[performative
sadomasochism
and fetishism]



The following excerpts were taken from chapter five ["Strategic Pain:
Fetishism and Sadomasochism in CENTOPÉIA: SONETOS NOJENTOS & QUEJANDOS"]
of Butterman's thesis [1], focusing on: (a) "Performative Masochism and
Fetishism;" (b) "The Performative Value of Repetition;" (c) "Fetishism
as Access to Defining 'Brasilidade';" and (d) "'Masocriticism':
Limitations in Critique of Literature of Transgression."


(a) PERFORMATIVE MASOCHISM AND FETISHISM

One of the most recurrent motifs in CENTOPÉIA: SONETOS NOJENTOS &
QUEJANDOS is a poetic voice who wears a mask of masochism and celebrates
an individuation and individuality based on embracing unconventional
sexual practices. However, as is customary in Mattoso's verse, no
pretense to originality is made. In fact, the poet constantly reasserts
that he is merely performing and perhaps rejuvenating themes which
belong to an extensive tradition of literature of transgression, from
the Western canon to the earliest verses constructed in Brazilian
colonial literature, the development of which was already analyzed in
the second chapter. Mattoso merely attempts to add his name to a long
list of renowned authors of erotic poetry, using the image of
cross-dressing to represent intertextuality and ultimately appropriation
of consecrated (albeit notorious) poetic voices to accomplish this
task. [2] Assuming the voice of literary precedents to re-imagine and
re-acclimate their perspectives in a postmodern context is a strategy
which contributes significantly to the performative nature of Mattoso's
poetry, as evidenced in "Segundo Soneto Masoquista":


(SEGUNDO) SONETO 60 MASOQUISTA

Masoch, travestido de Gregório,
quer tanto ser escravo da sua amada
que a própria vida dá por empenhada
no texto dum contrato de cartório.

Mas Wanda vai além do que é notório
no dia em que resolve ser malvada
e, em vez de lhe aplicar a chibatada,
delega a um outro amante o gesto inglório.

Após ser açoitado pelo estranho,
Gregório, abandonado pela Wanda,
conclui que a coisa está de bom tamanho.

Gregório agora é Glauco, e quem me manda
é o sádico rapaz do qual apanho,
lhe lambo a bota e faço propaganda.


SECOND MASOCHIST SONNET (#60)

Masoch, disguised as Gregório,
wants so much to be a slave to his beloved Wanda
to the point of pledging his own life
in black and white on a registered contract.

But Wanda goes beyond what is expected
in the fine day she chooses to be mean
and, instead of whipping him,
delegates to her lover such an inglorious gesture.

After being whipped by the stranger,
Gregório, abandoned by Wanda,
realises that the situation has gone too far.

Now Gregório is Glauco, and the one who commands me
is the sadistic young man from whom I sustain the beatings.
I lick his boots and advertise it.

(translated by Akira Nishimura)


The allusions in this poem are, of course, to the erotic poetry of
Gregório de Mattos, Masoch's VENUS IN FURS, and finally Mattoso's own
poetic voice. The interrelationships between Wanda, Gregório, Glauco,
and the Greek lover identified in chapter two (clearly what Mattoso
meant by "o outro amante") are portrayed in the collage-like enmeshment
occurring in the final two stanzas. Just as Gregório replaces Severin
and Glauco replaces Gregório, these three male masochists are conceived
as part of a unified personality; that is, many generations of
masochists have preceded this unpretentious Brazilian one. The
conventional role of the female sadist, Wanda, is, in fact, the only
character that becomes transformed in this archetypal drama.

Masoch's Wanda abandons Gregório, and she undeniably violates the
"contract" of abuse by designating another male to perform the role of
sadist. This substitution makes a significant leap toward Mattoso's
homoerotic appropriation of a nameless male sadist, "o sádico rapaz do
qual apanho." The poem skillfully demonstrates Mattoso's equilibrium
between an acknowledged adherence to literary traditions and a
contemporary advertisement of same-sex desire — to achieve a queering
of the sadomasochistic entries in the canon. Mattoso obviously believes
that the male is capable of being both sadist and masochist. However,
his personal inclination, he reminds us repeatedly, is to assume the
role of the latter. Mattoso undoubtedly recognizes the potential for
transformation that the male masochist possesses. Kaja Silverman's
"Masochism and Male Subjectivity" compellingly makes a case for the
powerful subversiveness of such a voice:


