Inferno in paradise

Historian combines art, historical analysis, and Foucault's method in a critique of the view of Brazil as a sexual paradise.

Inferno in paradise

Historian combines art, historical analysis, and Foucault's method in a critique of the view of Brazil as a sexual paradise.

What lies behind the image of Brazil as a sexual paradise that accompanies it around the world? To answer this question, historian Varlei Rodrigo do Couto investigated the legitimacy of a version of the country's history – conceived by figures such as Gilberto Freyre and Paulo Prado – that gave sex a leading role in the formation of Brazilian identity. In his thesis, "The Eroticization of Paradise: A Critique of the Identity Construction of Brazil as a Sexual Paradise," defended at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) at Unicamp, the author seeks to dismantle this theory, exposing a fabricated concept in which sexuality takes on a perverse facet. In his research, the historian finds another eroticism, lived and narrated from historically silenced margins, which inspires him to develop a new historical concept.

Developed at the Center for Research on Foucault, Gender and History of Subjectivities (Cefos), at IFCH, the research was part of the research line Gender, Subjectivity and Material Culture, established in the Department of History at the University. The colloquium "Rise and Fall of the Tropical Paradise", held in 2020 at IFCH, served as inspiration for the historian's work, which was supervised by historian Margareth Rago, a professor at the institute who was responsible for both organizing the seminar and structuring Cefos.

In addition to investigating the origins and motivations behind the vision of Brazil as a sexual paradise, Couto sought to examine how this eroticized image has traversed the country's history, exploring, at the same time, its implications in the present. Archeogenealogy – a Foucauldian scientific method in which the past is contemplated from the discourses that compose it – guided the research. The PhD in history also resorted to decolonial theoretical texts and the art of Daiara Tukano, Rosana Paulino, and Adriana Varejão as references to contemplate, in his analysis, the image of a Brazilian sexual paradise from a primarily feminist, indigenous, and black perspective.

The analysis was undertaken based on diverse material – including documents, images, and historical records. To Pero Vaz de Caminha's letter were added diaries of 16th-century travelers, reports from the Inquisition, Jesuit texts, and paintings by Jean-Baptiste Debret. Couto also consulted biographies of figures who lived on the margins of society, official literature from the founding of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute, and texts that influenced thinkers of the First Republic to consolidate the version of the country's history being examined. Based on the records of the first Europeans to set foot on Brazilian territory, the author of the thesis concluded that their idea of ​​Brazil did not resemble that of a paradise: it was closer to hell.

The historian's critique focuses on the colonialist concept of the erotic, which was revived in the early 20th century as part of an elitist power project. "Intellectuals and politicians, driven by the interests of the First Republic, mobilized this repertoire to forge a Brazilian identity convenient to the new order," says Couto. To design it, they retrieved colonial records and the literature of early travelers. Their main error, the researcher indicates, was adopting a strictly literal reading of the colonial way of thinking about the erotic to explain the nation. "It's a misogynistic way of looking at bodies and understanding reality, which externalizes and inferiorizes the other."

In the vision of a paradisiacal, racially mixed, and peaceful Brazil, as sold by the myth of sexual paradise, eroticism is transformed into an instrument both to erase a past – and a present – ​​marked by violence against so-called minorities, and to make individuals and desires vulnerable, discredit them, and subjugate them. “The idea of ​​eroticizing paradise, proposed by Varlei, is to demystify this perverse reading of the erotic present in the vision of a sexual paradise,” assesses Rago. “Throughout Brazilian history, they cast a gaze upon women that pushes them into the territory of the irrational, as if they were defined by excessive sexuality. From there, the country itself is described as guided by instinct and, therefore, incapable of rationality. In this framework, the people would need someone to govern them, because this supposed Brazilian herd would be, in the words of Paulo Prado, 'extremely sexual',” adds the historian.

By problematizing the colonialist concept of the erotic that has surrounded Brazilian culture, Couto proposes the elaboration of a new concept, capable of re-signifying the dominant discourse and, at the same time, emptying a theory that, for centuries, has operated as a machine of violence and exclusion. It is a kind of counter-history, he explains, in which non-hegemonic literatures, arts, and formulations bring forth the image of a nation where eroticism presents itself as a life force and a source of creativity, even under the weight of oppression. This inflection is based, above all, on the perspective of those who usually remain outside the field of decision-making, restoring centrality to subjugated experiences. “To think of Brazil as a tropical sexual paradise is still to repeat a colonial concept of the erotic, one that reduces the woman's body to a place of conquest and an instrument of male domination. But there is another way to narrate Brazilian history: that of a joyful and festive country, which did not make sex a perversion, but rather sexuality, the erotic, a power of joy.”

The authors compared, all men, were responsible for founding a tradition of thinking about Brazil as a harmonious nation, both in terms of race and sexual issues. In Freyre's work, this harmony served to structure the vision of a joyful, festive, and welcoming country. "This, which passes as a tradition, in quotation marks, of the vanquished, silences a whole other tradition, which is very strong in Brazil." These angles ignored by tradition appear in the research in the form of art. Couto uses Varejão's work as a critical lens to re-signify, for example, works by Debret that portray a Brazil where enslaved whites and blacks coexist in harmony. "In *Filho Bastardo*, Adriana Varejão brings to light the sexual violence that involved African bodies. She shows rape, in this intricate game between the colonizer, the religious figure, the indigenous woman, and the African women."

The thesis, Rago assesses, breaks the silence surrounding the legacy left by authors traditionally considered untouchable. In this way, it makes a rare contribution to academia. “Until now, it wasn't said that Gilberto Freyre was a misogynist. We are not invalidating his work, which is extremely important, but it is obvious that the way he thought shaped generations. Today, we know that the idea that Brazil is a racial democracy is a myth, which has come under criticism. But it prevailed for a long time, justifying power, exclusion, hierarchy, and the idea that women need to be guided because they are too irrational and passionate,” the advisor points out.