Carne Cruda Podcast · La República Independiente de la Radio

Derroteros: Tener pluma, con Sabina Urraca (CARNE CRUDA EXTRA)

April 10, 2026·38 min·3 clips

Sabina Urraca explains why she chose to discuss 'tener pluma,' starting with a childhood memory of her aunt's gifted pen.

1. Carne Cruda Extra's 'Derroteros' series features writer Sabina Urraca thinking aloud on a chosen topic; this episode is on 'pluma' — camp, flamboyant, or stereotypically queer presentation. 2. The host and Urraca are the only speakers; no external guests appear. 3. Urraca's topic was prompted by a childhood memory of her bisexual aunt Lucía's gay friends giving her a feather pen with the joke 'since you don't have pluma, we give you ours,' and a later memory of her mother asking why gay men 'imitate women.' 4. She defines pluma as gestural and vocal traits typically coded as feminine that appear in men, and notes the parallel 'pluma bollo' (lesbian camp) is less commonly named. 5. She surveys terminology across Spanish-speaking countries: 'se le moja la canoa' in Venezuela, 'se le quema el arroz' in Chile, 'pato' or 'kundango' in Cuba, 'fleto' in Chile, 'mariposón' in Ecuador, 'hueco' in Honduras, and 'puto ojoto' in Mexico, among others. 6. In English she notes the overlap between 'camp' as aesthetic style and 'to be camp' as a description of flamboyance, along with 'effeminate,' 'sissy,' 'flamboyant,' 'out and proud,' and 'fantabulous.' 7. She mentions Chilean writer Pedro Lemebel's novel 'Tengo miedo torero' as an example of writing with pluma: using the words 'marifrunzi,' 'mariflor,' 'coliflor,' and 'colibrí' playfully for gay men. 8. She describes artwork 'Ejercicios de Medición sobre el Movimiento Amanerado' by Manu Arregui — a seven-screen video installation that attempts to create a scientific system for measuring 'effeminate' body movement, ending by defining it as a 'body conduct inappropriate to the community.' 9. She connects pluma to Mannerism in art history — the exaggerated, rule-breaking style that emerges when classical forms reach their limit — and notes both kitsch and camp are heightened in economic and social crises, at which points plumofobia also intensifies. 10. A University of Granada study, 'Heteroasintomáticos,' examined plumofobia in gay dating apps and found that gay men increasingly describe themselves as 'heterosexual' or 'straight with a girlfriend' on Grindr to signal they have no camp presentation. 11. The researchers wrote to these users prompting reflection on internal discrimination; almost none engaged, with approximately two users out of many willing to discuss it. 12. Urraca links this trend to the rise of Vox support among young Spanish men and argues that 'hetero' on a gay profile is a mask built over an already constructed identity — a 'hyper-hypermasculine construction on top of another.' 13. She traces the history of butch–femme couples from 1910–1950: women who wore dresses at work but shirts, ties, and trousers at weekends; the 1950 generation of butch women who rejected the double life and wore suits full-time, sheltered from public exposure within the visual logic of a 'normal' couple. 14. She quotes Judith Butler that butch and femme are not imitations of heterosexual roles but distinct genders in themselves; and cites historian Joan Nestle on the same point. 15. Oscar Wilde's 1895 sodomy trial is noted as the historical moment when effeminate mannerisms became socially linked to homosexuality in public imagination — before then, many did not 'have a gay radar' for him. 16. Argentine poet and anthropologist Néstor Perlongher is discussed at length: his fear in the 1980s that the medicalisation of AIDS and normalisation of gay identity would destroy the disruptive 'locaza' (flamboyant queer) culture and replace it with a boring American-style gay married couple. 17. She quotes Paul Preciado that both heterosexuality and homosexuality are political fictions — medical-juridical discourses of normalisation — and Monique Wittig's argument that 'lesbians are not women' because 'woman' is a category created by compulsory heterosexuality. 18. The Polari language — a covert blend of Italian, Romani, sailor slang, and circus jargon used by UK gay men when homosexuality was illegal — is introduced and given examples, including 'omi palone' (gay man), 'nanti palar' (no money), and 'fantabulosa.' 19. The episode closes with a passage from Perlongher's poem 'Miché' and a recommendation of the book 'Hembras' by Lucy Cook, which dismantles the image of passive female animals derived from Darwin's misogynist-inflected theory of sexual selection. 20. Listeners interested in gender studies, queer theory, linguistics, or Spanish literary culture will find this episode dense with ideas; listeners seeking narrative storytelling or political analysis will find it more abstract.

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