[What is it precisely that the male masochist displays, and what are the
consequences of this self-exposure? To beginwith, he acts out in an
insistent and exaggerated way the basic conditions of cultural
subjectivity, conditions that are normally disavowed; he loudly
proclaims that his meaning comes to him from the Other, prostrates
himself before the Gaze even as he solicits it, exhibits his castration
for all to see, and revels in the sacrificial basis of the social
contract. The male masochist magnifies the losses and divisions upon
which cultural identity is based, refusing to be sutured or recompensed.
In short, he radiates a negativity inimical to the social order.] (51)


Pain is one of the consequences of this conscious rupturing of social
codes — the anguish that comes from marginalization and isolation as
well as the physical marks and bruises he might sustain during his
sexual encounters. Pain, in this poet's performance, is the essence of
his work and indeed his inspiration, for his selection of a pseudonym
that literalizes his degenerative illness must be addressed. Mattoso's
poetic voice assumes, owns, and ultimately becomes his physical and
emotional pain. The majority of the poems in CENTOPÉIA are more or less
attempts to express and perform his own agony, over and over again. In a
very important sense, then, I would argue that the author makes a fetish
out of pain itself, the only difference being that his psychic
attachment here is not to a tangible object but rather to an
abstraction. His words are often attempts to expose and to express the
painfulness of his condition. Therefore, Mattoso's lyric voice seems
intimately connected to the pain that surrounds his life, his only
faithful and enduring partner. His poetry expresses a somewhat
neo-romantic urgency to cultivate it, perhaps as a survival mechanism.
Elaine Scarry's well-researched THE BODY IN PAIN: THE MAKING AND
UNMAKING OF THE WORLD offers much insight into the psyche of the
torturer or the sadist but seems fundamentally flawed from the
perspective of the masochist who takes pleasure in pain:


[Pain is a pure physical experience of negation, an immediate sensory
rendering of 'against,' of something being against one, and of something
one must be against. Even though it occurs within oneself, it is at once
identified as 'not oneself,' 'not me,' as something so alien that it
must right now be gotten rid of.] (52)


Pain, for Mattoso's poetic voice, seems inextricably linked to personal
identity. To remove pain from his poetic universe would subsequently
result in a silencing of his voice. The "Soneto Futurista" romanticizes
the pain of humiliation, using intertextual references to George
Orwell's 1984 and Anthony Burgess' A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Mattoso
appropriates their horrifying visions of the future to paint a landscape
where cruelty rules and where the masochistic urges of the poetic voice
to demean himself are socially accepted. The only essential difference
between the past and the present of the subject's life is "Glauco"'s
blindness, conveyed in an almost optimistic light in this sonnet which
cultivates suffering:


SONETO 23 FUTURISTA

George Orwell diz que a imagem do futuro
é a bota sobre um rosto, eternamente,
e a nítida impressão que a gente sente
é que vivemos já num tempo escuro.

O Burgess, por sua vez, também foi duro
quando pegou seu jovem delinqüente
e o converteu num ser subserviente
que só lambia sola, robô puro.

O Glauco aqui, que vive do passado,
saudoso duma infância de opressão
(só fui pelos moleques abusado),

É o mesmo Glauco agora, e lambe o chão
pisado pelo mesmo tipo sado;
só que antes enxergava, e agora não.


FUTURIST SONNET (#23)

George Orwell says that the image of the future
is the boot on a face, eternally,
and the clear impression we feel
is that we already live in dark times.

Burgess, for his part, was also hard
when he took his juvenile delinquent
and converted him into a subservient being
who only licked soles, a mere robot.

Glauco here, who lives in the past,
nostalgic for an oppressive childhood
(I was always abused by the kids),

He is the same Glauco now, and licks the floor
stepped upon the same sado type;
before he used to see, but now he doesn't.

