
completely high cartoonist, they show slides of my drawings, a picture of the
café-theater where I have worked in drag, another of me at a party dressed as
a bear, one of my own of when I was little, at the beach, none of them looks
like me; in this regard, I have nothing to worry about.)
As a result of the media’s inability to completely represent and stabilize

Copi’s mobile subjectivity, Copi is never captured in the novel, never
found guilty of the murders committed. In fact, upon completing his final
murderous rampage (in which he kills his own editor and executes the
mass murder of dozens of dancing queens in an underground tea room),
Copi seems to awaken as from a deep sleep, rejoicing, “¡Mis cuatro últi-
mos días no han existido más que en mi imaginación!” (The last four days
have only existed in my imagination!).48
In the end, Copi is not a murderer: he is not guilty of anything but
being a gay writer. However, as Copi contemplates the content of the text
he hands to his (now-still-living) editor, he redirects the public’s interest
in himself away from the interrogation of fictional crimes toward (what is
suggested to be) a much more worthy subject of public inquiry: Copi’s
literary production.
When César Aira decided to speak of Copi in 1988, he argued for the
necessity, much as Copi does in Le bal des folles, of reading Copi’s work
oneself in order to understand marginal subjectivity from within. In advo-
cating this course, Aira acknowledges the stabilizing effect of dominant
discourses. His discussion calls attention to Copi, especially within the
context of Argentina’s transition to democracy, the memory of its most
recent dictatorship (1976–83), of human rights violations and the push for
justice and truth that attracted the interest of intellectuals, members of the
global media, and the nation’s dominant politicians. According to Aira,
the story told by Copi’s Seated Woman, his cross-dressing protagonists,
and his very marginal role as foreigner, exile, and homosexual refuses the
clarity and cohesion often associated with dominant epistemologies. Aira’s
seminars push us to read Copi, to access his books, anthologies, and news-
print cartoons and get lost in the blurred lines of marginal subjectivities.
By accessing Copi’s work, Aira argues, we can use the marginal subjectivity
he speaks of as a point of departure from which to understand dominant
social frameworks and reflect critically on their impact.
NOTES
1. Beatriz Sarlo, Tiempo Pasado: Cultura de la memoria y giro subjetivo,
una discusión (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno, 2005), 17–8.
2. It should be noted that the title of both book and lecture reflect an aware-
ness of the interplay between reading and subjectivity. In the lecture we
are learning “how to read Copi,” where reading is in direct reference to
interpretation and understanding. In the book, in order to access Aira’s
discussion of Copi, we must literally read the book entitled Copi. The
clever detail of this symbolic transference insists on the relevance of the
themes.
3. César Aira, Copi (Buenos Aires: Beatriz Viterbo, 1991).
4. Raúl Damonte Taborda, Ayer fue san Perón, 12 años de humillación argen-
tina (Buenos Aires: Gure, 1955). Included in Damonte Taborda’s book-
length essay is a series of newspaper editorials that document his exchanges
with Perón.
5. Copi, “Man in Bottle,” Tía Vicenta, 2, no 29 (1958). (title is mine).
6. Copi, “Cow in Military Garb,” Tía Vicenta, 2, no 30 (1958). (title is
mine).
7. For additional images, see Edgardo Russo, In La historia de Tía Vicente,
(Buenos Aires: Espasa Calpe, 1995), 47, 144–47.
8. Copi, “Milk,” Tía Vicenta, 2, no 32 (1958). (title is mine).
9. Copi, “Pacifier,” Tía Vicenta, 2, no 36 (1958). (title is mine).
10. Copi, “Masked woman,” Tía Vicenta, 2, no 28 (1958). (title is mine).
11. Susana Freire, “Un trono para ‘La mujer sentada’,” LANACION.com :
Archivos, Espectáculos, March 21 (1998). Web. Feb. 15, 2007.
12. The cartoons originally appeared in Le Nouvel Observateur between 1964
and 1966. They were reunited in Les poulet n’ont pas de chaises (Paris:
Denoël, 1966). This edition was reproduced in Los pollos no tienen sillas
(Buenos Aires: El cuenco de la plata, 2012), using translations into Spanish
by Copi. The English compilation of the same name, Chickens don’t have
chairs (New York: Grove Press, 1969) does not reproduce the same com-
ics as the earlier editions. For the purpose of this study, I use the Spanish
edition of the collection; I include my own translations into English when
necessary.
58 M.J. EDWARDS
13. Copi, Los pollos no tienen sillas (Bueno Aires: El cuento de plata, 2012),
10–1. (And why don’t I have a chair? / Chickens don’t have chairs / But
you are always sitting down / And who is it that makes the people laugh?
/ Me / I am the one that makes the people laugh! / Let’s see? / )
14. Copi, Los pollos, 68–9. (Shh, we’re already in the drawing! / Do some-
thing funny! / No / But we’re going to lose our job! / You do something
funny! / Boo! Boo! Boo! / I told you!).
15. See Eduardo Romano, “¿Y usted de qué se ríe?” El interpretador, 30 (2007),
http://www.elinterpretador.net/30EduardoRomano-YUstedDeQueSeRie.
html. Romano comments on this same strip as he draws attention to the act
of enunciation: that is, to say, that the critical moment of the comic lies in its
circular nature: it begins and ends on the same question of how to make people
laugh. As Romano suggests, the circular nature of this strip also points
toward the presence of a narrative that literally falls back onto (and watches)
itself.
16. Copi, Los pollos, 31–2 (Are you a chicken or a duck? / Can’t you tell that
I am a pheasant? / Of course I can!).
17. Copi, Les poulets, np.
18. Copi, Los pollos, 16–7 (Oh, my little hook’s worm is so delicious).
19. David Bradby and Maria M. Delgado, The Paris Jigsam: Internationalism
and the City’s Stages (Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress, 2002), 4.
20. Frédéric Martel, The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France Since
1968. Trans. Jane Marie Todd (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999),
90.
21. Marcos Rosenzvaig, Copi: sexo y teatralidad (Buenos Aires: Bilbos, 2003),
17.
22. Rosenzvaig, Copi: sexo y teatralidad, 21.
23. It must be noted that the Spanish translation of Loretta Strong being used
here was provided by Luis Zapata and uses Mexican idioms. Unlike the
majority of Copi’s work, which was published in Spanish by Barcelona’s
Anagrama, this version of Loretta Strong is part of the recent boom of
translations of Copi’s texts published by independent presses in Argentina
(Adriana Hidalgo, El Interpretador, Mansalva) and Mexico (Milagro).
24. José Tcherkaski, Habla Copi: homosexualidad y creación (Buenos Aires:
Galerna, 1998), 79.
25. This fragment of the interview suggests that Copi himself directed the first
showing of Loretta Strong. However, Luis Zapata, in his Spanish transla-
tion, as well as Copi’s own brother Jorge Damonte, both cite Javier Botana
as director (117).
26. Copi, “Loretta Strong,” El homosexual o la dificultad de expresarse, Trans.
Luis Zapata (Mexico: El Milagro, 2004), 89.
27. Copi, “Loretta Strong” Plays Volume 1, Trans. Anni Lee Taylor (London:
John Calder, 1976), 99.
28. Luis Zapata, “Copi más vivo que nunca,” El homosexual o la dificultad de
expresarse. By Copi (Mexico: El Milagro, 2004), 12.
29. Copi, “Loretta Strong,” 90.
30. Copi, “Loretta Strong,” Trans. Anni Lee Taylor, 100.
31. Copi, “Loreta Strong,” 102.
32. Copi, “Loreta Strong,” Trans. Anni Lee Taylor, 113.
33. Rosenzvaig, Copi: sexo y teatralidad, 113.
34. Copi, “Loretta Strong,” Trans. Anni Lee Taylor, 118.
35. Copi, “Loretta Strong,” 114.
36. Copi, “Loretta Strong,” Trans. Anni Lee Taylor, 125–6.
37. See “Play Lists 1976, June 17,” La Mama ETC Archives, http://www.
lamama.org/archives/year_lists/1976page.htm.
38. Copi, Le bal des folles (Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1999). I work with the
Spanish version and provide my own English translations. See Copi, El
baile de las locas, 3rd Ed. Trans. Alberto Cardín and Biel Mesquida
(Barcelona: Anagrama, 2000).
39. Martel, The Pink and the Black, 47.
40. Copi, El baile, 13.
41. Ibid.
42. The twelve chapters of Copi’s novel are all given titles. In order of appear-
ance, they are: Pietro Gentiluomo, Confesión (Confession), La rival (The
Rival), La serpiente de Nueva York (The Snake from New York), Ibiza, La
bola de cristal (The Cristal Ball), El Mediterráneo (The Mediterranean),
Rue des Tríos-Portes (Tríos-Portes Road), treinta y tres (Thirty-three), El
vapor (Vapor), La amnesia (Amnesia), Con el corazón en la mano (With
My Heart in My Hand), La última pissotiere (The Last Pissotiere). The
titles themselves guide our reading of the novel in thematic blocks and
attest to the fragmented quality of the text.
46. Ibid.
CHAPTER 3
Disabled Attractions in Kiss of the Spider

Woman
HEARING DISABILITY
Manuel Puig’s El beso de la mujer araña (Kiss of the Spider Woman)
(1976) takes place within the intimate confines of a prison cell and tells
the story of two men, Valentin and Molina, who have been condemned
for their respective political and sexual dissidence. For Valentin, the leftist
revolutionary, and Molina, an openly gay man, incarceration represents
an explicit obstacle. They are forced to be there, and forced to stay. Their
condemnation and identification as dangerous subjects removes them
from normative social engagement and literally marks them unable, dis-
abled, and unfit to be seen in the public sphere. Their jail cell does not
simply limit their actions: it hides them, covers the two men over, shad-
ing them from view. It is a space of juxtaposition, forcing its inmates to
confront the dichotomy between in and out, public and private, marginal
and dominant; the prison’s walls, hallways, and windows make explicit the
limitations of these socially disabled individuals and insist that marginal-
ization depends upon their discursive and physical inability to cross over.
Manuel Puig’s decision to engage, to share these inmates’ marginal
story—that is, their story of marginality—highlights the discursive, ideo-
logical, and geographic distances that separate dominant traditions from
social alterity. In joining the prisoners’ respective political antagonism and
sexual marginalization and pairing them against the overarching cultural
hierarchy (represented here as the penitentiary system), Puig necessarily

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57465-7_3
62 M.J. EDWARDS
breaches an (ideological) gap that separates dominant from marginal sys-

tems of knowledge. Puig himself resides outside the prison cell, and his
position as outsider reveals how the jailhouse becomes a place of contesta-
tion, nonconformity, and revolution, in direct contrast to the (in this case,
inaccessibly distant) normative traditions. In its negotiation of social juxta-
position, Puig’s novel reveals how dominant cultures are untouchable for
those who do not already conform; the work opens up for examination the
collective reality inhabited by the marginal and disabled, whose fixed posi-
tion within the intimacy of prison life simultaneously prevents them from
reaching their utopian destinations and marks out the local as a refuge for
contemporary marginal subjectivity.
In Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability, Robert
McRuer confronts the dominant positionality of able-bodied individu-
als who define themselves in contrast to the different, disabled, sick,
or mentally weary. The able body is biologically and mentally fit, will-
ing to perform a compulsory role that is both heterosexual and mar-
ket-oriented, and regarded as a requisite for full social, cultural, and
political engagement. Yet McRuer also shows how, over the last three
decades, the able body has (to some extent) grown willing to include
the queer and disabled. “The more efficient management of queer-
ness and disability suggests that a heterosexual, able-bodied culture has
learned some, but most certainly not all, of the lessons of contempo-
rary movements for liberation that queers and people with disabilities
have shaped.”1
Recent calls for flexibility, disseminated through sales pitches and
political agendas, suggest that queer acceptance and tolerance of dis-
abled bodies is now part and parcel of the requisite heterosexual (cap)
abilities.2 Manuel Puig’s novel, on the other hand, invokes disability as
an institutionalized part of life. Unlike McRuer, who suggests that empa-
thy, tolerance, and acceptance are embedded in recent market-oriented
modifications of heteronormative repertoires, Puig argues that authori-
tarian regimes, underdevelopment, and political revolution have always
willingly (and insistently) included a space for the disabled. In these ideo-
logical, political, and geographic regions, the inability to function wholly
is a collective experience, a necessary component of social, political, and
economic hierarchies that institutionalize the subordination of the under-
privileged, underdeveloped, and unlucky. Puig’s focus on jailed prisoners
is thus an attempt at recognizing the important place of disabled people
in contemporary culture.
DISABLED ATTRACTIONS IN KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN 63
From the outset of Puig’s novel, dominant frameworks and authoritar-

ian structures mediate the representation of marginal subjects and systems
of knowledge. The doors of the prison cell that literally confine Valentin
and Molina block Puig from telling the protagonists’ complete story or
presenting marginality in its totality. Instead, the goings-on in the cell are
filtered, forcing Puig on the outside to convey their story through over-
heard murmurs, depending upon the strength of the marginal voices and
of the eager listener’s ear.
—A ella se le ve que algo raro tiene, que no es una mujer como otras. Parece
muy jovén, de unas veinticinco años cuanto más, una cara un poco de gata,
la nariz chica, respingada, el corte de cara es… más redondo que ovalado,
la frente ancha, los cachetes también grandes pero que después se van para
abajo en punta, como los gatos.
—¿Y los ojos?3
(—Something a little strange, that’s what you notice, that she’s not a woman
like all the others. She looks fairly young, twenty-five, maybe a little more,
petite face, a little catlike, small turned-up nose. The shape of her face, it’s…
more roundish than oval, broad forehead, pronounced cheeks too but then
they come down to a point, like with cats.
—What about her eyes?)4
By opening his novel with this fragment, the author immediately distances
himself from the structural and thematic framework of the prison narra-
tive. In its lack of narrative contextualization and dramatic scaffolding,
the unmediated dialogue positions Puig—and with him, the institutions
of authorship, traditional authority, and the able body—on the outside of
prison-cell communication, marginal discourse, and disabled community
structures. The prison walls negate the participation of the omniscient nar-
rator and erase the stabilizing effects of stage directions as Puig is reduced
to a scribe for this already established conversation.
Emilio de Ípola describes prison-house communication, in his book
La bemba: acerca del rumor carcelario, as a fragmented process dependent
upon the untimely, paused, and interrupted circulation of information
from one cell to another. During Argentina’s most recent military dicta-
torship, spanning from 1976 to 1983, prison life was decidedly marked by
misinformation, as well as by rigid norms of order and conduct that insisted
upon a variable, unsure, and unpredictable existence for the prisoner. De
Ípola understands rumor, in this context, as both an escape and a trap: it
provided the possibility of working against systematized disinformation
64 M.J. EDWARDS
disseminated by the authorities while at the same time capturing the pris-
oner within its seductive communicative network.5 Rumor itself includes
the creation and circulation of a message that changes constantly accord-
ing to its usefulness: as a rumor becomes irrelevant it is thrown away,
forgotten, but never ceases to exist.
In Puig’s prison, however, there is no circulation of messages and
meaning, and definitively no contact between inmates beyond the cell’s
walls. The conversation between the two protagonists is uniquely private
and structured. Throughout the novel, the two men’s time in the cell
is largely uninterrupted. The story that is told centers around Molina’s
memory narrative, which recreates six different films.6 Rather than pres-
ent prison life as chaotic, Puig’s tale projects communicative tranquil-
ity, social engagement, and ideological intermingling. Although, like de
Ípola’s rumor, Puig’s prison narrative rejects authority, it becomes a dis-
cursive space around which the two cellmates define survival as collabora-
tive within the crippling grasp of authority.
In the Argentine context, authority has traditionally gone hand in hand
with elite notions of authorship. According to Doris Sommer, narrative
was conceived as a temporal building block in Argentina’s subjective foun-
dation, where “writers were encouraged both by the need to fill in a his-
tory that would help to establish the legitimacy of the emerging nation
and by the opportunity to direct that history toward a future ideal.”7
Nineteenth-century intellectuals such as Juan Bautista Alberdi, Esteban
Echevarria, and José Mármol, together with former president Domingo
Faustino Sarmiento, represented the lettered struggle to mold their ideal-
izing words around the concept of a true, modern Argentine nation. The
authors and politicians, united in one figure, populated this empty socio-
political space by naming and identifying a new community via a symbolic
system that they themselves created. Julio Ramos adds that “writing—by
its general and homogenizing operation—remained a fundamental model
for the rational(izing) project.”8 The intellectual’s role has traditionally
been to establish and reinforce social difference in order to help progress,
and project the nation toward a promising, modern future.
However, the story that emanates from Puig’s prison cell clearly pro-
hibits such a narrative role from developing. Instead of penning the path
toward (post)modernization, Puig removes himself from the narration
altogether—and, in doing so, allows for shared storytelling and narra-
tive collaboration to emerge as counterpoints to normative traditions. In
the initial sequence cited above, Valentin listens to his cellmate recreate
Jacques Tourneur’s 1942 film, Cat People, in which a young woman dis-
covers that she is part woman, part feline, and belongs to a community
of “cat people’” from eastern Europe. As the dialogue continues, the two
protagonists work together to build the storyline, contextualizing it, add-
ing relevance and necessary insight. Molina’s story follows the young lady
to the zoo, where she intends to draw one of its animals, a panther. As
she approaches the cage, the animal begins to pace and become anxious.
Valentin interjects: “¿El animal no la puede oler antes?/—No, porque en
la jaula tiene un enorme pedazo de carne, es lo único que puede oler. El
guardián le pone la carne cerca de las rejas, y no puede entrar ningún olor
de afuera, a propósito para que la pantera no se alborote,”9 (“Couldn’t
the animal smell her before that?/—No, there’s a big slab of meat in the
cage, that’s all it can smell. The keeper drops the meat near the bars, and it
blocks out any smell from outside, that’s the point, so the panther won’t
get excited.”10). As the protagonists collaborate, the storyline becomes
thicker; the additional details deepen the narrative trajectory, adding wig-
gle room and multiple points of interest and reflection to the filmic repre-
sentation. Here, collaboration is shown to be loose, accommodating, and
spacious, in juxtaposition to the thin, tight trajectory plotted by authority
and authorship.
Molina’s capacity to tell the story “as he sees it” reveals a way of engag-
ing subjectivity and social difference outside any fixed, definitive structure.
The story of the cat-woman advances through intermittent question-and-
answer sessions, moments of doubt and reconciliation, and, at times,
discord between the two cellmates. However, with each subsequent inter-
jection and each exchange, Molina and Valentin fold parts of themselves
into the movie that is being told. Their piecemeal autobiographies reach
a climax as Molina attempts to describe the relationship that has formed
between the cat-woman and a young, handsome architect. As he is try-
ing to explain to Valentin why the couple cannot become romantically
involved, Valentin asks him: “—Vos te das cuenta de lo que pasa, ¿no?”11
(“—You get what’s going on, don’t you?”12). This question interrupts
the movie and prefaces a tangential discussion about how to narrate a
story from two different perspectives. Valentin follows his initial question
with the following justification for his interruption: “—No, me gusta la
película, pero es que vos te divertís contándola y por ahí también yo qui-
ero intervenir un poco, ¿te das cuenta? No soy un tipo que sepa escuchar
demasiado, ¿sabés, no?, y de golpe me tengo que estarte escuchando cal-
lado horas,”13 (“No, I like the picture, but you have the fun of telling it
66 M.J. EDWARDS
and I just want to chime in once in a while too, see what I mean? I’m not
the type who knows how to sit around and just listen all the time, you get
what I mean? And all of a sudden I have to sit quiet, listening hours on
end.”14). For the first time, Valentin expresses his interest in participating
in the movie’s narration in explicit terms. He wants an active role in this
memory narrative. Valentin enjoys expressing his opinion on all sorts of
events and issues. He is an opinionated sort of person. He must speak. He
must be heard. Valentin’s insistence on participation with the collective
formation of this filmic representation therefore goes hand in hand with
who he is. His desire to participate is exactly that: a desire and a character
trait that now defines him. In this sense, Molina’s movie narrative has
become an emergent means for another marginalized, silenced voice to be
heard and understood.
Molina’s response to Valentin’s inquiry and sought-after participation
is likewise revealing. With it, we not only gain insight into the explicit
function of the filmic recreation but we also witness an essential piece
of Molina’s own person. To Valentin’s request, Molina responds, “—Yo
creí que te servía para entretenerte, y agarrar el sueño,”15 (“I thought it
helped you pass the time, and fall asleep.”16). The memory narrative—
indeed, the entire interaction between the two cellmates—is understood
by Molina here as an escape from their imprisonment. But the story does
not merely penetrate the jailhouse walls: it suggests a space for happi-
ness and rest within the confines of the prison cell. Molina’s response to
Valentin implies that, without the movie narrative, neither happiness nor
rest is possible. It also reveals his own perceived role within this evasion of
normative limitations. Molina sees himself as an access point to a differ-
ent world—a world where pleasure and relaxation counter the effects of
legal punishment. He also considers himself to be providing access to this
same world for his cellmate: pleasure and relaxation are dependent upon
Molina’s accommodation and servitude within the storytelling role. While
Valentín wants to speak, Molina wants to serve, to help and to accom-
modate his cellmate. In this way, the movie narrative represents a scaf-
fold upon which each cellmate creates his own story, and, in effect, his
own way of engaging with and understanding their subjective formation.
The movie that is created through this process offers a drastic counter to
the prisoners’ own real life stories and their tale of social marginalization.
Personal history and fiction offer mutual points of access to and engage-
ment with each other’s worlds.
Valentin’s desire to participate in the narration and Molina’s desire

to accommodate his interlocutor lead to and inspire a discussion of the
effects of collaboration, of teamwork, and of having a common goal. At
the same time, the discussion of the movie narrative and of the interactive
recreation of its storyline becomes a mechanism for understanding the
two characters’ own stories, their own personal experiences, and the ways
in which, on a grander scale, marginal subjectivity is formed.
—Pero, si no te parece mal, me gustaría que fuéramos comentando un poco

la cosa, a medida que vos avanzás, así yo puedo descargarme un poco con
algo. Es justo, ¿no te parece?
—Si es para burlarte de una película que a mí me gusta, entonces no.
—No, mirá, podría ser que comentemos simplemente. Por ejemplo: a mí me
gustaría preguntarte cómo te la imaginás a la madre del tipo.
—Si es que no te vas a reír más.
—Te lo prometo.
—A ver…no sé, una mujer muy buena. Un encanto de persona, que ha
hecho muy feliz a su marido y a sus hijos, muy bien arreglada siempre.
—¿Te la imaginás fregando la casa?
—No, la veo impecable, con un vestido de cuello alto, la puntilla le disimula
las arrugas del cuello. Tiene esa cosa tan linda de algunas mujeres grandes,
que es ese poquito de coquetería, dentro de la seriedad, por la edad, pero
que se les nota que siguen siendo mujeres y quieren gustar.
—Sí, está siempre impecable. Perfecto. Tiene sirvientes, explota a gente que
no tiene más remedio que servirla, por unas monedas. Y claro, fue muy feliz
con su marido, que la explotó a su vez a ella, le hizo hacer todo lo que él
quiso, que estuviera encerrada en su casa como una esclava, para esperarlo…
—Oíme…
—…para esperarlo todas las noches a él, de vuelta de su estudio de abogado,
o de su consultorio de médico. Y ella estuvo perfectamente de acuerdo con
ese sistema, y no se rebeló, y le inculcó al hijo toda esa basura y el hijo ahora
se topa con la mujer pantera. Que se la aguante.17
(—Only, if it doesn’t rub you the wrong way, I’d like us to discuss the thing
a little, as you go on with it, so I get a chance now and then to rap about
something. Doesn’t that seem fair to you?
—If it’s so you can crack jokes about a picture I happen to be fond of, then
the answer is no.
—No, look, it could be just a simple discussion. Like for example: I person-
ally would like to ask you how you picture the guy’s mother.
—If you’re not going to laugh anymore.
—I promise.
68 M.J. EDWARDS
—Let’s see…I don’t know, a really good person. A lovely lady, who gave her
husband every happiness and her children too, always managing everything
perfectly.
—Do you picture her doing housework?
—No, I see her as impeccably attired, a dress with a high collar, edged in
lace to cover the wrinkles in her neck. She has the marvelous thing of certain
respectable ladies, which is that little touch of coquettishness, beneath all
the properness, on account of her age, but what you notice about them is
the way they go on being women and wanting to please.
—Yes, always impeccable. Perfect. She has her servants, she exploits people
who can’t do anything else but serve her, for a few pennies. And clearly,
she felt very happy with her husband, who in turn exploited her, forced her
to do whatever he wanted, keeping her cooped up in a house like a slave,
waiting for him—
—Listen…
—waiting for him every night, until he got back from his law-firm, or from
his doctor’s office. And she was in perfect agreement with the whole system,
and she didn’t rebel, and she fed her own son the same crap and now the son
runs smack into the panther woman. Good luck with that one.18)
The collective reconstructed narrative of the movie opens the doors of the
prison cell and allows the cellmates to lose themselves in a captive story
that reveals not only the mysterious romance between a New Yorker and a
mythical cat-woman but also each of the protagonists’ own personal histo-
ries. In this excerpt, Molina’s original description of the male protagonist’s
mother matches his own set of ideals. The woman he describes is neither
a part of the movie narrative nor his own past, but instead a reflection of
what he deems to be the perfect elderly woman. His description of her is
a part of himself, and discussing the film periodically with Valentín allows
this information to decorate the original storyline, to make its characters
larger, more complex, as they become parts of Molina himself.
Valentin, likewise, complicates and expands the storyline with his inter-
jections. In this case, the ironic tone attached to his words—describing the
mother as part of an unjust socioeconomic structure—attacks Molina and
diverts the trajectory of the movie, inscribing its telling within a context of
inequality and social revolution. Valentin’s interjection redirects the nar-
rative experience and overlays the calm, happy, carefree state Molina has
crafted with the complex consequences of social hierarchies. As he injects
his bile into the narrative, the film’s images dissolve and the two pro-
tagonists are brought back to the cell that holds them. Valentin no longer
wishes to engage with Molina, but instead wants to enlighten him and shift
his seemingly confused social perspective. He begins this undertaking by
insisting that he knows everything about his cellmate, even without having
been told anything at all.19 “—Bueno, te conté que estoy acá por corrup-
ción de menores, con eso te dije todo, no la vayas de psicólogo ahora,”20
(“Well, I told you what I’m in for, corruption of minors, and that tells
it all, so don’t start playing the psychologist now.”21). Both Molina and
Valentin understand what “corrupting minors” means. It is part of a social
code that they know well and recognize as part of the normative clas-
sification and condemnation of homosexuality. Valentin continues their
discussion by inserting Molina into the plot structure. “—Vamos, confesá
que te gusta porque fuma en pipa,”22 (“—Come on, admit it, you like him
because he smokes a pipe,”23), he asserts with regard to the architect. At
this point, the movie narrative has become inseparable from the discussion
of contemporary social frameworks. And when Valentin takes over the
narration the next day, the movie is confirmed as a space for collaboration,
cohabitation, and debate.
—Estábamos que se iba a casar con el de la pipa. Te escucho.

—¿Por qué ese tonito burlón?
—Nada, contame, dale Molina.
—No, háblame del de la pipa vos, ya que lo conocés mejor que yo, que ví
la película.
—No te conviene el de la pipa.
—¿Por qué?
—Porque vos lo querés con fines no del todo castos, ¿eh?, confesá.
—Claro.
—Bueno, a él le gusta Irena porque ella es frígida y no la tiene que atacar,
por eso la protege y la lleva a la casa donde está la madre presente; aunque
está muerta está presente, en todos los muebles, y cortinas y porquerías, ¿no
lo dijiste vos mismo?
—Seguí.
—Él si ha dejado todo lo de la madre en la casa intacto es porque quiere ser
siempre un chico, en la casa de la madre, y lo que trae a la casa no es una
mujer, sino una nena para jugar.
—Pero eso es todo de tu cosecha. Yo qué sé si la casa era de la madre, yo te
dije eso porque me gustó mucho ese departamento y como era de decora-
ción antigua dije que podía ser de la madre, pero nada más. A lo mejor él lo
alquila amueblado.
—Entonces me estás inventado la mitad de la película.
70 M.J. EDWARDS
—No, yo no invento, te lo juro, pero hay cosas que para redondeártelas,

que las veas como las estoy viendo yo, bueno, de algún modo te las tengo
que explicar.24
(—We were just where she was going to marry the pipe-maker. I’m all ears.
—What’s the little sneer for?
—Nothing, tell it to me, go ahead, Molina.
—No, you go ahead, you tell me about the pipe-maker, since you know him
so much better than me, I only saw the film.
—The pipe-smoker’s no good for you.
—Why not?
—Because what you have in mind is not strictly platonic, right? Admit it.
—Obviously.
—Okay, the reason he likes Irena is because she’s frigid and he doesn’t have
to make her, that’s why he looks after her and takes her home where the
mother’s all over the place. Even if she’s dead she’s there, in every stick of
furniture, and the curtains and all that junk, didn’t you say so yourself?
—Go on.
—If he’s left all his mother’s stuff in the house just the way it was, it’s
because he still wants to be a little boy, back in his mama’s house, and what
he brings home with him isn’t a woman, it’s a little playmate.
—But that’s all your own concoction. How do I know if the house was the
mother’s? I told you that because I liked the apartment a lot, and since it was
decorated with antiques I said it could be the mother’s, but that’s all. Maybe
he rents the place furnished.
—Then you’re inventing half the picture.
—No, I’m not inventing, I swear, but some things, to round them out for
you, so you can see them the way I’m seeing them…well, to some extent I
have to embroider a little.25)
Here Molina’s fiction creates an imagined space where the cellmates coex-
ist. Like the jail cell itself, the movie narrative incorporates and houses
Valentin’s subversive political ideology as well as Molina’s homosexual
desire. And while the sharing of (narrative) space is not always marked by
happiness—indeed, it is more often mired in frustration and debate—the
storyline proves accommodating. Collaboration allows for the incomplete
story to go on, for the two cellmates to engage with their marginal posi-
tioning, and for the boundaries imposed by normative regulations to be
perforated: for life to continue.
Puig’s novel is an exercise in the praxis of marginal engagement—
and of the ways in which ex-centric subjects insert themselves into social
interaction. The discrepancies, holes, and lapses in Molina’s creative

reconstruction are precisely what allow Valentin to speak, engage, and
contribute not only to the movie’s story but also to the cultural produc-
tion developed from within the protagonists’ marginal social positioning.
In addition to the thematic debates inspired by the cellmates’ differing
perspectives, Molina’s periodic pauses to remember, recollect, and give
form to his film allow for its holes and vacancies to be understood as part
of the discourse emanating from the margins. Molina’s lapses in memory
are left unfixed, embraced rather than viewed as negative features of the
narrative that must be filled.
As his narrative continues, Molina describes the protagonist’s deci-
sion to see a psychiatrist after realizing her inability to be intimate with
her boyfriend. The rumors that she has heard describing the transforma-
tion of her community into cat-women have become unsettling. At this
point, Molina loses track of the storyline. However, this doesn’t bother
his cellmate.
—Esperá un poco, ya te va a volver.

—Me acuerdo que viene una escena de una pileta, y otra ahí en el estudio de
los arquitectos, y otra más, la última con el psicoanalista.
—No me digas que al final la pantera se queda conmigo.
—No. No te apures. Bueno, toda esta parte final si querés te la cuento
deshilvanada, no más lo que me acuerdo.
—Bueno.26
(Wait a second, it’ll come back to you.
—I remember there’s a scene in a swimming pool, and another right there
in the architect’s studio, and still another, the last, with the psychiatrist.
—Don’t tell me that at the end the panther woman winds up with me.
—No. Don’t rush. Anyway, I can tell you this whole last part in a very
sketchy way if you want, as much as I remember of it.
—Sure.27)
After briefly reassuring Molina that his memory will return, Valentin
becomes immediately engaged with the fragmented narrative. Even before
Molina begins his attempt to reconstruct the remaining pieces of the film,
his sketch of events excites his cellmate. Valentin is truly engaged with the
narrative, and yet does nothing to complete it, to fill Molina’s missing sec-
tions. In fact, the empty spaces, the sketchy overview of events provides
Valentín with a place of entry, a spot to participate.
72 M.J. EDWARDS
The movie continues uninterrupted over the next two pages. Here,
Molina describes with strange precision how the cat-woman discovers that
her now-husband is having an affair and turns into a panther to avenge this
wrongdoing. During the episode, Valentín becomes notably distracted:
—¿Me estás escuchando?

