Stories of homoeroticism amongst male ex-combatants of illegal armed groups: Unexplored areas of the armed conflict in Colombia

Available accessResearch articleFirst published online June, 2024

Stories of homoeroticism amongst male ex-combatants of illegal armed groups: Unexplored areas of the armed conflict in Colombia

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Volume 27, Issue 4https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607221124404

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the male homoerotic experiences of ex-combatants from the FARC-EP and ELN guerrillas, as well as paramilitary groups, during their period in these armed groups. For this article, we have used multiple methodological strategies. For the first two stories, we made semi-structured qualitative interviews with ex-combatants. Then, we wrote the narratives collaboratively. For the third story, the anecdote was constructed based on the testimonies of the residents of a municipality of Caldas affected by the armed conflict. The participation of combatants in homoerotic practices and their involvement in romantic relationships with men showed that interpretations and meanings of homosexuality (and heterosexuality) in war contexts can be questioned, since their involvement is related to victimization. In addition, the narratives demonstrated that the meaning of these concepts was fragmented in various directions such as desire, feelings, anxieties, and complicity with the armed logic.

Keywords

Masculinities homoerotism sexuality armed conflict Colombia

Introduction

The Colombian armed conflict is a military confrontation with more than 60 years of history, making it the longest war in Latin America. Its origins date back to the partisan violence of the 40s and 50s of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, it has been a confrontation not only involving rural guerrillas since the 60s, but also paramilitary groups associated with drug trafficking since the 80s. In this complex scenario, different governments have advanced negotiation processes with the armed actors. The most recent Colombian peace agreement was carried out with the guerrilla group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del pueblo—FARC/EP—(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People´s Army). However, its implementation process is going through institutional, budgetary, and social trust issues. In addition, the armed confrontation continues between the Colombian State and the ELN guerrilla, as well as with other paramilitary and drug trafficking groups. So far, the war scenario has left more than 267.565 dead, according to the Observatory of Memory and Conflict (s. f) and 9 million victims, according to the Victims Unit (2021). Furthermore, incalculable losses within society and the national economy.

Colombia is constituted as one of the first countries in the world to consider the victimization of the LGBT population within an armed conflict in a governmental way. This condition is the result of historical particularities focused mainly in the continuity of the conflict during the process of LGBT politicization in the country. Different stakeholders have been involved in this process. For instance, some human rights LGBT organizations, since their beginning in the 2000s, have reported the victimization suffered by this population. Subsequently, the media and academia began to reveal this situation. Those complaints were decisive for the government to start focusing its attention on this reality and promote governmental intervention in this regard. The National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation initiated this institutional commitment, then the Victims and Land Restitution Law (which establishes measures for attention, assistance and integral reparation to the victims of the armed conflict in Colombia) strengthen this perspective. Finally, there has been an attempt to introduce this approach in the implementation of the Peace Agreement signed with the FARC-EP in 2016. Based on the political and legal framework of the Peace Agreement, different government agencies such as the National Center for Historical Memory, the Truth Commission, the Special Jurisdiction and the Unit for the Attention and Integral Reparation of Victims, among others, have attempted to characterize and address the victimization of LGBT populations in the context of the armed conflict.

The armed conflict must be understood, not only in terms of territorial and population control, but also as a power device that produces gender and sexuality in the subjects based on highly regulated spacial-temporal coordinates within a heteronormative framework. On the basis of this statement, this article begins with an analytical framework that integrates two aspects. The first is connected to understanding the war as a device that produces gender and sexuality in subjects (Goldstein, 2003, Moser and Clark, 2001; Núñez and Espinoza, 2016). The second is linked to the notion of “social processes of war” used by Elisabeth Wood. With this expression, the author indicates the transformation of social actors, structures, norms and practices that occur in relation to war in disputed territories and armed groups (Wood, 2010).

