METAPHORS OF DESIRE: STERILIZA TION AS A DEFENSE PROCESS

Abstract

This article consists of a re-reading of the research carried out by Serruya, who investigated the causes and explanations for the decision of women in Belém do Pará regarding surgical sterilization. The author explores, with competence and reasoning, the aspects of medicalization and social and economic restrictions as determinants for decisions about offspring size. It also identifies a paradoxical situation in which small offspring are established as a condition for a woman to be qualified as a good mother. The widespread adherence of Brazilian women to sterilization has attracted the attention of different fields of research. The complex of women's desires related to sexuality, motherhood and contraception, whether through their fulfillment or denial, highlights the rebelliousness in continuing to designate women's cultural destiny, that is, motherhood. The choice for surgical sterilization is a result of the availability of technology in the wide range of healthcare offerings, but its subjective meanings can reveal other aspects of the phenomenon. Women opt for this surgical intervention because they attribute the value of a consumer commodity to the medical procedure. On the other hand, the desire to have her tubes tied and interrupt her fertility is a manifestation of her rebellion against motherhood, breaking with the cultural constructions that determine female social roles. However, when sterilizing themselves, women also reveal the subjectivized desire for castration, related to Freud's concept of fetishism. The plot of women's desire, analyzed in the light of psychoanalysis, relates surgical sterilization to the fetish. Taken as a deviation or as a replacement for desire, fetishism can contribute to understanding the feelings of ambiguity or even regret expressed by many sterilized women.