Breasts for them

masculinity crisis and pharmaco-necropolitics in “Ginecomastos”, by Amara Moira

Abstract

This article analyzes the short story “Ginecomastos”, by Amara Moira, in the light of Paul B. Preciado’s concept of the pharmacopornographic regime and Achille Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics. Starting from the hypothesis that the spread of gynecomastia among “respectable family men” fictionalizes a crisis of hegemonic masculinity in a context of unequal circulation of hormones and desires, this study investigates how the narrative articulates normative male bodies and heavily hormonized travesti bodies within the same clandestine economy of sex and erasure. Methodologically, the article develops a critical-interpretative reading of the story, combining textual analysis and theoretical reflection in the field of contemporary Brazilian literature. It argues that, although the involuntary feminization of male bodies destabilizes the apparent solidity of normative cisheterosexual masculinity, the structural vulnerability of travestis remains unchanged: while male breasts are managed by medicine and the market, transfeminine bodies continue to be subjected to self-medication, precarious labour, unsafe mutilating procedures and institutional silencing. The article concludes that “Ginecomastos” makes visible, through fiction, the asymmetric ways in which risks, care and possibilities of life are distributed, thus contributing to current debates on gender, sexuality and violence in the Brazilian literary system.