—Si, pero no sé por qué esta noche no hago más que pensar en otra cosa.
—¿En qué?
—En nada, no me puedo concentrar…
—Pero, vamos, comunícate un poco.
—Pienso en mi compañera.
—¿Cómo se llama?
—No viene al caso. Mirá, yo no te hablo nunca de ella, pero pienso siempre
en ella.
—¿Por qué no te escribe?
—¡Qué sabés si no me escribe! Yo te puedo decir que recibo cartas de otro
y son de ella. ¿O vos me revisás las cosas a la hora del baño?
—Estás loco. Pero es que nunca me mostraste carta de ella.
—Bueno, es que yo no quiero hablar nunca de eso, pero no sé, ahora tenía
ganas de comentarte una cosa…que cuando empezaste a contar que la
pantera la sigue a la arquitecta, sentí miedo.
—¿Qué es lo que te asustó?
—No me dio miedo por mí sino por mi compañera.28
(Are you listening to me?
—Yeah, but I don’t know why I can’t get something out of my head tonight.
—What?
—Nothing, I can’t concentrate …
—But, come on, open up a little.
—I’m just thinking about my girl.
—What’s her name?
—That’s not the point. Look, I never talk to you about her, but I’m always
thinking about her.
—How come she doesn’t write to you?
—How do you know if she writes to me or not! I could say that I’m getting
letters from someone else and they’re hers. Or are you going through my
stuff when I’m taking a shower?
—You’re crazy, Valentín. But you never showed me a letter from her.
—Well, I don’t like to talk about this ever, but, I don’t know, just now I felt
like discussing something with you…When you started talking about the
panther woman’s following the assistant around, I got scared.
—What scared you?
—I wasn’t afraid for myself but for my girl.29)
The holes in Molina’s narrative clearly go unnoticed as Valentin contin-

ues to engage with the film. Unlike in previous moments, when his inqui-
ries pushed for thematic, narrative, and discursive clarity, in this sequence,
Molina’s filmic recreation explicitly leads to Valentin’s own story, confirm-
ing, once again, the film as a space for interaction, collaboration, and shar-
ing. In particular, when fear becomes the topic of discussion, Molina’s filmic
reconstruction becomes a mechanism that bridges ideological, social, and
contextual differences. Valentin confesses that he is worried about his girl-
friend because of her participation in leftist politics, and in response, Molina
shares that he, too, is afraid of what might happen to his loved ones, specifi-
cally his mother, during his imprisonment: “—Yo también, sabés, tengo esa
sensación, desde acá, de no poder hacer nada; pero en mi caso no es una
mujer, una chica quiero decir, es mi mamá,”30 (“Me too, you know, I have
that sensation, from being in here, of not being able to do anything, but
in my case it’s not a woman—not a girl, I mean, it’s my mother.”31). The
protagonists’ imprisonment is emotionally crippling, but it is only Molina’s
film that offers the two inmates the space to express their anxiety. The movie
narrative unites the two in a historic, marginal narrative, and its fragmented,
incomplete, and crippled nature does not impede, but rather permits the
two to join together in their disability, to connect and form one tale.
The narratives Molina tells present a clear counter to the sociopolitical
discourse that has placed the cellmates in jail.32 While offering a necessary
distraction from the confines of social and political marginality, these stories
also permit the formation of a collaborative relationship that helps the pris-
oners respond to the disabling effects of prison life. And while “la ficción de
los textos narrativos de las películas prefigura, anticipa y articula lo que se
presenta a nivel de la ficción del texto,” (the fiction of the narrative texts of
the movies prefigures, anticipates, and articulates that which is presented at
a fictional level within the text),33 their fragmented, porous, multidirectional
stories provide a means—otherwise absent from Puig’s text—of accommo-
dating and housing social alterity. Rather than reinforce the rigid limitations
of authority, Molina’s filmic representations embrace the inclusion of other
information, of other stories, and in doing so, help us understand these
narratives as a collective work, a “support group” through which Puig’s
disabled characters are empowered to withstand and live within marginality.
DOMINANCE, DOCUMENTS, AND TEXTUAL CONFINEMENT

Eventually, Puig’s text directs the reader’s attention away from the prison
cell doors (where marginal voices are heard) and into spaces where sto-
ries are told loudly, dictated by the strict narrative and epistemological
74 M.J. EDWARDS
guidelines of dominant discourse. Here, footnotes, transcriptions of offi-

cial dialogues, and police investigative reports confidently trace the shape
of marginal interactions and label them (by-)products of an ordered tra-
jectory toward proper sociocultural (re)orientation.
Manuel Puig introduces dominant textualities for the first time in the
third chapter of El beso de la mujer araña, after the close of Molina’s
movie narrative, Cat People. In the cell, Molina describes a relationship
that he once had with a married man. Like the film recreations, homo-
sexuality becomes a topic of conversation, dialogue, and debate between
the two protagonists, where understanding is regarded as a direct product
of collective thinking. Following Molina’s description of the relationship,
Valentin asks his cellmate to elaborate and explain homosexuality itself:
“Si estamos en esta celda juntos mejor es que nos comprendamos, y yo de
gente de tus inclinaciones sé muy poco*,”34 (“If we’re going to be in this
cell together like this, we ought to understand one another better, and I
know very little about people with your type of inclination.*”35). Valentin’s
inquiry must be understood in connection to his broader narrative role in
the retelling of the film stories. His question to Molina is not intended as
a direct attack on queer identity, but rather a natural precursor to contin-
ued conversation, to more storytelling. Valentin’s misunderstanding of
homosexuality is presented as an invitation for more leisurely dialogue
and for the setting of more collective, collaborative, thick epistemologi-
cal pathways, where tangents and discussion complicate linear narratives.
Storytelling in the prison cell, and other marginal spaces, is presented as
including all of this; from a central narrative to discursive tangents, discus-
sion, conflict, and debate.
However, his request also sets up a new type of exposition, one that
takes the narrative outside the jail cell. An asterisk closes Valentin’s
thoughts, directing the reader clearly to the footnote at the bottom of
the page and, in doing so, offering a clear textual pointer to the pres-
ence of authority. This star literally and metaphorically shines the light
of dominant discourse on the path back to textuality, away from the oral
quality of the prison narrative. Puig remains a secondary figure even in this
footnote as he mediates a discussion on the origins of same-sex desire. “El
investigador inglés D.J. West considera que son tres las teorías principales
sobre el origen físico de la homosexualidad, y refuta a las tres,”36 (“The
English researcher D.J. West suggests there are three principal theories
with respect to the physical origins of homosexuality, and then proceeds
to refute all three.”37). The objective presentation of third-party material
here emulates formal, academic discourse, presenting an explicitly styl-

ized narrative as a mechanism to inform the reader of the misconceptions
behind homosexual desire.
In El deseo, enorme cicatriz luminosa, Daniel Balderston suggests that
Puig’s footnotes be read and understood as a parallel narrative. He argues
that while the structure of the narrative and notes is significant, reading
the notes apart as a complete text permits their thesis to be plotted along-
side Puig’s prison story. He explains that “Este extenso tratado sobre la
liberación sexual [que se llevan a cabo en las notas de pie de página] llama
la atención, por una parte, por la aparente diversidad de las fuentes; y,
por otra, por su fuerte tesis final: la liberación sexual en general, y la gay
en particular, son motores esenciales del anhelado cambio social”38 (This
extensive treatise on sexual liberation [that is carried out in the footnotes]
calls attention toward, on the one hand, the apparent diversity of cited
material, and, on the other, its strong final thesis: sexual liberation, in gen-
eral, and gay liberation, in particular, are essential drivers to sought-after
social change39). Puig uses the notes and invents the narrative authority in
order to destabilize traditional literary and sexual hierarchies.40
Although Balderston recognizes an explicit connection between the
footnotes and suggests that the tale told there be read alongside Puig’s
prison narrative, it is important to recognize that the (literally marginal)
position of this formal text leaves its important content out of reach of the
two cellmates who are searching for precisely such information. The voice
of authorship, of authority in the footnote is reduced to a “star,” casting
a paradoxical glimmer on a discussion that takes place in social darkness.
For Puig, the asterisk represents a symbolic enlightenment that is explicitly
misplaced, not destined for his marginal subjects—for they are unable to
cross (textual) distances and must instead remain still and search for infor-
mation and answers locally.
The question-and-answer session that follows Valentin’s initial inquiry,
together with the glimmering light of dominant discourse, broadens the
thematic scope of the reviewed scientific research. The protagonists’ dis-
cussion leads to the understanding that femininity and masculinity form
part of a cultural repertoire performed by men and women alike. By the
end of the third chapter, both the footnotes and the prison narrative have
put forward theses supporting sexual equality. Meanwhile, within the
prison cell—within marginality—sexual difference sleeps together, under
the same roof and surrounded by the same walls. The protagonists’ per-
sistent closeness—indeed, their inability/disability to distance themselves
76 M.J. EDWARDS
from one another on account of their status as marginal, jailed subjects—

suggests that the discussion and the sharing of differences across margin-
alized communities establishes common goals and collective movement
against normative institutions. Whereas the footnotes carefully mark the
separation between researcher and object of study in order to inform,
educate, and motivate change, the prison narrative confronts cultural
differences close-up and personal. José Amícola argues that Puig’s care-
ful integration of sources and their intentional combination results in a
democratization of social, sexual, and textual categories within El beso.41
However, the distances that separate Molina and Valentín from the foot-
notes (and from other textual insertions that deviate from Puig’s prison
narrative) force coexistence to counter scientific enlightenment, and the
local to be favored over the distant, foreign information presented as part
of a dominant system of knowledge. In this way, the thesis produced as a
product of the scientific research Puig places in his footnotes is replaced
with the tangible, useful, and applied theories of lived experience. In no
way can Puig’s prison narrative be considered on equal ground with the
other discursive pieces of Puig’s story, and, in particular, with the informa-
tion presented in the footnotes.
As Puig’s footnotes continue to inform from a distance, they collectively
represent a pull away from marginality, away from the local and the dis-
abled and toward an informed certainty. There is no doubt, no dialogue,
no confusion in these notes; their shining asterisk glows unequivocally as if
it were a beacon summoning the masses. Eventually, the protagonists’ dis-
cussion from within marginality becomes a formal threat to this dominant
discourse when, in chapter eight, Molina is called into the prison warden’s
office. His exit from his prison cell corresponds with a shift in the narrative
platform and his silent insertion into controlled representation.
Ministerio del Interior de la República Argentina

Penitenciaría de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires
Informe para el señor Director del Sector, preparado por Secretaría Privada
Procesado 3.018, Luis Alberto Molina.
Sentencia del Juez en la Penal Dr. Justo José Dalpierre, expedida el 20 de
julio de 1974, en el Tribunal de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Condena 8 años
de reclusión por delito de corrupción de menores. Aposentado en Pabellón
B, celda 34, el día 28 de julio de 1974, con procesados amorales Benito
Jaramillo, Mario Carlos Bianchi y David Margulies. Transferido el 4 de abril
de 1975 al Pabellón D, celda 7 con el preso político Valentín Arregui Paz.
Buena conducta.
Detenido 16.115, Valentín Arregui Paz.

Arresto efectuado el 16 de octubre de 1972 en la carretera 5, a la altura
de Barrancas, poco después de que la Policía Federal sorprendiera al grupo
de activistas que promovía disturbios en ambas plantas de fabricación de
automotores donde los obreros se hallaban en huelga y situados sobre esa
carretera. Puesto a disposición del Poder Ejecutivo de la Nación y en espera
de juicio. Aposentado en Pabellón A, celda 10, con preso político Bernardo
Giacinti el día 4 de noviembre de 1974. Tomó parte en huelga de hambre
por protesta de la muerte del preso político Juan Vicente Aparicio durante
interrogatorios policiales. Castigado en calabozo diez días a partir del 25 de
marzo de 1975. Transferido el 4 de abril de 1975 al Pabellón D, celda 7, con
el procesado por corrupción de menores Luis Alberto Molina. Conducta
reprobable por rebeldía, reputado como cabecilla de huelga de hambre
citada y otros movimientos de protesta por supuesta falta de higiene de
pabellón y violación de correspondencia personal.42
(MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR OF THE ARGENTINE

REPUBLIC
Penitentiary of the City of Buenos Aires
Report to the Warden, prepared by Staff Assistants
Prisoner 3018, Luis Alberto Molina
Sentenced July 20, 1974, by the Honorable Judge Justo José Dalpierre,
Criminal Court of the City of Buenos Aires. Condemned to eight years’
imprisonment for corruption of minors. Lodged in Pavilion B, cell 34, as of
July 29, 1974, with sexual offenders Benito Jaramillo, Mario Carlos Bianchi,
and David Margulies. Transferred on April 4, 1975, to Pavilion D, cell 7,
housing political prisoner Valentin Arregui Paz. Conduct Good.
Detainee 16115, Valentin Arregui Paz
Arrested October 16, 1972, along Route 5, outside Barrancas, National
Guard troops having surrounded group of activists involved in promoting
disturbances with strikers at two automotive assembly plants. Both plants
situated along said highway. Held under Executive Power of the Federal
Government and awaiting judgment. Lodged in Pavilion A, cell 10, with
political prisoner Bernardo Giacinti as of November 4, 1974. Took part in
hunger strike protesting death of political prisoner Juan Vicente Aparicio
while undergoing police interrogation. Moved to solitary confinement for
ten days as of March 25, 1975. Transferred on April 4, 1975, to Pavilion
D, cell 7, with sexual offender Luis Alberto Molina. Conduct reprehen-
sible, rebellious, reputed instigator of above hunger strike as well as other
incidents supposedly protesting lack of hygienic conditions in Pavilion and
violation of personal correspondence.43)
78 M.J. EDWARDS
Both Valentin and Molina’s presence within normativity is well docu-

mented. Their place is clearly named, and situated, and their past is part
of a carefully produced manuscript. In contrast to the stories the two
weave within the prison cell, this example of official documentation strives
for discursive clarity as it openly classifies, names, and organizes the two
prisoners as social subjects, according to their place within the normative
framework. Official discourse understands the importance of role playing;
as Molina is greeted by the warden, all those present fall, naturally, into
(their) places:
Suboficial: Descúbrase ante el señor Director.

Procesado: Está bien.
Director: No tiemble así, hombre, no le va a pasar nada.44
(Guard: Remove your cap in front of the Warden.
Prisoner: Yes sir.
Warden: No need to be trembling like that, young man, nothing bad
is going to happen here.45)
The scripted dialogue makes explicit the theatricality of the interclass social
engagement in which each participant is rigidly positioned according to
status and access to power. The classificatory tags that name their roles
mark this scene as a telegraphed social theater that subjugates each charac-
ter, always already, within a set of preestablished standards and guidelines.
Personal names are rendered irrelevant as social roles govern the situation
and predetermine each actor’s actions and attitudes within preestablished
cultural codes.
Within this structure, only the powerful move and have the ability to
move others. Unlike in the prison cell, where there is no mobility, no
chance to change or be changed—where disabilities are permanent—
on the outside, (hetero)normativity permits and requires movement. In
the warden’s office, allegiance to dominant traditions is represented in
the coming and going of information. Molina is asked to infiltrate the
local leftist rebellion by reporting details of the group’s whereabouts, its
members, and its future projects (gleaned from his cellmate, Valentín)
to the warden. In return, the warden promises freedom, thereby con-
firming mobility as a desired accessory. Here, the heterosexual framework
becomes the only path to follow.
When the warden suggests that the meeting should be explained to
Valentín as a visit from Molina’s mother in order to keep the real deal a
secret, Molina protests that his mother’s visits come accompanied with
parcels and packets of food, goods, and supplies. The warden immediately
takes down a list of groceries to buy.
PROCESADO: …Dulce de leche, en taro grande. …Dos taros, mejor.

Duraznos al natural, dos pollos asados, qué no estén ya
fríos, claro. Un paquete grande de azúcar. Dos paquetes
de té, uno de té negro, y otro de manzanilla. Leche en
polvo, leche condensada, jabón para lavar…media barra,
no, una barra entera, de jabón Radical, y cuatro paquetes
de jabón de tocador, Palmolive, … ¿y qué más? …sí, un
frasco grande de pescado en escabeche, y déjeme pensar un
poquito, porque tengo como una laguna en la cabeza…46
(Prisoner: …Guava paste, in a package… Make it two packages.
Canned peaches, two roast chickens, still warm, obvi-
ously. A large bag of sugar. Two boxes of tea, one regu-
lar and the other chamomile. Powdered milk, condensed
milk, detergent…a small box, no, a large box, of Blanco,
and four cakes of toilet soap, Suavísimo…and what else?
…Yes, a big jar of pickled herring, and let me think a little,
my mind’s a complete blank…47)
Here, Molina feels right at home. The pensive tempo of his speech,
punctuated by pauses, suggests a relaxed atmosphere as he gives way to
change, modification, and correction—in contradiction to his name-tag,
“Procesado,” which recalls his marginalized role within this drama as a
social outcast. As the sequence progresses, the office space gives way to
the domestic sphere, where Molina and the warden share the duties of the
prison-house. In this reading, the warden does the shopping and Molina is
left to care for the prisoners, to watch over them and to report any wrong-
doings, making of the jailhouse a traditional domicile, with the dominant
heterosexual male atop power relations as patriarch to cultural interaction.
This holy matrimony soon comes to a close, though, when Puig’s prison
narrative reasserts itself and the thread of the story reverts once more to
marginality. Upon Molina’s return to the cell, all his obligations to the war-
den seem to disappear as the package of groceries he requested is coopted
to care for his ill cellmate (whose food has been poisoned by the prison
authorities as a measure to improve the gathering of intelligence). Rather
than further the persecution of counterculture insurgency, the groceries
give life to and nourish an ill Valentin, completely disabled by dominant
80 M.J. EDWARDS
frameworks. Caregiving and community service are here juxtaposed to

espionage and guerrilla warfare. The produce and preserves offer the hope
of improvement and the promise of mobility within the prison structure.
Like the warden’s promise of freedom, Molina’s attention to detail and
concern for his cellmate’s wellbeing leads here to movement and the era-
sure of disability. However, the warden’s promises are located on the out-
side, within the far-off structures of normativity; Molina’s caregiving, by
contrast, locates physical and ideological mobility within the close quar-
ters of Puig’s prison narrative, strengthening the value of the local, the
close, and the intimate. Again, Molina and Valentín find themselves still,
their inability to move now an explicit mechanism for community forma-
tion in the face of normative frameworks.
By creating this contrast, Puig positions disabled communities as the
queer counterpart to the able-bodied heterosexual family: Molina chooses
to retain his marginalized community and care for his sick, politically con-
demned cellmate rather than attain his freedom. Much in the same way
that Puig himself is drawn to the prison cell’s marginal story and away
from traditional positions of authority and authorship, the cellmates feel
at home in their self-contained community, where caregivers and the dis-
abled body represent a sustainable cultural model within social alterity.
KISSING IN THE DARK
Upon his cellmate’s return, Valentin immediately understands the arrival
of the supplies as evidence of Molina’s mother’s visit. Although he con-
tinues to recover from his last bout of diarrhea (induced by the prison’s
intentionally contaminated food), Valentin expresses his eagerness to
share in the excitement of taking inventory, together. The scene is one of
collective joy and excitement, where the sharing of resources and the giv-
ing of gifts reconstructs the communal nature of the work done together
narrating Molina’s films.
—¡¡¡Mirá lo que traigo!!!

—¡No!...estuvo tu mamá…
—¡¡¡Sí!!!
—Pero qué bueno…Anda bien entonces.
—Sí, un poco mejor…Y mirá todo lo que me trajo. Perdón, lo que nos trajo.
—Gracias, pero es para vos, no embromés, hombre.
—Callate vos, apestado. Hoy acá se empieza una nueva vida, con las sábanas
casi secas, tocá…Y todo esto para comer. Mirá, dos pollos al espiedo, dos,
¿qué me contás? Y los pollos son para vos, eso no te puede hacer mal, vas a
ver que enseguida te componés.
—Jamás lo voy a permitir.
—Hacelo por mí, prefiero no comer pollo pero salvarme de tus olores,
inmundo de porquería…. No, en serio, te lo digo, vos tenés que dejar de
comer esta puta comida de acá y vas a ver que te componés. Por lo menos
hacé la prueba dos días.
—¿Te parece?...
—Claro, hombre. Y ya cuando estés bien…cerrá los ojos, Valentín, a ver si
adivinás. Decí.
—Qué sé yo…no sé…
—No abras los ojos. Esperate que te doy a tocar a ver si caés. A ver…tocá.
—Dos tarros…Y pesaditos. Me doy por vencido.
—Abrí los ojos.
—¡Dulce de leche!
—Pero para eso hay que esperar, una vez que te sientas bien, y esto sí nos lo
comemos entre los dos.48
(—Look what I’ve got!
—No!...your mother came?...
—Yes!!!
—But how great…Then she’s feeling better.
—Mmm-hmm, a little better…And look at what she brought for me. I
mean, for us.
—Thanks, but all of that’s for you, no kidding.
—You be quiet, you’re convalescing, remember? Starting today a new life
begins…The sheets are almost dry, feel…and all this food to eat. Look, two
roast chickens, two, how about that? And chicken is perfect, it won’t upset
your stomach at all. Watch how fast you get better now.
—No, I won’t let you do that.
—Please take them. I don’t care for chicken anyway. I’ll just be glad to do
without any more stink from you and your barnyard…No, seriously, you
have to stop eating that damn stuff they feed us here. Then you’ll start feel-
ing better in no time. At least try it for a couple of days.
—You think so?...
—Absolutely. And once you’re better then…close your eyes, Valentin. See if
you can guess…Come on, try…
—How do I know? I don’t know…
—-No peeking. Wait, I’ll let you handle it to see whether you can guess.
Here…feel.
82 M.J. EDWARDS
—Two of them…packages…and heavy ones. But I give up.

—Open your eyes.
—Guava paste!
—But you have to wait for that, until you feel okay, and you can be sure you
only get half of that…49)
This scene paints a clear contrast with the scripted interaction in the
warden’s office, where roles and responsibilities were sharply divided
according to the heteronormative framework in which the father/warden
frequents public places and the mother/Molina and her children/Valentin
are restricted to (prison)household lifestyles. In the prison cell, on the
margins of normative interactions, the disabled, immobilized prisoners are
safely separate from the able-bodied heteronormative subject, and their
joy, caregiving, collective movement (within local parameters), and com-
munal action can go undetected.
When Molina asks his cellmate to close his eyes in anticipation of the
best part, the two engage, objects are exchanged, and excitement shared.
Above and beyond Valentin’s euphoric reaction upon discovering the
delicious caramel spread (represented as a fruit-based treat in the English
translation to Puig’s text), this episode captures a moment in which an
undetectable affective relationship is established. The ellipses that scat-
ter Puig’s textual representation of the episode suggestively cover-over
Molina’s hiding of the special food, his movements toward Valentin, and
his passing of the jars to be assessed. Here Molina’s attentive care also
moves with the jars, just as Valentin gratefully receives much more than
food. After having unpacked and organized the bag’s contents, the two
establish dietary guidelines and begin to eat.
—Es que vos no sabés, después de los dolores me viene un vacío al estómago
que me muero de hambre.
—Escuchame, vamos a ver si nos entendemos. Yo quiero que te comas el
pollo, no, los pollos, los dos, con la condición de que no pruebes la comida
del penal, que es la que te hace mal, ¿trato hecho?
—De acuerdo. Pero y vos, ¿te quedás con las ganas?
—No, a mí la comida fría no me tienta. De veras.
........................
........................
—Sí, me cayó bien. Y fue buena idea la manzanilla más temprano.
—Te tranquilizó los nervios, ¿no es cierto? A mí también.50
(—But you don’t realize, my stomach feels so empty when the pains stop
that it’s like all of a sudden I’m starving.
—One minute, let’s get this straight. I expect you to eat the chicken, no,
chickens, both of them. One condition, though, that you don’t touch the
prison chow, which is making you so sick. Is it a deal?
—Okay…But what about you? I won’t let you just sit around and drool.
—I won’t, cold food doesn’t tempt me really.

—Oh, it definitely agreed with me. And what a good idea to have chamo-
mile tea first.
—Calmed your nerves, didn’t it? Same with me.51)
The two rows of dots in the original Spanish text, and the space left in
blank in the English translation, mark a pause in conversation, a silence
in the cell: a place of pure action. Although such pauses are scattered
frequently throughout Puig’s text, here the pause is uniquely symbolic;
here, the warden’s food is savored, shared back and forth, along with
smiles, nods, and helpful hands. As the plates are symbolically scrapped
clean, silence becomes subversive as the warden’s wishes are likewise swept
into the trash. In this context, the simple act of caring for the disabled,
of the two protagonists’ quietly filling their stomachs and hearts with
healthy food and loving gestures, is read as counterculture and distinctly
queer. Silent affect avoids detection and helps construct a local, intimate,
community-based social interaction in contrast to the cacophony of het-
eronormativity, with its logic of noise in which subjects are heard and their
words documented, traced, and scripted. In contrast to this normative
hubbub, the silence of this sequence permits queer feelings to flow, their
warmth supporting the disabled and mobilizing the marginalized subject
within a unique community outside the traditional social/family structure.
As the two prisoners enjoy their dinner, caregiving is confirmed as a
queer framework for social interaction. The cellmates’ silent affections
continue to separate prison lifestyle from dominant able-bodied culture
even when the meal comes to a close and Molina is informed that, despite
his insistent loyalty to his cellmate, he has been granted permission to
leave the prison and (re)enter public sphere. Freedom—going out into
the public sphere—no longer appeals to him; he is comfortable where he
is. “—No sé, tengo miedo de todo, tengo miedo de ilusionarme de que
me van a soltar, tengo miedo de que no me suelten. …Y de lo que más
miedo tengo es de que nos separen y me pongan en otra celda y me quede
ahí para siempre, con quién sabe qué atorrante…”52 (“I don’t know, I’m
84 M.J. EDWARDS
scared of everything, scared of kidding myself about getting out of here,

scared they’ll never let me. And what scares me most is that they might
separate us and stick me in another cell and keep me there forever, with
who knows what sort of creep…”53). Molina and Valentin have become
inseparable. The experiences they have shared have formed a bond that
is difficult to break, and hard to imagine recreated. Here, Molina’s fear
of new narratives—even new prison narratives—stems precisely from the
comfort he feels in caring for, and being cared for by, Valentín. Their rela-
tionship is presented as a preferred mode of life and an emotional place
where their mutual support, their caring for one another, permits social
mobility into the distant realm of the heteronormative. The ellipses in
Molina’s speech now mark the pauses of unease, insecurity, and discom-
fort with the possibility of confronting marginalization alone, of having
no help, of being disabled. These silences suggest an affective rejection
of the requisite precision and scripted clarity of dominant discourses and
their social performance; heteronormative mobility is juxtaposed to queer
instability, to emotional anxiety, and to Molina’s inability to do something
new alone, to his cold feet, here frozen and motionless.
As the scene continues, Valentin and Molina both become unsure of
what to say and how to express their feelings for one another. Their emo-
tions break down linguistic communication and suggest that understand-
ing marginality, and the feelings of the (socially) disabled, is impossible
from a distance—specifically, from the place from which Puig is under-
stood to be transcribing their conversation.
—Eh… ¿qué pasa?

—Nada…
—Vamos, no te pongas así…levantá la cara de esa almohada…
—No… dejame…
—¿Pero qué pasa?, ¿Hay algo que me ocultás?
—No, ocultarte no… Pero es que…54
(—Hey…what’s up?
—Nothing…
—Come on, don’t get like that…Take your head out of the pillow…
—Leave me alone…
—But what’s up? Are you hiding something from me?
—No, not hiding anything…But it’s just…55)
And in effect, Molina has nothing to hide. Valentín sees everything, as long
as he is by his side in the prison cell. Molina’s inability to express himself
is read as an insistence that this exchange be understood intimately, from
within the local, close-up, closed-up space of their cell. In this context,
words are, again, not enough. While Puig’s text envisions Molina covering
his face (maybe with his head in his lap?), its representation of marginal
interactions remains incomplete. The silences on the page imply that some-
thing is missing; the rest must be imagined, the ellipses decoded. Here,
silence and hiding go hand-in-hand and together insist on the separation
between marginal and dominant spaces, disabled and able-bodied textuali-
ties and systems of knowledge, queer and heterosexual frameworks.
In the prison cell, it is now nighttime and the lights have been turned
off. The two cellmates continue to discuss Molina’s possible departure
from the prison narrative and Valentin continues to sooth his cellmate’s
anxieties. Up until this moment, caregiving has been one-sided, with
Molina’s bedtime stories, grocery packages, and kind disposition tending
to Valentín’s numerous psychological and physical woes. This evening,
however, the idea of leaving his prison cell, and his disabled relationship
with Valentín, has made Molina ill.
—Esta noche no me voy a poder dormir.

—Vos escuchame, que en algo te podré ayudar. Es cuestión de hablar. Ante
todo tenés que pensar en agruparte, en no quedarte solo, eso seguro te va
a ayudar.
—¿Agruparme con quién? Yo no entiendo nada de esas cosas, y tampoco
creo mucho.
—Entonces aguantate.
—No hablemos… más…
—Vamos…no seas así…, Molinita.
—No… te lo ruego… no me toques…
—¿No te puede palmear tu amigo?
—Me hacés peor…
—-¿Por qué?... vamos, hablá, ya es hora que confiemos el uno en el otro. De
veras, te quiero ayudar, Molinita, decime qué te pasa.56
(—And I won’t ever get to sleep tonight.
—Now listen to me, because there must be something I can help with. It’s
just a matter of discussing it a little. First of all, you have to think about
getting into some group, and not be alone all the time. That’s bound to
help you.
86 M.J. EDWARDS
—Get into what group? I tell you I don’t understand any of those things,
and I don’t believe in them very much either.
—Then you have no right to complain.
—Let’s just…stop talking…
—Come on…don’t be that way…Molina.
—No… don’t touch me…
—Can’t a buddy even pat your back?
—It makes me feel worse…
—Why?...Come on now, say something. It’s time for us to be honest with
each other. Really, Molina, I want to help you, tell me what’s wrong.57)
In Michel Foucault’s 1975 study of the European penitentiary system,

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, the author brings the audi-
ence safely inside the modern correctional facility, just as Puig does in this
story. With Foucault, we are invited to observe the socially abject from
the powerful position of Bentham’s panopticon and from the model upon
which the modern jail is built. Alongside Foucault and the prison guards,
we witness the effects of dominant discourse and the usefulness of “back-
lighting” in revealing social mishaps; we “observe from the tower, stand-
ing out precisely against the light, the small captive shadows in the cells of
the periphery.”58 Here, power is inseparable from sight as the panopticon
marks surveillance as an essential mechanism of control: the prisoner—and
marginal subject alike—“is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of
information, never a subject in communication.”59 Here, power is enabled
through perfect vision, and although the prisoners also see, their field of
vision is blurred, darkened by shadow, their bodies rendered unable to
reciprocate, powerless.
The power of sight is turned on its head, however, here in Molina
and Valentin’s jail cell. In Puig’s novel, Valentin’s movements in the dark
intentionally evade the vigilant eye of normativity, enabling him to com-
pletely assume his role as other, and, in particular, as caregiver to his ailing
cellmate. As words become insufficient aid, he reaches out to physically
support Molina. Physical contact, a pat on the back, represents Valentin’s
only hope to help make Molina feel better, and to care for his friend just
as Molina has done for him so many times before.
—Estoy muy cansado, Valentín. Estoy cansado de sufrir. Vos no sabés, me

duele todo por dentro.
—¿Adónde te duele?
—Adentro del pecho, y en la garganta… ¿Por qué será que la tristeza se

siente siempre ahí?
—Es verdad.
—Y ahora vos… me cortaste la gana, de llorar. No puedo seguir, llorando.
Y es peor, el nudo en la garganta, como me está apretando, es algo terrible.
—…
—…
—Es cierto, Molina, ahí es donde se siente más la tristeza.
—…
—¿Sentís muy fuerte… te aprieta muy fuerte, ese nudo?
—Sí.
—…
—…
—¿Es acá que te duele?
—Sí…60
(—I’m tired, Valentin. Tired of hurting. You don’t know, I hurt so much
inside.
—Where does it hurt you?
—In my chest, and my throat…Why does the sadness always jam up right
there, in that one spot?
—It’s true…
—And now…you made me stop crying, so I can’t even cry anymore. And
that makes it worse, the knot in my throat, it’s so tight there, so tight…
—…
—…
—Is it hurting you right now? That knot, I mean?
—Yes.
—…
—…
—Right here?
—Yes.61)
Valentin follows Molina’s guidance carefully, longing to relieve his pain.

Silent affect moves from one socially crippled body to the next as physi-
cal contact is made, received, and enjoyed. The scene moves forward and
Valentin’s silent caresses are reciprocated. After the two make love, they
both feel better, relieved, calm. In a sequence that lacks passion and desire,
sex embodies the cellmates’ physical codependence. They care for each
other. When the sequence comes to a close, the two engage in an intimate
embrace and Molina explains:
88 M.J. EDWARDS
—-Por un minute solo, me pareció que yo no estaba acá, …ni acá, ni afuera…
—…
—Me pareció que yo no estaba…que estabas vos sólo.
—…
—O que yo no era yo. Que ahora yo…eras vos.62
(—For just a second, it seemed like I wasn’t here…not here or anywhere
out there either…
—…
—It seemed as if I wasn’t here at all…like it was you all alone.
—…
—Or like I wasn’t me anymore. As if now, somehow…I …were you.63)
Feeling each other, the two become one, and their literal and symbolic
embrace confirms the queer, subversive, countercultural nature of collabo-
ration within marginalized communities. In a beautiful moment of mutual
support, Molina is able to imagine the two of them free from the crippling
pressures of heteronormativity. In the dark, when words are the only thing
heard and understood, silence represents a subversive push against surveil-
lance and the dominant mechanisms of repression and social confinement.
Understood as a continuation of the silent sharing of food, this sequence
of silences confirms the inmates’ break with the warden’s proposed fam-
ily structure. Instead of the wife and unruly child reaping the rewards of
the patriarch’s hard work, their role-play becomes that of the homosexual
affair. Here, permanent family life is consciously substituted for the insta-
bility implicit in the sexual encounter between the two inmates, which
marks queer affective platforms, once again, as a space for epistemological
deviation.
This intimate scene of sharing and marginal coexistence is undoubt-
edly the high point of Puig’s prison narrative. From here, Molina is soon
released and tragically killed as he attempts to integrate himself into the
leftist, revolutionary struggle, while Valentin, still in jail, brings the novel
to a close with a trance-like inner monologue that recalls Molina’s filmic
reconstructions. Presenting his imaginings as a coping mechanism to help
him withstand his now more severe and intense torture sessions, Valentin
speaks of a “mujer araña,” a Spider Woman, whose web has entangled his
presence, seduced him, and defined his marginal existence throughout
this story.
The two characters’ separation from Puig’s prison narrative and their
symbolic reintegration into normative frameworks marks an end to the
support system that allowed for their marginalization, their disabled social
position, to be sustained and cared for. As life within the prison cell is
juxtaposed to reality on the outside, the cell’s marginal, queer position-
ing becomes the obviously preferred time and place, a desirable socio-
cultural ethos. The prison cell is confirmed as home to contemporary
notions of social alterity, where peaceful coexistence, sharing, and collabo-
ration contrast with the violent reception of marginality within normative
frameworks.
And, while Molina and Valentin find solace within their shared confine-
ment and their mutual social disability, Manuel Puig insists on telling their
story. In El beso de la mujer araña, the author approaches marginal sub-
jectivity from the outside, finding within that subjectivity a necessary focal
point, a place of interest, a topic of discussion. The marginal perspective
of the contemporary prisoner is marked here as important, interesting,
and inspiring. Puig’s place as scribe to the prisoners’ conversations forces
consideration of how marginalized communities negotiate their location
as other, despite and as a result of the pressures that emanate from the
powerful. As Puig documents prison life, enclosure and disability become
epistemological guidelines that insist on collective engagement in order to
move (from) within marginal existence.
NOTES
1. Robert McRuer, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability
(New York: New York University Press, 2006), 28.
2. McRuer, Crip Theory, 30–1.
3. Manuel Puig, El beso de la mujer araña (New York: Vintage Books, 1994),
9.
4. Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Trans. Thomas Colichie (New
York: Vintage Books, 1991), 3.
5. Emilio de Ípola, La bemba: Acerca del rumor carcelario (Buenos Aires:
Siglo veintiuno, 2005), 16.
6. These films include Cat People (1942) by Jacques Tourneur; Destino, a
Nazi propaganda film invented by Puig, based loosely on Die grobe Liebe
(1942); a rewriting of The Enchanted Cottage (1946) by John Crommwell;
a film about a racecar driver, entirely invented by Puig; a movie based on
I Walked with a Zombie (1943), also by Jacques Tourneur: and a film that
follows the tradition of the Mexican Cabaret films with Agustín Lara,
María Félix and María Antonieta Pons, but does not follow any one in
90 M.J. EDWARDS
particular. See Roxana Páez, Manuel Puig: Del pop a la extrañeza. (Buenos
Aires: Editorial Almagesto, 1995), 92–3.
7. Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin
America (Berkley: University of California Press, 1991), 7.
8. Julio Ramos, Divergent Modernities: Culture and politics in Nineteenth-
century Latin America, Trans, John D. Blanco (Durham, Duke University
Press, 2001), 20.
9. Puig, El beso, 9.
10. Puig, Kiss, 3.
12. Puig, Kiss, 15.
14. Puig, Kiss, 15.
16. Puig, Kiss, 15.
17. Puig, El beso, 22–3.
18. Puig, Kiss, 16–7.
20. Ibid.
21. Puig, Kiss, 17.
23. Puig, Kiss, 17.
25. Puig, Kiss, 18.
27. Puig, Kiss, 33.
29. Puig, Kiss, 34–5.
31. Puig, Kiss, 35.
32. For further discussion, see Patrick O’Connor, Latin American Fiction and
the Narratives of the Perverse (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) and
Patricia Santoro, “Kiss of the Spider Woman, Novel, Play, and Film:
Homosexuality and the Discourse of the Maternal in a Third World
Prison,” in Framing Latin American Cinema: Contemporary Cultural
Perspectives. Ed. Ann Marie Stock (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1997), 120–40.
33. Guillermina Rosenkrantz, El cuerpo indómito: Espacios del exilio en la lit-
eratura de Manuel Puig (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Simurg, 1999), 36.
Note, my translation follows.

