Soldiers to fight, workers to progress, heterosexuals to procreate

the nefarious sin in front of manhood in the "Cancionero Folklórico de México"

Abstract

When someone says “Mexican man” it’s easy to think of a charro in love with several children, a conception  that, although it seems to date way back in time, it was coined in the early twentieth century. The Cancionero Folklórico de México, a project led by Margit Frenk, gives an account in its five volumes of that ideal subject and his expression and representation through couplets and songs. However, among the nearly 10,000 registered couplets, 20 slipped in that are neither love songs nor heterosexual men its protagonists and refer to what at the time would be colloquially called “faggotry”. These twenty couplets in volume IV, speak in a mocking tone, rather than a sinful one, about sexual flirtations and encounters between men and how it is that, even in intercourse between men, masculinity is the one that dominates. Therefore, a dichotomy is posed between the virtues of men and the vices of non-men.