E se estivéssemos em palimpsesto de putas? Um estudo sobre putafeminismo e trabalho sexual na autoria feminina contemporânea

Abstract

This thesis proposes a dialogue with contemporary authors who approached sex work in an autobiographical way in their books: Putafeminista (2018), by Monique Prada; E se eu fosse puta (2016; 2018), by Amara Moira; O prazer é todo nosso (2014; 2015), by Lola Benvenutti; Eu, mulher da vida (1992) and Filha , mãe, avó e puta (2009), by Gabriela Leite; and Puta autobiografia (2022; 2023) by Lourdes Barreto. The primary intention of this work is to view these texts not merely as objects of study, but as political vehicles through which prostitutes – historically stigmatized and silenced figures – tell their own stories, maintain close connections – either implicitly or explicitly – with the putafeminista movement. To this end, the book by Monique Prada (2018), homonymous to the manifestation in question, will be taken as a fundamental corpus for this research. It serves as a theoretically grounded claim concerning the guidelines on the practice of prostitution in Brazil, corroborating the analyses, as it represents a claim – theoretically based – regarding the guidelines on the exercise of prostitution in Brazil In this context, we aim to conduct a comparative analysis of publications by Brazilian sex workers in order to understand how their narratives problematize sexual work – experienced and treated by the authors under collective and individual biases – and its relations with the identity, writing and body. In this perspective, we point out Performativities of being, carrying out a brief historical discussion about gender, feminism and stigma; in sequence, Performativities of writing, addressing questions about self-writing and the paratextual textures of the books; and, finally, Performativities of the body, debating about the concept of bodies that matter – considering the sex worker's body as a political body – as well as identity and putafeminism. We seek to understand such paths and strategies with the aim of demonstrating that autobiographical writing allows the literary initiation/insertion of those who, for a long time, were neglected as individuals. It is noted that, by bringing prostitution to the agenda, confronting patriarchal discourse, these authors claim women's autonomy in this and other social spaces, reiterating the formative and transformative character of literature. Thus, the networks that seek to establish, through narrativas antiautobiográficas, inscribe them in the literary field.