(translated by Akira Nishimura)


The third stanza is particularly poignant, for it identifies "Glauco" as
an actor in a present where he is trapped with grieving the loss of an
abusive past. The masochistic poetic voice does not complain here of the
traumas he suffered as a child; rather he laments the fact that those
days have passed and that he no longer has the attention of the sadistic
perpetrators who shaped his formative years. The only thing that has
changed, he maintains, is the fact that he has lost his vision. However,
this poem is somewhat peculiar in the unemotional, almost stoic way in
which he confronts this loss. The tone of the poetic voice is one in
which his mourning is far more profound for the lack of sadistic
oppression, and he remains quite uncharacteristically resigned about his
blindness. In my analysis, Mattoso's strategy is to designate the role
of masochism as being far more fundamental and important to his identity
than even the ability to see. Indeed, as in the tradition of Bataille's
pleasurable pain, Mattoso's repression of his own feelings regarding his
blindness and the painful disease that caused it may be the very
condition for the pleasure that results. On the other hand, the abrupt
manner in which the poem ends deliberately does not conceal a deep
bitterness toward his lot in life.

In "Soneto Lírico," we see a marked contrast from the stoicism conveyed
in the poem above. Instead, the poetic voice declares an anguished
lamentation of his blindness, believing his life to be deprived of
romantic companionship because of it. He argues that vision is the way
to access the erotic and that love, consequently, is only for the
sighted. The physical pain expressed in this poem is not a desired one,
no matter how well Mattoso plays the role of the masochist. His sexual
energies are stifled by constant headaches, provoked by the pressure
build-up characteristic of glaucoma. Not only are his eyes rendered
useless, but the only functionality they have is to cause him further
pain:


SONETO 26 LÍRICO

Dizem que o amor é cego e a carne é fraca,
mas só amei alguém quando enxergava.
Hoje a cegueira queima como lava
e o coração resiste a qualquer faca.

Ontem tesão, agora só ressaca.
Foi-se a paixão que fez minh'alma escrava.
Se inda me queixo dessa zica brava,
sou caçoado e passo por babaca.

Nem tudo está perdido: resta o cheiro
que invade-me as narinas quando passo
na porta do vizinho sapateiro.

Vá lá: o papel que faço é de palhaço.
O olfato é meu recurso derradeiro
e o cheiro do fetiche o único laço.


LYRICAL SONNET (#26)

Some say love is blind and the flesh is weak,
but I only loved when I was able to see.
Nowadays the blindness burns me like lava
and the heart resists any knife.

Horniness yesterday, hang-over today.
The passion that enslaved my soul is gone.
If I still complain of my terrible fate,
I'm mocked and taken for a fool.

Not everything though is lost: smell still remains
invading my nostrils when I walk by
the door of my shoemaker neighbor.

So be it: the role I play is that of the clown.
The sense of smell is my last resort
and the odor of my fetish the only link.

(translated by Akira Nishimura)


In addition to reinventing himself as a victim of a cruel and relentless
disease, the poetic voice plays the role of clown and idiot, a degrading
self-characterization reminiscent of the final poems of Portuguese
modernist, Mário de Sá-Carneiro. [3] Painfully aware that he is being
mocked and ridiculed, the poetic voice dwells in narcissistic self-pity,
perhaps in hopes of contracting a good sadist to repeatedly re-confirm
his own inferiority. A self-consciousness of performing the role of
clown is also evident in "Soneto Circense," where the poetic voice
designates his blindness as grotesque, even carnivalesque: "Meu caso é
certamente mais grotesco, / Ridicularizar-me vem a ser / a grande
diversão de quem me vê, / enquanto eu, que não vejo, dou prazer" (2.66).


SONETO 66 CIRCENSE

Pimenta no dos outros é refresco.
É fácil achar graça em mal alheio,
e nada mais propício pro recreio
que a dor do cego em seu negror dantesco.

Meu caso é certamente mais grotesco,
pois presto-me ao vexame sem receio:
Humilho-me lambendo até pé feio,
fedido, sujo, torto ou simiesco.

Ridicularizar-me vem a ser
a grande diversão de quem me vê,
enquanto eu, que não vejo, dou prazer.

Um tipo gozador como você
vai rir se seu sapato eu for lamber,
tal como ri do verso que ora lê.


