ABSTRACT
This dissertation aims to elucidate some aspects that involve the production of urban
space and dissident sexualities. They have as spatial clipping the city centre and the
focus of analysis the cinemões. (Porn cinemas, where gay man, most of them, go to
satisfy sexual desires). The ‘Cinemões’, in the context of normality, constitute as
subversive spatiality agglutinative of a constellation of gender performances and
masculine sexual practices. The city of Fortaleza presents itself as a metropolis
whose centre was undermining as the city was being produced and other centralities
were emerging, such as the neighbourhoods Jacarecanga, Benfica and Aldeota, this
became the main space for housing, leisure and consumption of the elite. The centre,
which formerly concentrated the most sophisticated spaces of the city and the best
cinemas, was devaluated. With the process of metropolisation from the 70’s and the
emergence of the malls, the centre was effective as an attraction for people of lower
social class. Gay nightclubs, houses of prostitution and saunas were also gaining
visibility. The traditional cinema rooms have been closed the doors or played porn
movies. But it is, especially since the 90's that the ‘cinemões’ gain visibility in the
centre, being part of the erotic circuit of the city. The research focuses on the group
of men who have sex with men and gay men. The objective is to understand how the
spatialities of cinemas in the Centre of Fortaleza-CE, constitute tensions to the
hegemonic order of sexuality in the production of the urban space. For this purpose,
an overview is presented on the course of the research and the theoretical and
methodological choices. The fundamental notions are: Urban space; Power and
Micropolitics; Sexuality and Gender; Subject and Subjectivity; and Heteronormativity
with nexus in the production of the space to make comprehensible the understanding
of the relation Space and Sexuality. Some dimensions of urbanization of the city and
its hygienist character are rescued for the idea of devaluation and imagination of
spaces and decadent people. The theoretical and methodological exercise is based
on post-structural assessments, especially the ideas from geographer Dorren
Massey, for whom multiplicity, coetaneity and advent are part of the geographical
approach that may deconstruct the unique histories of places.
Keywords: Urban spaces. Centre. Sexuality. Cinemão.