35. Puig, Kiss, 59.
37. Puig, Kiss, 59.
38. Daniel Balderston, El deseo, enorme cicatriz luminoso (Valencia: Ediciones
eXcultura, 1999), 76.
39. My translation.
40. Balderston, El deseo, 78.
41. José Amícola, “Para una teoría de la composición. Lectura de los pretextos
de El beso de la mujer araña,” Encuentro Internacional Manuel Puig.
Comp. José Amícola and Graciela Speranza (La Plata: Orbis Tertius,
1998), 29–41.
43. Puig, Kiss, 148–9.
45. Puig, Kiss, 149.
49. Puig, Kiss, 155–6.
51. Puig, Kiss, 156–7.
55. Puig, Kiss, 214–5.
58. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Trans.
Alan Sheridan. 2nd Ed. (New York: Random House, 1995), 200.
59. Ibid.
61. Puig, Kiss, 216–7.
CHAPTER 4
María Moreno’s Model Behavior
STANDING ON THE THRESHOLD
Over time, the closet’s role as the home for sex- and gender-based differ-
ences has clarified. And while its symbolic walls were erected in a move to
shelter and protect queer subjects marked as outsiders, its presence has also
stimulated the development of dynamic epistemological systems that offer
alternatives to traditional social interaction, communication, and under-
standing. Once-closeted performances are now understood as reifying
the flexibility of contemporary subjectivity. Within these performances,
social mobility is situated as a necessary survival mechanism, a means of
resistance against pressures to conform, reform, and deform sexual, racial,
economic, and political difference.
The metaphor of the “closet” naturally evokes impressions of darkness,
enclosure, and marginality, which in turn take on new life as queer allego-
ries. In their most recent works, contemporary theorists Jack Halberstam,
Heather Love, Elizabeth Freeman, and José Esteban Muñoz collectively
regard the closet as an ontological space necessary to understanding life
outside the routinized “9 to 5,” as a state-of-being apart from the clean,
ordered directionality associated with suburban notions of family-oriented
normalcy.1 For these theorists, queerness has become the foundation for
life outside the norm, away from dominant ideologies’ (re)productive
guidelines fostered by heteronormative capitalist frameworks. The closet
offers the failed, the backward, and the misunderstood a space to connect

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57465-7_4
94 M.J. EDWARDS
and to define themselves through a series of shared experiences that extend

well beyond sexual desire.
For these queer thinkers, the closet is not limited, but vast. Its feel-
ings, attitudes, and codes of conduct line its walls like bookshelves, mak-
ing of the closet an archive and repository for repertoires that constitute
more than mere survival tactics and coping mechanisms for Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, Transexual, Transgendered, Intersex, and Queer (LGBTTIQ)
communities. For José Esteban Muñoz, in particular, closet experiences
provide important insight that challenges the normative pressures sur-
rounding queer identities and subject formation. According to Muñoz,
engaging with queer culture provokes and enables a utopian vision of
meaningful social and political change. In Cruising Utopia, he proposes
that moving through the closet and interacting with queer experiences
across time allows the queer subject to look beyond the present, beyond
heteronormative acceptance, and beyond political apathy to focus on uto-
pian geographies and temporalities founded on the ecstasy of hope and
desire.2
Muñoz questions queer normalization and argues that rather than favor
the passive assimilation of queer subjects into dominant, heterosexual
institutions and traditions, like family life, the closet should be reclaimed
as a positive place for critical reflection and contemplation. In a symbolic
move, he holds the closet doors wide open and draws our attention to
straightness, to its limiting machinations, and to the pragmatic, stale queer
politics it engenders. In doing so, Muñoz rejects the present implications
of LGBTTIQ “outing,” identifying within the closet itself a network of
social spaces, cultural products, and attitudes that together fuel a recon-
ceptualization of queer community and being. Muñoz’s closet has already
opened, allowing him to pass through, come out, and subsequently reclaim
that closeted space. And while queer identitarian frameworks outside the
closet have already been formed, Muñoz’s movement through the doors
of queer clubs, apartments, and art galleries, and his encounter with a
dynamic corpus of queer artists, enable him to situate himself, perma-
nently, within closet systems of knowledge.
Muñoz’s discussion takes the reader from pre-Stonewall New York to
twenty-first-century Los Angeles, from New York train station bathrooms
to Miami strip malls. Speaking from his Greenwich Village apartment
and from within New York City’s own allegorical closet, Muñoz opens
Chapter 6 of his study with a recurrent theme that interleaves the whole of
his work: a symbolically charged cruise through queer culture.
MARÍA MORENO’S MODEL BEHAVIOR 95
Two years ago, I spent a sabbatical in Los Angeles. I grew up listening to X,

the Germs, Gun Club, and other bands that made up the LA punk scene of
the eighties. I lived in the LA punk scene via my semi sub-cultural existence
in suburban Miami; this was possible through a grungy alternative record
store located in a strip mall, called Yesterday and Today Records; a few punk
and new wave clubs such as Flynn’s on the Beach and Club Fire and Ice; and
issues of Creem, a magazine that covered the edgier rock scene but could
still be purchased in a Miami supermarket.3
Grounded in his own personal queer identity, Muñoz in his study moves
quickly cross-country and through time to pinpoint noteworthy stops in
(his) queer formation. Muñoz reveals closet experiences as inseparable
from alternative media, cultural genres, and urban sprawl; as Miami, Los
Angeles, and New York come together, the particularities of his narrative
diminish, allowing his personal tale to merge with others’ stories of other-
ness defined well beyond sexual desire. His discussion of social and cul-
tural marginality is defined by his engagement with queer culture, with his
own experiences, and with his rejection of simplistic normative accounts
of queer subject formation. From within the context of his own queer
experience, Muñoz describes subject formation as a process in constant
flux, where mapping queerness involves rethinking chronological time in
favor of circular temporalities, and geographic positionality in terms of
affective hotspots.
María Moreno, Argentine journalist, cultural critic, author, and pro-
fessor at the University of Buenos Aires, is similarly interested in queer
cultures and the reevaluation of closet experiences in a way that criti-
cally engages the (hetero-)norm. However, unlike Muñoz, who speaks
from an openly queer position, Moreno engages queer communities
and closet experiences from the outside, within contemporary feminist
paradigms.
Moreno’s first texts appeared in Buenos Aires in the late 1970s, within
the cultural restraints of the military dictatorship, and were originally
published in cultural supplements and underground, alternative maga-
zines. These texts gave voice to a skeptical female subjectivity, weary of
the limitations associated with the domestic sphere, traditional gendered
role playing, and the consequences of male-centered hierarchies. In the
subsequent decades, her chronicles and cultural criticism have traversed
social landscapes, traditions, and public opinion and have made of her
a recognized observer and flaneur of contemporary times and spaces.
96 M.J. EDWARDS
Her engagement and interest in queer culture, desire, and community

formation constitute part of a larger project dedicated to discussing non-
normative social systems. Moreno approaches closet(ed) experiences from
the outside, from the public realm of journalism, and speaks openly about
homosexual desire and queer subjectivity in order to help trace marginal
social, political, and textual networks. Her work demonstrates the desta-
bilizing effects of epistemological collage: when cultural interaction and
overlap blurs normative essentialism, social alterity comes to be under-
stood as a sweeping contemporary experience.
Moreno’s chronicles and opinion pieces literally position her on the
outside. Her first-person narratives quickly enter public view, distancing
the author from the kitchens, bedrooms, and nurseries that traditionally
qualify female gender roles. Above and beyond their marginal subject mat-
ter, however, the formal structural elements of Moreno’s work question
the origins of both authority and authorship. Her strategic cut-and-paste
of citation, paraphrase, and self-plagiarism makes Moreno’s narrative itself
an “outsider” that recalls, recontextualizes, and resignifies previous infor-
mation from other times and places. In this way, her texts map contem-
porary notions of community and identification as they negotiate time,
space, and ontological systems.
Today, Moreno’s work is everywhere. Her texts can be found in
archived indices of newspaper originals from a pre-digital past, as well
as on bookstore shelves, kiosk wire-racks, webpages, and university con-
ference tables. Her name not only authors new work but also qualifies
compilations of her texts and applauds a new generation of queer cultural
production in interviews, book reviews, and back-cover blurbs. Exploring
Moreno’s work not only leads the reader to these divergent places, but
connects reader and author through time and across social, economic,
political, and gendered hierarchies. For Moreno, this is how contempo-
rary subjects move.
While she continues to publish her columns, Moreno’s name has come
to represent a much broader network of cultural production and socio-
political initiatives that not only engage queer experiences but also map
the movement of the contemporary Argentine subject through closet(ed)
fixtures. Following Moreno’s name has become synonymous with engag-
ing queer experiences: moving in, out, through, and around closeted sys-
tems of knowledge in an attempt to rethink marginality within Argentina’s
twenty-first century.
A MARGINAL POSITION
In the early 1980s, marginal sexualities and desires were tied to social
condemnation and the Cultural Revolution. Intricate repertoires, codi-
fied systems of communication, and detailed social networks were essen-
tial elements in the expression of nonnormative gender roles, including
queer, lesbian, trans, and feminist social identities. In a groundbreak-
ing study, Fiestas, baños y exilios: los gays porteños en la última dictadura
(Parties, Tea Rooms and Exile: Buenos Aires’ Gay Community in the Last
Dictatorship) (2001), Flabio Rapisardi and Alejandro Modarelli discuss
queer community formation during the political and ideological repres-
sion of Argentina’s most recent dictatorship (1976–1983), situating that
community formation within hidden homosexual desire and a network of
unique public spaces, including bathrooms, alternative movie houses, and
underground club circuits, where queer sex was had. The open expres-
sion of queer desire depended upon the evasion of the institutionalized
mechanisms of repression. Everything was possible if the time was right:
“Era cuestión de saber dónde había peligro y entonces evitarlo” (It was a
question of knowing where the danger was, and avoiding it).4 During
the dictatorship, Rapisardi and Modarelli argue, queer closets manifested
themselves through elaborate public networks that, much like Muñoz’s
cruising, allowed for the silent, unnoticed circulation of homosexual
desire throughout the social.
María Moreno personally observed the queer counterculture described
by Rapisardi and Modarelli, and her experience led her to push during
the transition to democracy for a distinctly more visible representation
of sexual and gender-based marginality. Her central role in the creation
and edition of the political magazine alfonsina (1983–1984) positioned
Moreno within a tradition of female writers and journalists who question
the thematic, discursive, and formal social limitations of traditional gender
roles.5 Rejection of these roles is made explicit in many of Moreno’s liter-
ary choices. For instance, Lucía María de Leone argues that Moreno’s use
of the name alfonsina draws a definitive connection between the author
and poet Alfonsina Storni, illustrating how Moreno pushes beyond sheer
literary tradition to embrace Storni’s condition as “madre soltera, mujer,
escritora, poeta, periodista, defensora de los derechos de la mujer y del
niño, suicida,” (single mother, writer, poet, journalist, defender of wom-
an’s rights and of children, and, as suicide victim).6 Moreno’s associations
transcend notions of legacy, joining her to her compatriots (like Storni)
98 M.J. EDWARDS
via the explicit literary expression of injustice and inequality: “una práctica
común del periodismo general y especialmente del escrito por mujeres,”
(a common practice within journalism and especially that written by
women).7 In fact, de Leone marks the cultural, professional legacy of
the name alfonsina as a symbolic point of departure from which Moreno
defines her aesthetic and political projects vis à vis the codified lifestyles of
gender- and sexuality-based marginality. Her use of pseudonyms (includ-
ing Rosa Montana, Elba Gallo, Mariana, and alfonsina), de Leone argues,
demonstrates an explicit push to decentralize authorship and articulate a
female collectivity outside the limitations of patriarchy.
While proper surnames are symbolic reminders of heteronormativ-
ity—of the power of the father and of the imposition of familial legacy as
the primary means of social identification and representation—Moreno’s
use of pen names cracks open this visible subjectivity to explore not only
author(ity) but also marginal subjectivities. The names she chooses for
herself are deep, entangled, and complex; her self-identification and re-
identification through these names pushes against dominant notions of
linearity, longevity, and heritage, outward and away from the horizontal
movement associated with progress across the written page and through
time. Understanding who Moreno is involves an upward movement, a
coming-up-off-the-page, in order to engage in the networks established
through the recognition, deciphering, and unraveling of the hinted-at
relationships her many names inspire.
While criticism has approached Moreno through her numerous pseud-
onyms and through her important role in alfonsina, her earlier columns
published in the magazine El Porteño, beginning in January 1982, explic-
itly associate her signature and name, María Moreno, with social mobility,
public space, and a critical textual-thematic presence. If Moreno’s role in
alfonsina is to be understood as a mechanism for engaging revolutionary
femininity vis à vis the decentralizing, disorienting effects of the name-
game, her earlier contributions to El Porteño explicitly link the name and
person, María Moreno, to the mapping of contemporary marginal subjec-
tivity beyond traditionally female spaces and discussions.
Prior to the inauguration of alfonsina in December 1983, Moreno’s
name can be found authoring contributions to El Porteño, particularly in
columns such as Sexo (Sex) and Ciencia amateur (Amateur Science).8 In
the magazine’s first edition in January 1982, Moreno published a piece that
contextualized her place within the public sphere and clearly distinguished
her poetics of social engagement from the margins. While the columns
Moreno published later that year—including in Sexo and Ciencia ama-

teur—often appeal (even if just superficially) to female sexual objectifica-
tion and a general lack of preparedness in specific nondomestic endeavors,
this first offering—within the section title Etología (Ethology)—situates
Moreno as a specialist in affairs of the public domain without relinquish-
ing her antagonism toward the all-male realm of scientific method, learned
society, and career-based professionalism. Moreno’s role as contributor
to the study of human and animal behavior and to the field of ethology
marks her public persona as observer, onlooker, and outsider to the social,
political (and, here, human and animal) worlds. She is both in and out: her
femininity itself becomes essential to the task at hand and her marginal sta-
tus a necessary condition for inhabiting a critical contemporary position.
The column in question, titled “Gracias, Madre Agresividad” (Thank
you Mother Aggression), is accompanied by a half-page caricature of
four serious, distinguished men dressed in tweed, backs turned to the
frame and attention placed on a large google-eyed fish within an even
larger aquarium.9 In the column, Moreno approaches the natural sciences
clearly from the outside. The initial connection made in the column’s title
between femininity and affect contrasts with the subtle, serious male envi-
ronment captured in the accompanying illustration, and together, the title
and image identify Moreno-as-author as a distant-other in relation to her
subject matter (see Fig. 4.1). Moreno’s first-person narrative, however,
quickly draws the reader’s attention away from the distance that separates
her from the (caricatured) hegemony and toward the performative req-
uisites necessary to close this ontological gap so that she might engage
and interact with her subject of study. “Cuando uno se encuentra con un
naturalista lo primero que suele hacer es adoptar esa sonrisa que parece
venir de otra parte y que es propia de los que tienen un pie en el manico-
mio” (When one comes into contact with a Naturalist, the first thing that
they tend to do is adopt that smile that seems to come from another place
and that belongs to those who have one foot in the madhouse).10 Here,
Moreno’s use of the passive voice neutralizes the sexual and gendered
dichotomy suggested in the title/cartoon, expanding science’s closed
circle to include not just anyone, but everyone. The neutral voice used
here, lacking in explicit agency, points to the universality of approaching
social hierarchies from a point of inferiority and externality, and thus sub-
tly inverts traditional dominant-marginal orientations. Everyone, accord-
ing to Moreno, must adopt the necessary performative gesture—in this
case, an empty grin—as a theatrical code of passage, of entrance into the
100 M.J. EDWARDS
Fig. 4.1 Gabriel Levinas El Porteño, 1.1 (1982), 32

Naturalist brotherhood. This gesture at once distinguishes the dominant

ideologue from the masses and positions hegemony as teetering on the
pathological, the sick, and the hospitalized. The scientist’s mysterious
“[r]isa congelada” (frozen smile) becomes a notorious characteristic that
pushes Moreno to inquire: “¿De dónde salen estos desaclimatados de la
humanidad bien pensante, guerrera y “evolutiva”?” (Where do these unac-
climatized specimens of highly intelligent, revolutionary and “evolved”
humanity come from?)11
Despite their dominant social and cultural position, Moreno assures
her reader that these scientists are not the norm. She—and, indeed, the
everyone embraced by her strategic lexicon—are decidedly not part of
this group. In this introductory paragraph, it is dominance that is clearly
marked as both undesirable and different. Marginality and hegemony are
inverted and confused as Moreno takes a strategic stance in the middle,
between the two social paradigms.
As Moreno begins her discussion of the natural sciences and the group
of marine biologists depicted in the column’s cartoon, she is proven to be
an expert in social performance, mimicry, and maneuver. The manic grin
described in the introduction seems to permit engagement, interaction,
and communication. “Le pregunté alguna vez a uno de ellos, un biólogo
de sonidos llamado Roger Payne, que ahora andará por la península de
Valdés intentando hacer de los sonidos emitidos por las ballenas francas
un hit discográfico, si acaso el naturalismo no era una vocación propia de
los que alimentan un cierto rencor al Hombre” (I asked one of them one
time, a sound biologist named Roger Payne who now must be walking
around the Valdés peninsula trying to get a hit record from the sounds of
Frank whales, if the natural sciences weren’t really just a profession that
feeds a certain amount of resentment towards Man).12 While the necessary
grin is described as a performative move toward sociocultural integration,
upon contact, Moreno demonstrates no desire to be included through her
words. Rather than participate in the production of the scientist’s “next
hit single,” she takes an ironic approach to the scientific method, poking
fun at the path to academic, research-oriented fame. Her inquiry into the
objectives of the natural sciences reaffirms her position as outsider as she
strategically positions the scientists against “el Hombre” or mankind. Far
from alone in her “otherness,” we see that Moreno is actually aligned
within mankind, while her interlocutor is shuffled to the periphery of
humanity.
102 M.J. EDWARDS
Moreno’s critical interrogation and narrative parody together help the

reader understand the author as not part of the group. Her presence is
destabilizing: it questions the scientific method and its self-propagating
stability. Her position as other casts her in the role of instigator and
aggressor in the context of her interlocutor’s reaction: “Me miró con una
expresión que tanto podía mimetizarse con la de un zorro acechado por
una manada de gansos, con la de un primate o con la de un gasterósteo
ante un espejo. “¡No, no, de ninguna manera, querridaa, también me
gusta el Hombre! dijo” (He looked at me with an expression so very close
to that of a fox being stalked by a flock of geese, with that of a primate or
a stickleback in front of a mirror. “No, no, not at all, my loooove, I also
am fond of Man,” he said.)13 Moreno’s simile here evokes an attack of
the weak on the powerful; the gaggle of geese leaves its clichéd, deroga-
tory association with femininity behind and instead assumes vigilant watch
over the predatory fox. No longer does the sly, swift nature of the canine
overpower the distracted quacks of the goose. Rather, Moreno’s interac-
tion with the biologist suggests a break with normative discourse—a point
of self-reflection, introspection, and mirror-imaging. The biologist, like
the proverbial fox, is completely taken aback by Moreno’s presence, her
inquiry, and her failure to abide by social norms.
Moreno is without a doubt an outsider within these textual encounters.
However, as her presence destabilizes, her discursive movement, like that
of Muñoz, becomes synonymous with a critical awareness that roams, cir-
culates, and ruptures normative façades.
Her inquiry shakes the foundation of the scientific method, and rather
than reaffirm the traditional dominant sociocultural positioning of male-
centered institutions, it produces a certain unmasking and “outing”:
the scientist finds himself naturally exaggerating his pronunciation of
“querida” (dear, love) and queerly confessing his fondness for mankind.
The immediateness of his response sidelines the necessarily professional
focus on the animal world and insists that man is “también”—also—a
clearly dear object of study.
Moreno’s strategic transcription pushes the scientist’s protestations
into an eroticized homosocial realm by drawing attention to double enten-
dres and oral subtleties otherwise overshadowed by textual flatness. Her
interaction with the text, and with the words of the scientist, not only
suggests Moreno’s familiarity with queer postures and stances but also
positions the author as mediator, transcriber, and interpreter of all things
queer. From this position, she adds: “[a]fables, optimistas, ingenuos (…)
los naturalistas no se mortifican en humanas pasiones, se alimentan de imá-

genes imprecisas que codifican con unos dibujos sencillos que no pueden
dejar de lado el engolosinamiento artístico” (good-natured, optimistic,
naive (…) the naturalists are not haunted by human passions, they feed off
of imprecise images that they codify with simple drawings whose artistic
glossings cannot go unnoticed); she vividly imagines one of the scien-
tists, “señor Nabokov, con su cara de niño viejo inclinado ante un block
y una cajita de lápices de colores y ante la pregunta ‘¿qué estás haciendo,
Vladimir?’ responder con cara puerilmente triunfante: ‘¡Dibujo una mar-
iposa!’” (Mr. Nabokov, with his childish face inclined toward a pad of
paper and a box of colored pencils and to the question “What are you
doing Vladimir?” responding with childish joy, “I am drawing a butter-
fly!”).14 Here, the mature, sophisticated academic who strives to further
scientific knowledge is replaced by the calm inspired by artistic creation.
Pleasure dominates; artistic creation cleanses sociocultural interference,
giving way to the triumphant gasp—“I am drawing a butterfly!” In con-
trast to the production-oriented goals of the scientist earlier in Moreno’s
column (collecting whale “music”), Nabokov’s childlike innocence here
suggests that his motivation is purely aesthetic and affective. His happi-
ness is a direct product of his self-centered propulsion, set in contrast
to the watchful eye of his parent–spouse–colleague whose inquiry sug-
gests not only Nabokov’s deviation from the norm but also a desire to
reestablish a productive sense of being. Happiness comes from the joy
of creating “imprecise images”—of straying from the task, losing oneself
in the excesses of ornamentation and details of encryption. It is a feeling
and social platform that is distinctly counterculture: in the context of the
scene writ large, it goes against the professional goals of the other scien-
tists and, more generally, disputes the necessity of productivity and useful-
ness so valued by science and by the capitalist heteronormative framework.
Moreover, its syntactic and thematic pairing with the naturalist’s failure to
hide, denounce, and punish “bodily passions” (choosing rather to revel in
same-sex desire) suggests that this group of men be understood queerly.
Moreno’s place as other, as outsider to the scientists’ all-male circle, now
approaches José Esteban Muñoz’s position within queer culture and closet
epistemologies. Like Muñoz, Moreno recognizes queer relationships as
critical points of departure into understanding traditional normative institu-
tions. However, Moreno herself is an outsider: unlike Muñoz, she does not
explicitly engage in homosexual desires. Rather, her familiarity with queer
codes and her appeal to otherness as a critical point of social engagement
104 M.J. EDWARDS
strategically place her squarely in the doorway of closet cultures where she
is able to communicate with those communities on the inside and out. To
the extent that Moreno’s thematic, discursive, and geographic movement
within the text marks points of contact with queer space, touchpoints for
the comprehension of feelings and attitudes, it does so in order to connect
author and reader within a longer trajectory of social engagement. Unlike
Muñoz, whose movement is proudly rooted in real closet experiences—in
his text the homoerotic cruise guides him to “utopia” and to a hopeful futu-
rity through a vast network of closet connections—, Moreno’s stance on the
threshold questions notions of authenticity, authority, and authorship as it
blurs the origins of her own critical debate.
Nabokov’s cameo in Moreno’s narrative realm argues for the merging
of different symbolic systems—the literary with the real, the queer with
the heteronormative—and demonstrates the author’s strategic place in
between. More specifically, Moreno’s mention of Nabokov points toward
a legacy of narrative confusion and authorial masquerade. In evoking a
literary lineage populated by figures like John Shade and Charles Kimbote
[fictional poet and editor, respectively, of Nabokov’s own text Pale Fire
(1962)], Moreno is suggesting that she, too, be included within this liter-
ary tradition. In fact, the very mention of Nabokov by Moreno gestures
toward her first novel, El Affair Skeffington (1992), where the Russian-
American author appears early on in the narrative as a thematic guide to
a story of queer desire, geographic displacement, and textual mapping.
Moreno’s reference to Nabokov becomes emblematic of her push to
reorganize marginal epistemological frameworks as she focuses attention
upward and through her multiple textual references. As her textual ref-
erences accumulate one on top of the other—El Affair Skeffington atop
Vladimir Nabokov, who in turn is placed on top of homoerotic code and
textbooks discussing the natural sciences—the closet becomes the meeting
place where cultural observations occur. Moreno’s textual, discursive, and
physical movement—from a place of gender-based marginality to a critical
awareness of dominant social order—maps contemporary subject formation
as it engages queer systems of knowledge, making of the closet doorframe
a strategic stronghold for the accumulation of cultural meaning and critical
interpretation. By piling on the closet threshold this infinitely stacked mate-
rial, Moreno paints a cultural allegory for society’s dependence upon mar-
ginal sexualities and desires. The closet, in Moreno’s work, thus becomes a
point of contact to all social interaction, interpretation, and understanding,
making of it a central axis to all her narrative maneuvers.
QUEER CONNECTIVITY
Moreno is constantly on the move. Her mobility takes her outside tra-
ditional ideological frameworks and facilitates her cultural observations
from the margins. However, in her first formal piece of narrative fiction,
El Affair Skeeffington (1992), she is still, her movement archival. The
accumulation of textual references, citations, and secondary sources she
presents prove to be essential to the discovery of her protagonist, Dolly
Skeffington, within 1920s Paris. Yet, while Moreno herself remains still, she
propels others through her narrative collage, tracing marginality through
misinformation, misinterpretation, and misplacement. As Moreno speaks
about Skeffington, her textual references imply complicity, their spelling
errors and stylistic deviations gesturing toward future engagement. Yet
these imprecisions ultimately lead nowhere; instead, their presence serves
to identify chaos and confusion as necessary points in the formation of the
contemporary marginal subject.
Moreno’s narrative begins with the discovery of a previously unpub-
lished manuscript. For Moreno, approaching the unknown involves com-
parison, breaching the gap of difference through the creation/discovery
of similar pairs. “Avergüenza empezar-- ¡una vez más!—con el hallazgo
de un manuscrito, no de John Shade, Emily L. o Gabrielle Sarrera sino
de una total desconocida: Dolly Skeffington. Una vez más también se
trata de inventar una precursora en cuya obra—por demás problemático
de definir—podamos leer, como dicha la convención, lo que queremos
leer” (It is a shame to have to begin—one more time!—with the discovery
of a manuscript, not by John Shade, Emily L., or Gabrielle Sarrera, but by
a totally unknown author: Dolly Skeffington. Once again, it also means
creating a precursor to her work—in itself difficult to define—we can read,
as the saying goes, what we want to read.).15 These opening words sug-
gest that Moreno’s central role in the novel (as in all her work) is to be the
discoverer of marginality. “Una vez más”—once again—she has come into
contact with something previously hidden, out of sight and unknown.
And once again, it is suggested, her story is destined to engage alternative
spaces, places, and times, to represent a symbolic crossing between two
different social points. What is “a shame,” in this context, is not the exis-
tence of Skeffington’s work itself (and, thus, marginality), but Moreno’s
own repeated and seemingly inescapable encounter with marginality’s
silent/silenced voices. However, her reflection that it is “a shame” to
begin again with an unknown work also suggests an empathetic response
106 M.J. EDWARDS
and a collective push to engage cases like that of Skeffington’s. Her call
to a collective we (“we can read what we want to read”) serves as both a
discursive mechanism to erase the particularity of the narrative “I” and an
evocation of an equally engaged reader who, like Moreno, is dedicated to
the discovery of difference and recognizes the necessary codes required to
understand Dolly Skeffington.
Together, author and reader share the unease at discovering Skeffington.
However, as Moreno’s narrative begins—“once again”—the (for her, typi-
cal) journey of discovering, uncovering marginality sets her reading col-
lective in motion. After Moreno symbolically removes Skeffington from
hiding, she positions her in contrast to a short list of known authors: John
Shade, Emily L, and Gabrielle Sarrera. The negative pairing maintains
Skeffington’s integrity as other by establishing her place in opposition to the
legacy these better-known authors collectively form. However, Moreno’s
choice of references to exemplify authorship distracts from Skeffington
altogether. While John Shade and Emily L are recognizable authors within
the specifically literary realm of authorship presented in the novels Pale
Fire (1962) by Vladimir Nabokov and Emily L (1987) by Marguerite
Duras, respectively, Gabrielle Sarrera is a difficult referent to pin down.
She is neither author nor protagonist. Instead her name, Sarrera, appears
only in the Basque dictionary: defined as an entrance, a point of access or
entry, a heading in journalistic terms. Her name thus carries an epistemo-
logical foundation of regionalism and of marginality in a greater Spanish-
national context. And it is this name, more than the unknown personage
of Sarrera herself, that suggests a relationship with Dolly Skeffington: a
relationship based on separation from the national and a curious textual
history. Her place within Moreno’s list of authors is bewildering, confused
by her absence from any obvious literary tradition and the contrast formed
with the suggested significance of the other notable mentions. Here, the
absence of any qualifying explanation not only confirms Moreno’s inten-
tions to interrupt storytelling but also marks misunderstanding as a neces-
sary product of reading and engaging in Skeffington’s tale.
As Moreno places Dolly Skeffington alongside John Shade, Emily
L, and Gabriella Sarrera, she links her to a literary and lexical trajectory
where authorship is equated with subject formation in a particular fictional
context. In creating this link, Moreno suggests that Skeffington, like the
others, must also be understood in strictly literary terms: that she exists
inasmuch as she is understood as part of a literary world. The negative
comparison, used initially by Moreno to qualify Skeffington as unknown
and other, now separates Moreno from her own literary creation and marks
her text as a Bildungsroman that maps her own path to authorship and to
authority on marginal tales. The reference made to John Shade, Emily L,
and Gabrielle Sarrera, then, becomes an allegorical starting point from
which Moreno embarks on a circular journey through marginality, where
her purposeful and explicit loss of authority allows for authorship to be
reimagined through the citations, paraphrases, and textual collage neces-
sary to engage with dominant traditions.
Moreno begins her textual journey toward authorship, Dolly
Skeffington, and Paris of the 1920s in a cinema in Mar del Plata in 1989.
From its beginning, Moreno explicitly juxtaposes her journey to/from
textual authority against the passivity of visual spectatorship, allowing the
close relationship between author and protagonist to be dissolved by tem-
poral and spatial distance. As Moreno finds herself in Mar del Plata, at
the Second Annual La Mujer y el Cine International Film Festival, the
following aside chronicles her belief in the significance of understanding
authorship.
En 1989, en el festival La Mujer y el Cine de Mar del Plata, conocí a

Delia, una muchacha que había decidido hacer una entrada prudente en la
Argentina reemplazando su pelo verde por un conjunto ordenado de trencil-
las de nylon negro sujetas al cráneo por anillas de hilo invisible, que le daban
el aspecto de una cantante rap. Para mí hablaba con un fuertísimo acento
madrileño pero para los madrileños se caía de argentino. (…) Durante los
meses siguientes solía llamarme desde Madrid alguna que otra noche y pon-
erme un cassette de Giana Nanini que todavía no era tan conocida aquí
como después del Mundial. Contra su voz solía escucharse lo que parecía el
griterío de una turba danzante a la que subleva el capricho del disc jockey.
Me dijo que me invitaba a Madrid pero sólo lo consideré como la amabi-
lidad de una expresión de deseo hasta que recibí un sobre cerrado con el
pasaje y contemplé la posibilidad de relevar el Criadores con el Four Roses y
el chino de Miserere por la plaza de Malasaña. Y fui.16
(In 1989, in the festival La Mujer y el Cine—Women and Film—in Mar
de Plata—I met Delía, a young girl who had decided to make a prudent
entry into Argentina by replacing her green hair with a wavy collection of
black nylon braids attached to her skull with invisible string rings, that made
her look like a rapper. In my opinion, she spoke with a very strong Castilian
accent, but for those from Madrid she was notably Argentine. (…) During
the following months she tended, one night or the other, to call me from
Madrid and put a tape on for me to listen to by Giana Nanini, who was still
not as well known here as she was after the World Cup. In the background,
108 M.J. EDWARDS
you tended to hear what seemed to be the shouts of a dancing mob excited
by an impulsive disk jockey. She told me that she was inviting me to Madrid
but I considered it a mere expression of kindness until I received an enve-
lope with a plane ticket inside and I contemplated the possibility of replac-
ing my Criadores brand with their Four Roses whiskey and the china-men
of Buenos Aires’ Plaza Miserere with Madrid’s Plaza Malasaña. So I went.)
Here, Moreno positions herself, as protagonist, within a world of leisure

time, international diversity, and revolutionary femininity. As a festival-
goer, she forms part of a collective that is in search of crosscultural con-
nections and a brand of social interaction that is specifically alternative in
style and nature. The authority of authorship during this scene is firmly
located in foreign film making, while Moreno’s storytelling is decidedly
anecdotal, proceeding symbolically from the “stands”—from the mouth
of a collectivity defined as other.
This episode situates the beginning of Moreno’s story of Skeffington in
Argentina, and in 1989. Chronology and geographic positioning work to
reinforce the distance between author and text, but the social interaction
that accompanies feminist cinema and international dialogue provides a
means of breaching this epistemological gap. Ultimately, it is Moreno’s
relationship with Delia that permits her to traverse two continents, two
languages, and more than 60 years in order to join her protagonist in
Paris’s Left Bank in the 1920s. Given the significance of this relation-
ship to the ensuing story, Moreno’s apparently passive engagement with
Delia—her lack of initiative to maintain, or even continue, their relation-
ship—becomes an ironical qualifier of the social engagement that permits
Skeffington’s tale to be told. Indeed, the lack of formality, permanence,
and stability in this relationship allows it to withstand the ambiguity and
confusion that would, within a more traditional social framework (mar-
riage, for example), result in disconnection, interruption, and breakup.
Moreno’s undefined, unexplained, and intentionally unaddressed relation-
ship with Delia thus permits a path to be established and a connection to
be made to a story that is far away and misunderstood.
Further complicating the foundation of this novel is Dolly Skeffington’s
story itself, which is not easily found because it is not a desired object.
While visiting Delia, Moreno does not search for Skeffington, but rather
passes her by in favor of a list of feminist classics on loan from a local
library. Never sought out, searched for, or focused upon, Skeffington’s
work is encountered by Moreno by coincidence: the author (re)discovers
her protagonist by accident on a second trip to Madrid, a year later, within

a book whose mere existence is questionable—Los que no fueron (Those
that Never Were), by Canadian historian John Glassco. “En la biblioteca
de Barquillo busqué algunos datos, seguramente para un proyecto que no
realicé. Allí estaba el libro de Glassco, que había sido remitido en calidad
de donación. A Marisa no le gustaba pero a mí me atrapó” (In the library
in Barquillo, I searched for a few pieces of information, clearly for a project
that I never completed. John Glassco’s book was here, sent in the form of
a donation. Marisa didn’t like it, but it caught my attention.).17
Moreno’s willingness to venture away from ideological centers, to leave
the cultural safety-blanket of nationhood, is a key element in establishing
social networks on the margins. But it is ultimately an unfinished research
project that brings Moreno back to Madrid and into a small library where
coincidence unites her, once again, with Skeffington. Library wanderings
and failed professional development continue to cast Moreno as a mar-
ginal subject, set in opposition to the defined, purposeful directionality
of normative discourses. The author’s unsuccessful, unproductive move-
ments encourage the coincidence that permits the unexpected to occur—
for Skeffington to be found alongside others who never were.
Once the work has been (re)discovered, Moreno opens Glassco’s book
in order to situate herself alongside Skeffington and (re)tell her story. We
can see here how Moreno continues to engage normative, male-centered
ontologies, this time by mediating the transferal of Glassco’s original to
construct her own version. For Moreno, to speak about Dolly Skeffington
is to define her authorship. The trajectory that leads to the discovery of
Skeffington traces a cultural system where productivity is not mandated,
but invented through life experience; here, professionalism becomes a
mask to cover personal intrigue, curiosity, and leisure. For Moreno, find-
ing Skeffington motivates a story to be told and gives directionality to
a literary pursuit previously marked by ambiguity. However, if Glassco
represents dominant traditions and Skeffington marginal social structures,
Moreno’s own encounter and consequent engagement with literary cre-
ation not only acknowledges social alterity, inequality, and misunderstand-
ing but also establishes these characteristics as definitional of Moreno’s
role as author and position as contemporary subject.
Moreno approaches Glassco’s text first through a third-person nar-
rative that transfers knowledge, and the story of Skeffington, from one
point to the next: “El manuscrito le fue entregado a John Glassco, cronista
de los expatriados norteamericanos en París durante los años locos (…)”
110 M.J. EDWARDS
(The manuscript was given to John Glassco, chronicler of the expatri-

ate North Americans in Paris during the crazy years.).18 Having no prior
knowledge of her protagonist’s existence, Moreno appears here to read
and then reproduce Glassco’s introduction to Skeffington’s biography.
While Glassco is understood to be the foundation for the narrative, cita-
tion quickly replaces paraphrase, permitting Moreno to retain a critical
distance from the limitations of Glassco’s dominant narrative framework
that insists on understanding Dolly Skeffington as the most marginal of
subjects. As she recounts how Skeffington bestowed her manuscript on
Glassco, and his subsequent failure to bring that manuscript to light,
Moreno reveals the specifics of how to speak and engage marginal subjects
historically:
Habiendo conocido bastante en la intimidad a Dolly Skeffington, el mismo