CIRCUS SONNET (#66)

Those who feel on their skin know true pain.
It's easy to laugh at the tragedy of others,
and nothing more amusingly appropriate than
the pain of the blind in their Dantesque blackness.

My case is certainly more grotesque,
because I subject myself to shame without fear:
I humiliate myself by licking ugly,
stinky, dirty, crooked or simian feet.

To ridicule me comes to be
the great joy for those who see me,
while I, who cannot see, provide them with pleasure.

A joker type like you
will laugh if I lick your shoe,
as cheerfully as you read this verse.

(translated by Akira Nishimura)


A significant portion of the poet's performance revolves around a
continual reassertment of foot and boot fetishism. This sexual universe
is exploited to propose a more fluid, less non-judgmental posture toward
diverse sexualities. However, the de-intensification of the male sexual
organs and the re-objectification of foot and the tongue in its place
also has the powerful effect of decentering phallocentric discourse.
This activity occurs on a literal level, despite Mattoso's attempt to
equalize the substitution by arguing that the foot functions as his
phallus, a parodic assertion made in the "Soneto Psicanalítico" examined
earlier in this chapter. The performative nature of Mattoso's fetishism
is reflected quite well in the "Soneto Linguopedal" (2.35), where the
poetic voice rebelliously declares: "Criei assim um vivo tipo novo: / o
podofelador profissional. / Meu nome andou na má língua do povo."


SONETO 35 LINGUOPEDAL

Massificada está toda massagem
holística que, como a acupuntura,
em pontos energéticos procura
curar com científica roupagem.

Em tudo vejo logo a sacanagem:
A planta do pé fiz numa gravura
e em vez da mão a língua, menos dura,
propus como sistema de lavagem.

Criei assim um vivo tipo novo:
o podofelador profissional.
Meu nome andou na má língua do povo.

Já cego estou, mas não me saio mal:
Frieiras mentalmente inda removo
do pé de quem me xinga de anormal.


LINGUAL-PEDAL SONNET (#35)

Massified are all holistic massages
which, as acupuncture,
in energetic points seek
to cure with scientific pretense.

Soon I see sexual intentions in everything:
The sole of a foot I did in a picture
and instead of a hand a tongue, less hard,
as a washing system I've proposed.

So I created a real new character:
the professional podofellator.
My name became the talk of the town.

Blind I am already, but I haven't come off badly:
I'm still removing chilblains mentally
from the foot of whomever calls me abnormal.

(translated by Akira Nishimura)


This highly ludic poem, which overtly admits "Em tudo vejo logo a
sacanagem," presents a neologism which replaces the penis with the feet
and maintains the orality of the mouth as the tool used to generate
sexual stimulation. As such, no genital contact is made during the
encounter. While I have examined this proposal in previous sonnets
discussed throughout this chapter, the "Soneto Linguopedal" is
fundamental in that it calls for the professionalization of this new
category of sexual service. As a result of the poetic voice's
glorification and personal association with such a perverse practice, he
suffers (or delights) in the negative reputation which he has created
for himself. Out of this creative perversity comes rejection,
repugnance, and condemnation. However, Mattoso's choice of words, "má
língua," also parodies the inexperienced tongues of his enemies, for in
their inability to comprehend Mattoso's sexual universe, they have
demonstrated their own sexual shortcomings and lack of imagination. In
addition, "má língua" may be interpretated from the romanticized
negativity, the "lado maldito," of the marginalized poet who still takes
pride in the "badness" of his perversity as late as 1999.

Marjorie Garber's essay, "Fetish Envy," conceives the fetish in the
light of a theatrical prop, an effective subversive tool in which one
may transcend — and to some extent castrate — the oppressive phallus,
distancing it from more creative, more versatile, and more flexible
paradigms of desire:


[What I will be arguing is that fetishism is a kind of theater of
display — and, indeed, that theater represents an enactment of the
fetishistic scenario. Thus Freud's 'penis,' the anatomical object,
though understood through Lacan's 'phallus,' the structuring mark of
desire, becomes re-literalized as a stage prop, a detachable object. No
one has the phallus.] (120)


Certainly, in Garber's performative scenario, if no one is in possession
of the phallus, then no individual or group or society has the ability
to oppress others with its power or hegemony. The penis-as-prop analogy
reflects the subversive intent to display and recast "perversity" in a
normalized role where sexual practices are not governed by adherence to
gender, social, or sexual roles. The unimaginative act of sexual
intercourse has been reconceived as versatile role-playing, and the
psychoanalytic fixation on the insurmountable permanence of penis envy
is exposed as a farce.


