Para além das grades: as interfaces da sexualidade em um centro de atendimento socioeducativo feminino na Paraíba

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to analyze the experiences of adolescents who carry out socio-educational measures in a closed environment, especially related to gender issues and expressions of sexuality within the scope of the female socio-educational unit. To this end, interviews were carried out with adolescents who were serving measures in a closed environment at the Rita Gadelha socio-educational unit linked to the “Alice de Almeida” Child and Adolescent Development Foundation (FUNDAC) in the city of João Pessoa-PB. The methodological path, in more detail, was constituted from field research and data collection through semi-structured interviews, with four adolescents who were in a situation of deprivation of liberty at the time of the research. Data analysis was based on Michel Foucault's genealogical reflections and the gender perspective. In this sense, this study made it possible to trace the sociodemographic profile of the interlocutors, understand how socio-educational measures in a closed environment are effective, when dealing with sexuality and analyze, based on their experiences, how they deal with expressions of sexuality in the context of deprivation of freedom. The research, therefore, focused on issues of gender and sexuality in the socio-educational process. In dialogue with the Foucauldian perspective, gender studies and the narratives of adolescents selected by the punitive socio-educational system, we present that the inviolability of the exercise of sexuality found in the field of deprivation of freedom is a result of relations of power and control of bodies, of silence in legal regulations, as well as, due to univocal conceptions regarding sex/gender/sexuality. Such relationships are perpetrated by a cultural matrix, nourished by taboos and common sense, which finds fertility in the socio-educational context, a space in which racist structures become evident, stigmas amplify, exclusion and denial of rights materialize. In this way, we identified that in the Brazilian socio-educational system, the right to exercise sexuality is not included in the list of priorities, being of a secondary order and far from being guaranteed and implemented as a fundamental human right, showing the contradictions present between the “advances ” laws and the maintenance of punitive technologies, which meets the hegemonic heterocisnormative model. In this scenario, the main violations identified consist of the unfeasibility of rights related to the exercise of sexuality, such as affective-love relationships, intimacy, privacy, intimate visits, the maintenance of punishments, the control of bodies and with regard to intersectional inequalities. However, we highlight the appearance of loving affection present in family visits that promote a less hostile environment. In this sense, we seek to record the social experiences of our interlocutors, considering the daily experiences and stigmas that permeate “being a woman” within the scope of fulfilling socio-educational measures in a closed environment.