Glassco desestima que la entrega, hecha en calidad de “recuerdo por los
años vividos en común y regalo personal,” fuera una demanda de publi-
cación, y el contenido del manuscrito es el mejor defensor de esta tesis.
Como Max Brod desobedeció a Kafka, John Glassco desobedeció a
Skeffington pero realizando, quizá para aliviar su conciencia, una ajustada
transacción entre el pedido y su propio deseo de incumplimiento: no hizo
publicar el texto de Skeffington—lo que la hubiera convertido, más allá del
éxito o fracaso de la empresa, en una autora, condición que algunas de las
notas parecen repudiar o, por lo menos, poner en conflicto--, ni la incluyó
en sus Memorias de Montparnasse. Para una edición limitada realizó los
retratos biográficos de la baronesa Elsa von Fraytag, Dan Mahoney y Dolly
Skeffington en calidad de curiosidades de época, de personajes familiares a
los famosos de la rive gauche pero que no dejaron más que una obra frag-
mentaria, totalmente inédita en el caso de Skeffington y mínima en el caso
de Mahoney. El librito, titulado dañinamente Los que no fueron no figura en
los catálogos pero puede encontrarse en un ejemplar traducido al castellano
en la biblioteca feminista de Madrid, situada en la calle Barquillo 17. 19
(Having known Dolly Skeffington quite intimately, Glassco himself did
not understand that the gift, made in the form of “a reminder of the years
lived together and personal gift,” was in fact a demand for publication. The
content of the manuscript is the best defense of this argument.
Just as Max Brod disobeyed Kafka, John Glassco disobeyed Skeffington,
although he did perform (maybe in order to alleviate his conscience) a
modified transaction, halfway between what was asked of him and his own
desire to not follow through with the request: he didn’t publish Skeffington’s
text. Beyond the possible fame and fortune that this could have produced,
the publication of her work would have converted Skeffington into an author.
Unfortunately, however, this was a profession that Glassco’s notes condemn

or, at the very least, question. As a result, Skeffington story was not consid-
ered for his well-known Memories of Montparnasse, but rather for a lim-
ited edition text, featuring biographical portraits of the Baroness Elsa von
Fraytag, Dan Mahoney, and Dolly Skeffington, presented as curiosities of
the times, as characters who the Left Bank’s famous knew, but who didn’t
leave behind anything more than a fragmented body of work (completely
unpublished in Skeffington’s case, and minute in the case of Mahoney). The
book, titled hurtfully Those Who Never Were, does not appear in catalogs but
can be found in Spanish translation in the feminist library in Madrid, located
at 17 Barquillo St.).
Moreno engages Glassco’s account, assuming a critical stance as she reads,

reproduces, and understands Dolly Skeffington. The combination of
third-person narrative and textual citation allows Moreno to separate her
voice from Glassco’s at a moment when Skeffington is placed in a marginal
role. Moreno understands Skeffington’s gift of the manuscript to Glassco
as a call for publication and a push toward authority. Glassco’s voice, on
the contrary, is heard arguing for the gift’s sentimental value, defining
it a “token for the years lived together and a personal gift.” Here, cita-
tion allows a symbolic and discursive separation to be established between
Moreno and Glassco’s traditional heteronormative behaviors, which asso-
ciate success, power, and public space with male-driven action, productiv-
ity, and decision-making. In a context where Skeffington is understood,
like John Shade, Emily L, and Gabrielle Sarerra, as a literary construct,
Moreno’s critical engagement with Glassco becomes an explicit narra-
tive technique that facilitates her discussion of marginal—here, nonexis-
tent and fictional—social subjects. Notably, her separation from Glassco,
and from authority, occurs through a textual dialogue, where texts—like
voices—combine through quotations. Glassco’s original authorship is
transformed, deformed, as it appears as part of another, an other, text.
Skeffington’s enforced position among those who were not motivates
Moreno to speak against Glassco. The use of citation affirms narrative
segmentation and textual differentiation, while also alluding to Moreno’s
access to and engagement with other material as a necessary means of tell-
ing Skeffington’s tale. Moreno’s supplemental readings include Memories
of Montparnasse, by John Glassco, but also references to Max Brod and
Kafka, as well as other lesser-known figures of Paris’s Left Bank, Elsa von
Fraytag and Dan Mahoney. The references Moreno makes here connect
112 M.J. EDWARDS
Skeffington to visible landmarks while acknowledging her place within the

shadows. Mentions of Kafka and of Glassco’s translated text, Las memo-
rias de Montparnasse, detract from Skeffington’s story, leading to narrative
dead ends. The meaning of these works, in the context of Skeffington’s
story, is left unexplored; instead, their presence draws inquiry. Rather than
securing her protagonist within a broad, well-established, and recogniz-
able context, Moreno’s use of citation and referencing create contextual
tangents that work against understanding and knowing. Although it is
suggested, obliquely, that the relationship between Max Brod and Kafka,
as well as Glassco’s chronicle of Paris’s Left Bank, both provide produc-
tive counterpoints to Skeffington’s life story, these conclusions are never
explicitly expressed. By leaving questions unanswered and loose ends
untied, Moreno produces a chaos that is deemed necessary in order to tell
her protagonist’s story.
Moreno continues to engage Glassco’s text as she speaks about Dolly
Skeffington through citation, paraphrase, and bibliographic referencing.
Her story is divided into short pieces, guided by theme-oriented subtitles
such as Paris-Lesbos, Freudiana (Freudian), Beber hablar (Drink speak),
and Arte (Art) among others. In each, Moreno maintains a critical dis-
tance from Glassco, integrating his text, piecemeal, into a textual collage
where references are unidentifiable, untraceable, and intelligible only as
part of a new text, authored by Moreno. Glassco’s voice is lost, obscured
by a deliberate lack of structural indicators (such as page references) that
would otherwise permit its relocation and consequent reconstruction. By
stripping Glassco’s voice of coherent authority, Moreno disorients and
displaces Glassco’s dominant discourse in favor of textual confusion and
narrative heterogeneity. It is only in her shortest piece, titled Anandrine,
that Moreno embraces textual compliance as a symbol of convergence and
accord, merging her own voice with Glassco’s in a mutual description of
Dolly Skeffington:
“Por la calle Mouffetard caminaba como a través de una sucesión de obs-

táculos. Sus largas piernas norteamericanas y sus pies delgadas, sostenidos
por el taco carretel de los Guillermina, se bamboleaban como los de una
mujer torpe ceñida en un vestido de noche (tenía las medias agujereadas).
Sus cabellos rojos y rizados, recogidos en lo alto de la cabeza por una peineta
de nácar, se desmoronaban sobre las hombreras del tapado negro de bolsil-
los deformes cuyos agujeros escupían objetos de niño vagabundo-una flauta
hecha con una avellana, un reloj roto, una miniatura de zapatilla, lápices—
que ella se agachaba a recoger con la dificultad de una persona de edad muy
avanzada y, no bien se había erguido y sacudido un poco la caspa de las
solapas, dejaba caer otros: el bolso, un manojo de novelitas usadas, el manto
de spaí que dijo haber comprado en el mercado de pulgas.
“Aunque ya la había visto beber en las terrasses una botella de Richard y
tenía los ojos vidriosos, pasó sin verme y se metió en el café Des Amateurs.”14
Así describe John Glassco a Dolly Skeffington. Luego se pregunta y
responde retóricamente: “¿Qué era? ¿Una artista? Por cierto que no. ¿Una
puta? Quizás intermitentemente. ¿Una lesbiana? Sí y no. De lo que estoy
seguro es que era una anandrine.”20
(“On Mouffetard Street she walked as if through a series of obstacles.
Her large North American legs and her thin feet, held up by her high heels
by Guilermina, tottered like those of a clumsy woman kept within a cocktail
dress (she had holes in her stockings). Her curly red hair, taken up at the
top of her head with a small nacre comb, collapsed onto the shoulder pads
of a black coat with deformed pockets, whose holes spat objects that would
seem to belong to homeless children—a hazelnut flute, a broken watch, a
miniature running shoe, pencils—that she bent over to gather as if chal-
lenged by old age and, after having just straightened up and shaken briefly
the dandruff from the jacket’s lapel, only to have others fall, the purse, a
bunch of little used novels, a spy’s cloak that she swore to have bought at
a flea market.
“Although I had seen her drink a bottle of Richard on the terrasses,
she had glazed eyes, she walked right by me and went into a café, Des
Amateur.”14 This is how John Glassco describes Dolly Skeffington. Later
on, he asks, and responds rhetorically, “What was she? An artist? Certainly
not. A prostitute? Maybe sometimes. A lesbian? Yes and no. What I am sure
of is that she was an anandrine.”)
Here, Moreno herself stays notably quiet, accepting Glassco’s description

of Skeffington and leaving his label anandrine untranslated. Rather than
engage his text, she reduces her role to that of facilitator, marking her
presence structurally only in the superscripted reference to the endnotes,
where she continues to direct attention away from Skeffington and toward
a description of the bar Des Amateur, written by Ernest Hemmingway
in A Moveable Feast (1964).21 While Moreno uses notes throughout her
text (twenty-eight, in total), this particular instance resituates Moreno’s
use of cut-and-paste textual collage, imposing an intentional discursive
silence in order to consciously allow Dolly Skeffington to embody a mar-
ginality defined as both infantile and elderly—for the holes in her clothes
to undo meaning as they force fluidity, marking the shift from señora to
114 M.J. EDWARDS
fishnet-stockinged prostitute, toy-hoarder to homeless person. By letting

Glassco’s description speak for itself, Moreno ensures that attention falls
on Skeffington’s zig-zagged movements, mapping a path through contra-
diction to leisure time and confusing traditional identitarian frameworks
(represented here in the possible labels offered up by Glassco). Glassco’s
coming-to-terms with Skeffington apparently requires naming and classifi-
cation, and Moreno’s silence accepts his conclusion and use of anandrine
to qualify and, ultimately, understand Skeffington.
The lack of detail and explanation offered by Moreno leaves Glassco’s
term tightly bound with its original cultural significance. Rather than
unpack and explain the term anandrine, Moreno chooses to preserve it in
context, with all its rich cultural reference to the Sapphic separatism of late
eighteenth-century France and the politicized notion of female same-sex
desire at a distance.22 In earlier parts of El Affair, Moreno’s professional
miscues have guided her across geographic, linguistic, and national borders
and allowed her to (re)encounter Skeffington’s story by happenstance;
however, in the section Anandrine, cultural and linguistic differences are
highlighted rather than blurred. After a laundry-list of negative definitions
and ambiguous remarks concerning Dolly Skeffington, Glassco’s final label
gets lost in translation: the French word is left on its own, uninterpreted,
representative of the unknown, the codified, and the misplaced.
In The Art of Transition: Latin American Culture and Neoliberalism
(2001), Francine Masiello describes the role gender plays in transform-
ing and transporting meaning across the otherwise-rigid geographic,
political, and economic borders of the market-based postmodern world.23
Discussing El Affair Skeffington, Masiello asserts that Moreno uses trans-
lation and parody in this novel to break with a rigid understanding of her
subject, opening up a space that speaks of unspeakable, lesbian relations.24
For Masiello, translation goes hand-in-hand with the geographic and
cultural positioning of Moreno’s work in the Left Bank of 1920s Paris.
Masiello notes that “[n]ot only is the description of Paris-Lesbos an asser-
tion of the polyglot world of the exiles, it is also a matter of rebellion and
perpetual movement around issues of sexual choice and one’s authority to
claim it in writing.”25 Translation allows for unspoken relationships to be
revealed and for lesbian love to be expressed:
Moreno explores what cannot be said, she devotes attention to sameness and
difference, she takes her readers on an odyssey through prohibited territory
and language, she tests asynchronicities against conventional literary order,
she toys with traditional concepts of authorship and the genres that have
excluded women. At the same time, she reminds us that the memory of all
sexual pleasure is in itself an act of translation, a repositioning of discourses
that creates an illusion of access to what is far out of reach or lost. (…) From
the known maps of charted pleasure, we then move out of fixed terrain;
lesbian sexuality in this instance is a condition of expatriation. It produces a
need to speak beyond father and homeland, to announce the insufficiency of
any single language, to celebrate the noncorrespondence of images emerg-
ing from flawed translation.26
Anandrine thus becomes the symbolic manifestation of sexual, geo-

graphic, and linguistic difference. It is a word charged with separatist
anxieties and antipatriarchal sentiment, founded within late eighteenth-
century, revolutionary France. Its unique contextual framing steers it away
from male-centered institutions, including nationhood and heterosexual-
ity, and toward notions of Sapphic cohabitation, happiness, and female
pleasure. While Masiello describes the strategic placing of female desire
within the flaws of translation,27 Moreno’s failure to translate becomes
an explicit move calling attention to the cultural and linguistic specific-
ity required to speak about (Dolly Skeffington’s) lesbian sexuality. Not
translating the descriptor anandrine is intentional, purposeful, and not
at all flawed. Leaving the term untranslated, codified in French, does not
call attention to translation, but rather to the necessity of linguistic separa-
tion, of distance in geographic and linguistic terms, as essential elements
required in order to speak about marginality.
At the beginning of her journey in El Affair, Moreno discovers
Glassco’s text, Los que no fueron, and with it the beginnings to her pro-
tagonist’s tale. The notably rare translation of Glassco’s book is regarded
as a “lucky find” and it quickly becomes the foundation to Skeffington’s
story and the focus of Moreno’s critical engagement. Glassco’s text, from
this point on, is treated as an original and regarded as an axis of reflec-
tion and negotiation. In navigating Glassco’s text, Moreno’s attention to
citation and paraphrase takes the flexibility of translation to its extreme.
Moreno makes Glassco’s text her own, and it is in this context that we
must understand her intentional use of anandrine. By leaving this word to
speak for itself, Moreno at once signals toward its regional, temporal, and
cultural specificity as she also highlights the term’s layered application. On
a symbolic level, anandrine is nothing but confusion, misunderstanding.
Its place within her text, distanced from the mythical realm of cultural
116 M.J. EDWARDS
recognition, brings with it a different set of contextual markers, ones that

revolve around otherness, difference, and the strange. As Moreno declines
explanation and negates translation, she redefines anandrine in terms of
affective response to the unknown.
It is important to recall that Maria Moreno engages with John Glassco’s
Los que no fueron specifically in order to tell Dolly Skeffington’s story. As
the lone document speaking of Skeffington, his text is unique, specialized,
and indispensable. At the same time, Skeffington’s fictional status simi-
larly classifies Glassco’s text as dependent upon Moreno: without her, it
would be lost, overlooked—once again—and ultimately inexistent. Doris
Sommer’s canonical study of the nineteenth-century Latin American his-
torical novel helps to identify his text’s role in Moreno’s work as founda-
tional fiction, immediately marking Glassco’s relationship with/to Moreno
as suspect.28 In her book, Foundational Fictions: The National Romances
of Latin America, Sommer shows “how a variety of novel national ide-
als are all ostensibly grounded in “natural” heterosexual love and in the
marriages that provided a figure for apparently nonviolent consolidation
during internecine conflicts at mid-century.”29 Romantic passion, Sommer
argues, “gave a rhetoric for the hegemonic projects in Gramsci’s sense
of conquering the antagonist through mutual interest, or ‘love’, rather
than through coercion.”30 Sommer’s reading of the foundational role of
heterosexual love permits us to further understand Moreno’s relationship
to Glassco. And while El Affair Skeffington does nothing to unite them
romantically, their union and coproduction of the Dolly Skeffington char-
acter yields a social allegory to the birth of otherness. Their relationship
is marked unequivocally by heterosexual frameworks: Glassco, the male
patriarch, embodies—through his fictional text, Los que no fueron—domi-
nant discourse, while his female counterpart (Moreno) allegorically rep-
resents —through her citational interaction—the surrogate womb for an
alternative epistemological foundation personified by Dolly Skeffington.
Glassco is defined simultaneously by his authority and by his unique
identity as author to a rare, hard-to-find (indeed, fictional) book. His
place within Moreno’s hands, at the mercy of creative intuition, at once
authorizes the story Moreno tells and negates its authenticity. Los que no
fueron pushes the reader to understand authority, dominant discourse,
and hegemony within a context where its normative foundation is insep-
arable from narrative artifice. Moreno’s position, on the other hand, is
active, engaging, and aggressive in her lack of complicity with normativity.
Her movement, while directed North and toward the traditional Euro/
Anglo/French emblems of cultural dominance, is notably guided by her

own alternative, subversive ideological intentions. The insistence upon the
term anandrine and its intentional lack of contextualization exemplifies
Moreno’s desire to explicitly break with Glassco and the (Euro-Anglo-
hetero-)normative discourses his text embodies.
Textual references and bibliography continue to be key elements in
Moreno’s text, beyond this example. Moreno appeals to academic,
research-oriented traditions when she first discovers Skeffington, locating
her within a hard-to-find edition in an equally hard-to-find library. In-text
lists position Skeffington among the unknown, presenting Moreno’s nar-
rative as an exhibition of information found, of research performed, of
the material result of a particular intellectual, social process. The discov-
ery of otherness is qualified through comparison: textual engagement and
citation not only permit (mis)understanding but also reinforce Moreno’s
position as guide to novelties found. Discovery becomes notably literary
as Moreno traces her way to Skeffington, leaving a trail of textual refer-
ences as mementos of the distance traveled.
Textual referencing and citation occur throughout Skeffington’s
tale, reaching a symbolical apex in a compilation of 27 sources pre-
sented at the end of Moreno’s text. The list ranges from literary works
by Ernest Hemingway, Erza Pound, and Collette, to philosophi-
cal inquiries by Freud and Susan Sontag and critical historical works
by members of contemporary academia like Shari Benstock, Jeffrey
Weeks, and Héctor Libertella. The 27 entries recall academic bibli-
ographies, where strict punctuation enforces the specific positioning
of publication information and rigorous formatting seeks to facilitate
future research in other libraries, by other authors. The positioning
and the separation of this list into individual entries suggest Moreno’s
familiarity with traditional bibliographic formats and functions. At the
same time, however, Moreno’s citations confuse and complicate these
traditions; take, for instance, the inclusion of a citation for a book
entitled Amourese Colette by Genevieve Dormann: the title has either
been misspelled or spelled in Catalan (rather than the work’s origi-
nal French). Moreno’s deliberate deviations from the norm produce
intentionally incomplete entries that make the recuperation of any
number of the mentioned texts difficult—perhaps impossible. In her
bibliography, the details of translated titles are inconsistent, and gen-
eral inaccuracy pervades information on place, publisher, and date of
publication. If the function of a bibliography is to mark a researcher’s
118 M.J. EDWARDS
path, validating her innovative critical thought by confirming engage-

ment with previous narratives and perspectives, Moreno’s list maps a
trajectory that intentionally passes through miscommunication on its
(re)approach to Skeffington.
Moreno’s list offers a clear message to future researchers and to those
wishing to follow social, sexual, and gender-based marginality. In her
text, Dolly Skeffington gives form to a social subject marginalized by
time, space, language, and sexuality—just as the list of textual references
at the end of this story recalls Moreno’s path to this same position of
social alterity. And even as misinformation creates holes in its trajectory,
thematic divergence further complicates Moreno’s path to Skeffington.
For instance, while Shari Benstock’s Women of the Left Bank—included
in Moreno’s bibliography in a nonexistent French translation—reflects
Moreno’s thematic journey to France, Paris, and the female artists of the
1920s Left Bank, other texts, such as Exsexo. Ensayos sobre el transexual-
ismo (Exsexo: Essays on Transexualism) (1983) by Catherine Millot, El
sida y sus metáforas (AIDS and its metaphors) (1989) by Susan Sontag,
and Homosexualidad: Literatura y política (Homosexuality: Literature and
Politics) (1982) by Robert Boyers and George Stein diverge significantly
from the apparent themes of Moreno’s research. These works suggest that
we should understand the path to Skeffington through the history of oth-
ers, of those marginalized by their sexuality, gender, and alternative social
behaviors, even if that otherness does not directly mirror Skeffington’s
own. Moreno’s insistence upon textuality and storytelling as markers of
social belonging and subject formation also suggests that this group of
books be understood for the distance they establish from the social, the
real. Comparison, metaphor, and hyperbole mediate marginal experiences
and cultural understanding, identifying the literary as a place where con-
nections are made on a social level. By establishing a separation and dis-
tance between the literary and the real, meeting with marginality becomes
difficult, if not impossible. The path that Moreno creates through this
confused and errant list offers an expectation of social interaction, of
understanding and of knowing, that is ultimately unrealizable.
In El Affair Skeffington, Moreno makes it impossible to locate and
quantitatively understand marginal subjectivity. By promising answers,
Moreno’s bibliography entices followers into a realm of open-ended
inquiry where answers do not exist. And indeed it is precisely here,
according to Moreno, that marginality truly reigns. The undefinable, the
unanswerable, and the inexcusable: all these are characteristics of the space
shared by Moreno and Skeffington. To follow Moreno, then, is not to

arrive at any particular epistemological or geographic location, but to find
the place where marginality reveals itself in the cruising of the social and
symbolic: the instability of the in-between, the in-process.
VALUES FROM THE BACKSIDE
Since the publication of El Affair Skeffington in 1992, Moreno has, in a
sense, become famous. Her collections of essays, pieces of narrative fiction,
and regular columns in the Buenos Aires newspaper Página12 have helped
to imbue her name with celebrity. In 2002, Moreno was the recipient of
the Guggenheim fellowship for her work on sexuality and political mili-
tancy during the 1970s, and from 2005 to 2008, she served as creator and
host of the television series Portaretratos on Argentina’s public broadcast-
ing network; these experiences and others have consolidated her acclaim as
a respected author and cultural critic and have marked her as a representa-
tive of and spokesperson for marginal histories, perspectives, and subjec-
tivities on the national and international stage. The authority afforded to
Moreno’s work is attested in her recent prominent positions as founder
of Latin America’s first transgendered magazine, El Teje (2007–2011)
and director of the series Nuestra América (2011–2013), published with
Buenos Aires based Eterna Cadencia, which creatively anthologizes the
last two centuries of Latin American art and literature.
Today, Moreno’s name can be found in archive catalogs as the author
of newspaper originals from the 1980s, as well as on shelves of bookstores
nationwide as the author to new editions of her work. Her early work,
published originally in local magazines and newspapers including Babel,
Fin de Siglo, El Porteño, and alfonsina, has been recirculated vigorously,
located piecemeal within her contemporary columns and neatly collected
in recent anthologies, including A tontas y a locas (2001), El fin del sexo y
otras mentiras (2002), Vida de vivos: Conversaciones incidentales y retratos
sin retocar (2006), Teoria de la noche (2011), and Subrayados: Leer hast
que la muerte nos separe (2013). All of these publications have magni-
fied her presence in the public sector, making “María Moreno” a name
difficult to overlook. The overlapping, simultaneous quality of her pub-
lications, online and offline, archived and reedited, creates an effect that
almost parodies mechanical reproduction: the multiplication of her name
serves to propagate and augment, rather than separate or dismantle, her
place as author-authority. As Walter Benjamin once put it, Moreno is both
120 M.J. EDWARDS
original and copy; the proliferation of her name merges past with present
and thereby magnifies the aesthetic qualities of authorship and authority.
If, for Benjamin, mechanical reproduction leads to the politicization of
art and manipulation of the masses, the proliferation of Moreno’s name
within the public sphere likewise functions as a beacon signaling sociocul-
tural change.
Moreno is explicitly anchored within Argentina’s capital. While her
texts are easily identifiable and circulate freely, having been published in
important local editorials including Bajo la luna, Planeta, Sudamericana,
Mar Dulce, and Mansalva, it is her constant participation in book releases,
collaborations with local and online magazines, including Pagina12,
Anfibia, and Bomb Magazine, and active presence on social media that
make her easy to find, and even befriend. Much as the use of citation
and textual referencing in El Affiar Skeffington directs research on social
marginality toward confusion and the misunderstood, the proliferation of
Moreno’s name continues to link her own author(ity) with critical social
engagement.
Moreno’s name traces a path that not only traverses past–present
dichotomies but also intersects the work of a community of other authors
through reviews, prologues, and back-flap blurbs. Consider, for example,
her introduction to Modarelli and Rapisardi’s Fiestas, baños y exilios: los
gays porteños en la última dictadura (2001), which describes the homo-
erotic circuits during Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976–1983).
Moreno’s name on this work not only connects the authors’ work to
the work of Copi (through her introduction to the recent collection of
his work Obras I [2013]) but also to the legacy of journalist and author
Rodolfo Fogwill, to whom she paid homage in Fogwill: una memoria coral
(2014) after his passing in 2004. Her name leads to the back cover of
both Continuadísimo (2008) and Batido de Trolo (2013), applauding the
work of trans-blogger, performer, poet, painter, artist, and author Naty
Menstrual—to whom we turn in the next chapter—and it guides her fol-
lowers to the feminist zeal behind each female character’s move toward
solitude in Gabriela Bejerman’s second novel Heroina (2014). Her name
initiates contact and inspires textual relationships with sexual, aesthetic,
and political innovation.
María Moreno capitalizes on her name’s authority to direct, guide,
motivate, and trace contemporary social movement. Her place on the back
flap of Alejandro Modarelli’s most recent collection of chronicles, Rosa
prepucio (2011), leads readers not only to his tales “sobre el envejecer gay
[…] y las teteras demócratas en aras de la cultura del gimnasio en donde

el clásico chongo modelado por el trabajo manual y las pastas ha sido rem-
plazado por un joven de antebrazos a lo Popeye y el peinado de marine”
(about getting old and being gay […] and the liberal Tea Rooms in the
name of gymnasium culture where the classic chongo modeled by manual
labor and pasta has been replaced by a younger version with forearms like
Popeye and a marine hairdo) but also to Pagina12, where both he and
Moreno are contributors and where these comments were reproduced
under the title “Rosa Prepo” in the cultural supplement Soy on November
11, 2011. Moreno’s commentary also percolates through the promi-
nent newspaper La Nación’s blogosphere, where it guides a discussion
between Modarelli and Gustavo Pecoraro (the general editor of a local
LGBT-themed magazine, El Vahido), published in their gay-friendly blog,
Boquitas Pintadas on October 24, 2011. As her name multiplies beyond
its textual original, its echoing presence offers an argument for cultural
overlap as a necessary element to successful market strategies, as well as an
intricate characteristic of the complex negotiations of social mobility. In a
sense, María Moreno’s presence and interconnectedness is a side effect of
today’s globalized, market-oriented, virtually extended reality, where orig-
inals are hard to find and repetition permits the rapid flow of information.
However, Moreno’s (omni)presence is not merely a coincidence, nor
does it simply exemplify common trajectories within contemporary neo-
liberal societies. Away from the privileges of authorship, her name reaches
around from the back of Modarelli’s text, coming from behind and under-
neath to embrace the text’s queer stories. Her name, in this case, serves as
a gesture, promoting connections that motivate Modarelli to “come out,”
over and over again, over the closet’s threshold, to speak of his queerness.
Moreno’s continual engagement and support of queer authors and their
narratives ritualizes the process of “outing”; her name authorizes their
exit, but also their reentry and repopulation of closet spaces. And while
her name is often found riding on the back of queer culture, it is also
found on the front: narrating Buenos Aires’s own queer tales of postcrisis
decay and anticapitalist networks in La comuna de Buenos Aires: Relatos al
pie del 2001 (2011), and bridging geographic divides in her Chilean travel
narrative and homage to author Pedro Lemebel, published as part of a
recent anthology of her work, Teoria de la noche (2011). Moreno’s name
creates a network of social, political, and cultural intersections that flows
freely across traditional normative boundaries. It connects the known to
the unknown and inspires continuity and extrapolation. Inevitably, the
122 M.J. EDWARDS
name-game pushes one past Moreno herself—she is just the starting

point—to other artists, other authors, and alternative authorial figures.
Moreno’s work insists on defining contemporary subjectivity as a mov-
ing target, unstable, hard to isolate and corner—yet her place on the back
covers of new books, and as author and editor in her own right, is not
pure coincidence. Her positioning is a calculated move, associating her
own work with marginalized cultures and communities and guiding oth-
ers toward them. Much as the work of José Esteban Muñoz and other
queer theorists has enabled queer mechanisms for social reform, Moreno’s
active and explicit support and promotion of marginal cultural production
includes the closet as a necessary point of contact within contemporary
social circuits. Moreno not only insists that the closet be entered but also
that its threshold be crossed in both directions.
NOTES
1. See (Judith) Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2011); Heather Love, Feeling Backward: Loss and the
Politics of Queer History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007);
Elizabeth Freeman, Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2010); and José Esteban Muñoz,
Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (New York:
New York University Press, 2009).
2. José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer
Futurity (New York: New York University Press, 2009).
3. Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 100.
4. Flavio Rapisardi and Alejandro Modareli, Fiestas, baños y exilios: los gays
argentinos en la última dictadura (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2011),
23.
5. See Lea Fletcher, “Hitos en el periodismo de mujeres argentinas: 1830-
2007” in Las palabras tienen sexo: Introducción a un periodismo con per-
spectiva de género, comp. Sandra Chaher and Sonia Santoro (Buenos Aires:
Artemisa Comunicación Ediciones, 2007), 78–94, and Tania Diz,
“Tensiones, genealogías y feminismos en los 80. Un acercamiento a alfon-
sina, primer periódico para mujeres,” Mora 17.2 (2011) accessed
September 7, 2015.
6. Lucía María de Leone, “Una poética del nombre: los “comienzos” de
María Moreno hacia mediados de los años 80 en el contexto cultural
argentino,” Cadernos Pagu 36 (2011): 238.
7. De Leone, “Una poética,” 240.
8. See María Moreno, “Sexo,” El Porteño, 1.3 (1982): 37; and, María
Moreno “Ciencia amateur,” El Porteño, 1.7 (1982): 24–5.
9. María Moreno, “Gracias Madre Agresividad,” El Porteño. 1.1 (1982):
32–33.
10. Moreno, “Gracias Madre,” 32.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. María Moreno, El Affair Skeffington (Buenos Aires: Bajo la luna, 1992),
9.
16. Moreno, El Affair, 43.
19. Ibid.
22. For more on the term anandrine, see Susan Lanser, “Au sein de vos
pareilles”: Sapphic Separatism in Late Eighteenth-Century France.”
Homosexuality in French History and Culture. Ed. Jeffrey Merrick and
Michael Sibalis (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2001), 105–16.
23. Francine Masiello, The Art of Transition: Latin American Culture and
Neoliberalism. Durham: Duke UP, 2001. This argument and Moreno’s
example is condensed to article length in her essay “Bodies in transit:
travel, translation, and gender,” Voice-Overs: Translation and Latin
American Literature. Ed Daniel Balderston and Marcy Schwartz (New
York: State University of New York Press, 2002), 213–23.
24. Masiello, The Art of Transition, 170–1.
25. Masiello, 170.
26. Masiello, 170–1.
27. Masiello, 172.
28. Doris Sommer. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin
America (Berkley: University of California Press, 1991).
29. Sommer, Foundational Fictions, 6.
30. Ibid.
CHAPTER 5
The Queer Consumption of Naty Menstrual
DIFFERENCE, BOUGHT AND SOLD

Imagine a clear, cool, sunny Sunday morning in Buenos Aires’s Microcentro.
The Plaza de Mayo, bordered by the historic Cabildo, National Bank,
Presidential Building, and cathedral, inspires images of the madres (moth-
ers) and abuelas (grandmothers) searching for truth, silently protesting
their disappeared loved ones, victims of the nation’s most recent mili-
tary dictatorship. The plaza’s silence contrasts with memories of the more
recent caserolasos (pot-thumping) as their sound continues to signal the
legacy left by the economic crisis of December 2001. But this morning,
in July 2014, everything is calm—quiet. People sit and read on benches,
sleep under trees, and cross the sidewalks as the sun begins to shine and
the cool winter air warms. The Calle Defensa attracts the attention of
many as its shadowed cobblestones, closed to transit, extend off the south
side of the plaza and give way to the kiosks that guide onlookers toward
the famous Feria de San Telmo. Here, the past blends with the present:
recycled beauty mingles with new junk; antique collections crammed in
among hand-crafted leather goods, boot-legged records, and jars of dulce
de leche spilling from their boxes and into the hands of eager customers.
In the air, the smell of caramelized nuts mixes with incense and coffee as
their purveyors move together to the sounds of Fito Paez, Shakira, and
tango melodies projected from the portable radios hidden underneath
each kiosk table. The jumbled incoherence of the products on display is

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57465-7_5
126 M.J. EDWARDS
matched only by the diverse interests of their vendors and of those who
browse the merchandise.
Along Defensa, the kiosks contain more of the same—more books,
bath salts, and balloons; leather, light fixtures, and choripan—and their
products both attract and distract the passersby in their appeal to national
iconography, regional traditions, and local habits. Much in the same way,
the vendors entice the international consumers with their “portuñol”
blends, their shouted English clichés attesting to the unique qualities of
their mass-produced crafts. The mate gourd filled with hot water and tea
leaves circulates through the streets for all to share, producing a folkloric
ambiance that converts the indulgent shopping spree into a necessary cul-
tural experience worthy of travel guides and weekly errands alike.
The products found are vastly varied, designed to appeal to all tastes and
appetites; they lure in local, national, and international customers with the
magic of the historic, open-air stroll and the market atmosphere. It may
be the combination of the old and the new that brings a community of all
sorts to walk San Telmo’s streets on Sunday, but it may just as easily be
the unique pairing of the delicious with the beautiful, the artisanal with
the priceless: whatever its secret, there is a laughter and lightness to San
Telmo’s cobblestone walkways that transforms the unorganized, crowded
mess into a sacred ritual of the social agenda.
Within this marvelous cacophony, difference, contrast, and contra-
diction collide, producing a spectacle worthy of pursuit, suppressing for
a moment the allure of the international brands that line the historic
downtown shopping mall, Galeria Pacifico, and pushing the formal shop-
ping district along Calle Florida, both just blocks away, further down on
Buenos Aires’s “to-do” list. Far from the soulless corridors where brand
names, perfumed hostesses, and gleaming floors attract eager consumers
and hopeful spectators, the recently swept streets of San Telmo reimagine
the capitalist experience from within the flea-market logic and make the
mercantile interaction a social experience that extends well beyond the
exchange of money for material goods.
The early morning setup of stalls coincides with Sunday morning
errand-running and converts the streets of San Telmo into a place of
social, political, and economic intermingling, where independent artisan-
collector-entrepreneurs bring not only their products but also their sto-
ries to exchange with neighboring vendors and touring consumers. In
San Telmo, value is assigned and exchanged in passing: where window
shopping evokes economic inadequacy, this shopping experience invokes
THE QUEER CONSUMPTION OF NATY MENSTRUAL 127
discussion over more than price. The exchange of sights, sounds, and smells
charges San Telmo, as a whole, with a cultural (surplus) value unique to
contemporary social exchange, crying out to serve as an allegorical excur-
sion through postmodern subject formation.
In Scenes from Postmodern life, Beatriz Sarlo describes the contradic-
tory impact of the neoliberal global economy within contemporary Latin
America.1 According to Sarlo, the Latin American experiences postmo-
dernity as a systematic juxtaposition between the global and the local: a
collision of integration and segregation, a desire to consume frustrated—
in the vast majority of the cases—by an inability to do so. Like Néstor
García Canclini before her, Sarlo recognizes epistemological coexistence
as a defining factor of contemporary social realities. While the consump-
tion of material goods provides the only viable method of community
formation and identification in a capitalist-oriented society, religion and
family, Sarlo argues, fail to sufficiently represent individual (consumer)
needs and patterns.
In a place of such antiquated methods of social and spiritual identifica-
tion, the shopping mall stands out, exemplifying, according to Sarlo, the
nomadic, border-free imaginaries of contemporary populations, as well
as the unforgiving stratification that accompanies the monetarily flow. As
Sarlo puts it, the shopping mall’s “points of reference are universal: Its
logos, acronyms, texts, and manners do not require their interpreters to be
settled in any culture previous to or distinct from that of the market. Thus
the mall produces an extraterritorial culture from which nobody can feel
excluded.”2 Consumerism, in its concrete shopping-mall guise, entices
with a welcoming dynamic, promising social mobility and belonging via
circulation through its hallways, planting yearning for the products it sells.
In the shopping mall, the “petty consumers manage perfectly (…), invent-
ing various unforeseen uses for it that the machine tolerates to the extent
that these uses do not divert the energies that the mall administers,” while
the poorest find within clean, safe spaces “where they can walk around
at any time of day.”3 It is a place that accepts all visitors into its special
design, each recognizing their place within the contemporary capitalist
market logic.
The shopping mall is significant in its capacity to “hold up a mirror that
reflects a crisis of public space in which it is difficult to construct meanings;
and the reflected image is an inverted one, in which an ordered torrent
of signifiers flows day and night.”4 Sarlo’s description of Latin America’s
postmodern reality—and her reading of the shopping mall experience in
128 M.J. EDWARDS
particular—reveals a contemporary subject hypnotized by the social utopia

offered up by market-oriented trends, transfixed by the desire to consume
these global brands and their symbolic imaginaries. Here, contemporary
reflections of community become synonymous with architectural design,
and “belonging” takes place within a poetics of sterility, where cleanliness
marks inclusion without contact.
The erasure of “dirty” social interaction is not particular to the post-
modern shopping mall. Within Latin America, in particular, cleanliness is a
frequent subject of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century discourse
surrounding modernization and the need for social, political and ideologi-
cal progress. Jorge Salessi, in Médicos maleantes y maricas: Higiene, crimi-
nología y homosexualidad en la construcción de la nación Argentina (Buenos
Aires: 1871–1914), describes modernization itself as a process that eradi-
cates the dirty and preserves the clean.5 As Argentina’s founding fathers
embraced scientific reason, seeing it as their guide to European and North
American models of social enlightenment, all Argentinians—intellectuals,
farmers, and bourgeois, gauchos and immigrants, rural and urban dwell-
ers—were “unidos en una lucha contra un ‘invisible’ enemigo común que
amenazaba la integridad de todo el cuerpo nación” (united in a struggle
against a common, invisible enemy that threatened the integrity of the
whole of the national body).6 Salessi explains that “entre 1867 y 1871 una
serie de pandemias que culminaron con la famosa plaga que entre febrero
y marzo de 1871 despobló Buenos Aires sirvieron para reforzar la imagi-
nación de la enfermedad epidémica representada como el nuevo enemigo
común” (between 1867 and 1871, a series of pandemics, culminating in
the famous plague that depopulated Buenos Aires, served to strengthen
the vision of the epidemic sickness as the new common enemy).7 The
revitalization (indeed, the allegorical rebirth) of the nation’s capital soon
came to be intimately associated with control of the sick and the sicken-
ing. For figures like Domingo F. Sarmiento, for whom Facundo Quiroga
and caudillismo represented the savage outdated ways of the rural dweller,
civilization was cognate with health. The nation-body must be protected
and its social flux monitored, controlled, and sanitized.
Within this context, sickness, infection, and dirtiness came to serve as
all-encompassing cultural metaphors describing the different and undesir-
able in society. In particular, queer communities throughout the Americas
were relegated within the allegorical shadows of sickness, cast in opposi-
tion to the healthy, safe and clean lifestyles associated with the heterosex-
ual family and biological reproduction. Queer artists and thinkers today
conceptualize these isolationist frameworks that were used to qualify queer

