“Tenho mais cadastro em farmácias do que em baladas”: rastros de discursos medicalizantes em enunciados de sujeitos homossexuais masculinos no Twitter

Abstract

This thesis, produced in collaboration with PPGE/Faced/UFJF in the research field of Discourse, Practices, Ideas, and Subjectivities in Educational Processes, is the unfolding of a research work aimed at problematizing the way medicalizing discourses mark the Western society and cross the construction of male homosexuality in nowadays. The problematizations presented in this thesis are conducted by the Foucauldian consciderations that discourses about sex and sexuality occupy a central role in the production of subjects in Western society, that is, are found in sex "the most secret and profound truths of the individual", and this production of subjects is influenced by medicalization. Using as references the possibilities of analysis of some post-critical theorizations, including gender studies and cultural studies, from post-structuralist perspectives, queer studies, and it approuches with Foucauldian studies inspire, this study used the concept of medicalization to refer to an undefined and crescent process that, nowadays, transfers to the biomedical and phamaceutical science powers those are beyond the treatment of diseases, disorders, or bodily discomforts, in other words, a power that extends to all life. Using as the research field statements from individuals participating in Twitter, this study investigates and, seeks to update, how a construct of abnormality and illness has been (and continues to be) constructed regarding sexual and affective practices between individuals of the same gender. To this end, we invested in discourse analysis inspired by Foucault to problematize the discourses that are presents, through medicalization, contribute to the formation of homosexuality, aiming to examine how certain discourses function as strategic instruments for the normalization of society, particularly shaping the behaviors and conduct of certain male homosexual bodies. With the proposed objectives, this work highlights the significant role of social networks, including Twitter, as powerful machinery for the production of subjects, bodies, and sexualities in contemporary times, a production that occurs through the circulation of discourses and statements facilitated by the proliferation of interaction forms among individuals provided by Twitter and social media platforms in general.