The armed conflict constitutes a heteronormative gender and sexual apparatus. The notion of apparatus is taken from Foucault’s and Agamben’s thinking. In this regard, Agamben (2011), in an exegetic exercise on the foucauldian propositions relating to this notion, points out that the apparatus alludes to a heterogenous ensemble made up by discourses, institutions, rulings, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral, and philanthropic propositions. This formation—or ensemble—has a strategic and dominant function in power relations, that is, to direct, block, stabilize, or make use of them (Foucault, 1994). Thus, a heteronormative sexual apparatus points towards an ensemble sheltered in heterosexuality—and it’s supplements: binarism, cisgenderism, chauvinism—as a dominant and strategic standard in a particular social context that produces subjects, identities, relations, consubstantial sex-gender practices, among others.

Regarding the “social processes of war,” war sets up specific ways of assuming and practicing gender and sexuality, which in turn is introduced into the populations that inhabit the disrupted territory and the armed groups (Wood, 2009). Therefore, sexuality becomes another component articulated with war policies and practices. War has been generally represented as an emblematically heterosexual context, where its symbolic constructions and institutional materials—legal and illegal—are built on a heteronormative foundation (CNMH, 2015; Hagen, 2017).

So far, at the international level, considerations about sexualities or sexual practices outside the heterosexual framework in the context of war have focused on three themes. First, the persecution of homosexuals in armed conflicts (Gómez, 2016). Second, the sexual violence against men (Sivakumaran, 2007; Zawati, 2007; Zarkov, 2017). Finally, the recognition of sexual diversity in military institutions in several States (Atuk, 2021; Belkin and Levitt, 2001; Brown and Ayres, 2004; Gutmann and Lutz, 2010). The incursion of the LGBT perspective in the processing of transitional processes has also been recorded (Hagen, 2017; Serrano, 2018; Thylin, 2019). However, its incorporation into disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programs is low (Thylin, 2018).

In Colombia, on the other hand, there are three postulates in the research background (Bouvier, 2016; Caribe Afirmativo, 2019, 2020, 2021; CNMH, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019; Giraldo, 2020; Giraldo and Gallego, 2020; Prada et al., 2012; Serrano, 2018; Thylin, 2018, 2019). The first of these suggests that the armed groups not only seek to impose a political order in the territories, but also a moral order in which gender and sexuality regimes are implicitly integrated. Based on this, as a second main idea, gender identity, sexual orientation, gender expression, and sexual practices become triggers of victimization. As a consequence, those who do not conform to the cis-heteronormative order are the targets of these attacks. Finally, directed victimization of sexual and gender dissidents in the context of armed conflict should be understood as a continuum of violence. In other words, as an act present before, during and after conflict. Nevertheless, in these balances there is still a gap in the research on the ex-combatant population, so it is worth asking how these three postulates are articulated with it.

Reports by the National Center of Historical Memory and the Caribe Afirmativo, as well as some researchers, have warned about this reality within the illegal armies. However, they have insisted on the lack of knowledge on the subject (Caribe Afirmativo, 2019, 2020, 2021; CNMH, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019; Giraldo and Gallego, 2020; Thylin, 2018, 2019). The few research reports are generally limited to scenarios of sexual practices, referring to homoerotic encounters and sexual aggressions as occasional, sporadic, or momentary escapes of combatants or ex-combatants. Other references focus on the reincorporation processes and the sexual and gender transformations of ex-combatants when they leave the armed forces. The authority of war, on the one hand, and the power of a heteronormative sexual regime, on the other, have silenced any trace of homosexuality in warfare, especially in the combatants themselves.

With this work, we aim to present the homoerotic experiences of three ex-combatants from the FARC-EP, ELN guerrillas, and paramilitary groups during their active periods in these armed groups. The participation of combatants in homoerotic practices and their involvement in romantic relationships with men, among other testimonies taken from the stories, reveal little-known records and unexplored areas of the armed conflict in Colombia. Based on these narratives, the interpretations and meanings of homosexuality (and heterosexuality) in war contexts can be questioned, recognizing the porosity, fragility, and historicity of our theoretical-conceptual constructions in the field of sexuality, identity, and gender, as pointed out by Jonatan Katz (1995) and the developments of queer theory (Goldberg, 2016; Warner, 2011). In addition, the narratives demonstrated that the meaning of these concepts was fragmented into various paths such as desire, feelings, anxieties, and complicity with armed logic.

