La Mala Vida

Ten years ago, the young Scandinavian sociologist Annick Prieur attended an AIDS conference in Mexico, where she had the good fortune to encounter Gerardo “Mema” Ortega, a charismatic ex-prostitute-turned-AIDS educator. Mema invited her to his home on the outskirts of Mexico City, which turned out to be a haven for a diverse group of teenage transvestites and gays. For a fledgling scholar interested in gender and sexual deviance, it was an ideal setting for field work. So Prieur took up residence in the modest chalk-white dwelling and for six months immersed herself in its daily bustle and routine.

Located in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl, an immense lower-class district built on a dry lake bed, Mema’s house, like most in “Neza,” is tiny and cramped, with three small rooms and a plumbing system best described as primitive. But for the young boys (and a few girls), most of whom have strained relationships with their families, it is a place to sniff glue, exchange ribald gossip, listen to loud music and engage in erotic activities with a steady stream of guests and visitors. “Selling sex is totally accepted,” affirms Prieur, “and an active sexual life is seen as desirable.”

In spite of the chaotic environment--a dozen or more people drop by each day--the house is structured by rules and hierarchies: Those who choose to live there (most do not) are obliged to tidy up and run errands in exchange for meals, and certain privileges (like who gets to sit next to Mema at the dinner table) are based on an individual’s place in the pecking order. Sex, to a certain extent, is also regulated. Condoms are mandatory, and voyeurs may be asked to leave, as their presence might inhibit the other guests.

At the heart of the book are portraits of the transvestites (Prieur refers to them as jotas, a term derived from Mexican slang). All of them lead precarious lives. Some are hairdressers and thieves, while many are prostitutes. Imperiled by street gangs, sadistic policemen and belligerent customers, the sex workers rely on Mema’s house as a sanctuary from violence and humiliation. In one of the many details that give the book its realistic texture, we learn that transvestite prostitutes in Mexico City are habitually released from police custody with their purses empty and their heads shaved. Some of the most harrowing scenes take place in jails and prisons.

In spite of their promiscuous lifestyles, the jotas seek domesticity; most dream about a husband, especially one who is ultra-masculine. To attract such men, they subject themselves to a harsh regimen of breast implants, hormone treatments and oil injections which, especially the latter, tend to result in severe medical complications. Moreover, certain jotas employ ingenious methods to disguise their genitals in an attempt to fool customers into thinking that they are real women. When they are caught, violence is the predictable result.

As a social scientist, Prieur wants to grasp how the jotas fit into a society that is both censorious and discreetly tolerant of male homosexuality. In Mexico, it is a subject fraught with ambiguity, denial and complexity. When she and Mema repair to a local disco, the latter seduces a young man named Daniel. The next morning, Prieur inquires if Daniel is homosexual. “It is not that simple,” Mema replies. Presumably, Daniel was a mayate--a man who has sex with other men but otherwise adheres to a heterosexual identity.

In “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” his definitive chronicle of the Mexican psyche, Octavio Paz noted the double standard, embedded in the culture, through which the mayate avoids stigmatization: “Masculine homosexuality is regarded with a certain indulgence insofar as the active agent is concerned,” Paz wrote. “The passive agent is an abject, degraded being.” By and large, Prieur’s findings confirm this: The jotas are scorned, but their bisexual mayate lovers remain free of the social consequences of their conduct and go about their lives with typical machismo. (A Kinsey-style survey of sexual behavior has never been conducted in Mexico, but this book suggests that homosexual activity is rife; the neighborhood plumber and electrician are among those who partake of the licentious pleasures of the house.)

“Mema’s House, Mexico City” is both a revealing inquiry into a little-known urban subculture and an analysis of how machismo and homosexuality coexist in the Mexican working class. But the book’s value is diminished by its disjointed structure and its relentlessly academic focus; in too many places it reads like an application for tenure. Prieur’s sprightly anecdotes and sketches are constantly punctuated by theoretical digressions and scholarly ruminations. Had she relegated the latter to a single chapter at the end, the result might have been a more coherent and accessible book. But her preoccupation with academic concerns blinds her to the rich possibilities of the material. We never, for instance, get a concrete sense of the sagacious Mema, who is the central figure in the study and also one of Mexico’s leading gay rights activists. (For those seeking a cohesive narrative, Joseph Carrier’s 1995 book, “De Los Otros: Intimacy and Homosexuality Among Mexican Men,” covers much of the same ground.)

Nevertheless, Prieur has done justice to her teenage informants by faithfully conveying their experiences and testimony, much of which lingers in the mind. This is a somber book, a compendium of human waste, broken lives and unfulfilled yearnings. Take the experience of Dani, a 25-year-old jota who wishes to extricate himself once and for all from la mala vida. Inspired by a chance encounter with an elderly homosexual who leads a miserable life peddling chewing gum, Dani pledges to return to school and to marry a woman from his hometown.

For a while he succeeds. “Dani left Neza, and for a long time nobody knew what had become of him,” Prieur writes. “But he came back, and took up his old life, not talking about marriage anymore.” It’s a characteristic denouement, for Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl is a place where redemption is elusive, dreams are deferred and the dusty streets themselves give off the aroma of temptation.