(b) THE PERFORMATIVE VALUE OF REPETITION


Dicen que dijo un crítico
que tengo dos vicios poéticos:
la repetición y la repetición.
No digo lo contrario.
El poeta que repite
cosas ya por otros escritas
hace buen uso de la poesía
porque mira atrás,
a sus antepasados.
El poeta que se repite a sí mismo
realiza su obra
porque mira adelante
hacia la posteridad.
Asimismo, la repetición del vicio
se vuelve en virtud.

(poem by Mattoso's heteronym, Garcia Loca, 1980 [9.11.23])


It does not require a thorough reading of every sonnet in the CENTOPÉIA
to discern the redundant nature of the contents of the collection. A
literary critic may choose to view such obsessive repetition as a defect
in Mattoso's poetry, and perhaps rightly so. However, it is important to
remember that such repetition is a significant strategic device that
Mattoso employs to attain, in my view, two distinct goals. The first may
be conceived as a stylistic parallelism with the themes treated; in
other words, Mattoso's repetitive verses are a metaphorical mirroring of
the obsession, the fixation, and the rigidity that the theme of
fetishism communicates.

Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, such excessive repetition
reflects Mattoso's tendency to display his agenda to such an absurd
extreme that he ultimately destroys or undoes the effects (adverse or
positive) that he has strived to create. An absurdist aesthetic of
repetition may indeed be a device to implode the very notions which the
poet is proposing. As we have seen in the previous chapter, Mattoso
followed this very trajectory in annihilating ultra-concretism in all
its impersonality to arrive at a new type of poem which borrows from
concretist techniques just as it simultaneously criticizes its
radicality: "para-concretism."

Whether the excessive repetition is intended as a strategy to accomplish
the goals illustrated above or whether it is indeed a significant defect
in the literary value we can derive from Mattoso's recent poetry, one
cannot deny the negative effect such tedious repetitions inevitably
produces in the reader. However, the reader is stifled, stagnated,
frozen with the recurrent images and scenes and positions much like the
poetic voice characterizes his own entrapment (albeit a delightful one)
in such rigid scripts. As Karmen MacKendrick writes, "The insistence of
repetition is itself a form of violence" (39). Such a violence is
committed against reason, the imagination, and the desire to progress, a
natural inclination to evolve and avoid the pitfalls of stagnation. As
MacKendrick affirms, "In Masochism the running wild of repetition occurs
in the realm of the image, which is set, frozen and fetishized,
constantly before the gaze of the enraptured Masochist [...] We move not
from the image to its enactment but from the act to its infinite
suspension" (57). Such stagnation, such an ironically still but disquiet
discourse, is the space where Mattoso's performance is eternally
re-enacted and suspended.


(c) FETISHISM AS ACCESS TO DEFINING "BRASILIDADE"

In Mattoso's semi-parodic quest to depathologize the foot as an avenue
to the attainment of erotic pleasures, he composes a number of sonnets
that satirically point out the importance of the foot as a symbol in
contemporary Brazilian culture. Equating socially-sanctioned activities
with sexual practices and thereby reaffirming both, Mattoso's poetic
voice is determined to glorify the sanctity of the foot in his own
culture as well as others, notably France and Germany. [4] The absurdity
of some of his conclusions is quite humorous, especially the
generalizations on the foot's connection to "brasilidade," such as this
one: "O pé do brasileiro é vagabundo." ("Soneto Histórico," 2.24). In
"Soneto Brasileiro," Mattoso wonders why his foot fetishism is perceived
as foreign and treated with such disdain in a culture where a passion
toward the feet is reflected in its most nationalistic activities:


SONETO 27 BRASILEIRO

Resume-se o Brasil em três coisinhas:
só praia, futebol e carnaval.
A bunda é preferência nacional,
mas algo diferentes são as minhas:

Na praia, que abundância de solinhas!
Na bola, as tais chuteiras do "animal".
No samba, pé sempre é fundamental.
De fora, tento pôr minhas manguinhas.

