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Peter Beattie Conflicting Penile Codes Modern Masculinit y an d Sodomy i n the Brazilia n Military, 1860-191 6 Only one thing vexed the cabin-boy [Aleixo]—the black man's sexual whims. Because [the black sailor known as] Bom Crioulo was not satisfied merely with possessing him sexually at any hour day or night... . He obliged the boy to go to extremes, he made a slave of him, a whore of him. .. . The firstnight he wanted Aleixo to strip, to strip right down to the buff .. . Aleixo replied sulkily that that was not something you ask a man to do! Anything but that. —Adolfo Caminha, Bom Crioulo In 1895 former navy officer, ardent republican, and novelist Adolfo Caminha shocked Brazilian readers by deftly usin g his knowledge of navy life t o produc e a detaile d romanc e betwee n a blac k ma n wh o escape d slavery only to be pressed into navy service and a blond-haired, blue-eye d fifteen-year-old cabi n boy.1 Caminha's audacious exploration of the homosexual taboo, one that also challenged racial biases, led most of his contemporaries to ostracize him. His best novel, Bom Crioulo (literally , good nigger ), remains outside the canon of classic Brazilian literature.2 It is useful t o look back at Caminha's novel for severa l reasons. First of all, it tell s o f a time an d plac e when allege d homosexua l behavio r i n th e Brazilian military rarely led to expulsion. Second, Bom Crioulo link s literature t o historica l document s becaus e i t i s possibl e t o examin e ninetee n court-martial cases involving sodomy in the Brazilian army and navy fro m 1861 to 1908. 3 Fact united wit h fiction , medica l theory, and la w all reveal conflicting conception s o f masculinit y an d hono r amon g officer s an d pragas (a Portuguese ter m tha t lump s togethe r th e rank s o f noncommis sioned officers an d common enlisted men). In the midst of these hierarchi- * 65 5 66 * Peter Beattie cally an d raciall y informe d tensions , reformer s sough t t o rescu e enliste d service from associations with social and sexual deviance. These effort s forme d par t o f a larger driv e t o moderniz e th e military . Officers struggle d fro m 187 4 to 191 6 to execut e new law s replacing arbi trary impressment (coerciv e manhunts) with a Prussian-inspired draf t lot tery . Th e draf t woul d targe t a bette r clas s o f recruits , henc e t o rende r enlisted service more acceptable to the public, reformers strov e to improve its status and conditions to make it an honorable manly duty unencumbered with innuendos of deviance. Stories like Bom Crioulo reinforced unflatter ing assumptions about the culture of enlisted service and hampered reform ers ' effort s t o establis h an d the n t o enforc e conscriptio n afte r i t bega n i n 1916. These "reformist " officer s wer e increasingl y influence d no t onl y b y German militar y models but also by Germa n ideas of appropriate mascu line sexuality . I f th e Brazilia n cas e i s indicative , i t coul d b e tha t th e Prussian-inspired military reformism that swept most of the twentieth-century worl d wa s a n important condui t o f a cross-cultural restructurin g o f sexual identity. SEXUAL IDENTITY, GENDER, AND HONOR For mos t nineteenth-centur y Brazilians , individuals wer e neithe r homosexuals nor heterosexuals per se. Sodomy was an immoral act rather than an abstract identity shaped by sexual preference. The term homosexual became common onl y in the 1950s ; it first appeare d i n English in 189 2 as translated fro m a Germa n text . Meanwhil e authoritie s referre d t o inter course betwee n tw o male s a s "sodomy , pederasty , libidinousness , sexua l inversion, and immoral acts," as it was similarly defined in turn-of-the-cen tury Brazilian military documents.4 Most assumed intercourse between males consisted of anal sex between a dominant and a passive partner. The active partner took on a manly...

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