Materials and methods

According to the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization figures, between 2001 and 2019, 75.225 people have deserted from illegal armed groups in Colombia. Of these people, 64,022 were identified as men and 11,202 as women. Regarding the groups, 36.370 people had been part of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia—AUC—(United Self-Defense of Colombia); 19.927 are demobilized from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del pueblo—FARC/EP—(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People´s Army); 13.511 are demobilized within the framework of the Final Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict with this group now called Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común (Revolutionary Alternative Force of the Common); 4849 were from the Ejército de Liberación Nacional—ELN—(National Liberation Army) and 567 from other groups.

Despite these figures, there is a lack of knowledge about the LGBT population in armed groups. While there is an inscription of the LGBT population in the Unified Registry of Victims (2022), documenting that out of 9.294.225 victims in general, 4.352 are LGBT (May 2022), there is no clear balance in terms of the ex-combatant population. The Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization has incorporated some questions about sexual orientation and gender identity based on certain dimensions. Nevertheless, they are not reliable sources to know a specific number of LGBT ex-combatants. War as a device of power and authority, on the one hand, and the power of a heteronormative sexual regime, on the other, has hidden the traces of homosexuality in the armed conflict, especially of its combatants. In general, the methodology of this research brings a set of initiatives that are not reduced to a specific strategy. This fact is due to the particular conditions faced when approaching sexual and gender diversity in the ex-combatant population, mainly the general silence and the lack of records for its study. Because of this research, we are now aware that the traces of homosexuality in war are scattered in different formats that are present in various social registers. Therefore, the methodological approach must be multifaceted, founded on a hermeneutic perspective.

For this article, we used multiple methodological strategies. For the first two stories, we made a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews that were conducted with two ex-combatants of the FARC-EP guerrilla, Felipe and La Diva. We performed five virtual interviews (2 hours each) with each of these two participants during the year 2020 (virtuality due to Covid-19). Our contact with La Diva was achieved thanks to other researchers. Later, La Diva helped us contacting Felipe. In these interviews, we talk about the experience in the armed group by analyzing their sexual and sentimental experiences in depth. These men, who recognize themselves as gay or maricas,¹ were part of the armed group. Felipe as a combatant in the bush for 20 years, and La Diva as militiaman in the cities for 10 years.

Secondly, we wrote the narratives collaboratively. At the beginning, we started writing the stories based on the testimonies of the first interviews. It is important to mention that the transcriptions are not very detailed because the interviews were not recorded. We used the notes made during the interviews. This first document was shared with them so that they could read it, comment on it, and complement it in the following virtual session. Felipe and La Diva deleted some phrases, changed words, remembered other dates, proposed names for the characters, among other things. They edited this based on their preferences and memories. However, they were respectful of war surveillance since there is information they cannot make public. Lastly, we complemented each story with all this new information. As a result of this collaborative process, the narratives were a writing challenge given the complexity of the ex-combatant’s jargon and our academic style as researchers.

For the third story, the strategy was different. Between 2016 and 2018, we did fieldwork in different municipalities of the department of Caldas, Colombia, in the framework of research work on LGBT victims of the armed conflict. One of the municipalities where we conducted the study was Samaná, where Mauricio’s story takes place. The narrative was constructed from the testimonies of several residents of the town. Some testimonies emerged in interviews and others amid colloquial conversations and rumors in state offices, bars, brothels, and the streets where Mauricio lived during the period of armed conflict in the municipality (1990–2000). The rumors, gossips, secrets, confessions, and stories about him shape the reconstruction of the personality of a man who was undoubtedly powerful in the village. Moreover, Mauricio´s participation in the armed group allowed him to have a sexual and sentimental experience with other men. This situation aggravated the moral order of the municipality and of the war itself.