Me sinto muito mais que um estrangeiro:
sou quase extraterrestre, marciano,
não só porque idolatro o pé e seu cheiro;

O caso é que sou cego e paulistano.
Só posso cantar rock no banheiro,
batendo bronha aos pés dum corinthiano...


BRAZILIAN SONNET (#27)

Brazil can be summed up by three small things:
beach, soccer, and carnival.
The ass is the national preference,
but mine is slightly different:

What an abundance of little soles on the beach!
Those kicking shoes of that ace during the match!
In samba, the foot is always found in the lyrics.
From the outside, I try to stick my nose in.

I feel a lot like an alien:
I'm almost an extraterrestrial, a Martian,
not only because I adore the foot and its smell;

The reality is that I am blind and from São Paulo.
I can only sing rock in the shower,
jerking off at the feet of a Corinthians fan...

(translated by Akira Nishimura)


This poem enumerates the levels of identities which cause the poetic
voice to feel alienated from his own culture. He retaliates against the
critics of his sexual practices by pointing out that he is worshipping
an object that is revered as sacred in Brazilian culture, for it
symbolizes the essence of Brazilian passions, of "brasilidade," if only
in the eyes of the rest of the world! Mattoso's definition of
"machismo," in addition to being homoerotic, sanctifies the skillful
feet of the soccer player. In "Soneto Futebolístico" (2.50), he
declares: "Machismo é futebol e amor aos pés. / São machos adorando pés
de macho."


SONETO 50 FUTEBOLÍSTICO

Machismo é futebol e amor aos pés.
São machos adorando pés de macho,
e nesse mundo mágico me acho
em meio aos fãs de algum camisa dez.

Invejo os massagistas dos Pelés
nos lúdicos momentos de relaxo,
servindo-lhes de chanca e de capacho,
levando a língua ali, do chão no rés.

É lógico que um cego como eu
não pode convocar o titular
dum time brasileiro ou europeu.

Contento-me em chupar o polegar
do pé de quem ainda não venceu
sequer a mais local preliminar.


SOCCERIST SONNET (#50)

"Machismo" is soccer and foot loving.
It is males loving men's feet,
and I find myself in this magic world
among the fans of some idol like Pelé.

I envy the masseurs of the aces
during those relaxing moments,
turned into kicking shoe and doormat,
running my tongue there, touching the ground.

Naturally, a blind man like me
can't recruit a member
of a Brazilian or an European major team.

I console myself by sucking the big toe
of that player who did not yet win
even the most local preliminary match.

(translated by Akira Nishimura)


Mattoso's grotesquely absurd "Soneto Modernista" (2.38) opens with the
following valid but controversial question: "Quem foi mais importante,
Oswaldo ou Mário?" Ultimately, by the end of the sonnet, the reader
learns that only a single criterion is used to resolve this question,
transcending any serious evaluations of their contributions: the size
and shape of their feet.


SONETO 38 MODERNISTA

Quem foi mais importante, Oswaldo ou Mário?
Me consta que o "Prefácio" milhor fez,
em termos de chocar o bom burguês,
que todo o antropofágico mensário.

Mas, pra não cometer erro primário,
justiça seja feita a todos três,
os dois Andrades mais o Português,
pois, sem Camões, cadê réu literário?

Questão particular me ocorre agora:
Qual tinha maior pé, Mário, o mulato,
ou quem foi queridinho da Isadora?

O Oswaldo pode até ter sido um gato,
mas meu faro bizarro corrobora:
O Mário tinha pé mais largo e chato.


MODERNIST SONNET (#38)

Who was more important, Oswaldo or Mário?
To me, the "Prefácio interessantíssimo" better succeeded,
in terms of "épater le bourgeois,"
than the entire collection of the "Revista de Antropofagia."

But, to avoid committing an elementary error,
justice be done to all three masters,
the two Andrades plus the Portuguese,
since, without Camões, there would not be a literary pivot.

A particular question occurs to me now:
Who had the bigger foot — Mário, the mulatto,
or the one who was Isadora Duncan's little darling?

