Sexo e sexualidade na velhice: práticas transgressoras e negociadas no contexto amazônico

Abstract

This study assumes the purpose of verifying in what sense the sexuality of old men and old women is produced amid power relations, with special emphasis on the practice of sex negotiated in the city of Parintins, Amazonas. The study responds to a methodological contribution inspired by the dialogical perspective proposed by Morin, which mentions that knowledge is woven together among different disciplines in a network of mutual and articulated conversation. The research locus focuses on the city of Parintins, located in the state of Amazonas. It seeks to analyze the socio-cultural aspects of old age and the poiesis of the life of the old in Parintins, the senses of old age in the field of gender, emphasizing the aspects of masculinity and femininity experienced in the scope of the resignified and manifest sexualities of the old and the old in Parintins. The main results pointed out that old age is a natural and inevitable human condition for all living beings, bearing singularities from the point of view of the senile characteristics, but also, carrying out pluralities in the way the subjects elaborate their lives during this existential condition, delineating experiences in specific sociocultural contexts. This research also reveals that men and women live their old age in different ways taking into account the gender relations that conceive of singularities in the ways of being a man and being a woman in old age and in the ways in which the masculine and feminine genders relate to it same generational condition and with other generations, causing the old man to vehemently deny his own old age in favor of continuing to maintain patriarchal masculinity while the old woman is more flexible in resizing her own sexuality, finding in this moment of life the possibilities of emancipation of being, especially while both enjoy good functional capacity, both physical and cognitive. It is in old age that men and women find the fullness of their sexualities, elaborated in the plane of subjectivity and freedom, trying to relate affectively-sexually with one another when health problems and sexual dysfunctions become more acute, for in this moment of existential condition, they recognize in their like the same community of destiny, old age, and therefore the need to be with someone who shares the same needs for care and affection. The conclusions of this research point out that the sexuality of men and women in the Amazonian context of Parintinense is reaffirmed in old age, giving meaning to human existence, being reworked within the framework of the negotiated relations between genders and generations in which the search for pleasure imposes no limits to their satisfaction.