Yira, yira. Scenarios of cruising in argentine literature (1903-1962)

Abstract

The practice of “yiro” (cruising) was a central institution in Argentine homosexual sociability during much of the twentieth century. As a form of sexuality considered abject, its literary representations were scarce until the 1970s, when the emergence of activism and new sexual subjectivities enabled the visibility, often proudly, of a “homosexual” underworld banned in literature considered serious. This article proposes to reconstruct and analyze three scenarios in which the “yiro” could be discursively articulated, both in fictional texts and in (pseudo)scientific literature and the press: the city of Buenos Aires and the genesis of “yiro” (1910-1940); the scandal of the Military College cadets (1942), which brought homosexual practices to the front pages of the time; and Europe as an enclave of “yiro” in the 1950s for some Argentine travelers who found abroad a freedom unthinkable in the local context. By considering a period mostly hostile to explicit manifestations of homosexual desire (1903-1962), it is possible to explore the dissimilar ways in which the “yiro” enters the scene and the moral valuations it arouses, as well as the discursive strategies to represent it. The scenarios and texts considered are of interest, moreover, because they constitute the starting point of a tradition of sexual/textual dissidence that continues to the present day.