The whole process of the stories’ construction, based on multiple field research and interview strategies, went through a process of reflexivity understood as, using Poviani’s (2018) terminology, the capacity to “think about what you’re doing,” the research and the subject of that research, the sociocultural conditions that have a bearing on the final constructed text, debating our place in the narrations marked by our own sexual orientations and gender identities; in other words, giving a “more open and problematic account of a process of intersubjective (…) discovery between the investigator and the subjects being studied” (Guber, 2014: 16). We must point out that the entire research protocol and the interview guidelines were approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Caldas in Colombia.

Results

The Goblin and the night

When he woke up, Felipe opened the tent and saw what appeared to be the remains of a campfire. At first, he did not pay too much attention to it because the image might be a product of his somnolence. The tents were individual compartments for the combatants to rest, while others guarded the camp. When he was finally fully awake, and the cold of the mountain seeped into his body, he realized that the bonfire was not just an image. Its black and grayish embers appeared in front of his eyes. What Felipe found strange was that he remembered perceiving the bonfire at dawn and, between sleep and consciousness, he thought he saw the sparkles. Nevertheless, sleep won him over once more, and neither the creaking of the timbers and logs disturbed him.

When he met with his comrades, he told them what had happened, and they mischievously suggested that it had been a goblin. That the bonfires in the middle of the mountains were a sign of the wanderings of these specters. When Felipe asked the night watchmen about the bonfire he verified his hypothesis, the guards light a fire at all during the night or in the early morning, and had not seen any either. He was too cowardly for these types of stories; while the story about the goblin could be an invention, there was a possibility that it might be real. Felipe took advantage of the situation and, in front of the group, said to one of them: “Because you made up this story, tonight you have to get with me.”

The context in the camps of the FARC-EP was becoming so virile that none of them suspected the flirtation that was seeping into that phrase. For the rest of the members, it was a simple phrase, but for Felipe and his companion, it was straight up flirting. The flirtation camouflaged amidst weapons, rough uniforms, and guerrilla virility. The military strategy of encrypted codes and languages was also twisted not only for military purposes, but also to incite encounters between comrades. It had been a clear message, also a declaration of Felipe’s desire for the goblin inventor.

The flirtation had not been in vain, Felipe had already analyzed the situation. The looks and the attitude of his partner indicated to him that something could happen between them. Felipe loved his full red lips and his brown to blackish mustache, they were his fixation. The possible encounter had to be hurried, because his companion was a military freighter and in a few days, he would move on. Military freighters carried food, ammunition, and weapons to other military fronts. The flirting freighter carried his parcels on mules due to the complex geography. According to Felipe, they were in a hole which took a whole day to reach it if they were going downhill, but if they were going uphill, the delay was half a day longer.

As night fell, the meeting between Felipe and the freighter drew nearer. Night and sleep in the mountains came early. The darkness and weather conditions caused people to seek the tents’ warmth at 8:00 p.m. The lookout shifts had been scheduled, each of them had to guard for 2 hours, and the freighter had to do so from 2:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. The watches were done alone, for it was a very small group of only 10 comrades. Felipe smoothly made his way to the freighter’s tent and entered it to "protect himself from the goblin."

The wait was over, they were, face to face, pressing their lips together. It all started with a game of hands and laughter. The shyness, confused with the anxiety of the moment, agitated their breaths and gave way to the rubbing of their torsos and virile limbs. Kisses and nudity came little by little. The debauchery was so great that they reached orgasms five times. They “made it,” Felipe said, as if it was never going to happen again. They took advantage of all the conditions that had been provided, they did not know when they might see each other again, when they might meet another lover again, or when they would again have the confabulation of the night and the forest. The fear of being discovered was intertwined with their sexual desire, and that mixture was precisely the most thrilling component. The dose of prohibition and lust made that night a special evening. The noise of the mountains and the darkness were their accomplices; no one could see them, and the sound of their moans was lost in the wind. The warmth of their bodies was their best company. At 2 a.m., as scheduled, the freighter went on his watch. He went to take care of their comrades, leaving Felipe alone in the tent. That is how the night ended.

