Puta Politics / Putapolítica: The Innovative Political Theories and Protest Praxis of Putas

Puta activist Gabriela Leite cites a line from Manuel Bandeira’s poem “Poética” in one of her first writings about politics, published in 1991 in the Brazilian Prostitute Network’s newspaper, Beijo da rua. Reflecting on a failed protest against a rule prohibiting US Navy officers from visiting sex workers at the Praça Maua (and sex workers’ more creative and pragmatic way of dealing with it by simply moving their work to other areas of the city), she calls on the movement to harness fluid, diverse, and complex forms of activism. The chapter draws on more than a decade of activism and ethnographic research on the Brazilian sex worker movements, discussing puta politics as an attempt to capture the innumerable rhythms of puta subjectivity and activism in Brazil. It also traces how whores have mobilized their subjectivities, bodies, allies, and political know-how to draw attention to state abuses and societal stigmas.