Sexualizing youth: Morality campaigns and representations of youth in early 1960s Buenos Aires

Journal of the History of Sexuality

Volumn 14, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 433-461

  Manzano, Valeria ^a  

^a INDIANA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33750538245     PISSN: 10434070     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/sex.2006.0041     Document Type: Review

References (148)

1. For the Frondicist conceptions of modernization see Carlos Altamirano, Bajo el signo de las masas, 1943-1973 (Buenos Aires, 2001), 62-102;
2. for the initial engagement of intellectual youth with Frondicism see Oscar Terán, Nuestros años sesenta (Buenos Aires, 1988).
3. See Andrea Giunta, Vanguardia, internationalismo y política: Arte argentino en los sesenta (Buenos Aires, 2000);
4. the reception of the "new generation" in cinema was more ambivalent; see Simon Feldman, La generation del sesenta (Buenos Aires, 1990)
5. and Gustavo Castagna, "La generación del sesenta: Paradojas de un mito," in Cine argentino: La otra historia, ed. Sergio Wolf (Buenos Aires, 1994).
6. In 1959 the recently expanded local TV station began to broadcast a weekly program called Historias de Jóvenes (Tales of Youths) in which "authentic problems of the authentic youth" were to be treated. In the late 1950s appeared Claudia, a new magazine geared to the "new female," especially to teenage and young girls. The TV and the recording industry shared efforts to create the so-called New Wave of pop singers.
7. Sergio Pujol, La década rebelde: Los sesenta en Argentina (Buenos Aires, 2001);
8. Alejandro Cattaruzza, "Un mundo por hacer. Una propuesta para el análisis de la cultura juvenil en la Argentina de los años setenta," Entrepasados 4, no. 2 (Winter 1997): 103-15.
9. María del Carmen Feijoo and Marcela Nari, "Women in Argentina during the 1960s," Latin American Perspectives 23, no. 1 (Winter 1996);
10. Karina Felitti, "El placer de elegir: Anticoncepción y liberación sexual en la década del sesenta," in Historic de las mujeres en Argentina, vol. 2, ed. Fernanda Gil Lozano, Valeria Pita, and Maria Gabriela Ini (Buenos Aires, 2000), 155-70.
11. This general trend is also central to the study of other Latin American cases in the 1960s, which has focused mostly on the emergence of visible youthful subcultures or countercultures. See, for instance, Eric Zolov, Re-Fried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture (Berkeley, 1999);
12. Christopher Dunn, Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture (Chapel Hill, 2001).
13. It is noteworthy that Zolov and Dunn briefly touch on the general representations of youth in both contexts during the early 1960s and assert that there was a tendency toward identifying youth with social and cultural modernization, as was the case in Argentina. Nonetheless, for other contexts there are some special studies on discourses on youth in the early 1960s. Louise Mary Adams, for instance, brilliantly analyzes the discursive production of youth in postwar Canada, emphasizing that youth became the site on which successive regulations of "normal" sexuality took place; see her The Trouble with Normal: Postwar Youth and the Making of Heterosexuality (Toronto, 1997).
14. With the exception of Karina Felitti, who briefly depicts the 1966 campaign, even though based on a single article of a contemporary magazine, historians barely mention them.
15. This proliferation was not exceptional. It was part of a general concern with the emergence of youth as a new cultural and social subject worldwide. During the early 1960s in Germany, England, and Italy, for instance, journals on "youth and society" began to be published by different universities. In 1965 Latin America celebrated the first conference on childhood and youth and development under the auspices of the United Nations, where delegates from all countries demonstrated a preoccupation mostly with increasing teenagers' education levels. See Infância e juventude na desenvolvimento nacional na América Latina. Informe na Conferência na Santiago de Chile, 1965 (Rio de Janeiro, 1965).
16. Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley, 1992), chap. 2.
17. La Nación, 20 October 1960.
18. La Prensa, 3 November 1960.
19. Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Danger in Argentina (Lincoln, 1991), chaps. 2-4;
20. Jorge Salessi, Médicos maleantes y maricas: Higiene, criminología y homosexualidad en la formation de la nación Argentina (Buenos Aires: 1871-1914) (Rosario, 1995).