Although Felipe had only been with the guerrillas for 8 months, he already knew the consequences of this encounter. He was aware that if they were caught, they could even be court-martialed, because gay men were not welcome in the group. However, the only plot that night was carried out by them, and the only indications of what happened were their secretions splashed on military garments. That night, the goblin had not come to scare anyone, he had come to escort the meeting of two lovers.

The Chief of “Sarabomba”

After a hard day’s work, La Diva and his friends (who were members of the FARC-EP) went out for a few beers to an afterhours club in "Sarabomba" which had a certain rural feel to it. "Sarabomba" is how they called the municipality of Saravena, a place located in the plains of Arauca and historically disputed between armed groups and the State, although the armed groups have governed longer. Petroleum exploitation and the border with Venezuela have made of this territory important for economic and political projects, initially for the guerrillas such as the ELN and the FARC-EP, and now for paramilitary groups.

In “Sarabomba,” land of all people, the community had become accustomed to living amidst a tense calm. There, people were necessarily part of one of the groups, but in the end, all of them lived under the premise of war. Any place or situation was always permeated by the presence of one of the armed groups. A member of any group was invested as a “delegate” in any given situation, and he was not just another neighbor with whom you chat or have a beer. However, this designation, which was often underlined, was sometimes blurred depending on the circumstances.

The afterhours club was a large room under a thatched roof with a bar at the back, where drinks were sold. There were also tables spread out without any particular order. When La Diva and his friends arrived, they settled near the entrance and saw another table occupied further back. At the beginning, the group of friends thought it was another batch of males with whores. After a few minutes of remaining in the bar, they realized that those at that table were members of the ELN: one of them was a boss -a commander-, with his two bodyguards plus two women. At first, the situation was tense, but then, as the night continued, it normalized.

After several beers, La Diva went out to smoke in the back of the main hall, a secluded outdoor area next to a stable. Suddenly, the boss from the other table appeared, and his body became cold at the thought that he might be in danger. Confronting the situation head on, La Diva continued to smoke his cigarette in a feminine way, as he always did. In that moment, the movement of his hand, the path of the cigarette to his mouth, his exaltation and the position of his body simulated a Hollywood diva smoking. He had achieved this performance with great dedication and sometimes liked to integrate something new into it. At the same time, he knew such staging could be detrimental to him, but he also sensed deep down that it could generate certain attraction. The commander broke the silence and asked if he could buy a cigarette from him, and La Diva immediately answered: “I don’t sell, I’m not a prostitute, if you want one I’ll give it to you.” La Diva’s unexpected response was taken by the commander as a representation of bravery. After finishing the smoke, the commander said goodbye and thrusted his hand to La Diva’s buttock. The commander’s pretensions of power made him mark bodies and territories, and La Diva had not been an exception.

The commander returned to his lair surrounded by bodyguards and prostitutes, the former concerned about their corpulence while the latter about their sexual reputation. La Diva returned to “the birdcage” lair, although not everyone was gay. His myopia problems did not allow him to notice if there were glances coming from the commander’s table, whether the sexual tension inaugurated by him was being fed. Finally, the alcohol had begun to take effect and none of the tables were ready to end the night.

La Diva headed back to the makeshift smoking area in hopes or fear of an announced visit. As she expected, the commander also returned. He asked him again for a cigarette even though the establishment sold them. The cigarette had become the excuse to give way to the moment of complicity, where the commander’s desire and power mixed with the fascination and anguish of La Diva. Therefore, the complicity created amid the warlike atmosphere of Sarambomba appeared in those small moments where anxiety was camouflaged by the flirtation of two men. La Diva’s striking pose still accompanied her, but now with drinks in his head. The same happened to the commander who made him an invitation, regardless of the bar’s audience: “See you in 15 min in the bathroom.”

La Diva didn’t know if it was an invitation or an order, whether to dream about the suggestion or to worry about the mess he might have gotten himself into it. For 15 min, the balance of the decision balanced between debauchery and caution. Finally, neither the cigarette nor the alcohol were enough to determine him to go. Currently, although he still thinks about the bathroom date, he believes it was the best decision. The chief was precisely one of those in charge of commanding the war in the region.