communities as a means of understanding social “otherness” on a broader
level. Jack Halberstam explicitly argues that the systematic condemnation
of queer communities is emblematic of the response of heteronormativity
to any conflicting epistemology, not unique to the persecution suffered by
LGBTTIQ communities. In In a Queer Time and Place: Transgendered
Bodies, Subcultural Lives, Halberstam contrasts the concept of “queerness
in place” with the traditional conceptualizations of time and space in a
late capitalist society that values production, assertiveness, and futurity.
Here, “ravers, club kids, HIV-positive barebackers, rent boys, sex work-
ers, homeless people, drug dealers, and the unemployed” become coun-
tercultural examples of how queerness can be used to understand those
subjects who “live (deliberately, accidentally, or of necessity) during the
hours when others sleep and in the spaces (physical, metaphysical, and
economic) that others have abandoned, and in terms of the ways they
might work in the domains that other people assign to privacy and fam-
ily.”8 According to Halberstam, the subcultural lives these subjects lead
provide a vital critique of the seemingly organic nature of ‘community’, and

they make visible the forms of unbelonging and disconnection that are nec-
essary to the creation of community. At a time when ‘gay and lesbian com-
munity’ is used as a rallying cry for fairly conservative social projects aimed
at assimilating gays and lesbians into the mainstream of the life of the nation
and the family, queer subcultures preserve the critique of heteronormativity
that was always implicit in queer life.9
Just as, for Jack Halberstam, “living queerly” is synonymous with social
difference and life on the outside, for Beatriz Sarlo, dominant postmod-
ern, market-oriented lifestyles are formed on the inside, from within shop-
ping malls. Queer times and places, then, are not just located outside the
nine-to-five, as Halberstam argues but also outside global markets and the
shopping districts that sell their international brands.
As Halberstam suggests, contemporary social trajectories reflect the
interests, desires, needs, and possibilities of the individual. In San Telmo,
the sharing of artisania (artisan goods) and antiques means a sharing of
space: goods are reused and recirculated, as well as inspired, created, and
often consumed on the streets where they are sold. While many vendors
are artisans (and many artisans their own marketing advisors), social iden-
tities are multiple and interchangeable; as they intermingle, these identities
themselves become a valued part of the (exotic) excursion and ceremony
130 M.J. EDWARDS
of consumption. If the shopping mall permits, for Sarlo, uninterrupted,

unimpeded, indifferent coexistence among a kaleidoscope of socioeco-
nomic realities, the Feria de San Telmo emphasizes the collision of these
realities, forced together in bold encounter, intersection, and confronta-
tion. In San Telmo, buying and selling becomes a façade, an excuse to
appreciate and perform difference. Here, community formation occurs
under categories beyond political, economic, and geographic similarity.
A walk down San Telmo’s shadowed cobblestones leads us away from the
neoliberal identity politics Sarlo describes; instead, we follow Halberstam
toward a reimagining of how contemporary subjects engage with and
appropriate consumption as a mode of community and subject formation.
It is at the symbolic crossroads between the works of Sarlo and
Halberstam that we find a stall unlike—or perhaps, just like—any other:
the place of business of blogger, performer, poet, painter, artist, and
author Naty Menstrual. Lined with hand-painted tee-shirts and place
mats with colorful caricatures (many marked with the phrase Todos somos
raros–“We are all strange”), this stall’s images are a study in contrast: the
sexual neutrality of geometric figurines and the hyper-erotic performance
of the hormone-enhanced transgendered body enter together into the
commodification of difference that characterizes this Sunday morning in
San Telmo (Fig. 5.1).
Fig. 5.1 Fernando Varas Toledo (Naty Menstrual), personal photograph, 2013
These cartoons are crowd-stoppers. They cause giggles and pointed

index fingers as the passersby mark the contrast between these depictions
and the multiple Mafalda sightings typical of the flea market experience
in Argentina. Here, the gentle political activism inspired by Mafalda—the
popular outspoken, politically conscious young girl drawn by cartoonist
Quino—engages with euphoric transgendered caricatures; tattoos, sili-
cone implants, and enormous penises share space with raw stick-figures
of colorful punk-children and their pets. These silent portraits of cartoon
nudity and rareza (strangeness) do not conform to popular ideological
approaches to difference. While the nation’s political discourse formally
supports tolerance and equality, Menstrual’ s images distance themselves
from the recent legislation in favor of same-sex marriage (Ley de matrimo-
nio igualitario 2010) and against gender discrimination (Ley de identidad
de género 2012). Instead, the tee-shirt and place mat images situate them-
selves squarely in the vanguard of regional protests against the increasing
violence against women and members of the trans-community and against
harmful social stereotypes. Catchphrases accompany these cartoons and
politicize their silence, voicing an explicit critique of heteronormativ-
ity from a distinctly marginal position. Slogans like “Muera Barbie, Ken
puto” (Die Barbie, Ken’s a faggot), “No me rompas las pelotas” (Don’t
bust my balls), “Ser diferente no está mal” (Being different is not bad),
“Batman se la come… a Robin” (Batman sucks…Robin), and “Ser puto,
ser trava, ser torta, ser gordo, ser feo, ser hetero, ser HUMANO” (Be
gay, be tranny, be les, be fat, be ugly, be hetero, be HUMAN) are found
alongside the caricatures, producing a crass call to break with the social
realization of gender-based stereotypes (Figs. 5.2 and 5.3).
In these images, there are no signs of social diversity, or class/gen-
der/ideological intermingling: equality and crosscultural dialogue are
of no interest to the subjects of these still frames. Rather, their smiles
and postures exude confidence; the portrait protagonists have nothing to
prove except the quotidian nature of life itself. They are different, but so
is everyone: and that is their message. Their simplicity insists on discursive
transparency, refusing to accept, appropriate, and embody alternative, for-
eign identitarian frameworks. These cartoon subjects know who they are;
they will not change, and don’t have to. The interested onlookers accept
these characters’ differences and silently recognize their own similarities as
they engage in the transactional economy of San Telmo. Today, in Buenos
Aires, difference is bought and sold, its ambiguous frontier revealing
Fig. 5.2 Fernando
Varas Toledo (Naty
Menstrual), personal
photograph, 2013
Fig. 5.3 Fernando

Varas Toledo (Naty
Menstrual), gift to
author (M.J. Edwards),
2013
itself to be the foundation for contemporary notions of community, both

including and beyond the trans.
A provocatively cross-dressed, platform-wearing Menstrual appears
from behind the back-wall curtain, or from within a neighboring stall,
and makes the trans-figurines a point of conversation, an icebreaker to
understanding social alterity as a common experience. Before questions
of cost and quantity can be addressed, personal taste (and political plat-
form) is negotiated: questions like “Which trans-figure do I want to wear/
embody?” and “What (political) message do I want my body to voice?”
become central to the purchasing process. Once the purchase is com-
pleted, capitalist hierarchies are pushed aside as Menstrual encourages the
once-consumer, now-visitor (and friend?) to find her on Facebook and
send a photo wearing the new tee-shirt. By the time that photo is posted
on Menstrual’s timeline, the subject is no longer just a consumer, but
a wearer—a fan of Menstrual and a supporter of a greater LGBTTIQ
community. As the image gains momentum and is circulated, liked,
commented on, and shared, the consumer’s own social-sexual-political
identities become obsolete: the tee-shirt speaks for itself, inducting and
identifying the consumer as part of the in-group, a member of Menstrual’s
club, a supporter of her messages in favor of difference. As the trans-
figurines and their political messages transform Menstrual herself into
the local brand of protest, their images on Facebook initiate an identitary
sequence favoring collective belonging over the individual interests tradi-
tionally associated with consumer strategies.
Even if the original impetus to upload the image rests on a narcis-
sistic impulse to be seen, known, and desired, the consumer’s own ego
is quickly lost, stripped of meaning. On Menstrual’s Facebook timeline,
the image takes on a new life as part of a collective of tee-shirt portraits
that recognizes Menstrual’s artistic production (and its subsequent sale
and consumption) as a social bond. As the photo circulates through the
network of connected friends and followers, it provokes questions: ques-
tions that insist on speaking of origins, of place of purchase and creator,
as inseparable from physical attraction, desire, lust—and, at times, disgust.
As tee-shirt wearers post their photos to Menstrual’s Facebook timeline,
they become an organic marketing campaign. Their images, their shirted
bodies, become objects to be seen, commented on, and desired, but
also examples to be followed. In this context, Menstrual, her San Telmo
kiosk, and the transgendered, transvestite body created therein inhabit a
foundational allegory where likes, praise, and consumer interest unite in
134 M.J. EDWARDS
celebration of gender and sexuality-based difference. Void of the pride and

positive protest associated with normative versions of LGBTTIQ com-
munity, and of the shame that characterizes queer “outing,” this commu-
nity finds meaning in fleeting Facebook connections and in the movement
toward San Telmo.
This process has clearly proven to be successful for Menstrual. Since
September 2011, Menstrual’s use of online platforms as a gallery for her
tee-shirt collectibles has made her designs a desired commodity. With
sales pitches like “Animáte y compráte una remeera diferente” (Get going
and buy yourself a different tee-shirt),10 Menstrual makes of difference
a marketable commodity and of the transbody a place of inscription, of
calls for the explicit recognition of nonconformity. Menstrual explains in a
Facebook status update on La Menstrual Remeras:
COMO YO SOY LA REINA DE LA DISCRECION NO PODIA MEJOR

QUE HACER UNA COLECCION DE REMERAS PARA GENTE
COMO LA GENTE
LOCA RARA E IRREVERENTE… AL QUE NO LE GUSTE QUE
VAYA A LA CALLE AVELLANEDA …
SI TE MIRAN RARO POR LA CALLE PONETE UNA DE ESTAS Y
VA A SER PEOR…
NATY MENSTRUAL REMERAS INFO X INBOX.
(Just as I am the Queen of Discretion I couldn’t do better than create
a collection of tee’s for people like people/ crazy strange and disrespectful.
To those who don’t like them tell them to go to Avellaneda/ If they look at
you weird on the street now, put on one of these and it’ll be worse/ Naty
Menstrual tee-shirts info via inbox)11
In Menstrual’s marketplace, tee-shirts function as a marker of com-

monality (in this case, commonality through difference); they are made,
marketed, bought, and sold as a mode of communal representation—a
means of identification for the population that not only engages with
Menstrual’s work but also frequents San Telmo’s streets. Here, difference
is geographic and aesthetic, and it continues to delineate ideological unity.
Welcome are those who value difference, but also those who recognize
aesthetic continuity and see in Menstrual’s virtual Facebook gallery a car-
toon collectible. Her collection of original, one-of-a-kind tees shuns the
homogenizing tendency toward global branding in favor of local zones
of reproduction and redistribution. By setting San Telmo against Buenos
Aires’s well-known black market, Avellaneda, Menstrual contrasts the arti-
san with the fake, the easily reproducible, and reasserts the validity of social
difference and the immanence of cultural stratification. Yet in doing so,
she simultaneously reinforces the otherness of the LGBTTIQ community,
highlighting its opposition to the dominant, to the normative, and—in this
case—to the apparent omnipresence of the global capitalist framework.
Menstrual is (drag)Queen to her queer kingdom, ruler of over five
thousand Facebook friends, followers, and likers who she encourages to
embrace the strange and crazy, to confront normativity and welcome dis-
approving glares. She is not looking for power, despite what her popularity
on social media may suggest. Rather, the community Menstrual builds is
minority-oriented, the products she sells proudly original in their hand-
made quality. Amidst market pressures to embrace international, cross-
cultural exchange, increase productivity, and maximize sales, Menstrual
remains local and inefficient. Her status updates, complete with makeshift
catalogues of new tee-shirt designs, are followed by interested onlook-
ers; her attentive responses to their inquiries not only ensure fair pricing
and the possibility of custom work—by order and on-demand—but, more
importantly, forcefully limit the transactions to the local. Here, on-site pick
up in San Telmo or door-to-door delivery options for customers outside
the Greater Buenos Aires area reveals a dedication to tee-shirt production
that extends beyond aesthetic experimentation and toward survival tactics:
ironically, the global face of social media becomes a mechanism reinforc-
ing local interests. In a situation where complex, innovative marketing
portfolios are unrealistic, Menstrual appeals to the global in order to fur-
ther engage with the local. In doing so, she draws direct queer consumers,
liberal ideologues, and art connoisseurs alike to her San Telmo kiosk.
For Menstrual, the local is grounded in a real where fingers continue
to point and laughter identifies difference. As those who visit Menstrual’s
stall openly and explicitly declare—even shout—their support of same-sex
marriage, gender equality, and nontraditional families, the offended look
on from a distance, their fingers pointing and their laughter echoing. Yet
the politics of both groups fail to appeal to Naty Menstrual. Instead, she
embraces difference itself, greeting both ideological comradery and social
condemnation from within her place of business. She knows both dis-
courses well and speaks to them in turn. As a communicative flaneur, her
fluency in the cultural trademarks that define these oppositional ideologies
permits her economic solvency: it is this very inter-ideological exchange
that underpins Menstrual’s engagement in the neoliberal marketplace.
For Menstrual, the intimate greetings between friends, the interested
136 M.J. EDWARDS
exchanges with kiosk consumers, and the violent deliveries of verbal slan-
der all typify the innately flexible nature of real social encounter: a type of
encounter too broad to be delineated and captured by political protago-
nism and social marginality (Fig. 5.4).
Menstrual’s economic exchanges represent something beyond the stan-
dard interaction of artisania and sustenance goods. The buying and selling
of Menstrual’s cartoon protagonists demonstrates not only the affective
appeal of marginal, queer identities and their social legacy, but also the
valuing of queer aesthetics beyond exoticism and beyond the homonor-
mative. These transactions demonstrate the marketability of marginality
within contemporary Argentina and beyond. In a market that has long
been understood as global, Menstrual’s San Telmo sales reveal a place for
queer consumption within the local, as part of the nation’s internal domes-
tic relations. Here, the trans-subject is on display, produced on-demand
for a consumer eager to belong in a community founded on difference.
Fig. 5.4 Fernando

Varas Toledo (Naty
Menstrual), gift to
author (M.J. Edwards),
2013
CONTINUADÍSIMO: THE EXAGGERATION OF CONTINUED

ACTION
Menstrual’s work is part of a continual engagement with unachievable
sociopolitical ideals. The community formation she facilitates results from
a shared struggle against the symbolic erasure implicit in assimilation,
acceptance, and political passivity. Menstrual places the trans-subject at
the center of this sociocultural narrative. Its historically marginal position
marks the trans as the apex of social alterity. Menstrual’s trans-protagonists
are experts at negotiating social exchanges of all sorts; as they struggle to
engage dominant social paradigms, their actions and reactions become a
model for marginal social behavior.
In 2008, Menstrual publishes her first collection of short stories, titled
Continuadísimo, in which erotic desire inspires the development of trans-
actional hierarchies that replace dominant heteronormative communities
(founded on the nuclear family and their friends and support systems)
in order to discuss the importance of interclass, intersexual exchanges.12
While consumption continues to define the globalized times in which
these stories are situated, Menstrual’s marketplaces are defined in terms of
erotic offerings, sexual desire, and physical and psychological satisfaction.
The first story in this collection, 26 y ½ (26 and ½) introduces Sissy, a
transgendered prostitute whose Cinderella-like dream of beauty and hap-
piness, Prince Charming, and family life propel her through homemade
plastic surgery and an uneven career on the streets. In a strategic testi-
monial narrative that distances the reader from the action and posits the
narrator as despatcher of marginal (hi)stories, we learn of Sissy’s hopes
and dreams:
Se llamaba Sissy Lobato. Se había puesto ese nombre cuando decidió

travestirse por primera vez. Juraba que tenía el glamour palaciego de Sissi
Emperatriz y el erotismo arrollador de una primera vedette como Nélida
Lobato.
Había hecho todo lo posible en esos veinte años para parecerse a alguna
de las dos, se inyectó cuanta silicona líquida existía, en cirugías caseras hechas
entre amigas sin medidas seguras de higiene y sin ninguna garantía. Primero
un poco de TETA, luego un poco de CADERA, más tarde el espejo señalaba la
NARIZ, redondeado de FRENTE, rellenado de PÓMULOS, silicona en los
LABIOS…y así, en veinte años había completado el círculo mucho más de una
vez: TETAS-CADERA-NARIZ-FRENTE-PÓMULOS-LABIOS y vuelta a
empezar: TETAS-CADERA-NARIZ-FRENTE-PÓMULOS-LABIOS.
138 M.J. EDWARDS
Tuvo el honor de parecerse a Zulema Yoma, a Elsa Serrano, a Guido

Süller, a Marcelo Polino, a Michael Jackson, pero nunca nunca nunca ni a
Sissi Emperatriz ni a Nélida Lobato. Eso la ponía mal, la indignaba. Y más
en esos años que corrían: con veinte de puta el deterioro amenazaba con
caerle encima.
(Her name was Sissy Lobato. She had given herself this name when she
decided to dress in drag for the first time. She swore that it had the palatial
glamor of Sissi Emperatriz and the irresistible eroticism of a leading lady like
Nélida Lobato.
She had done everything possible in these twenty years to make her-
self look like either of the two, she injected all the liquid silicon there was,
in homemade surgeries performed between friends without the necessary
hygiene and without any guaranties. First a little bit of TIT, then a little
bit of HIPS, later on the mirror pointed to the NOSE, a rounding of the
FOREHEAD, a filling in of the CHEEKS, silicon in the LIPS…and like
this, in twenty years she had completed the circle many times over: TITS,
HIPS, NOSE, FOREHEAD, CHEEKS, LIPS, and back to the beginning:
TITS, HIPS, NOSE, FOREHEAD, CHEEKS, LIPS.
She had the honor of looking like Zulema Yoma, Elsa Serrano, Guido
Süller, Marcelo Polino, Michael Jackson, but not not not at all like Sissi
Emperatriz nor Nélida Lobato. This got her down, it infuriated her. And
even more so in those years: with twenty years on the street the deteriora-
tion was looming overhead.)13
The coming-out of the trans-subject is marked by both choice and

impossibility. The choices—to realize one’s dream, to appear in drag, to
rename oneself, to undergo plastic surgeries and to give new form to the
body—here are all vivid and real stages in subject construction, pulled
from an indeterminate bank of referents. Sissy’s gender mimesis is eas-
ily imagined and realized against these ambiguous points of comparison,
yet Menstrual’s protagonist seeks to represent a particular commercialized
version of the female body. Here the trans-subject is integrated, however
incompletely, into the capitalist workforce by her eager pursuit of happi-
ness and a steadfast work ethic—one characterized by dedication and per-
sistence and presented as a means to a longed-for end. Yet Sissy’s inability
to accurately represent and reproduce female beauty is a direct product
of her trans-characterization, and her marginalization is intimately tied to
her failure to effectively reflect marketable representations of female attri-
butes. The circle becomes vicious; the achievement of happiness requires
the (economic) power to properly form the body, yet it is this properly
formed and funded body that is needed to obtain that power. By play-
ing on these themes, Menstrual inscribes her story within a much larger
panorama of the class-based inequalities characteristic of contemporary
neoliberal frameworks.
For Sissy, beauty is a marketable good that can bring both fame and for-
tune. Yet this capitalist vision falls short of its promised outcome as Sissy
fails to attain the physical appearance that would bring her desires to life.
In fact, her inability to possess the necessary modes of production, here
understood in terms of feminine beauty, prevent Sissy from capitalizing
on a marketplace where the commodification of desire is commonplace.
Instead, her self-mutilated body is relegated to the margins of the sex
trade; although her transgendered body is a sought-after object of desire,
for Sissy it is clearly marked as an obstacle to overcome. The consequences
of incompletely, inaccurately (trans)gendering her body are tragic, coun-
tered only by her entrepreneurial vision and remarkable dedication to
dominant workforce ethics.
Se despertó reventada como un sapo. Miró el reloj de las superpoderosas

que estaba al costado de su cama. Se dio cuenta de que eran las ocho de la
noche. Tenía que ir a trabajar sí o sí. Se levantó como pudo. Se arrastró hasta
el baño compartido. Se relajó bajo la lluvia tibia. Volvió a su cuarto. Se vis-
tió. Se maquilló y bajó las escaleras de aquel castillo de miseria taconeando.
Apenas asomó en la calle su nariz maravillosamente diseñada por un cirujano
barato idéntica a un quesito Adler, sintió un frío del carajo pero resistió,
sabía que aunque se le escarchara la tanga debía ser una buena noche sí o sí.
(She woke up a wreck. She looked at her Power Puff Girls watch that
was on the side of the bed. She realized that it was eight o’clock at night.
She had to go to work, no doubt about it. She got up as best she could. She
dragged herself to the communal bathroom. She relaxed under the warm
water of the shower. She went back to her room. Got dressed. Put on her
makeup and went strutting down the stairs of that miserable place.
She had just managed to stick that marvelously molded nose, shaped like
an Alder cheese by a second-class surgeon, outside when she felt the bloody
cold, but she held on, she knew that even if her thong froze over it was
going to be a good night, that’s for sure.)14
The inescapable adherence of the modern, capitalist subject to socio-

industrial divisions of time positions Sissy within contemporary dominant
traditions. Although her work day is presented here as nocturnal, her
desire for social fulfillment and economic remuneration are clearly con-
nected to working, in the words of Dolly Parton, “9 to 5.”
140 M.J. EDWARDS
After preparing herself physically and emotionally for another night

on the job, Sissy leaves her “castillo de miseria” (literally, castle of mis-
ery) and heads to the street. Here she witnesses the arrival of her long-
awaited knight in shining armor, and is quickly seduced by her own
fairytale as she imagines herself a princess in distress. Although the
knight’s steed is replaced here by the more contemporary and class-spe-
cific Audi A3, Sissy is still unable to decipher the unreal and incoherent
unfolding of her fantasy when she is asked “¿Cuánto por hacerte el culo
princesa?” (How much to stick it in your ass, princess?)15 Instead, after
accepting the crude invitation, she gets in the car and “por un momento
[Sissy] fantaseó que era la esposa de un gran empresario y que iban bus-
car a sus hijos a lo de su suegra” (for a second, [Sissy] imagined that she
was a successful businessman’s wife and that they were going to pick up
their children at her mother-in-law’s house).16 Sissy’s desire for family
life and economic stability are reflected in her determined work ethic
and the physical preparedness required of the marketplace participant:
the former prizes naturally accompany the latter qualities. However, the
superimposition of this modernist fairytale is short-lived; as the narrator
continues with the story at hand, we are reminded that this is Sissy’s
story. The reality of Sissy’s situation brings with it a very different set
of class relations than those reflected in the Cinderella story: here, class
difference combined with (possible) monetary exchange redefines cor-
rect social behavior according to market logic, allowing sexual desire
to be openly expressed and releasing the social filters that necessitate
politeness. Yet, while her prince proves to be less than “charming,” Sissy
remains true to traditional social narratives, her hope for love running
parallel to her desire for class assent.
But Sissy is not Cinderella. The trans-subject described here is unable
and unwilling to completely engage with heteronormative traditions,
and instead, welcomes and shares in sexual objectification. She, too, is
searching for pleasure, and in that she is much like her prince. What sep-
arates them is their economic point of origin, not their desire for physical
gratification. As they approach their destination, the pleasure-seeking
body neutralizes the class-based power struggle and redefines the ensu-
ing sexual transaction as mutually beneficial. Here, Sissy is clearly sexual.
She does not accept the passivity traditionally associated with prostitu-
tion and sexual objectification. In fact, her participation in both activities
is recognized and applauded by the narrator. When shown her prince’s
penis, “Sissy miró y no lo podía creer, ¡debía tener veintiséis centímetros y
medio!” (Sissy looked and couldn’t believe it. It must have been twenty-
six and a half centimeters).17 The narrator immediately qualifies this
statement by adding that the “[p]uta vieja, tenía una regla en los ojos
de haber visto tantas vergas” ([o]ld slut had a ruler for eyes after having
seen so many cocks).18 With this line, Sissy becomes a penis-specialist,
a connoisseur of sorts—and her expertise suggests that she, too, has
something other than money to gain from this transactional encounter.
Whether it be knowledge and the furthering of a life’s work, dedicated
to the study of the phallus or fame, Sissy’s participation here is clearly
not passive.
What is noteworthy, however, is that her fame and expertise go seem-
ingly unnoticed. As she sits in the car, she says and does nothing to reveal
her know-how. Her partner’s verbal and physical advances accentuate
Sissy’s silent acceptance of this exchange. It is only the narrator’s own ret-
roactive interjections that allow us, as readers, to understand this encounter
differently. It is Menstrual’s own testimonial that translates Sissy’s silence
into intelligible terms—her purposeful decoding that translates passive
reception and marginality into pleasure and exceptionality. In this way,
Menstrual politicizes her role as narrator, author of social alterity; over the
course of the story, her presence within Sissy’s experience becomes strate-
gic and purposeful, directly connected to the empowerment of the silent,
the poor, and the trans-community.
In Menstrual’s story, the trans-subject’s silence is understood as a
mechanism to fulfill the same desires for social and sexual gratification that
her transactional counterpart pursues. However, as Sissy and her Prince
Charming enter the apartment, a new set of expectations is introduced.
-¿Pensabas que te iba a coger PUTO SUCIO DEGENERADO? ¡No cojo

MONSTRUITOS!… no tendrías que haber nacido… no tenés ni Dios vos
CERDO.
Y mientras la basureaba, la revolcaba por el suelo sin dejar de patearle
el cuerpo: TETAS-CADERA-NARIZ-FRENTE-PÓMULOS-LABIOS…
TETAS-CADERA-NARIZ-FRENTE-PÓMULOS-LABIOS una y otra vez,
enceguecido.
(You thought I was going to fuck you DIRTY DEGENERATE
FAGGOT? I don’t fuck little MONSTERS! …you shouldn’t have been
born…you don’t even have a God, you PIG. And as he trashed her, he
threw her around the floor, continuously kicking her body: TITS-HIPS-
NOSE-FOREHEAD-CHEEKS-LIPS…TITS-HIPS-NOSE-FOREHEAD-
CHEEKS-LIPS, over and over again, blind with rage.)19
142 M.J. EDWARDS
Sexual desire is replaced by social cleansing as Prince Charming is eas-

ily redefined ideologically. The erstwhile suitor’s attempt to deconstruct,
and ultimately eradicate, Sissy’s trans-hood is strangely reminiscent of
Sissy’s own routinized, workday preparations. Much as Sissy consciously
“puts herself together” in the story’s initial sequence, now her aggressor
works to pull her apart again, to destroy piece by piece the scaffolding
that welcomes notions of sexual equality. Rather than obscuring the trans-
formations of the transgendered subject, however, the physical attack
seems to reinforce both Sissy’s work ethic and her sexual-social identity.
After seemingly settling the score with a frying pan to the face of her
now deformed Prince, Sissy systematically dismantles his symbolic marker
of power, ripping the 26-and-a-half centimeter penis from its place of ori-
gin and triumphantly exclaiming: “-¡¡Es míooo!!… ¡¡Es míooo!!…¡¡Todo
míooo!!…” (It’s mine!!…It’s mine!!…All mine!!).20 Queer shame is
rejected here, substituted with vengeance, aggression and, later, the sym-
bolic appropriation of power. Sissy never negates, hides, or (re)closets her-
self. Indeed, such an outcome is never even suggested. Rather than inspire
the acceptance of discourses once considered dominant, the physical abuse
our protagonist suffers instead leads to the performative reaffirmation of
a social contract founded on sexual commodification. The sought-after
power of the phallus is literally detachable, transferable; recast as a dildo,
its symbolism shifts to reflect the pleasure implicit in knowing the other to
be powerless. While this last sequence of events does not lead to any clear
shift in social relations, Sissy’s possession of the penis does confirm her
position and participation within the sociosexual marketplace.
The events narrated in 26 y ½ prove to be just another day’s work
for Sissy Lobato. However, Menstrual makes it clear that Sissy’s story
departs from other tales of contemporary society’s persecution of the
trans-subject. When Sissy is discovered four days later by her landlord,
police officials, and curious neighbors, she is revealed as a recognizable
member of a greater whole. In this way, Sissy’s story becomes primarily a
narrative of community formation.
Pasaron cuatro días y un olor nauseabundo estaba preocupando a los veci-

nos, que si bien eran uno más sucio que el otro no se bancaban ese olor a
muerto podrido.
El encargado tocó la puerta de Sissy y nadie contestó. Golpeó hasta can-
sarse y nada, entonces forzó la cerradura y entró. Alfredo miró sin poder
creerlo y al instante vomitó. Sissy desnuda, morada, babeante y barbuda con
la mirada ida, con un enorme pene en la boca y un muerto en sus brazos

con el rostro irreconocible hinchado y negro como una enorme morcilla, se
mecía y canturreaba:
-¡Llego tarde al Maipo!… ¡Llego tarde al Maipo!… ¡Ayudame a maquil-
larme Alfredo!….
(Four days passed and a nauseating smell was worrying the neighbors,
who, even though, dirty in their own right, couldn’t stand the smell of a
rotting corpse.
The supervisor knocked on Sissy’s door and no one answered. He banged
until he was blue in the knuckles, but nothing, so he picked the lock, and
went inside. Alfredo stared without believing at what he saw and vomited
immediately. Sissy, naked, bruised, drool-covered and bearded, glaring into
the distance, with an enormous penis in her mouth and a dead man in her
arms, rocked gently and sang softly:
I’m going to be late at the Maipo!…I’m going to be late at the Maipo!…
Alfredo, help me put my makeup on!)21
The corpse’s stench serves as a beacon, signaling the rejection not only
of heteronormative privilege but also of global capitalist frameworks. It
calls to those close by to come, form around Sissy: the last one standing.
While her suitor’s Audi A3 and sparkling clean “Prince Charming” appeal
acknowledge a high level of social mobility, class-crossing, and sexual flex-
ibility, they also clearly symbolize the repression, violence, and inequality
fostered by unwanted ideologies imposed by a global capitalist economy.
The putrid smell that emanates from Sissy’s apartment represents a call to
others, and ultimately a call to all communities who experience dominant
epistemologies from the margins. Here, death and putrescence produce a
social gathering that places Sissy, as the queer trans-subject, at the fore-
front of contemporary responses to (hetero)normativity.
Lee Edelman, author of No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive,
describes queer lifestyles as a counter to normative reproductive futurism,
which situates biological procreation and familial legacies as the only means
of propagating a social framework founded on progress. For Edelman,
the child embodies “the perpetual horizon of every acknowledged poli-
tics, the fantasmatic beneficiary of every political intervention,”22 while
queerness is understood as “the negativity opposed to every form of social
viability.”23 Edelman insists that queer communities embrace their char-
acterization as non-reproductive, non-future, non-normative, arguing that
the association of queerness with death may be seen as a “resistance to a
Symbolic reality that only ever invests us as subjects insofar as we invest
144 M.J. EDWARDS
ourselves in it, clinging to its governing fictions, its persistent sublima-

tions, as reality itself.”24 Rather than fighting the norm and refusing its
validity (a process that in-and-of itself reifies normative narratives), queers
must accept their relationship with death as a marker of nonconformity,
confusion, and chaos.
Echoing Edelman’s call to embrace all associations of queerness with
nonconformity, Menstrual’s story literally ties queer sex to death and the
fall of normativity. With the transfer of the phallus, Sissy takes from the
dominant male the status of meaning-maker: the queer subject herself
becomes the nexus around which the social is formed. Sissy’s current state
of being, in the aftermath of an experience both horrifying and routine,
affects how those around her feel, move, and engage. Sissy’s queer per-
formance causes the death, not of herself, but of normativity. Its stench,
and its close ties to her trans-body, attract the attention of other mar-
ginalized communities and mark Sissy the focal point. For Sissy herself,
however, change is difficult. Her workplace ethos remains well in place,
and the penis in hand becomes a reminder of social responsibility and a
prop accompanying Sissy’s socioeconomic wardrobe. The stench of her
suitor’s corpse marks the literal substitution of cleanliness for putrefaction,
of wealth and status for a low-income lifestyle, as Sissy herself becomes
representative of the dirty lifestyles on the margins. While death does not
lead to the queer negation of dominant symbolic systems for Menstrual as
it does for Edelman, it does represent the outcome of a struggle from the
margins, where workplace inequalities invoke queer positionality beyond
sexual orientation and same-sex desire.
In this final sequence, Sissy’s fight for social/sexual power draws a crowd
and inspires the formation of common bonds among those on the social
margins. The traditionally marginal status of trans-subjects and prostitutes
disappears as Sissy becomes the center of attention: a person who moti-
vates action, and who people must worry about (whether they like it or
not). As the surrounding community acknowledges the need to eradicate
normativity’s deathly stench from the premises, helping Sissy becomes
synonymous with helping themselves. As this transformation takes place,
Sissy becomes not just a curiosity to be regarded in wonder, but a human,
with a life and story around which community forms. Sissy’s lifestyle and
social antagonism unite her neighbors in gossip and bring community offi-
cials—represented here in the person of Alfredo—to her defense. Seen
in this context, Sissy’s final words become a call for communal engage-
ment. Sissy’s call for help betrays no effort to stray from her life’s work;
rather, her call to Alfredo must be understood as a move toward solidarity,

empathy, and community-based struggle, where the trans-subject finds
itself center stage. Sissy’s now-ritualized gendered transformation func-
tions as a collaborative work-in-progress that not only acknowledges a
necessary performative quality to social engagement but also regards such
performances as the basis for survival.
SOCIAL (TRANS)FORMATIONS
Naty Menstrual’s trans-protagonists all share a similar fate. Whether it be
as prostitute, spinster, or housewife, their marginal status is recognized,
understood, and made commonplace; ultimately, this status is pinpointed
as the reason for the continual class-crossings that characterize contempo-
rary social interaction. The trans-subject’s seemingly permanent place at
the margins normalizes these communicative frameworks and social rela-
tionships, making a ritualized, performative repertoire of the crude sexual
language, the physical and emotional abuse, and the impossible dreams
that populate Menstrual’s stories. The repeated representation and situ-
ation of the transsexual, transgendered, and transvestite within marginal
structures is a literal reading, over and over, of trans-subjectivity through
this social lens.
The title of Menstrual’s first collection of short stories, Continuadisimo,
positions the trans-subject within a temporal, spatial, and narrative mode
of transference, within which the protagonists themselves become points
of social, economic, geographic, and sexual convergence. Protagonists like
“la Angie,” who, in “La empastillada,” (The Pill-Taker), confronts her sad,
frustrating, tiring reality—“embichada” (infested, rather than infected)
with AIDS—by going to the Cineplex to watch porn and “hacerse coger”
(to get herself fucked), become clear representatives of a social alterity in
which pharmaceutical cocktails are a luxury to be collected, not a treat-
ment plan toward survival. La Angie presents sex as an antidote, albeit
momentary, to a sickness rooted in socioeconomic inequality rather than
sexually transmitted infection. But, as queer desire leads to abuse—its cli-
max a “patada voladora en el mentón” (flying kick to the chin)—her suf-
fering becomes a norm understood by all and tolerated in silence.25 The
neighbors are “acostumbrado[s] a esos quilombos” (accustomed to those
ruckuses); their decision to not ask about what they don’t want to know
reflects a socially qualified apathy, born of a tradition of marginal social
146 M.J. EDWARDS
engagement.26 For “La Angie,” and others like her, words are clearly not
enough.
Llegó, fue hasta el baño, se miró fijamente en el espejo y lloró. Lloró hasta
que le dolió el pecho más que los moretones de los párpados y del resto del
cuerpo. Fue a buscar el tarro de harina. Le costó tragarse absolutamente
todas las pastillas porque se le atragantaban con el llanto que no paraba
un instante. Terminó de tragarlas. Volvió frente al espejo y siguió llorando
más que antes. De repente ya no pudo ver más su reflejo en el cristal, la
hinchazón era tan grande que los párpados se habían apoderado de sus ojos,
envolviéndolos con un calor y un latido insoportables. Quedó ciega, o al
menos ella así lo creía. Y aún frente al espejo, dijo:
—Viste, bicho hijo de puta…viste bicho hijo de puta que no me gan-
aste…ahora te jodo y me mato yo primero…
Y tanteó el espejo hasta descolgarlo y romperlo contra el suelo. Cayó. Se
revolvió entre los vidrios cortantes riendo.27
(She arrived at home, went to the bathroom, looked at herself intensely
in the mirror and cried. She cried until her chest hurt more than the bruises
on her eyelids and on the rest of her body. She went to look for the flour
can. She found it difficult to swallow absolutely all of the pills in it because
they got caught up in the tears that didn’t stop flowing, not for a second.
She finished swallowing them. She turned to face the mirror and continued
to cry, more than before. Finally she couldn’t see her reflection anymore
in the glass, the swelling having grown so exaggerated that her eyelids had
taken over her eyes, engulfing them in a warmth and heartbeat that were
unbearable. She went blind, or at least that’s what she thought. And, still in
front of the mirror, she said:
—You see, bug, son of a bitch…you see, bug, son of bitch, you couldn’t
win. Now it’s my turn to fuck you over and I’ll kill myself first…
And she felt around the mirror until she managed to unhook it and
break it on the floor. She fell. She rolled around in the sharp, broken glass,
laughing.)
In this sequence, actions and laughter outbalance the symbolic weight-

