Putería, and discourses of whoring in Veracruz, México

This article focuses on discourses of la putería (whoring), a slang and a derogatory term originally associated with prostitution, but now expanding in Poza Rica de Hidalgo and Coatzintla in Mexico to describe working-class mestizos, particularly those who perform transgressive gender/sexual identifications and/or expressions. As a form of humour and gossip practices, la putería acts simultaneously as a tool of policing and resistance. This paper draws on both Roger Lancaster’s landmark ethnographic work in Nicaragua and Donna Goldstein’s work on humour and laughter in Brazil. I take Goldstein’s focus on laughter as a weapon of the weak, and it is applied here to understand how people craft alternative self-making practices of sexuality diversity through humour, and how it is used as a tool to resist gender/sexual policing. It is also suggested that the term la putería is used as a way to police women into being dutiful housewives and respectable women and mothers, and through an analysis of fieldwork data from visits to two hair salons, it is shown how it is also a key feature of sexual diversity world making.