Different ways of taking care of oneself. How Argentinean gay men negotiate COVID-19 protocols for hooking-up

MARENTES, MAXIMILIANO; PALUMBO, MARIANA; MARONI, ADRIEL

Bath

Congreso; Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) Annual Conference 2022; 2022

Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) / University of Bath

Argentinean?s lockdown and restrictions for COVID-19 Pandemics included different scales of social distancing. Citizens were asked to stay at their homes and to avoid any kind of unessential social interactions by the national government. Despite the rigidity of these means, some people defied authority by arranging different in-person encounters with the aim of hooking-up. In doing so, caring emerged as a combination of plural practices that reframe and reshape the mainstream official discourse. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze those heterogeneous ways of caring among gay men who looked for other men to have sexual intercourses. Based on 11 in-depth interviews with Argentinean gay men ?aged from 22 to 44? living in different cities, we examined how these men renegotiated COVID-19 caring measurements when hooking up during pandemic times. Instead of portraying them as careless, we describe different ways they renegotiated caring and how, in certain situations, they made decisions about what was, and was not, important to care about. Considering those arrangements as tactics and microresistances opposed to the disciplinary official discourse, the description of real care practices that refresh experiences among specific groups are addressed on this communication. It is concluded that it is essential to redefine care and desire as the result of merged and often contradictory practices, in a particular context.