lessness of words. Notably, La Angie identifies el bicho—the “bug,” rather
than the physical abuse she has suffered—as enemy number one: the com-
mon target and reason behind her self-hatred, mutilation, and suicide. In
this interpretation, as Susan Sontag canonically presents in Aids and its
Metaphors, AIDS is understood not as mere sickness, but as something a
person and a lifestyle acquires. While Sontag suggests that this symbolic
reinterpretation helps foster the stigma associated with queer sex, drug
use, and the acquisition of the disease, here Menstrual updates Sontag’s
assessment of the contemporary AIDS pandemic by identifying socioeco-
nomic inequality as the true carrier of infection. It is clear that La Angie
is acting against a disease that feeds predominantly on the poor. Distant is
the queer shame that historically limited LGBTTIQ communities to clos-
eted lifestyles, codified communications, and performative repertoires of
passing. In its place is a class-based silence, motivated by the impossibility
of change and the inevitability of suffering. La Angie’s trans-subjectivity
must be understood, along with that of Menstrual’s other protagonists, as
strategically and purposefully center stage.
Menstrual’s self-proclaimed “porno-trash” introduces a poetics of social
engagement in which the erotic encounter functions, in carnavalesque
fashion, as a conduit for rethinking the center–periphery dichotomies that
characterize socioeconomic discussions. In Menstrual’s work, the indi-
vidual’s drive to satisfy erotic desire simultaneously justifies a rupture with
traditional epistemological structures and encourages faithful adherence
to those same frameworks. With pleasure as the ultimate goal, the search
for physical and emotional gratification sets the subject in motion, yielding
a social cruising empowered by uneasy, often eroticized encounters with
difference. Despite the author’s repeated marginalization of the trans-
subject, no changes are proposed, no modifications desired. Rather, the
trans-protagonists insist on the naturalization of difference; in the context
of these stories, it is difference itself that ensures the recognition of social,
sexual, and gender identities, as well as economic solvency and erotic sat-
isfaction. The carbon-copy scenarios that Menstrual’s protagonists inhabit
intentionally refute equality as a goal and reify difference as the sole social
categorization.
Much like “26 y ½” (26 and a ½) and “La empastillada” (The Pill
Taker), “Huesito de pollo” (Chicken Bones) captures a significant hatred,
directed toward life in general, and a desire on the part of the protagonist
to “rajarme en un vuelo rápido de esa casa de mierda. De ese barrio de
mierda. De toda esa gente del orto,” (fuck right off in a quick flight from
this shit-filled house. From this shitty neighborhood. From this whole
ass-sucking crowd).28 However, when reality sets in, change becomes an
impossibility: “Había soñado muchas veces que volaba, y era hermoso…
pero volaba con alas de pájaro, no con alas de pollo. Odiaba el pollo y me
lo tenía que comer calladita la boca, porque era lo que había y lo que mi
vieja compraba con tanto sacrificio, y que no me quejara…” (I had dreamt
many times that I could fly, and it was beautiful…but I flew with birds’
148 M.J. EDWARDS
wings, not with chicken wings. I hated chicken and I had to eat it with my
mouth closed, because it was the only thing there was, and it was such a
sacrifice for my old lady to buy it, and I’d better not complain…).29 For
the narrator, the desire for socioeconomic ascent is overwhelming, driven
by the insurmountable weight of class-defining/-restricting/-specific tra-
ditions and attitudes. Here, socioeconomic mobility is a dream imagined,
restricted to the wealthy class, like Sissy’s Audi driver in the earlier tale.
The queer subjects lucky enough to fly definitely do not live in these
neighborhoods; they are not the focus of these tales. Menstrual’s trans-
protagonists do not fly with pride, in parades: they walk—for their wings,
when spread, offer targets for both hatred and desire. In “Huesito de pollo,”
there is no pride, nor is there shame; indeed, the openly queer subject is
never explicitly mentioned. The protagonist and narrator of this tale is
only assumed to be queer, inasmuch as trans-identity is projected through
the thematic continuity that links each story in this anthology. Any one of
Menstrual’s previous trans-protagonists might just as easily fit into this urban,
low-income, multigenerational family, where queer is clearly marked as com-
monplace and, like chicken, a plate easily served for any occasion. Again, the
queer subject is silent, deep in thought, as the chicken becomes a symbolic
reminder of contemporary social stagnation, of what is out of reach and dif-
ficult to swallow. Menstrual’s trans-subject becomes a spokesperson for this
grounded queerness, its wings clipped: an overcooked, dry, and colorless
reality; a representative of contemporary social marginality on a grand scale.
En un momento, cuando estaba por servirle vino, vi que me ponía cara rara
y miraba para adelante como un pavo con el pecho hinchado. Como un pavo
empavonado. La miré extrañada y me hizo una seña rara. La seguí mirando.
Seguía aleteando y por un momento pensé que se estaba convirtiendo en
pollo de veras. Aleteaba y se agarraba la garganta. Aleteaba y aleteaba. Me
hizo reír. (…)
Cayó al suelo. Se empezó a retorcer como un gusano. Pero nunca voló
como un pollo. De repente se quedó quieta. Morada. Con la boca entreabi-
erta y con los ojos redondos como huevos fritos sin pestañear. Huevos fritos.
Qué rico. Pero sin pan no tienen sentido. No vale la pena.
(In a moment, when I was about to serve her wine, I noticed that she
was making a strange gesture, peering forward like a turkey with a swollen
chest. Like a silly-looking turkey. I looked at her, not understanding what
was going on, and she gave me a weird hint. I kept on looking at her. She
continued to flap about and for a moment I thought that she was turning
into a chicken, for real. She flapped and grabbed at her throat. Flapped and
flapped. She made me laugh.
She fell to the ground. She began to wiggle about like a worm. But
she never flew, just like a chicken. Suddenly she was still. Purple. With her
mouth slightly open and her eyes round like fried eggs, unblinking. Fried
eggs. Delicious. But without bread it just didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t
worth the while.)30
The porno-trash aesthetics that typically define Menstrual’s work through

sexual explicitness and grotesque humor give way in this scene to hunger
and survival, tropes describing (and circumscribing) the trans-subject’s
social experience. In this context, the chicken, and the chicken bone,
resonate with queer counterculture imaginaries; the refusal of a forced
“outing” becomes a defiant response, resulting in the literal choking of
those stuck in tradition. The rigid mother figure, weakened and rendered
vulnerable by the choke-hold placed on her by this boney queer marker, is
re-envisioned as humorous, light-natured, and pleasant: not in death but
in transit, transformation—in TRANS. In this domestic power struggle,
the transition from matriarch to grounded-queer bird/chicken causes
laughter. Turkification redesigns—redresses (trasviste)—the mother as a
turkey and the dominant subject as a gay, happy, cheerful, silly person—un
pavo. While marginality proves to be literally a terminal condition in this
story, Menstrual’s trans-protagonist sees something else. Death, economic
inequality, and social stagnation become fried eggs, yet the absence of
bread strips the positivist allegory of its delicious future, and we come
to understand the routinized chicken as more than a continuum: as a
Continuadisimo.
In her most recent publication, Batido de trolo (2012), Menstrual fur-
ther complicates the representation of difference in a genre-straddling,
transgendering work that fragments traditional textual layouts and unites
self-portraits, cartoon images, poetry, and short stories with a political
manifesto.31 The batido, or “blender drink,” is served on photography-
grade, glossy landscape-oriented sheets that insist their textual and visual
ingredients be understood as equal parts of the trolo or faggot’s story.
While the cartoons alongside the inner title page formally recognize
the tee-shirt images bought and sold in San Telmo as a cohesive part of
Menstrual’s artistic production and suggest her work be read alongside
that of other cartoons (by Copi, for example), it is the photographs that
dominate the reader’s visual field. Collectively, they introduce Menstrual
to the reader and onlooker and insist that her gendered image formally
accompany notions of authorship and narrative protagonism. They
150 M.J. EDWARDS
confirm her presence and make of Menstrual, for the first time, both the
voice and the image through which all the stories inside are told (Fig. 5.5).
The obvious playfulness associated with her stage name, Naty
Menstrual, combines the traditionally hidden, “padded” and “tamponed”
trans-femininity with the theatricality inherent in the repertoires of Spanish
performer Nati Mistral, and makes of transvestite glamor a provocative
point around which stories are gathered and authority formed. Batido de
trolo breaks from Menstrual’s first collection, however, in allowing the
author’s image to overpower her signature as a marker of ownership.
Here, Menstrual is not just a symbolic gatherer of tales, but a distribu-
tor and seller of marginality. The photomontage presented on the cover
introduces Menstrual visually in a sequence of four separate, but similar,
portraits; the author is captured in different poses, wearing different wigs,
blouses, jewelry, and facial expressions. The Benjaminian reproduction of
the trans-subject is rendered explicit by the aestheticized filmstrip fram-
ing. Here Menstrual, like her trans-protagonists in Continuadisimo, is
repeated in cookie-cutter fashion. However, if for Benjamin the mechani-
cal, photographic reproduction of contemporary art results in the political
Fig. 5.5 Naty Menstrual, Batido de trolo (Buenos Aires: Milena Cacerola, 2012).
Cover page
anesthetizing of historical decontextualization, for Menstrual, repetition

and reproduction are central to identitary framing within our global,
capital-oriented society. Reproduction—literally the production, time and
again, of the self—is necessary to engage multiple, different, and divergent
social, economic, political, and cultural imaginaries.
Through these cover images, Menstrual accepts and offers herself as
reproducible. In the initial photo sequence, her overproduced image
lends meaning to the decorative prop, as her image merges the tetera
(teapot) with the cartera (purse), the bourgeois with the carnavalesque,
and makes the car a social icon easily honked at. In her miniaturized
props, Menstrual introduces a symbolic system to be communicated
across class; her cross-dressed body, in costume, initiates narrativity.
On the cover of her second anthology, Menstrual is clearly centered
and labeled as storyteller—even story-maker. And while the full-fig-
ured trans-subjects reproduced on the inner cover recall the made-
on-demand, Facebook-friending, community-forming components of
Menstrual’s work, the anthology’s section divisions (“Mi sexo,” “Mis
ojos,” “Mi corazón”) call attention to the constructed nature of the
self, and particularly the constructed nature of Menstrual’s authority.
The pre-production codes on the photographic snippets of the section
titles reveal a corporal-symbolic separation and fragmentation; these
stylized section markers cast what follows as the production of images,
imaginations, and narrations of the encounter of artistic creation with
the viewing, reading public (Fig. 5.6).
A total of four two-page photographic layouts are spread through-
out Batido de trolo. Read as the encounter between author and reader,
the first two feature a deliberately glammed-up Menstrual striking
Fig. 5.6 Naty

Menstrual, Batido de
trolo (Buenos Aires:
Milena Cacerola, 2012).
13
152 M.J. EDWARDS
poses against an undoubtedly urban backdrop. The representation of

her leisure seems forced, her face deep in thought or in erotic under-
tones, concentrating on the finger being sucked, the leg flexed, her
shawl’s positioning. In these images, it is clear that Menstrual is not
at ease doing nothing. She seems to be caught at a frozen point in
time, on her way to other engagements, other activities, something of
more interest. She is on the move, from one story to the next, and is
purposeful in her transitions. Her attitude and body language shift dra-
matically in the third montage, where the aesthetic design of the front-
cover portraits is repeated and multiplied. Although framed squarely
in twelve different poses, Menstrual does not seem to be moving in
these photos, but instead aims clearly toward seduction, her gaze and
posture teasing the viewer, enticing some potential future encounter
(Figs. 5.7 and 5.8).
The final photographic montage displays Menstrual in a suggestive
embrace with another trans-subject. Much like Menstrual’s own linguis-
tic maneuvers from within her San Telmo kiosk, these bodies propose and
negate intimacy as they both highlight and deflect from the constructed
nature of the photo shoot. Here, sexuality and gender are ambigu-
ous, not necessarily clearly demarcated. The body language captured
Fig. 5.7 Naty Menstrual, Batido de trolo (Buenos Aires: Milena Cacerola,
2012). 27. Photo by Nicolás Fernández
146. Photo by Marieta Vazquez. www.marietavazquez.com.ar
in this sequence weaves together social identifiers, recognizing in their

vagueness the limitations of hetero-performativity. The intentionally
constructivist nature of Menstrual’s embrace suggests that qualify-
ing as a queer, trans-subject is easier than passing as hetero—and the
consequences of that qualification, while definite in the social sphere,
here are aesthetic, the embrace itself emblematic of Menstrual’s paral-
lel engagement, as author, with the reader. Whereas the three previous
sequences collectively place Menstrual’s lonely, urban-glammed self in a
provocative place of self-forming, self-performing, and self-authoring,
this final montage announces the arrival of that self ’s sexual/textual
companion. The intimate façade of the aestheticized embrace becomes
representative of an intense, inseparable author–reader relationship.
Evidently the reader, represented here as trans-other, has been enticed
by Menstrual’s previous engagement with performance, with her rep-
resentation of sexuality and eroticism. Much as César Aira’s lectures
on Copi filled university lecture halls in 1988, the reader is drawn to
Menstrual’s art. Her stories and person not only attract attention but
154 M.J. EDWARDS
create interest and justify the movement, both psychological and physi-
cal, required to establish contact.
Moving now as one, author and reader are inseparable: their bod-
ies, platinum-blond wigs and pleasure-seeking intentions set apart
by a single black tee. Engulfed in the performance of intimacy, the
author–reader relationship represented here is clearly marked by third-
party spectatorship; the implications of consuming queer subject mat-
ter, even secretly, cannot be denied. The onlooker’s presence attracts
the glare of Menstrual and her partner, creating from their embrace a
theatrical presentation that addresses the performative conceit inher-
ent in both sexual and textual encounters. To read, to consume queer
eroticism is understood as inescapably voyeuristic: an act necessarily
mediated by the scrutiny of social conventions. It is this scrutiny that
marks the formation, however skewed, of contemporary community
(Fig. 5.9).
Belying this conventional conceit, on the other hand, the onlooker’s
gaze is characterized as pleasure-seeking, as the voyeur deliberately strives
198. Photo by Marieta Vazquez. www.marietavazquez.com.ar
to establish physical, discursive, ideological contact. Having browsed

the streets depicted in the previous images, the onlooker-reader must
now explicitly choose and embrace marginality, literally taking hold of
Menstrual, just as Menstrual takes hold of the reader. Indeed, while the
author situates herself time and again on the margins of social, economic,
political, and sexual frameworks, it is much less clear where the reader
is coming from. The foundational qualities often associated with hetero-
sexuality give way to a narrative located in the present, aimed at revealing
the complexities of social interaction from within. What is clear, however,
is that the reader must choose to identify with queer subjectivity in front
of the onlooker, openly accepting a difficult historical legacy marked by
persecution and suffering.
The gaze that emanates from both Menstrual and her textual/sexual
companion is steadfast, unaffected by the publicness of their intimacy and
the presence of a witness. The strength that marks this gaze shows noth-
ing of the shame traditionally associated with the outing of queer sub-
jects. Rather, the gaze is defiant, a deliberate participant in the purposeful
performance of sexuality, even when interrupted. In fact, it is never clear
whether the passionate kiss that draws both participants to look away from
the spectator is produced by the mutual desire to touch or by a discursive
impulse toward a ménage-a-trois. Regardless, in both cases, queer inti-
macy remains center stage and occupies the interest of all those present.
Queer identification through explicit, “outed” intimacy suddenly becomes
something to look at, to share in, even if only from afar. Interpreted in
this light, the confident, defiant embrace marks queer passion as a point
of common interest and a framework around which the social unites in
community-oriented patterns.
If we interpret the final photographic embrace as emblematic of
the author–reader encounter, Menstrual’s position becomes a reflec-
tive one, commenting upon the indeterminate quality of contempo-
rary, postmodern social interaction. Center–periphery dichotomies are
blurred and stretched as subjects cross borders to satisfy themselves
sexually, politically, economically, and intellectually. The finger point-
ing and giggling of the voyeurs outside Menstrual’s kiosk in San Telmo
are here replaced by something less obvious. The laughter that defines
uneasy encounters-with-difference in the public marketplace is lost in
the intimate privacy of readership. The refusal to put down the book,
to stop reading, to stop looking: these simple actions represent the
reader’s always-already participation in difference. Menstrual’s embrace
156 M.J. EDWARDS
with the reader defies laughter by revealing difference as an innate fix-

ture of social engagement. Difference, as Sissy Lombato reminds, is
sought after and is exceptional.
NOTES
1. Beatriz Sarlo. Scenes from Postmodern Life, trans. Jon Beasley-Murray
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001).
2. Sarlo, Scenes, 15.
3. Ibid.
4. Sarlo, Scenes, 17.
5. Jorge Salessi, Médicos maleantes y maricas: Higiene, criminología y homo-
sexualidades la construcción de la nación Argentina. (Buenos Aires: 1871-
1914) (Buenos Aires: Beatriz Viterbo, 1995).
6. Salessi, Médicos, 14. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
7. Ibid.
8. Judith (Jack) Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgendered
Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York: New York University Press, 2005),
10.
9. Halberstam, In a Queer Time, 153–4.
10. “La Menstrual Remeras (Facebook Page) ” posted August 4, 2012,
accessed on December 2, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/
LaMenstrualRemeras/
11. “La Menstrual Remeras (Facebook Page)” posted on June 25, 2015,
accessed on December 5, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/
LaMenstrualRemeras/
12. Naty Menstrual, Continuadísimo (Buenos Aires: Eterna Cadencia, 2008).
13. Menstrual, Continuadísimo, 15.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Lee Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2004), 3.
23. Edelman, No Future, 9.
24. Edelman, No Future, 18.

26. Ibid.
27. Menstrual, Continuadísimo, 85–6.
29. Ibid.
30. Menstrual, Continuadisímo, 63–4.
31. Naty Menstrual, Batido de trolo (Buenos Aires: Milena Caserola, 2012).
CHAPTER 6
Conclusion: César Aira and Queer

Movements in Crisis
LOOKING SOUTH
In closing this discussion of queer culture, closet epistemologies, and con-
temporary Argentinean society, I feel a need to disclose that I am neither
queer nor Argentine. Rather, I am a cis-heterosexual Canadian. My silence
on this point until this moment represents, in part, a desire to pass as
other, to pass as part of the other, in a moment when North America and
heterosexuality represent normative discourses whose historical legacy of
cultural enforcement encourages my movement toward the margins and
my (self-)identification as different. This “coming out” of sorts is born
of my wish to make explicit my ability to speak about Queer Argentina
despite the sexual, geographic, and cultural distances that separate me
from my subject matter. Knowledge is often measured through experience
and belonging; my silence signals my desire to move toward understand-
ing through empathy. At the same time, however, it is crucial that the
reader understand my engagement with the cultural material within these
pages as a constant renegotiation of these terms, where the status of my
own (national-sexual) secret is discovered, time and again, in the cultural
legacy tied to the name on this book and to the language I use to speak
about queer culture in contemporary Argentina. Like the social, familial
lineage tied to my name, Edwards, my use of English reveals a distance I
am unable to shorten, a secret I am unable to hide. Together, these tokens
mark my difference publicly—and, in a way my own sexuality does not,

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57465-7_6
160 M.J. EDWARDS
insist that the obvious be discussed and my story be told. Speaking about
Queer Argentina represents, for me, a constant re-telling, re-stating, re-
cognition of my sexual, national, and linguistic associations, in an effort
to explain how it is that I too may understand what it means to negotiate
closet(ed) lifestyles and cultural difference in today’s global(ized) world.
Eve Sedgewich admits the usefulness of the closet as an allegory for
social alterity in her Epistemologies of the Closet.1 The closet has been for-
mally elaborated as an elastic frame for queerdom, its walls continually
reconstructed and resituated according to the people, groups, and com-
munities that gay subjects engage with: from whom their secret(s) must
be kept, or to whom they must be carefully revealed. The back-and-forth
movement across the closet’s threshold becomes part of a necessary per-
formative repertoire of being other, where entrance is directly related to
the identification of (sexual) difference as a necessary secret. As an exten-
sion of this concept, the phrase coming out implies both a literal exit from
enclosure and confinement and the resultant social confrontation with
dominant discourses, revealed through institutionalized public opinion
that the newly “out” person must engage with. Closet life marks a lifestyle
defined by knowing, and concealing, difference.
My own engagement with queer culture, as seen through the readings
performed in these pages, suggests that such—closeted—lifestyles may be
considered desirable. Unlike Sedgewick, however, I suggest that in today’s
world, the closet has become a sought-after destination and an explicit
response to feeling uncomfortable at home, as part of normalcy beyond
sexuality. Despite the distances that separate contemporary subjects
physically, economically, and ideologically, the negotiation of silence and
knowledge that characterizes queer epistemologies has made the closet an
increasingly frequented symbolic place, its threshold a high-traffic zone
where community forms and social alterity connects. Here, the silences
required to coexist within the limits of normativity mark social, economic,
political, and sexual dissidence as a shared experience—an axis around
which community takes shape.
My desire to look away from North America and toward queer cul-
tural production in Argentina represents an explicit attempt to accom-
modate myself within this space. What makes me look abroad is not just
my unwillingness to fit in and become part of a society located in the van-
guard of capitalist, consumer-based trends—a society increasingly defined
by racial divide and ideological imposition—but also the sheer impossi-
bility of my doing so. Fitting into (post)modern, neoliberal, globalized,
CONCLUSION: CÉSAR AIRA AND QUEER MOVEMENTS IN CRISIS 161
heteronormative North America involves accomplishment and progress

along a well-marked path toward professional success and family life, where
moving forward requires investment with uncertain returns. Looming
student debt, the increasing costs of home ownership, and the inevitable
expenses of child care, paired with a widespread public education crisis,
make the expectations of progress difficult to imagine. For many, debt is a
necessary evil and repayment a dream—much like savings, retirement, and
financial stability. In this context, fitting in, and being normal, is not easy.
The sense of social fulfillment and the desire to be part of a greater whole
seem to contradict the forced circularity of professional and personal rou-
tines. There is no time to fit in, no time to belong: all of society’s energy is
consumed in an eternal striving for success, acceptance and the “norm”—
to say nothing of survival and sure access to food, clothing, and shelter.
Lauren Berlant theorizes the irony behind this situation in her book
Cruel Optimism (2011). She explains that, despite the social and eco-
nomic hierarchies that prohibit, in many cases, the realization of prog-
ress, success, and accomplishment, the hope that something better will
come coerces contemporary communities to push forward. For Berlant,
this insistent optimism (in moments increasingly defined by crisis) points
toward “a mode of lived immanence, one that grows from a perception
about the reasons people are not Bartleby, do not prefer to interfere with
varieties of immisseration, but choose to ride the wave of the system of
attachment that they are used to, to syncopate with it, or to be held in a
relation of reciprocity, reconciliation, or resignation that does not mean
defeat by it.”2 Whether it be through the euphoric realization of a dream
or through emptiness produced by its cruel negation, optimism leads to
a moment of reflection where it is possible to imagine something beyond
the norm, where “the habits of a history might not be reproduced.”3 The
affective response to hope, in this context, is to envision a break with rou-
tine and ultimately a break with the pressures associated with globalized,
capital-oriented notions of expectation, privilege, and accomplishment.
In his book Imagined Globalization, Nestor Garcia Canclini, like Lauren
Berlant, recognizes the capacity of contemporary affective responses to
the norm, and sees in optimism the motivation behind local support for
globalization and for neoliberal frameworks despite clear evidence of
their negative impact. Much in the same way Berlant locates optimism
as a bridge through social crisis within the USA, Canclini identifies the
hope (and excitement) created by the possibility of global interaction
as an important mechanism for understanding the increasing inequality,
162 M.J. EDWARDS
sustained segregation, and discontent growing among local communities

within dependent nations, particularly in Latin America. While elite trans-
national entities interact globally, individual citizens and communities
remain separated by geographical, technological, communicational, politi-
cal, and cultural distances—yet these distances also permit the global to be
reduced to the imagination, to an exciting possibility. “Global policies,”
Canclini continues, “achieve consensus in part because they excite the
imagination of millions of people with the promise that the two plus two
that until now equaled four can be stretched to five or even six.”4 Canclini
suggests that, although local communities are unable to engage in and
confirm global interactions, the fantasy of connecting internationally not
only inspires an optimistic push to the future and a certain negation of the
past—of the proven consequences of globally oriented neoliberal ideals—
but also assigns agency to peripheral subjects traditionally understood as
helpless, hopeless participants. In this context, international connections
represent freedom from the restrictions and limitations of the local, from
its routine and from its inevitable continuation, if only in the fantasies that
make global relations imaginable.
My own glances away from home, offered up in this book, are located
at the crossroads of Berlant and Canclini, within the optimism assigned
to international engagement. In fact, my movement south to Latin
America forms part of the hope that motivates study-abroad journeys in
general, vis-à-vis the eventual pay-offs associated with cross-cultural dia-
logue, multilingualism, and global awareness. While travel in general is
often considered a reward for enduring the pressures of daily routines,
the study-abroad experience is peculiar in that it promises future success
through the glamor of prospective career building and educational devel-
opment. The pedagogical motives behind study-abroad disrupt parallel
trajectories associated with cultural imperialism and racial superiority as
linguistic and symbolic differences replace traditions of conquest and
conqueror. The categories of non-native speaker, of language learner, of
extranjero or foreigner never disappear, and it is these facets that make of
the study-abroad/cultural-immersion experience a never-ending place of
difference, one of no return. Here, confidence and accomplishment are
met with flexibility, negotiation, and movement. Second-language acqui-
sition is marked with the hope that meaning can be created despite the
mistakes, misinterpretations, confusion, and misunderstanding implicit in
cross-cultural dialogue, in local exchange, and in personal expression.
The pathways that we trek as cultural tourists mark the unknown as a

cognitive safe haven for those eager to escape from tradition, rituals, and
customs and to replace those customs with novelty, nuance, and differ-
ence. Today, as progress grows increasingly stunted by daily, monthly, and
yearly routines, accomplishment has become an obligation—measured in
competitive glances throughout neighborhoods and through the myriad
devices that stream our news and entertainment. Canclini’s imagined glo-
balization can be read, in this context, as a reaction against obligatory
accomplishment; his work presents a means of understanding community
formation as a product of desire to be other.
Canclini’s closet is synonymous with rupture, with change, with differ-
ence, and with hope and optimism, which my own move toward Queer
Argentina mirrors. My arrival at the closet door heralds the end of a path
through contemporary lifestyles, through hopeful study abroad, and
through a growing awareness of sexual and gender-based difference. It is a
consequence of a particular version of contemporary globalized, capitalist,
market-oriented society that I have imagined myself incompatible with,
and of the distance that separates me from that society’s goals and mode
of being. Long-distance travel accentuates the unknown; for me, mov-
ing toward Queer Argentina marks a journey south, through dominant
imaginaries where geographic location, gender and sexual orientation, and
economic distinction are indecipherable qualifiers.
“QUEER? RIGHT THIS WAY”

The cultural immersion experience in many ways parallels the liminal posi-
tion of political exile and forced migration. Each of these experiences is
defined, in part, by a geographical repositioning that is imagined as tran-
sient, temporary. However, cultural immersion, unlike exile, is a planned
emigration from conventional lifestyles and social frameworks, uniquely
motivated by a desire to be and feel different through the accumula-
tion of cultural objects, rituals, and knowledge. Often, the ultimate goal
of such journeys is to embrace this otherness as a pedagogical, profes-
sional tool. Thus, while political exile and forced migration hold on to
the past as a hopeful point of return, the cultural immersion associated
with study-abroad experiences marks assimilation and the accumulation
of knowledge about the host culture as a positive, desired, and expected
outcome. Returning from a study-abroad experience without recogniz-
able linguistic, cultural, and personal gains is considered a failure. Change,
164 M.J. EDWARDS
in this context, is a sought-after good—the acquisition of difference as a

quantifiable commodity within contemporary global logics.
Although cultural immersion may have found its place within the neo-
liberal market, the experience of living abroad is real. Here, difference is
felt, not imagined; the shape of one’s body, its color and clothing, atti-
tudes and actions become magnets that attract verbal slander, sales pitches,
stares—and sometimes friendships. The sameness offered up by global
brands and transnational fashion pitches is unrecognizable; passing unno-
ticed, undiscovered and as “normal” becomes a difficult task that cannot
be solved with money. As the sound of one’s voice continues, always, to
reframe language as terms of confusion and misunderstanding rather than
effective verbal communication, acculturation and conformity are revealed
to be impossible tasks.
Assimilation is desirable not because of the cultural expectations one
feels at home, but rather because of the prices that are charged for its
absence while abroad. Here, where marginalization is the standard, same-
ness is offered up as a goal that is achievable if directions are taken at
face value, copied, and applied without scrutiny. However, attendance at
museums, bookstores, neighborhoods of interest and historic monuments
does not favor integration into local cultures or communities. Consuming
culture while abroad leads one inevitably to tourist places, where culture
is purposefully put on display and where the foreign visitor is recognized
as a receptacle into which cultural tidbits and traditions can be poured.
When I am living abroad, I must choose deliberately to depart from this
constructed culture, so that my place of difference may become a welcome
ground where meetings are made, friendships are formed, and cultural
lessons are learnt. While my consumption of culture remains, undeniably,
a cause for attention and profit, I am not guided to the miscellaneous
goods typical of tourist attractions. Instead, shop owners, salespeople, and
artists-entrepreneurs use my attentive ears to voice their own expertise,
their own participation as part of a cultural elite as they insist on the new-
est, most unique local trends and traditions and keepsakes to pass my way.
Over the span of a decade, I have been able to travel to Argentina on
four separate occasions. As I have circulated back and forth from home,
the objects that I encounter have returned, time and again, as products
cast for my consumption. In particular, authors like Manuel Puig, Néstor
Perlongher, Copi, Fogwill, and Osvaldo Lamborghini, on different occa-
sions, have been presented and re-presented to me as part of a cultural
reading list necessary to understanding contemporary Argentina. The
circulation of their work through posthumous publications, re-editions,

critical anthologies and compilations by local and regional editorials since
the turn of the century has increased their visibility and made of their
works cultural objects of interest and reflection and—more importantly
here—points of conversation among local populations. Their names and
the titles of their books are spoken about more frequently than others;
they are regarded as unique focal points on regional bookshelves, within
local magazines, and in critical debates.
César Aira has become, possibly, the most spoken-about name within
the context of local bookstores and editorials in Buenos Aires over the last
10 to 15 years. In particular, his list of over 50 publications, published in
a wide range of local, regional, and international editorials and translated
into a number of foreign languages, represent a phenomenon unique to
Argentine letters. These publications form an important point of conver-
sation about Argentinean society that is easily presented to international
consumers of culture. Sandra Contreras characterizes the case of César
Aira as a cultural phenomenon; indeed, markets around Argentina are
saturated with the brand Aira. With each unique story there is a unique
editorial, and while Aira’s policies do little to increase the circulation of his
texts, the intimate relationship between text and place of publication sug-
gests that Aira’s texts distinguish themselves from others by embodying a
distinctly local tradition. In Buenos Aires, in particular, Contreras notes
that “la experiencia de Aira está en el origen, en el nacimiento mismo,
de eso que es un fenómeno, también singular, en la producción editorial
argentina de los años 90: la proliferación, también, de pequeñas editoria-
les,” (experiencing Aira is in the origin, in the birth itself, that is why it
is a phenomenon, also singular, in Argentina’s editorial industry of the
’90s: as well as the proliferation of small editorials).5 The distribution of
his texts across editorial hierarchies allows for bookstores, large and small,
to appropriate Aira as their own, at least in part. His support of indepen-
dent editorials is immediately understood as representing contemporary
local cultural economies and trends, while his focus on the geographic
(re)location of his texts make his work appealing to the traveler, tourist,
and cultural consumer. His books mark both travel and cultural awareness,
each of which represents a local product. They motivate movement—from
one editorial to the next, from bookstore to bookstore, from storyline to
storyline—and become a way to measure the progress and depth of assimi-
lation and one’s distance from home. In this context, César Aira not only
becomes an author who is spoken about and supported on a local level
166 M.J. EDWARDS
but also one who is sought after by international communities, travelers,

and collectors in search of difference, unique experiences, and anecdotes.
The first book I bought by César Aira, I bought on Amazon.com. In
between trips abroad, I was eager to stay connected and in touch with
Argentina and to reinforce my distance (at this point, symbolic) from the
dominant routines and expectations of my home culture. I did a search,
found a book, ordered it, and began reading. With over 300 options to
choose from, ranging from English translations in paperback to short
story anthologies in hardcover, I chose fast and cheap, written in Spanish.
It was a three-dollar Kindle version—the only version available—of Yo
era una mujer casada (I Was a Married Lady).6 I read it quickly, enjoying
my purchase as if it were a glass of difference, smooth in content, with a
lasting sense of bargain-basement appeal. However, upon finishing, I dis-
covered that this book formed part of a unique, unmarked trilogy along
with Yo era una niña de siete años (I Was a Seven-Year-Old Girl) and Yo
era una chica moderna (I Was a Modern Woman). The linguistic similari-
ties, generational specificity—child, young adult, adult—and female narra-
tor/protagonists suggested that these stories, unlike others by Aira, were
intended to be read together. Immediately, the remaining books in the ad
hoc “series” became part of my to-do list of cultural acquisition, discov-
ery, and consumption. For me at this time, global capitalist networks like
Amazon.com served to inspire my transnational relationships by provid-
ing access to foreign cultural production and helping me to feel different
without leaving the (dis)comforts of home.
With the touch of a button (and the requisite two-day waiting period
associated with expedited shipping), the remaining books arrived at my
doorstep. While the US-based vendors facilitated my consumption of
Argentine literature for a small fee, the unpredictable editorial policies
that rendered Aira’s work—and, to a certain extent, foreign culture as
a whole—difficult to acquire prohibited me, as an international con-
sumer, from having it all. The unavailability of Yo era una mujer casada
in traditional paperback format marked my collection as incomplete and
mediated the extent to which I could engage with original, local-foreign
culture. I felt that, in contrast with the transient e-book that is always-
already accessible, the paperback distinctly embodied local traditions of
production and distribution. Whereas the ephemeral e-book reinforced
my position at home, within capitalist frameworks, the book-as-object
promised (and forced) a journey beyond the demands and pressures asso-
ciated with the domestic sphere. Whereas the expedited Kindle instant
purchase magnified my isolation, the physical book represented an explicit

and deliberate move into library stacks and bookshelves, and an engage-
ment with leisure time. Of course, the act of reading itself automatically
marks a break from dominant notions of productivity, progress, and suc-
cess; however, the book-as-object goes beyond this, implying a necessary
social encounter as a precursor to social deviation.
For me, as a recently, reluctantly returned North American, César Aira
represented much more than a unique point of local pride that motivated
Argentine shopkeepers to present his work as “their own” and interna-
tional, US-based vendors to seek profit through importation. Understood
alongside my discontent with normative pressures at home, the stories
told in these three books by César Aira reinforced my own movement
toward Argentina and toward cultural experiences of difference as part
of a cultural phenomenon that looks hopefully at queerness as a welcome
destination for social alterity of all types.
QUEER MOVEMENTS, QUEER DESTINATIONS