The tenant of Samaná

Mauricio had been a rumored person the town rumored about in Samaná due to his secret homosexuality and participation in paramilitary groups. Samaná is a municipality located in the Cordillera Central of Colombia, historically inhabited by several armed groups. The FARC-EP guerrillas held power in the area for more than 20 years, until the paramilitary groups arrived in the late 1990s. In whispers, people rumored that Mauricio had brought the paramilitaries to the village. During those years, there was profound violence and the numbers of homicides, massacres, disappearances, and forced displacement swell the current balance sheet of the armed conflict in the region.

Mauricio had been a well-known person in the community, one who had deviated, getting involved in paramilitary groups and his taste for men. It was said that from a very young age he had become attracted to muscular young and old men, a common prototype in the Colombian coffee region. The rumor was that he had relationships with various men, but only the stories with three of them are remembered: El Mono Papitas, El Sardino, and El Guerrillero. The truth is that it was difficult to escape these rumors. As they say in Colombia: “Small town, big hell.”

The gossip about the sexual adventures of the inhabitants became an excuse for the stalking and surveillance of the war. Mauricio did not spend much time in the municipality, his warfare responsibilities kept him in town only for two or 3 days at a time. At the beginning, he stayed in hotels, but later he asked his friend "El Mono Papitas" to rent him a room. For some months, he stayed in the rented room when he went to Samaná, where the after parties were always drowned in an atmosphere of money and alcohol.

In the municipality, rumors about Mauricio’s links with paramilitary groups were stronger than his relationship with “El Mono Papitas,” so people advised the latter to finish his relationship with the former. At first, El Mono paid no attention to these comments; however, the violence in the village worsened and the danger of continuing with Mauricio increased. Consequently, El Mono decided not to continue with Mauricio and not to rent him the room anymore.

A few weeks later, Mauricio began to walk the streets with another of his “conquests.” Now he was not with a mature man, he was walking with a young and athletic young man who came from one of the high mountain trails. Everyone began to make up stories about the couple. They said that they lived together near the police station. The reality was that it did not matter how close or far Mauricio was from the police, because generally the people in this institution and the army were allies of paramilitary action.

People always assumed that Mauricio’s life would be short, as it was known that paramilitary life was short-lived. Mauricio’s life of crime, along with his taste for alcohol and partying, began to take its toll. He was everyone’s friend, always inviting everyone to beers and bottles of aguardiente. Although people were fond of him, they also came to fear him, because in the end he did turn out to be a paramilitary leader. One day at 9:00 p.m., he was shot while walking across town with a young man. Both men tried to run. They managed to run a few blocks, but Mauricio could not hold on and fell, his body collapsed right next to the "Divine Child" sculpture. Coincidence or not, there he found some spiritual protection for his death. The young man continued running and was able to take refuge in the police headquarters. It is said that that same night, the police officers helped him flee town.

Mauricio’s funeral was attended by very few people, even thought he was both loved and hated by the community. Going to his funeral was a risk that a few dared to take. War deaths were confined to an astonishing loneliness. The funerals of combatants and that of the victims themselves were also battlefields. If one went to the funeral of the other, he or she immediately became an enemy of the warring armies. Sometimes, not even the relatives themselves could accompany their dead. Among the few attendees at the funeral was an older man who attracted everyone’s attention, his name was Faber but he was nicknamed “El Guerrillero.” People said that they were lovers. Against all odds, he did not mind making a fuss and crying loudly for Mauricio. Amid his grief he shouted: "You killed my boy!".

Discussion

The stories of Felipe, La Diva, and Mauricio serve as a backdrop to discuss the articulation between homoeroticism and the armed conflict. The wars, the armed groups—legal and illegal—and soldiers are conceived under apparently rigid gender and sexual politics, under certain male and virile performances and with a predisposition towards heterosexuality; in the creases of this war, certain demonstrations which transgress these formats are revealed. From these stories, we can analyze homoeroticism in the context of war in four directions: first, in relation to the production of militarized masculinities; second, on how the institutionality of armed groups integrates, in paradoxical ways, sexuality between men; third, in terms of daily life, alluding to the ways armed groups and the communities coexisted with these realities; and fourth, around the violence produced amid homoerotic relationships.