Oswaldo could have even been considered a hunk,
but my bizarre instinct corroborates:
Mário had the largest and flattest foot.

(translated by Akira Nishimura)


Mário de Andrade is the victor of course, for "O Mário tinha pé mais
largo e chato." This sonnet, beginning with a serious question and
concluding with a ridiculous answer, satirizes the (lack of)
decision-making when an author's work is granted or denied canonization.
The fetishistic obsession of the poetic voice is so powerful and
blinding that he is willing to overlook any bona fide characteristics to
evaluate two of the most fundamental modernists in Brazilian literature.
I do not believe this poem denigrates the work of either of the authors
in question; rather, I think it is highly critical of literary critics
and their criteria on which they base the merits of the works they
evaluate.


(d) "MASOCRITICISM": LIMITATIONS IN CRITIQUE OF LITERATURE OF
TRANSGRESSION

Paul Mann, who recently coined the term "masocriticism" to define a
career in literary criticism as a humiliating enterprise, boldly asserts
the transgressive role of the literary critic as he endeavors to
approach and analyze the original text:


[That is what happens when one condemns oneself to writing criticism:
one writes from the compulsion to serve the master text, even to
reproduce its truth, [...] but also under this indictment: reproduction
is impossible, for whatever one writes will fall short, mutilate the
text, serve the master badly; and to do so is transgressive and hence
punishable, and hence desirable.] (37)


The simultaneous fear and desire of castigation that Mann alludes to
implies that transgression itself, regardless of the field undertaken or
the ways in which one performs it, reflects a profound masochism on the
part of the transgressor. However, to be fair, we must challenge the
very notion that sadomasochism, by its very nature, should automatically
be defined as transgressive. Liz Day, for example, refutes the notion
that S & M is transgressive, even though history, culture, and law have
defined it that way. She refers to the often romanticized "outlaw
status" of such alternate sexualities, arguing that sadomasochism,
despite its perception as radical, constitutes part of the discourse of
human sexuality and cannot be separated from this positionality (242).
As a result, she argues, sadomasochism is often erroneously defined as
transgressive without careful examination of contemporary discourses of
sexuality.

There is yet another serious limitation the critic is forced to accept
when undertaking any study of so-called "literature of transgression."
Simply put, times change, and behaviors or postures which may have been
labeled "radical" and/or "transgressive" at one point in time often lose
such a designation as the landscape of human sexualities is expanded to
include postures previously relegated to the status of "perversity." [5]
Authors like Glauco Mattoso insist on relativizing and subverting
notions of the perverse, consequently evolving individuated, creative
subjectivities. However, any individual who chooses to speak from a
marginal position, be it a poet or a scientist, necessarily becomes the
scapegoat of a public who repugnantly rejects the ideas offered.
Mattoso's performance, however, is a fleeting one. As his postulations
become perceived as less transgressive, no doubt a natural consequence
of the post-AIDS development of alternate sexual technologies, his
verses suffer a significant loss in their potency. As this chapter has
attempted to demonstrate, Mattoso's poetic universe is just as committed
to depathologizing notions of "perversity" as it is to re-radicalizing
the subversiveness that constitutes the political relevance of his
project. However, should the poet experience diminishing returns in
shock value as his readership begins to open their minds to a different
sexual geography, both author and critic will benefit. The critic will
have helped to bring Mattoso's voice away from the most remote regions
of the margins while simultaneously satisfying a sadistic contractual
obligation with the author to desensitize a readership and normalize one
of the most transgressive voices of contemporary Brazilian literature.
Such a dilution of impact would prove hurtful, no doubt, to a
masochistic poetic voice who prides himself on his own radical
perversity.


[NOTES]

[1] See [SOURCES]. For Butterman's introduction and contents, see
[A TRANSGRESSOR AS CASE STUDY].

[2] Marjorie Garber's VESTED INTERESTS: CROSS-DRESSING AND CULTURAL
ANXIETY is an excellent point of reference for readers wishing to
examine the roles of cross-dressing and performance in gender and
cultural studies. See [BIBLIOGRAPHY] for full citation. For Mattoso's
predecessors, click [BOCAGE] and [LAURINDO RABELO].

