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Mom doesn't like those kinds of games.

Capybara loved me for some early poems and other whispered prayers in my ear.

The deconstruction of heteronormative identities is all the rage. The discussion has even found its way into Ancestral Studies. With the aim of confronting gender violence and the psychological suffering caused by the emergence of neoconservative identities, researchers are invited to pontificate on ethical problems and "self-care." This phenomenon reinforces the belief that the contradictions and ambiguities of the masculine world will be abolished. Our final destiny, as a species, would not be the cold marble of the tomb, but a return to the glorious womb.

The first masculinist experience is never forgotten. Once, a colleague told me she no longer had patience with men. "Jesus also lost his with the money changers in the temple," I added. I noticed in her outburst, and in the mocking laughter at my comment, that the silence imposed on women was numbered.

Being impatient means not being dominated by the other. We men had our chance in history; now all that remains is for us to hope that female cyborgs become a reality. The era of female enslavement is in its death throes, and the machine, a demonic invention according to some utopians, promises a new dawn.

Nor do I have patience for women. I once had a lot of it, but I've grown old. Strangely, this hasn't stopped me from admiring the art of Camille Claudel or the thought of Simone Weil, considering them superior to Romero Brito and Leandro Karnal.

Caetano said that each person knows the pain and the delight of being who they are. It's beautiful not to hide the truth, and it's also gratifying to give up trying to fix the world. The noise of bodies exceeds the harmony of souls; the contingency of being forgotten is superior to the dogma of redemptive memory. That's what I learned from my first feminist love.

Dalila was her name. Seven years older than me when I met her, she was compulsively reading Simone de Beauvoir's *The Second Sex* . During our first caresses, she called me "my boy." I thought it was a secret code between us, and enthusiastically told her that it was deliciously incestuous. She slapped me across the face and spat out the following words: "Mom doesn't like those kinds of games."

“But, Dalila…”, I tried to regain my composure while adjusting my pants. She cut me off with the suggestion that it was good for lovers to have nicknames. “I’m Capybara; you’re Little Armadillo.” Once again, I found this very stimulating, although I didn’t understand how a cultured woman could enjoy such childish games. Capybara loved me for a few precocious poems and other whispered ejaculations. The day came when she confessed to having resumed her engagement.

"But, Capybara..."

"Not capybara; Dalila!"

“But, Dalila, didn’t you say you were a feminist, and now you’re getting married? And the patriarchal family, the bourgeois contract of bodies?” She didn’t owe me any explanations and left me there prostrate, humbly thinking about the poems I wrote for her. Being abandoned produced an epiphanic moment. I needed to react, and the only way was to be… ( continues in February )

This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.

Cover photo:

Illustration of a capybara and armadillo.
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