With regards to militarized masculinities, the presence of homoeroticism in the territories and within the fighting armies challenges the notion of militarized masculinity and puts it under pressure. According to Basham (2016) whilst heterosexuality may be the norm in state militaries, “homoeroticism [has played] a long-standing part in the military bonding experience, and victimization in contexts of armed confrontation.” In principle, thinking of male combatants with homoerotic practices may not fit into the construction of a militarized masculinity, as heterosexuality emerges as the dominant narrative of the armed forces (Atuk, 2021; Ahlbäck and Kivimäki, 2008; Croce, 2021; Duncanson, 2009, 2015; Hinojosa, 2010).

However, the works of various authors (Caribe Afirmativo, 2019; Payne, 2016; Thylin, 2019) has uncovered the contradiction within the armed groups in Colombia generated by the presence of men like the "cacorros,” men who have sexual encounters with other men only “actively” and strongly underlining their masculinity to avoid losing their masculine and heterosexual status. In the end, what’s important is his insurgent or counterinsurgent duty, and this premise created tolerant frameworks so that these men were not stigmatized (Dietrich, 2015). We are deeply impressed by the fact that the classification systems based on sexual orientation and gender identities experienced by these men who practiced a militarized masculinity in war contexts are more fluid and are full of creases and fissures. Likewise, in these experiences, the homosexual experiences do not classify the subject in a preset category. This has been an issue noted by various authors who address homoeroticism between men in Latin America (Cáceres, 1999; Lancaster, 1988; Parker, 1998)

Regarding the institutional framework of the military in the illegal armed groups, homoeroticism is integrated paradoxically. While homosexuality is prohibited in normative terms, there is a certain laxity in the face of certain homoerotic scenarios. In terms of homosexuality, specifically, controls vary between the different armed groups. The National Center for Historical Memory, in the report Aniquilar la diferencia (2015), provides a hypothesis; guerrilla groups were more watchful of homosexuality within their lines but were more lax in relation to the communities, while paramilitary groups exercised more control on the population than with their own men. This premise is evidenced by the stories; Felipe, La Diva, and the ELN commander had to cover up their encounters, while Mauricio—who belonged to a paramilitary group—had courtships and relationships with other men. This hypothesis is mainly founded on their military structures: while in the guerillas the high ranks were more unified and with stronger hierarchies, paramilitary control was more disperse. Nonetheless, as shown in the stories, erotic, sexual, and sentimental practices emerged between men combatants.

The FARC-EP camps, despite there being a considerable participation of women (making up between 20%–30% of the ranks) and the cohabitation of paramilitary members—who were mostly men—were, in some sense, favorable contexts for erotization (Basham 2016; Croce 2021), for example, matters like high homosociability amongst men (Atuk, 2021), the exaltation of the athletic body, nudity while showering o sharing beds. Meanwhile, homoeroticism is a privilege of power in the military hierarchies. Commanders or those in a place of power can take advantage of their positions to have access to sexual encounters. Mauricio and the ELN commander both took advantage of their position in the armed group to advance their sexual conquests, but also to assume their sexuality in front of a community. For this reason, homoeroticism is not contrary to military institutions, both legal and illegal, but an element concealed by their own sexual policies. Within certain limits, homoeroticism is possible and sometimes even encouraged by military rituals (Basham 2016), strategies and hierarchies.

