Beneath the Equator

Richard Parker is Associate Professor of Public Health in the Sociomedical Sciences Division and the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University, Senior Research Scientist in the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and the Secretary General of the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association. He is co-editor of ConceivingSexuality(1995), published by Routledge.

"Parker's latest book is extremely well-written and has already become a vital point of reference for scholars of Brazilian (as well as Latin American) sexual cultures, gay and lesbian studies and queer theory, anthropology, sociology, geography, and cultural studies... [U]ndoubtedly one of the most intellectually rigorous and far-reaching studies of gay identities and communities today focusing on one national culture in close connection to the contemporary globalized world. Fernando Arenas, University of Minn.""Parker has written an impressive book that looks deeply in the changing "cultures of desire" in gay communities of Brazil. Parker has a unique talent of writing in such a way that you enjoy reading the book..." -- AIDS BookReview Journal"Parker's compassionate and clearly written study of male-male sexual relationships in Brazil is one of the most important works of the late 20th century to illustrate the interrelated elements of personal desire, oppression, local culture, and global phenomena." -- Choice, November 1999"Parker's work brings together a mural portrait of the dilemmas, paradoxes, and unexpected reconfigurations of gay identity and symbols in contemporary Brazil. It will serve as a valuable survey, particularly for those unfamiliar with the growing body of work on homoeroticism in Brazil, because of the study's ambitious breadth. CLGH, The Committee on Lesbian and Gay History, Fall, 2000, Vol. 14, Issue No. 2.""This excellent overview is designed as the first in a series of monographs examining Brazilian homosexuality. Appropriate for larger public and academic libraries." -- Library Journal"Parker's book is a dazzling portrait of a sexual culture in rapid change, but also an illumination of the ways in which sexuality becomes a focus of complex cultural forces, producing a rainbow hue of diversity." -- Jeffrey Weeks, author of Invented Moralities: Sexual Values inan Age of Uncertainty(1995)"Parker's analysis centers on multiple overlapping and distinct realities in terms of race, class, age, gender performance, cultural styles, or erotic practices, all of which inform Brazilian gay life. Parker delineates the contours of the urban gay world of Brazil by focusing on the growth of a gay-identified cultural industry, the superimposition of a gay commercial world over homoerotic practices, as well as the emergence of a gay activism as a consequence of AIDS..." -- Fernando Arenas Luso-Brazilian Review

• 1. Introduction: Beneath the Equator PART ONE: CULTURES OF DESIRE 2. Brazilian Homosexualities 3. Contours of the Urban Gay World PART TWO: LOCAL CONTEXTS / IMAGINED WORLDS 4. Dependent Development 5. Tale of Two Cities 6. Changing Places 7. Epilogue: Globalization, Sexuality, and Identity Appendix I: Informants Cited in the Text Appendix II: Gay Rights and AIDS-Service Organizations