Collectively, Yo era una niña de siete años (2005), Yo era una chica mod-
erna (2004), and Yo era una mujer casada (2010), document the discom-
fort associated with traditional forms of belonging, social expectations,
and the struggle to find meaning within contemporary socioeconomic
frameworks. For the female narrators, the present is characterized by an
antiquated heteronormative imaginary where ritualized pathways toward
marriage, procreation, and professional success have become incompatible
with the stresses of daily life and personal interest. Through his protago-
nists, César Aira suggests that socioeconomic expectations are juxtaposed
to cultural conditions that prohibit their realization. Rather than accept a
passive role in this relationship, the protagonists choose to break with rou-
tine, looking away from social traditions and toward an otherness that is
specifically positioned on the outskirts of heteronormativity. Here, queer
culture becomes a final destination and a point of interest around which
communities are formed and refuge found from traditional gender- and
sexuality-based notions of socioeconomic normalcy.
In a sense, Aira’s texts plot my own travels to Queer Argentina along a
trajectory frequented by contemporary subjects-in-crisis who find them-
selves uncomfortable at home, in their place of being. While queer subjects
have historically been targets of persecution during society’s search for
heterogeneity—similarity based on the heteronorm—here the homo-genius
168 M.J. EDWARDS
is sought after, pursued, and used as a gathering point around which social
otherness unites. Each story begins by defining the retrospective glance of its
female narrator and protagonist.
“Yo era una niña de siete años, princesa de un país de cuento de hadas.”
(I was a seven-year-old child, princess of one of the countries of Fairytale
Land.)
“Yo era una chica moderna, que salía mucho.” (I was a modern girl who
went out a lot.)
“Yo era una mujer casada, y sufría por serlo.” (I was a married woman
and I suffered for it.)
Together, the novels argue that the present is an enlightened position

from which to view the protagonists’ respective (unenlightened) posi-
tions within fairytales, modernity, and matrimony. Despite the anachronic
publication sequence of the three works, their titular qualifiers, niña-
chica-mujer (child–young woman–lady), suggest that subjectivity itself
is dependent upon specific developmental stages. At the same time, the
retrospective nature of each narrative and the lack of explicit connectors
between the texts insist that these stories share both time and space and
that they overlap within a contemporary framework marked simultane-
ously by fantasy, suffering, and modernization.
Yo era una niña de siete años (2005) tells of the creation of a kingdom
where happiness and love mark marriage as a welcome foundational nar-
rative. From a position well into the future, beyond the novel’s pages,
the narrator situates her upbringing in Fantasyland as the product of an
unlikely union; a marriage destined for failure. “[E]ra ella mucho mayor
que él, provenía de otro ambiente, del mundo fosforescente de las celebri-
dades, era ambiciosa, apasionada. […] Se habían visto reducidos a vivir del
sueldito de papá, que era empleado de oficina, de esos empleados abyec-
tos y abrumados por una rutina de la que sueñan escapar y que los va
demoliendo poco a poco,” (She was much older than he, she came from
another scene, the phosphorescent world of celebrities, she was ambitious,
passionate (…) They had seen themselves reduced to living off of the tiny
income of Father, who was an office worker, one of those abject office
workers burdened by a routine that they dream to escape and that ends up
crushing them little by little).7 Reminiscent of Latin America’s nineteenth-
century foundational fictions that place love and marriage at the center of
modernist goals of social, geographic, and racial unification, Aira’s novel

pinpoints the union between man and woman, ironically, as the origin of
the failure of all cultural fantasies. While literary classics like Sab (1841),
by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, and María (1867), by Jorge Isaac,
confirm the paradigmatic search for unions between similar pairs within
colonial Cuba and Columbia, respectively, here the fantasies that originate
in marriage are born from socioeconomic difference.
The marriage between the narrator’s working-class father and elite
mother defines a generation and marks economic inequality as the driving
force behind social anxieties. Seeking an escape from such pressures, the
narrator’s father sells his soul to the social gods in exchange for an allegori-
cal Fountain of Wishes from which riches spring. In a global age driven
by desire, the discontent of the narrator’s parents persists despite accumu-
lated wealth and forces the couple’s happiness to be funneled exclusively
into the birth of their first child. “Se jugó entero, y creó un reino de la
nada, del que nosotros seríamos las majestades. Puestos a la cabeza de un
Estado, seríamos la “familia real” (no, no es del todo un juego de pal-
abras), con los privilegios y también las restricciones que impone el proto-
colo de una corte” (He went all-in and created a kingdom from nothing,
where we would be royalty. Put at the head of the State, we would be the
Royal family, a real family (no, no, this is not just a play on words), with
the privileges and also the restrictions that come with courtly protocol).8
The arrival of the child here completes the equation Aira has constructed,
founded on the fantasy that the heteronormative family allows access to
dominant, or real/Royal (these terms are homonyms in Spanish), tradi-
tions. The family, in this context, is both the product and producer of its
own reality, where reality itself is situated in a world of stories: stories of
happiness, success, and progress as a mode of overcoming and leaving
behind—to past generations—the disappointment of social and economic
failure.
However, the fairytale comes to an end and the security of family life
crumbles when the king falls from power, literally down a set of stairs. This
allegorical and literal misstep inaugurates a new age of political opposition
aimed at unmasking the power behind patriarchy. A media frenzy based
on speculation and misinformation recalls the power of the public sphere,
of mass communications, and of persuasion, as the king is cast as immoral,
unjust, and physically unfit to govern. The opposition to patriarchal rule, to
family life, to supposed happiness and future prosperity is brought to figu-
rative life the advent of a masked, muscle-clad collective of small goat-riding
170 M.J. EDWARDS
men. The eventual kid-napping of the narrator-princess drives home the

double entendre kid-goat/kid-young child and marks this group of men on
goats as “baaaaad” in an anti-child, anti-procreation, and anti-legacy fash-
ion. An implication of the homosocial accompanies their hidden, masked
identities and reinforces their association with a queer, closeted subjectivity.
As the goat-men whisk the narrator off, the crumbling of dominant cul-
ture and the dismemberment of the heteronormative fantasy insists that the
escape be an act of organized agility as well as symbolic strength and speed.
Se desató una tormenta. Cuando salimos del bosque el cielo se había puesto
negro, y el viento descargaba bolas de nieve que explotaban sin ruido sal-
picándonos de polvo blanco. Los relámpagos unían las cimas de las mon-
tañas, y el eco de los truenos se prolongaba en los valles lejanos. Atrás,
quedaba el crac siniestro de los carámbanos que colgaban de los árboles
quebrándose. Adelante, el fragor de los torrentes crecidos. Los chivos cor-
rían más rápido que el viento, levantando una polvareda de nieve; saltos
prodigiosos intercalados con la carrera les permitían mantener la línea recta
a través de todos los obstáculos.9
(A storm was unleashed. When we left the forest the sky had turned black,
and the wind discharged balls of snow that exploded without sound, sprin-
kling us with white dust. The lightening joined the peaks of the mountains,
and the echo of the thunder was extended in the distant valleys. Behind us
remained the sinister crack of the icicles that hung from the trees as they
broke. In front, the roar of the flooding streams. The goats ran faster than
the wind, kicking up a dusting of snow; the glorious leaps that punctuated
their speedy trajectory allowed them to maintain a straight line through all
the obstacles)
As reality implodes behind them, the men on goats demonstrate that

avoiding dominant fixtures requires choreographed footwork—or hoof-
work, in this instance. Together, they run and jump through the narrator’s
heterosexual fantasyland, their skillful avoidance of obstacles suggesting
that such negotiations have become routine.
La carrera seguía, la tormenta arreciaba, los montes y desfiladeros ominosos

se sucedían en el torbellino de la huida. Era como si nos estuviéramos ale-
jando demasiado y saliendo del alcance de todo socorro. Si había algo en mi
imaginación que podía sacarme del radio de acción de papa, era la distancia;
y la distancia se acumulaba a un ritmo desesperante.
De pronto, para colmar la copa de mis temores, el viento cesó, las nubes
se entreabrieron, y un lívido arco iris brilló sobre una ciudad muerta.10
(The race continued, the storm worsened, the mountains and the omi-
nous gorges followed each other in the whirlwind of the escape. It was as if
we were getting too far away and leaving the reach of all hope. If there was
something in my imagination that could take me from the reaches of my
father, it was distance; and distance was accumulating at a distressing rate.
Suddenly, to top off the glass of my fears, the wind stopped, the clouds
broke and a bruised rainbow shone over a dead city.)
Their arrival at the margins, and at the city of rainbows, reinforces the sug-
gestion that this collective be understood queerly. Their counterculture
status is confirmed by the home they arrive at: not the bright kingdom of
family life, but the city of death under a battered rainbow. The distance
traveled insists that such spaces are a sought-after refuge. Located beyond
the imagination of dominant fantasies, beyond the princess’s own reality,
queer spaces are understood as the global, the far-off in a world otherwise
conceived of as strictly local. Traveling large distances creates separation
from the once-known, from the comfort of tradition—and, as such, marks
the queer in geographic terms, plotting their location in distant lands.
Queer culture, as painted in Aira’s story, initiates and motivates a delib-
erate break with normativity and the experiences of otherness. It is pre-
sented as a well-established, preexisting force that actively counterbalances
and counteracts dominant, heteronormative frameworks. The kidnapping
of the princess and her geographical-epistemological relocation assigns and
confirms agency to queer culture, independent of dominant traditions;
the silent—they do not speak throughout the episode—masked, distant
qualities of the goat-men introduces the closet as their point of ideological
departure. Although queer culture itself is presented here as the allegori-
cal opposite to monarchical rule in Fairytale Land—and the keen enemy
of family life—movement into secrecy and hiding, and engagement with
closet frameworks, is understood as a means of responding to moments
of social, economic, and political crisis. When the princess returns from
her adventure to the dead city, she finds that family life has literally lost its
magic. As part of the ransom agreement for her release, the king revealed
his Fountain of Wishes as the source of all his wealth, both social and eco-
nomic. Stripped of popular support, the king grows tired of tradition, of
the pomp of royal ceremony, and notices that his daughter, the narrator,
had also become bored, desensitized to the stimulation that the excesses
of royal/real life, “la vida real,” once thrilled her with.
172 M.J. EDWARDS
In Aira’s story, the narrator’s return home does not represent a happy
ending, but another situation to resolve, another crisis to appease. The
city of rainbows, and the queer culture represented by the homosocial
community of men on goats, become, amidst moments of crisis at home,
a sought-after destination and an alternative to the despair and discomfort
of domestic existence. Together, the father and daughter leave Royal life
in search of queer frameworks and a different lifestyle, and while they
never do arrive at the city of rainbows, their encounter with the masked,
muscle-bound goat riders comes at the end of a fantastic travel narrative
that places queerness in a far-off land, located on the edge of representa-
tion itself.
La ladera por la que bajábamos sin fin era en realidad un complejo de laderas.
El ejército de Hombres Chivos bajaba en formación cerrada hacia nosotros
rodeándonos, pero a la vez nosotros también bajábamos hacía ellos, rodeán-
dolos. El terreno se bamboleaba en todas direcciones. Las paredes de los
montes se habían ensombrecido, y se encendieron unas hileras de lucecitas
rojas en el camino. Me di cuenta de que estábamos en un cine. La nieve,
omnipresente, hacía de pantalla. La proyección era la de nuestros temores
y fantasías.11
(The hillside from which we descended without an end in sight was in
reality a series of hillsides. The army of Goat Men came down in closed
formation toward us and surrounded us, but at the same time we descended
toward them, surrounding them. The terrain swayed in all directions. The
walls of the mountains had become dark, and rows of red lights were lit
along the way. I realized that we were in a movie theater. The snow, omni-
present, became the screen. The projection was of our fears and fantasies.)
In a scene that reproduces Plato’s cave allegory, the Goat Men and the nar-
rator’s Royal family are understood as the source from which cultural nar-
ratives develop. Rather than the projection of forms as shadows on a wall,
the cryptic allusion to cinematography reconceptualizes reality itself as a
story, a sequence of individual forms that gather meaning when under-
stood as a collective performance. The allegorical film in the narrator’s
fantasy projects and refracts both the queer and heterosexual understand-
ings of the social. The private screening of social representation merges
the paths of the queerly defined Goat Men with a family life in crisis, and
their union here represents a path leading to the resolution of contempo-
rary social conflict and personal discontent.
In setting queer culture in opposition to dominant heteronormativ-

ity in Yo era una niña de siete años, César Aira offers a response to per-
sonal crisis. To arrive at an embrace of queer culture requires one to move.
Travel, here, becomes an allegory for the desire to think differently—and
as this happens, queer culture and the distance inherent in global imag-
inaries become entangled concepts, each of which can help to address
social, cultural, and political crises through the act of travel. On a personal
level, for me, Aira’s work underlined that my movement toward Queer
Argentina was not being made alone. Queer people, places, and things
not only inspire critical readings of dominant institutions but also offer
up a roadmap for understanding alternative social frameworks: for living
differently, in opposition.
If Yo era una niña de siete años is a story founded on the pastel tem-
plates of fantasyland, Yo era una chica moderna is a tale of darkness. In
it, the concrete grayscale of the cityscape, and the shadowed backdrop
that characterizes the hours that join dusk to dawn, mark this tale as
one of subaltern lifestyles and countercultural tendencies. In juxtaposi-
tion to the daytime dreams of Aira’s real/royal family, this novel directs
itself to the goings-on after business hours, after bedtimes, within the
labyrinthine relations of the party-going, club-dancing night owl. The
female narrator, the chica moderna, outlines the contradictions produced
within Latin American modernity as she immerses herself within the
well-trodden outlets provided to the overworked, underpaid contempo-
rary masses. As daytime approaches, the chaos associated with nighttime
leisure and youthful gatherings unites under queer emblems to represent
an Other: an alien system of knowing and living, located intentionally
beyond the well-defined workplace ethos of progress, success, and the
nine-to-five.
The story itself takes place in the morning, the day after, as the female
narrator awakens and reflects upon the events of the previous night.
From the novel’s first sentence—“Yo era una chica moderna, que salía
mucho,” (I was a modern girl, who went out a lot)—the audience imme-
diately distinguishes the present as a point of reflection, reasoning, and
understanding. The narrator’s self-analysis positions going out at night
as a modifier, or qualifier, to the modernist ideals of strict workplace
behaviors. As the narrator reflects upon her dirty, sticky body, the morn-
ing search for clarity is stunted; the nighttime becomes a separate reality,
difficult to access.
174 M.J. EDWARDS
No recordaba nada pero las conversaciones con Lila las recordaba perfecta-
mente, hasta la última palabra.
¿Yo borracha? ¿Yo ebria? ¿Yo amnésica? No, imposible. Conociéndome,
era imposible. Y sin conocerme también.12
(I didn’t remember anything except the conversations with Lila, but
those I remembered perfectly, right up to the last word.
Was I drunk? Me, intoxicated? Forgetful? No, impossible. Knowing me,
that was impossible. And even without knowing me.)
The lapses in the narrator’s memory revealed in this excerpt become the
scaffolding for the story’s sequence of events, presented as “[f]ragmen-
tos, frases sueltas, episodios incoherentes” (fragments, loose sentences,
incoherent episodes).13 Waking up to the morning light signals not only
one’s induction back into the “normal” world of business hours and good
behavior but also the imposition of a system of knowing and understand-
ing aimed at clarity and organization that contradicts and impedes trans-
gressive nightly events.
Intersecting the narrator’s daytime attempts at clarity, Aira intro-
duces friendship as an epistemological platform for engaging the
night and the subcultural lifestyles it represents. This friendship comes
into the story through the conversations that the narrator recalls—
and although these moments are not considered as apart from the
night’s events or as having evaded its fragmentary incoherent unravel-
ing, these exchanges are considered complete and are presented as a
model against which other nightly communications may be compared.
In this context, the narrator’s relationship with her friend, Lila, stands
out as unique, breaching a gap between two opposed positions within
modernity. In fact, the friendship between these two characters may be
directly regarded as a microcosm of contemporary sociocultural differ-
ences in Latin America.
Lila era mi mejor amiga. Nos conocíamos desde los dieciocho años, y nues-
tra amistad había sido inquebrantable a través de todos los altos y bajos
de la vida. No podíamos ser más distintas. Nunca dos seres humanos han
tenido personalidades más opuestas. Y no sólo eso: nuestras familias parecían
provenir de planetas distintos, y nuestras historias eran tan divergentes que
sólo un milagro podía haber hecho que nos cruzáramos. Pero ese milagro se
había producido, y a partir de él nada nos pudo separar. Aunque distinta de
mí, ella era tan moderna como yo, lo que me hizo pensar que había más de
una modernidad, por lo menos dos, la suya y la mía.14
(Lila was my best friend. We had known each other since we were 18
years old, and our friendship had been unbreakable throughout all of life’s
ups and downs. We could not have been more different. And not just that:
our families seemed to come from different planets and our pasts were so
divergent that only a miracle could have made our paths cross. But this
miracle was produced, and from that moment on nothing could separate us.
Although different, she was just as modern as I was, and it made me think
that there was more than one modernity, at least two, hers and mine.)
The narrator’s friendship with Lila is elastic, capable of binding differences

while permitting movement, separation, and convergent development. In
the context of the story, this friendship inspires the interstellar travel neces-
sary to bridge the differences and historical incongruences that character-
ize Latin American modernity. And while their relationship presents itself
as an example for contemporary social engagement, it is a model of social
intimacy situated in direct contrast to the institutionalized nature of fam-
ily life, which keeps their stories apart. Here, informal social unions rep-
resent a mechanism not only for community formation, but, specifically,
for cross-cultural communication. A powerful corollary emerges from this
situation: when friendship is held up as a model for the expression and
formation of contemporary communities, the traditional social models of
marriage and familial legacy must necessarily be downgraded, regarded as
extraneous formalities or even hindrances to the modern experience.
This juxtaposition is visualized in the narrator’s description of Lila’s
plan to marry her long-time boyfriend Roberto: their ritualized organiza-
tion as a couple, their pragmatic budget planning, and their later acquisi-
tion of domestic essentials in preparation for their life as a family. Lila
and Roberto are, on paper at least, “a perfect match.” But their future is
derailed, subverted as a result of his infidelity when he impregnates the
couple’s mutual friend, Ada. While Roberto follows a well-trodden path
to right his social wrong by wedding his pregnant lover, the narrator and
her distraught friend choose to dismantle traditional representations of the
family altogether.
Marital transgression and social reorganization take place at a dance
club advertised as the “smallest in the world.” Reminiscent of Jorge Luis
Borges’ short story El Aleph, where all things past, present, and future unite
in a small place under a staircase, Aira marks this hard-to-find space as the
epicenter of all nightly encounters and the generator of collective coun-
tercultural social engagement within the overwhelming span of Buenos
176 M.J. EDWARDS
Aires’s modern landscape. Going out at night becomes synonymous with

entering a collective movement—marked here in rhythm and dance—
aimed at negotiating and counterbalancing the pressures of dominant
institutions. As the two friends corner the future mother of Roberto’s
child in a bathroom stall, the dance club becomes literally the operat-
ing table for social change. “Hicimos palanca: uno, dos, tres! La vulva se
rasgó hacia adelante y hacia atrás, y un chorro de sangre golpeó el techo.
La soltamos, y antes de que tocara el suelo ya estábamos metiendo las
manos hasta el codo en la abertura” (We yanked: one, two, three! The
vulva ripped to the front and back, and a squirt of blood hit the ceiling.
We let her go, and before she hit the ground we were already up to our
elbows in the opening.).15 The bathroom-abortion is chaotic, gory, and
misdirected, and when the pair leave triumphant, hoisting the fetus over-
head, the dismantled mother figure is left on the floor, discarded from
contemporary imaginaries. Through this graphic act of violent change,
society’s offspring is detached from heterosexual notions of family life.
The fetus itself, El Gauchito, takes on allegorical qualities, replaced in the
imagination of the narrator by a premature, premodern Martin Fierro.
José Hernandez’s 1873 tale of the same name, which tells of the enigmatic
knife-wielding countryman cast away from civilization, is here given new
life as an emblem of contemporary countercultural movements. While the
little gaucho lacks his traditional poncho and beard, his uncivilized, wrin-
kled, formless body morphs to the rhythms of the collective and grows to
represent an opposing force to dominant systems of knowledge.
The arrival of a police commissioner at the dance club confirms the
allegorical function of this newly formed family and the importance of
El Gauchito in the expression of alternative social models. The authority
figure creates a state of alert among the dancing masses that gives pause
to the rhythmic pulsing of music and bodies alike. As the young men and
women circle the commissioner in silence, the male police official takes
his place atop the social hierarchy, his speech falling onto the masses in
contours easily identified as synonymous with dominant traditions and
cultures. Aira’s protagonist and her friend Lila watch this scene take place
from above, as they sit on a balcony overlooking the dance floor. From
their perch, the two listen to the officer’s official discourse and narratively
interject in asides that drive home the cultural and communicative divide
at play in the club.
Upon his arrival, the commissioner recognizes both the night and the
dance floor as spaces where he does not belong. The obvious, necessary
misplacement/displacement of the official marks his presence as discur-

sive and symbolic rather than aggressive and threatening. Whereas police
officers in the Latin American context traditionally inspire images of social
conflict and violence, here the commissioner is passive in his performance
of justice. His role is clearly to inform and discuss, rather than enforce the
law and punish social wrongdoing. Violence represents the unjust as the
commissioner embarks on a philosophical requiem mourning the death
of a future once imagined innocent, pure, and prosperous. As the com-
missioner is transformed into the performer of justice, Argentina’s club-
going youth themselves become speedy assassins, whose lifestyle threatens
tradition. Read in light of the narrator’s recent bathroom-abortion, the
official’s words appear as an accusation, condemning real acts of violence.
These words gain allegorical weight as the commissioner continues:
…yo las admiraba y las quería como a dos hijas, y sigo queriéndolas a pesar
de todo. Dos chicas bonitas, criadas con amorosos desvelos por sus padres,
dos amigas inseparables que no tenían secretos una con la otra, y no tenían
secretos con el mundo porque no habían tenido tiempo, en la frescura de
su juventud, de hacer nada que debiera ocultarse; una flor que se abre en un
jardín de la aurora tampoco tiene secretos. Y, sin embargo, me desilusion-
aron, ¡y cómo! Esta noche me decepcionaron. De abajo de sus caras gracio-
sas asomó el rostro horrible de la crueldad, sus cuerpitos esbeltos revelaron
los tentáculos deformes del monstruo que las habitaba…
¡Está hablando de nosotras! Todo coincidía.16
(…I admired and loved them like two daughters, and despite everything
I still love them. Two pretty girls, raised by the loving sacrifices of their par-
ents, two inseparable friends that didn’t hold secrets from one another, and
they didn’t hide anything from the world because they didn’t have time, in
the freshness of their youth, to do anything that should be hidden; a flower
that opens up in a garden at daybreak has no secrets. And, nevertheless, they
disappointed me, and in what a manner! That night they lied to me. From
underneath their friendly faces, there appeared a horrible cruelty, their well-
defined bodies revealed the deformed tentacles of the monster that lived
within them both…
He was speaking about us! Everything made sense.)
Here, the police official assumes a fatherly tone as he narrates the story of
the social family’s demise. Although the two young ladies that form part of
this family are placeholders for the Beauty and Happiness that are consid-
ered by the police official to be innate qualities of the social, the narrator
178 M.J. EDWARDS
and her friend together imagine themselves within the commissioner’s

narrative. Seen through his eyes, the two become cruel monsters whose
thoughtless actions mangle traditional social models.
The narrative intermingling, represented here by the young ladies’ con-
fused integration into the official’s allegorical tale, merges night with day,
dominant with subaltern storylines, both necessary to express moments
of crisis in contemporary society. The intent behind the officer’s discourse
is to integrate marginal subjects into “normalcy,” to shed on them the
light of day. Here, cruel monsters, deviant children, and even rebellious
females are posited as corrupting the father’s wishes and hopes for social
harmony. Once this integration is understood as purely discursive, how-
ever—a mechanism to force inclusion within the condemning imaginary
of the dominant social narrative—Aira’s marginal characters gain confi-
dence, and celebrate alongside official figures.
Siguió hablando, pero ya no le prestábamos tanta atención. Nos sentíamos

absueltas, felices, como si no tuviéramos un solo problema en la vida. ¡Qué
tontería, habernos preocupado tanto! Teníamos ganas de hacer locuras.
Queríamos vengarnos, hacerle pagar con una burla las ansiedades a las que
nos había sometido, aunque la culpa no era de él sino de nuestra propia
culpa. Lila sacó a El Gauchito del nido de brazos en el que lo habíamos
escondido, se ató el pitín a un dedo, y lo soltó. El Comisario estaba justo
debajo de nosotras, un poco adelante. El Gauchito bajó hasta media altura y
volvió a subir; la elasticidad de su miembrecito viril era fantástica. Lo lanzó
con más fuerza, y llegó casi a la cabeza del Comisario. Otra vez. Era un
verdadero yo-yo viviente. Agitaba brazos y piernas como una araña de gela-
tina gris, y volvía a subir de un salto. Con un poco de práctica Lila logró
que fuera a parar justo frente a la cara de Cipolletti, que concentrado como
estaba en su oratoria no se daba cuenta de lo que pasaba. Debía de pensar,
en su distracción, que era un insecto que se le ponía frente al ojo. Hacía un
pequeño gesto con la mano para espantarlo, y seguía hablando. El Gauchito
saltaba hacia arriba con un “¡blaaah!” agudo que se intercalaba en los majes-
tuosos períodos del Comisario. Todo el mundo seguía sus evoluciones, la
risa empezó a generalizarse, y la pequeña disco retumbaba con los “¡blaah!”
coreados por la multitud.17
(He continued speaking, but we didn’t pay any attention to him. We felt
absolved, happy, as if we didn’t have one single worry in life. How silly for
us to have gotten so worried! We felt like doing something crazy. We wanted
revenge, and to make him pay with a joke for the anxiety he had placed on
us, even though he was not to blame, rather we were the guilty ones. Lila
took El Gauchito out from the nest made from her arms where we had
hidden him, tied his penis to her finger, and let him go. The Commissioner
was right below us, a little bit in front. El Gauchito lowered himself down
until halfway and came back up; the elasticity of his little virile member was
fantastic. She threw him back down harder, and he almost made it to the
Commissioner’s head. One more time. He was truly a living yo-yo. He
agitated his arms and legs like a gray gelatin spider, and came up again in
one jump. With a little bit of practice Lila managed to get him to stop right
in front of Cipolletti’s face, who (engaged as he was in his speech) didn’t
realize what was happening. He must have thought in his distraction that it
was an insect that flew in front of his eye. He made a small gesture to scare
it and continued speaking. El Gauchito jumped up with a sharp “blaaah!”
that coincided with one of the Commissioner’s majestic pauses. Everyone
followed his trajectory, laughter became constant, and the small night club
vibrated with choral “blaah!”’s resonating from within the multitudes.)
The young protagonists disregard the police official’s plea for cooperation
and empathy, instead celebrating the weaknesses of the symbolic confu-
sion that bonds their lifestyle to dominant traditions. The flexibility of
the commissioner’s allegory permits the two women to act freely, and to
act out against the anxiety associated with authority as a whole. Rather
than flee, and increase their symbolic separation from the dominant fig-
ures who imagine harmonious futures through family logics, the female
couple chooses to dangle El Gauchito from his elastic phallus, mockingly,
in the face of authority. The premature fetus, without the medical assis-
tance needed to come to term, embodies the stunted growth character-
istic of underdevelopment. As it oscillates up and down, El Gauchitos’s
penis routine gains impetus and volume. Its meaningless chant not only
annotates each of the commissioner’s thoughts with a dismissive “blah”
but also illustrates the richness of speaking between, around, and through
dominant discourse. Here the collective body of nightly dancers unites
behind the symbolically charged “blah, blah, blah”s of underdevelopment,
offering up the suggestion that the contradictory, overlapping nature of
modernity in Latin America revolves around the creative dismissal of local
authority.
In No Apocalypse, No integration: Modernism and Postmodernism in
Latin America (2001), Martín Hopenhayn describes contemporary life
through the void left after the hopes of social utopia, democratic reform,
and economic development are unfulfilled. Today, he explains, the oppor-
tunity to rectify long-lasting, persistent inequalities through social, politi-
cal, and economic change has come to an end. In its place, doubt has
180 M.J. EDWARDS
come to characterize a society skeptical of the capacity of democratic insti-

tutions, market economies, and artistic and ideological freedoms. “What
the societies of Latin America most share today are a social deterioration,
formal democracy, privatizing euphoria and shock politics. These terse
coincidences can hardly be said to constitute the raw material for mean-
ingful emancipation, for creating a future and for absorbing the dormant
memory of the ‘people’.”18 The result is a culture of disenchantment,
without hope, engulfed in the doubt of uncertainty. The reaction to this
hopelessness has been a slight movement to the individual from the col-
lective, to the ad hoc or in-between from the dream of a climactic utopia,
and to the acceptance of once-opposing ideological differences. The indi-
vidual is left here searching for joy alone—or at the very least, through
temporary collectives and group formations. Hopenhayn suggests that the
struggle for liberation from poverty and alienation has been substituted
with the fleeting happiness of the individual’s social experience.
Life’s joy lies in occupying the interstitial areas, the areas in-between. Facing
a reality which is simultaneously fragmented and enormously resistant to
structural changes, one can substitute the reconciliatory, liberatory joy
promised by revolution with enthusiasm for little utopias or gaps within a
disenchanted world. This enthusiasm can spur one to lead an initiative of
communal participation; to identify oneself with the ephemeral and circum-
stantial symbols used by those who reject the status quo, the Establishment;
to come and go between new social movements that are born and die; to
sporadically transgress a social norm; to ridicule power in complicity with
some peers; or to capitalize, taking advantage of the gaps that macroeco-
nomic disequilibrium creates. All this can be a source of rejoicing, however
briefly.19
For Hopenhayn, individual experiences have replaced the hope of large-

scale social change and have negated a Marxist historicism that situates rev-
olution as a necessary climactic event in social development. The dominant
role of capitalism and its market economy have made it difficult to think
of redistribution and equality when the individual is understood as the
sole motivator, producer, and benefactor of contemporary interaction. In
place of the motivating thrust of (possible) social revolution, Hopenhayn
explains, enthusiasm and joy are now found at the points where dominant
and marginal communities, discourses, and epistemologies, meet. In the
context of Aira’s Yo era una chica moderna, the nighttime, the Smallest
Dance Club in the World, and the dance-floor-come-podium within it
mark a point of social, cultural, and ideological connection where utopia

can be imagined.
For Hopenhayn, the in-between represents a space where divergent
discourses, communities, and modes of thought touch, and where dif-
ferences collide. In opposition to the rigid homogeneity imagined in the
ontological tangent, here the node embodies an unmarked meeting place
free from the rigidity of dominant–marginal, center–periphery binaries
where revolutionary euphoria is possible. In Aira’s work, the communica-
tive crossings that occur during the police official’s discourse reflect the
flexibility Hopenhayn attributes to the interstitial. Collective dance reifies
the euphoric response of the marginal as the underdeveloped (fetus, in
this case) literally collides with the commissioner’s dominant take on Latin
American modernity. As Hopenhayn confirms, this euphoria does not pro-
duce Revolution: it merely permits the contemporary subject to continue.
As Aira’s tale comes to a close, the narrator and her friend, Lila, grow
weary. Their modern lives seem incompatible with their new roles as
pseudo-parents of El Guachito; as chicas modernas they require equal doses
of nighttime locura (craziness) and well-defined daytime regimens within
the workplace. Each symbolically charged temporality becomes a recog-
nizable part of the modern subject and, although the daytime provides the
necessary anxiety and financial surplus needed to energize the modern sub-
ject’s nightly escapades, the subcultural activities that take place after dark
are impossible to sustain. There is no permanent place for unstructured,
uncivilized (social) movements…and when raising a family becomes syn-
onymous with the integration of underdeveloped subcultures into mod-
ern socioeconomic frameworks, parenthood is quickly left behind. As the
two deliberately distance themselves from the fetus, the possibility and the
need to confront dominant discourse and inspire (revolutionary) change
is likewise forgotten, reduced to fleeting moments of club-going euphoria.
In the story’s final sequence, the fetus is casually passed from the
female protagonists to Aldo, a friend of their (pseudo)family who rep-
resents a safe alternative for their adopted child. Previous owner of the
now defunct Smallest Club in the World, Aldo is alone and calm in his
transition to daylight hours. As he posits the question “What next?” to
his two female counterparts, the surprisingly independent fetus integrates
itself into Aldo’s thorax and makes him incubator and mother to the
future of a permanently underdeveloped (social) body. And as Aldo walks
away into the sunrise, unemployed and literally impregnated with uncer-
tainty, he becomes not only the vehicle from within which traditions of
182 M.J. EDWARDS
Latin American underdevelopment may continue forward within modern

frameworks but also an axis along which alternative legacies are positioned.
Unlike his female counterparts who together choose to belong, at least in
part, to an institutionalized set of norms favoring progress and profit-
ability, Aldo’s place is clearly within the margins. In this final sequence we
also learn Aldo’s complete name, Osvaldo Lapergáudegui. The similarity
of this name to that of gay author Osvaldo Lamborghini (1940–1985)
immediately enfolds Aira’s Aldo within a genealogy of queer letters, cul-
tural transgression, censorship, and imposed marginality.
The savage birthing sequence that opens Lamborghini’s own short
story El Fiord (1969) recalls the brutal social relations that define
Lapergáudegui’s new role as bearer of an underdeveloped future. In it,
the (pro)creation of social alterity is a ravaging experience set within unne-
gotiable parameters, where penetration does not permit exit, but rather
represents a method of sociopolitical imposition invoked through the
pleasurable violence of a dominant other.20 As a queer subject, Aldo is the
only one proven by history—and by Lamborghini’s story—to be capable
of bearing the burden of social marginality. As a failed entrepreneur, a lit-
erary double, and lonely-man-supposed-faggot, Aldo is already marked in
Aira’s story by a stark lack of sociopolitical integration. The addition of El
Gauchito within his physical-literary corpus serves to make queerness itself
the carrier that moves contemporary underdevelopment through moder-
nity, unchanged.
Aldo leaves Aira’s story in motion. While the narrator and her friend
Lila clearly traverse the nighttime streets of Buenos Aires, mapping a cir-
cular trajectory that begins and ends with the comfort of their home, for
Aldo, the domestic sphere does not represent a final destination. Rather,
Aldo’s “comfort zone” seems to reside in his ongoing outward trajec-
tory, away from the ending of the tale. In a global world where travel
is frequently classified within neoliberal market economies as a purpose-
ful expenditure for making, maintaining, and negotiating profits, Aldo’s
travel is set in opposition as a queer act. In its local guise within this story,
travel becomes a counterpoint to the security of home, representing a
connection between worlds, symbolic registers, and temporalities. Aldo’s
movement unites night and day, dominant epistemologies with marginal
subcultures.
Aira leaves Aldo in motion, setting up queer culture as a response to
the distances and differences that mark contemporary realities. Aldo’s
methodical departure from the storyline, walking away from narrative
centrality, suggests that movement itself is a necessary aspect of sociopo-

litical frameworks. His slow steps contrast with the lightning speeds of
postmodern technologies that make the intercontinental a face-to-face
relationship visited every day. While communication technologies have
made distance more acceptable and capitalist mentalities have helped
routinize the luxury of travel, Aldo’s journey remains distinctly local. He
has no reason to travel abroad. However, his trajectory outward defines
a queer scope that in its own way traverses immense distances. Much like
my own glance toward Queer Argentina, Aldo’s outward focus holds hope
that being different may serve as the catalyst for the creation of something
new. At the very least, moving away means not staying at home—and that
seems to be motivation enough.
QUEER NECESSITIES
The embrace of queer culture from within heterosexuality is today
regarded with cliché-filled optimism. PRIDE now inspires marches of soli-
darity where LGBTTIQA marks A for ally in the fight against inequality
and for institutionalized inclusion of sexual and gender-based differences.
However, for many queer thinkers, assimilation is dangerous, a clear indi-
cator of a market-oriented, heteronormative push for cultural homogene-
ity. Authors David Eng, José Esteban Muñoz, and J. Jack Halberstam
collectively observe that critical thought surrounding queer sexualities has
developed into a platform for understanding social, political, economic,
and racial, as well as sexual and gender-based antagonisms. For these
authors, queer studies offer a critical understanding of “public debates
about the meaning of democracy and freedom, citizenship and immi-
gration, family and community, and the alien and the human in all their
national and their global manifestations.”21 In a special edition of the jour-
nal Social Text, Eng, Muñoz, and Halberstam call attention to the conse-
quences of homonormativity and queer liberalism (and the concomitant
passive adherence to US empire building and nationalism) by encouraging
the field of queer studies to look away from itself and toward humility as
a necessary next step in a queer social agenda. Since then, the notions of
time, feeling, movement, and social interaction within Queer Studies have
been expanded further by these authors and others, including Elizabeth
Freeman, Heather Love, Lauren Berlant, and David M. Halperin, in an
attempt to question the aesthetic, affective, and geographic limitations
imposed by our market economy and heteronormative traditions.
184 M.J. EDWARDS
In contrast to the popular trend toward politically correct notions of