Regarding the third point, daily life, authors like Das (2006) and Wood (2010) have insisted on the importance of focusing on the social relations and the subjects produced by violence; to look at this violence emerging in daily life. Daily life in the guerrilla camps was marked by a strict control of schedules, chores, and relations between comrades. Sentimental and sexual relationships were also controlled: there was a tacit prohibition of homosexuality and having couples, and heterosexual intercourse had to be authorized by the commanders and had to be done during specific dates and times. These controls notwithstanding, homoeroticism seeped into de ranks. The looks between combatants, the insinuating remarks within group conversations which was in fact undercover flirting between comrades, and the cases of secret sexual encounters are an example of this. Some authors have pointed out that contexts of armed conflict or high violence rates have an impact in the dynamics of sexual encounters and coupling, particularly in LGBT populations (Cruz 2015; Giraldo and Gallego, 2020); that these populations, being stigmatized, must resort to anonymity and suspicion. The cases of Felipe and La Diva are evidence of this, they had to resort to undercover strategies, intrigue, and conspiracy to be able to flirt and have sex, strategies that are actually part of standard military intelligence.

With regards to the daily community life. The people of Samaná cohabited with Mauricio, and they not only knew of his sexual relations with other men, but they also knew of his participation in the war as a paramilitary commander. He not only had sporadic homoerotic encounters, but in fact had couples and lived with them, which is considered a greater transgression. According to the reports of the organization Caribe Afirmativo (2019, 2020, 2021) delivered to the Truth Comission and the reports of the National Center of Historical Memory (2015, 2017, 2018, 2019), communities were accomplices—and sometimes participants—of the violence against LGTB communities in the regions most affected by the armed conflict. However, from these stories we are able to reveal that the communities also integrated, in paradoxical ways, people, situations or practices related to homoerotism and homosexuality. In war’s daily life, pacts were cautiously made between combatants and the people, even if these arrangements transgressed local gender and sexual mechanisms or those from the armed groups themselves; more so when the protagonists of these transgressions were high ranking officers, like in the case of Mauricio.

Finally, regarding violence, it is necessary to ask ourselves about its reproduction during homoerotic encounters between combatants. As pointed out by Domínguez (2015), the exercise of violent sexuality is a central element in the configuration of models of masculinity in violent contexts. Virility, hypersexuality, physical and sexual competence associated to male combatants are exalted and persecuted in homoeroticism between men; not only in contexts of war, but also outside of them. Therefore, certain homoerotic encounters during the armed conflict, more than a search for sexual pleasure, are also about the exhibition of virile and aggressive masculinity, like in the case of the ELN commander: his comments and invitations had a commanding tone and his touching of La Diva’s behind was not consented.

Conclusion

The stories and reflections presented throughout this article on homoeroticism between ex-combatants from guerrilla and paramilitary groups in Colombia allow us to consider two factors. First, that the studies about gender and sexual politics in the contexts of armed conflicts need to go beyond a victimization approach and understand that homoeroticism or homosexuality were also articulated in complex ways with horizons of desire, feelings, anxiety, and complicity amongst combatants and the armed forces themselves. Secondly, that homoeroticism in contexts of war reproduces some characteristics of war itself: violence, ciphered language, secrecy, hiding, and military hierarchy.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the group of ex-combatants for sharing these historical events and the people who contributed with their testimonies in Mauricio´s story.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

Sebastián Giraldo Aguirre carries out his research thanks to the CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) doctoral scholarship from Brazil. Gabriel Gallego Montes was financially supported by the University of Caldas and the National University of Colombia, Manizales, for the research project: “Dissident sexualities and gender identities in the context of the Colombian armed conflict: 1985–2015, a contribution to memory and peacebuilding”.

Note

Sebastian Giraldo Aguirre is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology and Institute of Gender Studies—PAGU—at University of Campinas (Brazil). His academic interests are sexuality, masculinities, war and transitional process. In his doctoral dissertation, he explores the gender and sexual politics in armed conflict in Colombia, studying the LGBT victims and ex-combatants of illegal armed groups. Their papers have been published in different countries such as Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile.

Gabriel G Montes is a PhD researcher in the Gender and Sexuality Observatory and Family Department at Caldas University (Colombia). His academic interests are sexuality, gender and masculinities, family and diversity. Their papers have been published in different countries such as Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil. Now, his research is focused on sexual violence against men in the armed conflict in Colombia.

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