[3] The self-image conveyed by Sá-Carneiro's poetic voice became so
distorted that it ultimately reached grotesque proportions. One of his
last poems, "Fim," written in 1916 and published in INDÍCIOS DE OURO:
ÚLTIMOS POEMAS, reflects a suicidal poetic voice who dwells in his own
narcissistic masochism: "Quando eu morrer batam em latas, / Rompam aos
saltos e aos pinotes / Façam estalar no ar chicotes, / Chamem palhaços e
acrobatas. / Que o meu caixão vá sobre um burro / Ajaezado à andaluza: /
A um morto nada se recusa, / E eu quero por força ir de burro!"

[4] Two notable examples deserve mention: "Soneto Galicista" (2.37),
which celebrates the contributions of Sade and Rétif, and "Soneto
Teutônico" (2.70), which relishes the work of Goethe and Musil and
includes a powerful final stanza, reading as follows: "O pé germânico é,
como o racismo, / sinônimo de força e de opressão. / Meu fraco é
imaginá-lo com lirismo."


SONETO 37 GALICISTA

A França nos deu tanta coisa boa!
"Sadismo" vem do nome do Marquês;
De seu rival Rétif vem, por sua vez,
o termo "retifismo", e me aquinhoa.

Fanchette foi-lhe a musa, e não à toa:
Pra seu pé delicado Rétif fez
um livro inteiro, e agora, em português,
como "podolatria" o termo soa.

Já tínhamos "fetiche", que é "feitiço"
tomado ao português e devolvido.
Pra sexo qual vocábulo é castiço?

Já posso rotular minha libido!
Questão de termo? Não seja por isso:
Sou retifista e sádico assumido.


GALLICIST SONNET (#37)

France gave us so many good things!
"Sadism" comes from the name of the Marquis;
From his rival Rétif comes, in its turn,
the term "retifism," which fits me well.

Fanchette was his muse, and not by chance:
To her delicate foot Rétif wrote
a whole book, and now, in Portuguese,
the term became current as "podolatry."

We already had "fetiche," which means magical spell
taken from the Portuguese and given back.
To talk about sex, what is the pure word?

Now I can label my libido!
A matter of terminology? That's very simple:
I'm a conscious "retifist" and "sadist."

(translated by Akira Nishimura)


SONETO 70 TEUTÔNICO

Até Goethe revela-se esquisito,
pedindo à sua amada Christiana
sapatos que ela usara uma semana:
Dormir a sós com eles é seu fito.

No "Jovem Törless" Musil mostra o rito
no qual fazem Basini de banana:
O aluno imita porco e deve grana,
aos pés dum veterano mais bonito.

Literatura é pouco a um alemão
que gosta de exibir o seu sadismo.
Os concentracionários di-lo-ão...

O pé germânico é, como o racismo,
sinônimo de força e de opressão.
Meu fraco é imaginá-lo com lirismo...


TEUTONIC SONNET (#70)

Even Goethe reveals himself as queer,
asking his lover Christiana
for the shoes she had worn for a week:
His intention is to sleep alone with them.

In "The young Törless" Musil shows the rite
in which Basini's classmates make a fool of him:
The student has to imitate a pig and owes money,
at the feet of a handsome veteran.

Literature is little to a German
who likes to exhibit his sadism.
The concentration camp prisoners will confirm it...

The German foot is, like racism,
synonym of strength and oppression.
My weakness is imagining it with lyricism...

(translated by Akira Nishimura)


[5] Contemporary psychoanalytic theorists have successfully subverted
pre- and post- Freudian notions of perversity. A good example is the
work of Marcia Ian, who, in attempting to characterize "perversity"
according to Krafft-Ebing in the light of twentieth-century
psychoanalytic thinking, makes an important discovery. According to
Krafft-Ebing, the fetishist replaces the real (the wholeness of the
human body who is the object of one's attraction) with the ideal (an
overvalued sexual attraction toward a specific part, such as the breast
or the foot). Ian shows how Jacques Lacan's theory of the symbolic
subverts this model of perversity: "By this logic Jacques Lacan's
psychoanalytic theory posits the perverse AS the normal, since it posits
as necessary the fact that we all live in the realm of the 'symbolic'
from the moment we become aware that we are not fused with our mothers"
(52-3).



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