pride, equality, and sameness, César Aira’s movement toward queer frame-
works represents a distinct positioning against, and in contrast to, domi-
nant heteronormative mechanisms. In both Yo era una niña de siete años
and Yo era una chica moderna, engaging queer culture is a clear response
to social crisis as queer people, places, and things draw attention to an
already existing, yet often overlooked, alternative to dominant modes of
social interaction. Aira’s most recent contribution to this unnamed trilogy,
however, provides perhaps the clearest example of the appeal of queer cul-
ture to those looking away from normative, heterosexual lifestyles.
As the title suggests, Yo era una mujer casada (2010) focuses on insti-
tutionalized notions of family life, intimacy, and belonging, placing them
within a recent past that permits both storytelling and critical reflection
and acknowledges an inevitable separation from the norm. This contem-
porary tale takes place on the outskirts of Buenos Aires’s urban sprawl. The
female protagonist, Gladys, finds herself in a suffocating marriage defined
by the unequal division of labor and responsibility and the complete lack
of love and affection. Her husband is described as a lethargic brute, whose
barbaric nature annuls any possible social contribution and reduces his
role within the domestic sphere to a symbolic placeholder, a distant rela-
tive of modernity’s productive patriarch. Gladys admits this anachronism
as she recognizes that “junto a mí [había] un hombre proveniente de
una civilización lejana en el tiempo y el espacio, una civilización con otras
costumbres, otros paradigmas, otra lógica, que transplantados se volvían
incomprensibles” (by my side there was a man who came from a far-off
civilization, lost in time and space, a civilization with other customs, other
paradigms, other logics, that, transplanted, became incomprehensible.)22
As the lone holdout fighting for a contemporary family life, Gladys works
hard to imagine happiness. However, her husband’s premodern, uncivi-
lized, underdeveloped condition dismantles Gladys’ domestic fantasy and
impedes social cohesion.
Happiness, tranquility, and emotional stability are quickly replaced by
fear, paranoia, and distress as Gladys is left to meet crushing socioeco-
nomic demands alone. Set within this reality, domestic relations prove
counterproductive, incoherent, and confused.
Cuando encendía un cigarrillo frente a mí, a sabiendas de lo mal que me

hacía el humo del tabaco, usaba unos fósforos con cabeza de átomos de
uranio. Al rasparlos producían una llamita de setecientos mil grados de
temperatura. Ese calor extremo se expandía en círculos que me alcanzaban

no obstante los veloces movimientos de retroceso que yo intentaba. Me
sofocaba, creía perder el conocimiento, lo veía a él a través del aire ondu-
lante que había tomado una coloración violácea, veía su figura como si fuera
lo último que iba a ver en mi vida, su rostro velado por la primera bocanada
de humo expelido, pero no tan velado como para no distinguir su sonrisa
burlona, el gesto de divertida curiosidad con que observaba mi agonía.23
(When he lit a cigarette in front of me, knowing fair well that tobacco
smoke made me ill, he used matches with uranium-atom heads. When
they were lit, they produced a seven-hundred-thousand-degree flame. This
extreme heat expanded in circles that reached me despite the rapid move-
ments of retreat that I attempted. It suffocated me, I thought I had lost
consciousness, I saw him through the waves of hot air that had taken on a
violet color, I saw his figure as if it were the last image I was going to see in
my life, his face blurred by the first mouthful of expelled smoke, but not so
blurred that I could not distinguish his sarcastic smile, his gesture of enter-
tained curiosity with which he observed my agony.)
In this excerpt, interaction between husband and wife is literally situated

around the discovery of fire. As they play with its danger, their marriage
is revealed as archaic, outdated, and retrograde. Failing to engage with
the necessities of their postmodern existence, this union of man and wife
is stuck in time, limited to the circularity of the repeated discovery of the
passé, the old-fashioned, and mundane.
There is no place for this sort of social engagement in a world where
contemporary urban lifestyles applaud innovation, novelty, and change.
Gladys’s marriage represents none of that. Instead, it marks an antiquated
mode of social engagement that impedes integration and community for-
mation within the public sphere. In Aira’s tale, Gladys is the sole provider
and her husband an unruly parasite who preys on his partner’s hard work
in order to sustain his substance abuse (or simply frustrate her domestic
situation). Waiting behind the door for Gladys to arrive home from work,
he springs lively to action upon her entrance, and, with strength and agil-
ity, “arrebatarme la cartera, para caer de inmediato, aferrándola, en el sil-
lón. Allí afectaba una inmovilidad de piedra, indiferente a mí y al mundo”
(would snatch up my purse, only to fall immediately, gripping it tightly,
into the armchair. Here he was moved into a rock-solid state, indifferent
to me and the world).24 The husband’s position as scavenger marks his wife
as a necessary target whose victimization permits and sustains his social
standing—solid as a rock. His methodical drug-and-alcohol-induced
186 M.J. EDWARDS
oblivion mocks traditional representations of the heterosexual male within

the domestic sphere, entranced and immobilized within the performance
of gender-based cultural hierarchies.
This scenario makes of the home a hunting zone, and of marriage a
natural state of suffering and abuse. Both home and marriage are archaic
constructs in Gladys’s life, in direct contrast to the social and economic
requirements of the (post)modern world she inhabits. Despite the produc-
tive, hardworking lifestyle Gladys maintains on the outside, her domestic
reality represents an unmanageable expense and a drain on an otherwise
profitable existence, consistently negating progress, social ascent, and the
accumulation of wealth. Family life is seen here as a backward institution.
Rather than facilitating social and economic stability, it impedes wealth,
negates progress, and complicates community formation. When Gladys’s
husband hires a young boy to pass as their son and dissuade collection
services in order to avoid debt repayment, procreation becomes literally
a source of economic relief. Gladys’s family life inspires sympathy, even
sadness and grief, functioning as an unsurmountable charge that results in
“tough times,” not happiness and prosperity.
However, as both the child and creditors come and go, the marriage
itself is left untouched. The once-valued social institution is now a his-
torical relic incompatible with the actions and attitudes demanded by the
outside world. Here man and woman, husband and wife, do not work
together, but embody contrasting social identities.
En mi impotencia, me indignaba que mi marido dejara caer sobre mí el pago

de las cuentas de luz, no sólo porque él no practicaba el menor ahorro en el
consumo (todo lo contrario: su derroche era patente), sino porque disponía
de fuentes alternativas de energía, que reservaba para su uso personal, sin
pensar en la casa. En la hebilla de su cinturón tenía una pila superrecar-
gable con la que podrían haberse iluminado tres estadios de fútbol y hecho
funcionar cinco fábricas de automóviles, ¿y tanto le costaba desviar unos
electrogramos para el hogar? Toda esa energía se desperdiciaba; al no usarla
se echaba a perder, y se solidificaba en una especie de musgo sólido que caía
al suelo con un goteo fúnebre, no sin antes dejarle en los pantalones unos
lamparones chocantes (¡que encima era yo la que tenía que lavar!).25
(In my impotent state, it outraged me that my husband would leave me
with the payments for our electrical bill, not only because he didn’t in the
slightest bit try to save energy (on the contrary, his waste was obvious),
but because he had alternative sources of energy, that he reserved for his
personal use, without thinking, in our home. On his belt buckle he had a
super-rechargeable battery with which he could have illuminated three soc-

cer stadiums and powered five car factories. Was it really that difficult to set
aside a few electrograms for our house? All this energy was lost: by not using
it, it was wasted, and it solidified into a type of solid moss that fell to the
ground with a dark, somber drip, not before first leaving in his pants surpris-
ing grease stains (that on top of it all I had to wash off!).)
Throughout the first chapter of Aira’s text, Gladys is cast as hardworking,

responsible, and selfless, while her husband is depicted as her archenemy.
As their marital rivalry grows more intense, economic crisis and financial
responsibility become unnecessary points of conflict, crises inflicted by the
husband in jest, in spite of the pain and hardship they cause. Reminiscent
of the frivolous misuse of resources of First World nations, the male fig-
ure’s choice to live within the darkness of economic struggle, of economic
underdevelopment, becomes a sadistic move toward self-pleasure. Excess
energy is equated with excess wealth, ejaculating from the powerful groin
of masculinity. The unique and intentional positioning of the supercharged
battery as a source of marital conflict marks this formal union as incon-
gruous within our contemporary global era. While marriage implies an
unequal and unjust distribution of worldly goods and a consequent strati-
fication of global, national, regional (and, here, sexual) communities,
Aira’s protagonist seeks something different. By the end of the first chap-
ter, the narrator clearly desires nothing more than equality, comradery,
and belonging: each incompatible with her current state of being.
It is only when Gladys leaves her home to go to work that Aira sug-
gests that a change is possible. For Gladys, going to work is a cultural
experience. It involves getting up early, waiting in line, and traveling for
prolonged periods of time in order to cross a territory marked by class-
based difference. Her early-morning route toward Buenos Aires’s down-
town sector understands this distance as routine, necessary, and uniquely
refreshing. And while its crossing requires patience and persistence, the
excessive distances Gladys travels represent a stoppage in time, a pause
in her work-related responsibility. In this limbo, more than at any other
moment in this story, Gladys finds time for herself as she goes from here
to there. In contrast to the chaos that accompanies her home life, Gladys’s
travel to work is a movement marked by tranquility, a space where contem-
porary class-based differences are not only seen, recognized, and classified
but also crossed, intersected, and engaged. The commute itself becomes
a means of seeing beyond the cultural limitations of the local-domestic
188 M.J. EDWARDS
sphere and engaging with a community marked by difference. Rather

than searching for community in sameness, Gladys feels at home traveling
through conflicting, divergent social frameworks and sees in their territo-
rial, ideological, and class-based dichotomies a place for her to be herself.
After a travel narrative that spans three chapters, Gladys returns home
in the fifth and final section of the novel. Here a “plague”-infested domes-
tic sphere sets the scene for incessant suffering, creating a drastic contrast
to the pleasures of walking, watching, thinking, and being characteristic
of her working hours. Since her return, the protagonist has been infected
with an unknown, incurable fungus that has migrated from its place of
origin (the vagina) to her chest and lungs. The episode recalls the early
reaction and effect of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s; her
sickness becomes a social allegory, its debilitating cough literally mark-
ing her as other, creating of her already-established marginality a sickness,
both contagious and disgusting. In this state, Gladys’ life becomes increas-
ingly complex and disheartening. Fired from her job after her cough is
rendered a scientific mystery that attracts stares and produces shame, she
is home-ridden, forced to withstand the social, economic, and physical
pressures of contemporary reality, once again, by herself.
As the novel concludes, travel and movement continue to frame
Gladys’s rupture with marital traditions and define her integration into
contemporary social relations. Her eventual exit from the house and entry
into society is motivated by sheer necessity: to survive, find money, buy
food, and eat. Luckily for Gladys, her sickness produces fine gems that,
once brought into the marketplace, can be sold at a high price. The pro-
tagonist’s social positioning literally becomes a commodity that leads,
instantly, to good health, economic stability, and the freedom and con-
fidence to continue to move. Among the places she discovers during her
contemporary exploration is an overgrown, poorly kept plaza located
behind her home. The plaza is a noteworthy space, located both spatially
and epistemologically adjacent to (but separate from) the heteronormative
framework. The plaza represents an escape from a routinized, traditional
lifestyle, a refreshingly different space and time that permits social inter-
action within (and not despite) the requisite pressures of a contempo-
rary global, market-oriented society. Aira’s protagonist finds in the plaza a
home for the culturally abject—the homeless, jobless, and resting—as well
as the old, the rusted, and the overgrown. It is a space of contrast, running
parallel to the well-groomed order and synergy associated with dreams of
marriage and family life.
Within the Latin American context, the plaza represents the intentional
placement of leisure time, political protest, and social alterity alongside
formal manifestations of dominant culture. Today, the Argentinean plaza
symbolizes the coexistence of government institutionalization, religious
orthodoxy, and financial normativity with the chaos and unpredictability
of the independent merchants, homeless wanderers, and exhausted party-
goers who often share its benches. It is a place swept and sprayed, whose
sought-after cleanliness mimics a marketplace ethos that seeks tourists and
consumers, profits and progress. This chaotic reality of Aira’s suburban
plaza contrasts with the contemporary urban planning trends that aim to
hide or remove communities seen as undesirable, mischievous, or harmful.
US-based writer and cultural critic Samuel L. Delaney wrote in his
Time Square Red, Time Square Blue (2001) about the cleaning-up of
New York’s famous Times Square in order to increase the urban center’s
economic worth. By contrast, Aira presents a plaza that is untouched by
capitalist motives. While Delaney chronicles the systematic removal of the
sex industry from the New York City center in order to coax families and
respectable businesses into downtown, Aira depicts the incursion of oth-
ers into the marketplace: Gladys is enticed into the forgotten plaza by the
promise of the hidden, the unknown.
Y al fin, el día en que llegué a su rincón más profundo, encontré la prueba de

que había sido una plaza: una estatua. No era fácil verla, y no sé bien cómo
fue que di con ella. Estaba entre dos árboles, en el cruce de los arcos que
formaban sus ramas volcadas al suelo en el que habían arraigado y formado
nuevos árboles: una especie de galería baja, muy protegida por yerbajos
duros de cáñamo. Y aún allí, en su escondite, la estatua estaba semienter-
rada, en unas ondulaciones de barro endurecido como el acero por la pres-
encia de calcáreos fosforescentes. Inclinada, quizás invertida, tiznada por los
fogones que habían hecho generaciones de linyeras en ese cantarín de ficus,
aún era reconocible: una alegoría de la Benevolencia, reliquia de una era más
optimista… O quizás no tan optimista. (…) Porque era una Benevolencia
vieja, encorvada, sentada como si ya nunca fuera a levantarse, con gesto
severo, amargo, resignado, en la medida en que podía leerse una expresión
en esa cara de mármol cascada, sin nariz y sin labios. Yo no era la única en
haberla descubierto, ni mucho menos. Un vandalismo reciente probaba que
era visitada con cierta frecuencia: le habían pintado los globos oculares con
esmalte de uñas rojo vivo. El efecto era escalofriante.26
(At last, the day I arrived at its deepest corner, I discovered proof that
it had been a plaza: a statue. It was not easy to see, and I am not sure how
190 M.J. EDWARDS
it was that I came upon it. It was in between two trees, at the center of the
arches formed by their fallen branches in which roots had sprung up and
formed new trees: a type of low gallery, very sheltered by a thick shrubbery
of hemp. And even there, in its hideout, the statue was half-buried in waves
of hardened mud, like iron, by the presence of phosphorescent limestone.
Inclined, possibly inverted, blackened by the bonfires made by generations
of bums in this rubber-plant gathering spot, it was still recognizable: an
allegory of Benevolence, a relic from a more optimistic era.…Or maybe not
so optimistic. (…) Because it was an old Benevolence, hunched over, seated
as if it were never again to stand, with a severe gesture, sour, resigned, in so
much as you could read an expression in the worn-down face, without nose
and lips. I wasn’t the only one to have found it, quite the contrary. Recent
graffiti proved that it was visited with certain frequency: they had painted
the eyeballs with hot-red nail polish. The effect was chilling)
Gladys’s journey through the plaza and her discovery of the statue rep-
resents a cultural movement away from social cleansing, urban gentrifi-
cation, and the heteronormative institution of marriage. Her desire to
engage with (and literally step inside of) society’s shadows, to enter its
overgrown spaces, permits her to recognize social networks whose defini-
tion lies outside the normative framework. Private makeup sessions mark
the fallen statue Gladys discovers as an icon of self-identification, of wor-
ship, tucked within a space that remains unchoreographed, independent,
and self-motivated—as are those who share its holy company.
For Gladys, life goes on after marriage. In fact, as her story comes to a
close, she is healthier and happier than ever. Travel has permitted the dis-
covery of parallel—queer—realities that have made of the world (or at least,
the urban landscape that surrounds her) a flexible space where she can fully
engage with her socioeconomic marginality. Away from the destructive
rigidity of normative institutions, Gladys is able to self-construct, choosing
to fashion herself into a clown. And as she makes herself over, renovation
becomes inseparable from recycling. Ultimately, the maligned domestic
sphere itself becomes an integral part of her public (re)presentation: “me
ponía el sombrero de zapato, un zapato de guante y otro de nariz, me
calzaba las orejas en los pies, los pantalones de camisa, la levitón de chi-
ripá, la peluca de corbata, o cualquier otra variación que naciera del apuro
frenético por volverme payaso” (I used the hat as shoes, one shoe as a glove
and the other as my nose, my ears fit perfectly on my feet, my pants as a
shirt, my overcoat as chiripa, the wig as a tie, or whatever other variation
came about in my frenzied rush to become a clown.).27 The relocation
and resignification of the private domain codifies Gladys’s experiences and

makes of her past a collage of mismatching fragments within contemporary
symbolic economies.
While the household objects Gladys uses in her transformation remain
intact, whole, their functional displacement and replacement catalyze
Gladys’s servile past into a future of entrepreneurial tact and social reform.
The domestic sphere literally becomes a cover-up, a cover-all that hides
Gladys and empowers her to perform and incorporate herself into con-
temporary socioeconomic and familial networks alike. Her new job, as
clown, in this context, is to be a passerby, an outsider and a guest to parties
and social events. Much in the same way that my own movement toward
Queer Argentina has been marked by my desire to actively be different,
other, Gladys literally transforms her experiences of domestic shame into
a mobile closet that she uses to both hide herself and come out into the
public sphere. While her costume is clearly a disguise, it nevertheless
reveals her story. The reorganization of household items and their posi-
tional decontextualization evoke displacement and otherness each time
she dresses up. As she chooses to use these items differently, she expresses
her discontent with traditional domestic roles, with how she was used, and
makes of her costume a disguise that speaks of difference, silently.
The donning of a domestic secret that is easily read and understood in
silence not only permits laughter (and with it, economic solvency) but also
allows Gladys to tell her story, to come out of her closeted existence and
speak of (her) otherness. In fact, as Aira’s novel comes to a close, Gladys’
story is revealed to be a personal ad, an explication of who she is now, and
of why she is here to put on a party.
Empecé mi campaña sin anuncios, y sólo después, mucho después, me di a

la redacción del volante. No lo había hecho antes no sólo por la prisa por
empezar, sino porque cuando me vi ante la alternativa de dar un mero aviso
de mi existencia, o explicarla por extenso, sentí que era mi deber hacer lo
segundo. (…) Empezar por ejemplo: “Fui una mujer casada…” Y a partir
de ahí, paso a paso, avanzar hasta llegar al presente. No importaba el tiempo
que me llevara, ni la cantidad de papel que se necesitara para imprimir el
volante. Esencialmente, lo veía como un trabajo infinito.28
(I began my campaign without warning, and only after, much after, I
began to make a flyer. I hadn’t done it before, not only on account of my
impatient desire to get started, but because when I was faced with the alter-
natives of merely informing the world of my existence or explaining it in
detail, I felt that it was my duty to follow the latter. (…) To begin with, for
192 M.J. EDWARDS
example, “I was a married woman…” and from there, step by step, advance
until arriving in the present. It didn’t matter how long it would take, nor
the quantity of paper that I would need to print the pamphlet. Essentially, I
saw it as an infinite task.)
Hers is literally a story of coming out, of staying inside, and of negotiating

the closet as she puts on and off a costume deemed necessary for engaging
with contemporary society. Queer codes and symbolic spaces are clearly
positioned as essential elements that enable difference to exist today.
Queerness is a marker of coexistence that accepts the parallel, intersecting,
crisscrossing nature of social relationships and, despite the unavoidable
chaos, does not seek to normalize.
In his unnamed trilogy, César Aira directs us time and again—three
times—toward queer culture. In each case, queer people, places, and
things serve as points of interest that attract attention and are presented in
favorable contrast to heteronormative social structures—especially to fam-
ily life and capitalist logics. Rather than continue to be defined by these
dominant frameworks, Aira’s protagonists choose to act (out) differently.
They explicitly prefer alternative social models that allow for dominant
traditions to be broken and reimagined. For Aira, queerness is understood
as a flexible social platform capable of responding not only to the pro-
tagonists’ desire to act differently but also to a set of social, political, and
economic standards that requires the contemporary subject to do so. The
pressures of living life, of making ends meet, and of negotiating the neo-
liberal marketplace lead, in these novels, to uncertainty and discontent. Yet
queer logics do not resolve these feelings. Rather, they offer a model of liv-
ing marginally that attracts attention and becomes desirable—a preferred
method of coexisting within a series of inevitable market-oriented hierar-
chies that together recognize capitalism as a permanent social condition.
This reading of César Aira’s trilogy that I have offered as a conclusion
to Queer Argentina observes a movement toward queer people, places,
and things that echoes a trend I have highlighted throughout the pages
of this book. Aira’s novels explicitly articulate an interest in engaging
differently with social relations—a desire reflected both in Argentina’s
legislative debates surrounding same-sex marriage and the artistic pro-
duction and public persona of Copi and the others. Like the case studies
presented throughout this book, Aira’s novels describe the subcultural
lifestyles of queer communities as representing an unknown, unfamiliar
destination. Learning about queer culture expands dominant heteronor-
mative traditions: it not only permits, but insists upon, renegotiation and
reorientation within contemporary frameworks. Finding queer culture,
as María Moreno has argued, is a useful exercise. It enables new social
networks to emerge and new power structures to be endorsed. Like Naty
Menstrual, Aira’s Gladys and Aldo choose to move toward, to locate and
engage with queer culture as a response to the pressures of living in a
global, market-oriented society. Here, as Manuel Puig suggests in his
Kiss of the Spider Woman, communities form and collectives unite behind
queer representatives, finding in otherness a common ground in a global
age where social interaction involves collaboration, coexistence, and
compassion.
NOTES
1. Eve Sedgewick, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkley: University of California
Press, 1990).
2. Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011),
28.
3. Berlant, Cruel Optimism, 44.
4. Néstor García Canclini, Imagined Globalization, trans. George Yúdice
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), 15.
5. Sandra Contreras, “Superproducción y devaluación en la literatura argen-
tina reciente,” in El valor de la cultura: Arte, literatura y mercado en
América Latina, ed. Luis E. Cárcamo-Huechante et al. (Buenos Aires:
Beatriz Viterbo, 2007), 74–5.
6. César Aira, Yo era una mujer casada (Blatt and Rios: Buenos Aires, 2011).
Kindle Edition.
7. César Aira, Yo era una niña de siete años, 2nd Ed. (Buenos Aires: Interzona,
2011), 16.
8. Aira, Niña de siete años, 18.
10. Aira, Niña de siete años, 40–1.
12. César Aira, Yo era una chica moderna, 2nd Ed. (Buenos Aires: Interzona,
2011), 8.
13. Aira, Chica moderna, 17.
194 M.J. EDWARDS
18. Martín Hopenhayn, No Apocalypse, No Integration: Modernism and

Postmodernism in Latin America, trans. Cynthia Margarita Tompkins and
Elizabeth Rosa Horan (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), 2.
19. Hopenhayn, No Apocalypse, 10.
20. Daniel Link also recognizes this link in his review of the book, “El pintor
de la vida moderna” (http://linkillo.blogspot.com/2004/12/resea.
html)
21. David L. Eng, J. Jack Halberstam and José Esteban Muñoz, “Introduction:
What’s Queer about Queer Studies Now?,” Social Text 84–5 (2005), 2.
22. César Aira, Yo era una mujer casada (Santiago de Chile: Cuneta, 2010),
9.
23. Aira, Mujer casada, 10.
25. Aira, Mujer casada, 43–4.
26. Aira, Mujer casada, 81–2.
INDEX
A Argentinean military dictatorship

AIDS, 26n23, 118, 145–7, 188 (1976–1983), 8, 18, 19, 63, 95,
Aira, Cesar, 21, 27–31, 56, 57, 57n3, 120, 125
159–94 assimilation
Aires, Buenos, 2, 13, 14, 16, 17, as an escape from marginality, 163
21–3, 24n2, 25n4, 25n7, 25n10, as dangerous, 183
25n17, 26n23, 27, 27n3, 28, 31, symbolic erasure caused by, 137
35, 37–9, 41, 57n1, 57n4, 57n7, through consumption of culture,
57n12, 58n21, 58n23, 76, 77, 164
89n5, 90n6, 90n33, 95, 97, 108, authority, 16, 27, 32, 35, 52–4,
119, 121, 122n4, 122n5, 63–5, 73–5, 80, 96, 104,
123n15, 125, 126, 128, 131, 107, 108, 111, 112, 114,
134, 135, 150–4, 156n5, 116, 119, 120, 150, 151,
156n12, 157n31, 165, 182, 184, 176, 179
187, 193n5–7, 193n12 textual, 16, 27, 32, 53, 73–80, 96,
alfonsina (magazine), 97, 98, 119, 104, 107, 111, 120
122n5 author-protagonist relationship, 54, 55
Alonso de Negre, Liliana, 2, 4, 5, author–reader relationship, 153–5
24n2 authorship
anandrine,, 112–17, 123n22 authority deriving from, 53, 63–5,
Argentinean Congress, 8 75, 80, 96, 104, 107, 108,
Argentinean economic crisis, 19. See 111, 120
also December 2001 uprising origins of, 74, 96, 104

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57465-7
196 INDEX
B as cartoonist, 21, 27, 31, 32, 35,

Bazan, Ozvaldo, 9–14, 16–20, 24, 43, 56
25n4, 25n17, 26n21, 26n22 as exile, 21, 31, 35, 42, 43, 45, 48,
bibliography, 18, 117, 118 56
in fiction, 119 as a name, 30
book-as-object, 166, 167 as playwright, 42
popularity of, 21, 50
as protagonist, 54
C use of the chair as a symbol, 31
caregiving, 80, 82, 83, 85 Copi’s Seated Woman, 50, 56
Cat People (film), 65, 74, 89n6 cross-cultural communication, 175
childhood, 47 cultural immersion. See study abroad
as a metaphor for liminality, 47 cultural reading lists, 164
citation, 16, 96, 110–12, 115, Cultural Revolution, the, 97
117, 120
as a narrative technique, 111
civil union, 6, 8. See also marriage D
legislation in Latin America Damonte Taborda, Raul. See Copi
same-sex marriage, 6, 8 December 2001 uprising, 19, 23, 125
class-crossing, 143 de San Telmo, Feria, 23, 125, 130
cleanliness, 128, 144, 189 De Veyga, Francisco, 13, 16, 17
as a symbol for modernity, 127 Díez, Jordi, 11, 12, 25n14–16, 77
closet difference
archival, 17 commodification of, 130
epistemological perspective of, 17 performance of, 1, 130, 155
as a home for gender and sex-based searching for community in, 28, 75,
differences, 163 125, 140, 180, 188
as meeting place, 104 disability, 61–73, 75, 80, 89
as a metaphor, 93 as social imprisonment, 66, 73
as a sought-after destination, 160 doctor–queer patient relationship, 13
thresholds, 93, 104, 121, dominant discourse, 8, 9, 15, 16, 18,
122, 160 20, 32, 55, 56, 74–6, 84, 86,
coming out, 17, 24, 43, 138, 159, 112, 116, 160, 179, 181
160, 192
of the trans-subject, 23, 138
commodification E
of desire, 139 Eribon, Didier, 14, 15, 25n18–20
of difference, 130 ethology, 99
of sex, 142
consumerism, 127
Copi F
as actor, 21, 27, 42, 43, 54 Feller, Liliana Beatriz, 5
as author, 54, 153 Foucault, Michel, 86, 91n58
INDEX 197
G Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual,

gay marriage. See same-sex marriage Transgendered, Intersex, and
gay pride, 40 Queer (LGBTTIQ), 5, 7–9, 11,
gender, performance of, 43, 186 19, 20, 24, 26n23, 94, 129,
Glassco, John, 109–11, 113, 116 133–5, 147, 183
Global South, 11 lesbianism, 3, 4
LGBTTIQ. See Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transexual, Transgendered,
H Intersex, and Queer (LGBTTIQ)
Halberstam, Jack, 93, 122n1, 129, local versus global, 121, 127, 134–6,
130, 156n8, 156n9, 183, 161, 162, 164, 166, 171, 182,
194n21 183, 187
Halperin, David, 7, 25n9, 183 Loretta Strong (play), 22, 43–5, 47,
happiness, 66, 68, 70, 103, 115, 137, 48, 50, 58n23, 58n25
138, 168–70, 177, 180, 184, 186
as counterculture, 103, 149
heteronormativity, 8, 83, 88, 98, 129, M
131, 167, 173 marginal communities, 18, 54,
homosexuality 55, 180
condemnation of, 69 interest in by dominant discourses,
history of in Argentina, 10, 12, 18, 55
13, 16 marginality
“invention” of, 13 as disability, 61, 73, 75, 89
in 1970s France, 51 engagement with, 12, 18, 22,
95, 118
epistemology of, 16
I as home, 89
individualism versus community, 15, as local, 16, 54, 75, 76, 119, 120,
127, 129, 133, 172 136, 182
insults. See name-calling as sickness, 188
interpellation, 15 silenced voices of, 105
marginal subjectivity
formation of, 15, 118
L mapping of, 29, 98
Lamborghini, Osvaldo, 164, 182 marriage legislation in Latin America,
language as a marker of otherness, 5, 10, 11, 131. See also civil
15, 16, 43, 50, 108, 114, union; same-sex marriage
115, 118, 145, 152, 159, memory narrative, 64, 66
162, 164, 165 Menstrual, Naty, viii, ix, 23, 120,
Latin American modernity, 125–57, 193
173, 175, 181 Modarelli, Alejandro, 8, 25n11, 97,
Le bal des folles (novel), 51, 52, 56, 120, 121
59n38 Moreno, María, viii, 22, 23, 95–9,
leisure time, 108, 114, 167, 189 101–23, 193
198 INDEX
Muñoz, José Esteban, 93–5, 97, P

102–4, 122, 122n1–3, 183, panopticon, 38, 86
194n21 Paris
gay culture, 7
Left Bank, 108, 111, 112, 114, 118
N postmodernity, 127
Nabokov, Vladimir, 103, 104, 106 power
name-calling, 15 as mobility, 9, 78, 98, 149
name-game, 42, 98, 122 as sight, 86, 175
narration power relations, 4, 9, 15, 32, 35,
as a collaborative activity, 64 38, 79
readers as active participants in, 155 negotiation of, 9
narrative prison-house communication, 63
national, 11, 106, 116, 119 pseudonyms, 98
participation in, 16, 22, 63, 66, 73, as a challenge to heteronormativity,
140, 142, 155 98
narrative construction, 9, 11–13, puberty, 10, 11
15–18, 20, 22, 24n2, 30, 36, Puig, Manuel, 22, 61, 62, 74, 89,
38, 40, 41, 43, 52, 53, 58n15, 89n3, 89n4, 89n6, 90n33,
63–70, 73–6, 79, 80, 84, 85, 91n41, 164, 193
88, 90n32, 95, 96, 99, 102,
104–6, 109–12, 116–19,
121, 137, 140, 142, 144, Q
145, 149, 155, 168, 172, queer communities, 8, 10, 17, 18, 23,
176, 178, 182, 188 95, 128, 129, 143, 192
role of translation in, 18, 111, 118 queer community formation, 14, 97
narrative fragmentation, 9 queer consumption
neoliberal marketplaces, 192 as local, 126, 127, 133–6
9-to-5 workday, 93, 139 as a response to social crisis,
161, 184
as voyeuristic, 154
O queer culture, 7, 9, 12, 21–4, 94–6,
optimism, 161–3, 183 103, 121, 159, 160, 167, 171–3,
in responses to neoliberalism, 182–4, 192, 193
161, 162 as a destination, 160, 167–83, 192
otherness, identification with, queer discourse, 11
6, 11, 46, 95, 101, 103, 116–18, queer genealogy, 18
129, 135, 163, 167, 168, 171, queer history, 13, 17
191, 192 queer legacy, 17
outing queer logics, 192
of queer subjects, 94, 155 queerness
of traditional institutions, as anti-capitalist, 93, 121, 129,
94, 102 143, 192
INDEX 199
association with death, 9, 11, 143, limits on, 13, 41, 160
144, 170 as a process in flux, 16, 95, 128
as a cultural category, 11 through language, 15, 16, 114,
as disability, 62 118, 145, 152, 159, 162
as nonconformity, 62, 144 subjectivity, 5, 7–10, 14–16, 18, 20,
as a sexual period, 11 21, 23, 29, 30, 40, 54, 56, 57,
as sickness, 128, 145, 146, 188 57n2, 62, 65, 67, 89, 93, 95,
queer normalization, 94 96, 98, 118, 122, 145, 147,
queer sexuality, 5, 53 155, 168, 170
R T
reproduction of the self, 55, 119, 120, textual invisibility, 7
128, 134, 150, 151 Tía Vicenta (magazine), 22, 31–5
Rossi, Agustín, 9–12, 16, 20, 42, 50, tradition, 2, 4–7, 9, 13, 15–18, 20,
105, 143, 145, 181, 187, 192 22–4, 30, 31, 34–7, 40, 42, 43,
rumor, 63, 64, 71 45, 52, 54, 61–4, 75, 78–80, 83,
89n6, 93–9, 102–9, 111, 114–17,
121, 126, 129, 133, 135, 139,
S 140, 144, 145, 147–50, 155,
Saint Genevieve in her bathtub 162–7, 169, 171, 175–9, 181,
(theatrical sketch), 42 183, 186, 188, 191–3
same-sex marriage, 1–26, 131, 135, transactional hierarchies, 137
192. See also civil union; transgenderism, 5, 23, 94, 119,
marriage legislation in 129–31, 133, 137, 139, 142,
Latin America 145, 149
Sarlo, Beatriz, 28, 57n1, 127, 129, transvestism, 23, 133, 145, 150
130, 156n1, 156n2, 156n4 travel
sexual education, 3–5 as an metaphor for the desire to
sexual equality, 4, 9, 51, 75, 142 think differently, 173
sexuality as a social construct, 4 as a queer act, 182
shopping-mall experience, 127 Turkification, 148
social alterity, 6, 19, 43, 55, 61, 73,
80, 89, 96, 109, 118, 133, 137,
141, 145, 160, 167, 182, 189 U
social protagonism, 37 underdevelopment, in Latin American
study abroad, 162, 163 culture, 42, 114, 116, 119, 127,
subject formation 173, 175, 177, 181, 182, 189

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QUEER

[NEW DIRECTIONS IN LATINO AMERICAN CULTURES]

More information about this series at

New Directions in Latino American Cultures

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016955812

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover image © lineJ Richards / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

Angelika Bammer, Luis Cárcamo-Huechante, Larry LaFontain-Stokes,

1 Introduction: Same-Sex Marriage and the Collective Moving

3 Disabled Attractions in Kiss of the Spider Woman 61

4 María Moreno’s Model Behavior 93

5 The Queer Consumption of Naty Menstrual 125

6 Conclusion: César Aira and Queer Movements in Crisis 159

Fig. 5.7 Naty Menstrual, Batido de trolo (Buenos Aires: Milena

Introduction: Same-Sex Marriage

STOP TIME, PAUSE FOR CHANGE

© The Author(s) 2017 1

No me preocupa que las personas homosexuales, si se quieran casar, se

construction. Here it says: We should question the characteristics that are

Senator Alonso de Negre’s comments confront—and, in this case,

complications associated with queer subjectivity position members of the

Ha sido modificado a través del tiempo. El matrimonio civil es una con-

(It has changed throughout time. Civil marriage is a social, cultural

Despite Fellner’s explicit distancing of herself from de Negre’s ideologi-

subjectivity are inseparable from textual invisibility. And this is nothing

Straight sentimentality—especially when its arm-twisting emotional power

Read in light of Halperin’s interpretation of gay culture, we can see

itself. The passionate arguments in favor of and against same-sex mar-

CALLS IN THE DARK: INTERPELLATING EPISTEMOLOGICAL

heterosexual como se elige un postre u otro. Entonces, ese joven ¿no se va a

Based on this excerpt from his argument, Rossi appears to understand

interaction continues to suggest the heterosexual dominion of the socio-

Díez admires intense grassroots mobilization and reads Argentina’s vote

Podría quizás hablarse de predestinación, de caminos astrales, de rutas traza-

de encuentro y diversión y se largó a la carrera. De ahí en más, se llamaría

Although Bazán makes it clear, through bibliographic referencing in his

always-already (as Althusser puts it so well) subjugated me to the social

understand this same insult to express a different relationship to the past

queer subject’s encounters with De Veyga are read subversively by Bazán,

cal view. This process is marked by a controlled violence—in the insistent

Woman, as seen in the Argentine magazine Tía Vicenta (1953 to1964)

name synonymous not only with issues of regional and international

insisting that the neoliberal experience be reevaluated in order to

two parts: 1). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HghJcB57JFI and 2).

21. Bazán, Historia, 142.

In 1988, César Aira gave a series of four lectures at the University of

© The Author(s) 2017 27

However, representing marginal subjectivity—literally copying Copi—

requires engaging with Copi: opening unknown books to engage with

HAVE A SEAT: READING COPI’S LE FEMME ASSISE

and identification, driving home the instability in social representations

Fig. 2.3 Literary Estate

of an angry child (who wishes to repossess an estranged pacifier),9 (see

Fig. 2.5 Literary Estate

and leave the cartoon’s frame in a scene reminiscent of two vagabonds

IMAG(IN)ING NARRATIVES: COPI AND THE IMPOSSIBLE

would represent Loretta Strong: “Jorge quería hacerlo [Loretta Strong]

In the introductory essay to his Spanish translation of Loretta Strong,

—¿Bueno? ¿Bueno? ¿Bueno?

(Hello? Hello? Hello?

Although Loretta constantly asks for confirmation that someone is at the