Leisure and homosexuality: an ethnographic study on sport associativism of women, in the context of a so-called male sport

Abstract

This study seeks to understand the sport associativism of women in the context of a so-called male sport. It is an ethnographic research on a female indoor soccer team from the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil. Aiming to understand how and why women associate to practice a sport socially considered masculine, we acknowledged that the studied associativism is connected to the pleasure of the practice and to homosexuality. We identified an heterogeneity on the way of living the sport and realized that, in that universe, homosexuality is lived, but its visibility is administered; we also observed that the studied sportive context is constituted of a space of private leisure where homosexuality is accepted, making it a privileged space for homosexual women to spend their moments of leisure.