21. Using other arguments, Socialist deputies also targeted female prostitution in those years. See Guy, Sex and Danger, 105-35;
22. Karin Grammático, "Obreras, prostitutas y mal venéreo: Un estado en busca de profilaxis," in Historia de las mujeres en Argentina, vol. 2, ed. Fernanda Gil Lozano, Valeria Pita, and Maria Gabriela Ini (Buenos Aires, 2000), 118-33.
23. "Profilaxis antivenérea y examen prenupcial obligatorio, Ley 12.231/36" and "Profilaxis antivenérea, decreto 10.638/44," Código penal anotado, ed. Mario Oderigo (Buenos Aires, 1957), 498-508.
24. Guy, Sex and Danger, 180-203.
25. From the early 1930s onward a series of police edicts began to penalize male homosexuality. This process of penalization was reinforced after the "first scandal" concerning homosexuality within the army in 1942. For a detailed description of the edicts see Carlos Jauregui, La bomosexualidad en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1987), 163-67;
26. for descriptions of that first "scandal" see Juan José Sebreli, "Historia secreta de los homosexuales en Buenos Aires," in Escritos sobre escritos, ciudades bajo ciudades (Buenos Aires, 1997), 310-13,
27. and Osvaldo Bazán, Historia de la homosexunlidad en la Argentina: De la conquista de América al siglo XXI (Buenos Aires, 2004), 219-23.
28. La Prensa, 28 December 1954.
29. While the bordellos and "date houses" were generally the spaces that female prostitutes frequented with their clients, the transient hotels were preferred by unmarried couples, particularly young ones. Nevertheless, the popular images of the transient hotels focused on situations of adultery. These hotels increased slightly in number during the 1950s. In 1951 there were 126 authorized and registered transient hotels, and in 1959 the figure had grown to 161. Municipalidad de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Guía de contribuyentes 1951 (Buenos Aires, 1952),
30. and Guía de contribuyentes 1959 (Buenos Aires, 1960).
31. Under the government of Dr. Arturo Frondizi the Federal Police acquired extra powers. All the previous edicts were transformed into laws, and the police were endowed with a powerful tool: through Decree 333/58 the police were authorized to "detain with the ends of identification, in circumstances that justify it and for a period of no more than twenty-four hours, all persons for whom it is necessary to confirm his antecedents." Boletín Oficial, 17 March 1958 (Buenos Aires): 2.
32. La Nación, 20, 26, 27, 31 October 1960, 3 November 1960.
33. See below regarding the deputies' requests. In addition, in one of the few published memoirs of an Argentine prostitute, she remembered the late 1960 and early 1961 as one of the most problematic periods of her career, when she decided to leave Buenos Aires because of the constant arrests. See Ruth Mary and Julio Ardues Gray, Memorial de los infiernos: Ruth Mary: Prostituta (Buenos Aires, 1972), 59-66.
34. During the 1960s Buenos Aires lacked an isolated red zone. Instead, several districts had a tradition of being erotic sites, like the neighborhoods nearest the River Plate bank or the downtown with its nightclubs. To these places were added, during the 1950s, the popularly nicknamed "Love Village," so-called because of the aggregation of transient hotels and public places to which couples went in cars, and the streets that bordered railways terminals, where there was both male and female prostitution. For a vivid narration of the nocturnal life in "Love Village" during the 1950s see Ernesto Goldar, Vida cotidiana en Buenos Aires en la década del cincuenta (Buenos Aires, 1981)
35. and Tulio Carella, Picaresca Porteña (Buenos Aires, 1966), 51-57.
36. "El culpable inocente," La Prensa, 3 November 1960;
37. "Prudencia en los modos," La Nación, 2 November 1960.
38. La Prensa, 9 November 1960.
39. Letters to the editor denouncing arbitrary police methods in the campaign appeared also on 26 November and 4 December. Fifteen teenage girls who were celebrating a birthday were taken to the Seventeenth Precinct for two hours on 26 November 1960. See "Mas de la campana de moralización," La Nación, 28 November 1960.
40. "Más detenciones en confiterías," La Nación, 21 October 1960.
41. Two other cases acquired particular public resonance: the twenty-hour detention of the locally renowned pianist Ariel Ramírez, who was taken from his house (where he, along with some friends, was supposed to be organizing a party to which minors were invited), and the twenty-four-hour detention of the famous soccer player Angel Labruna, who was taken from a nightclub. See "El extraño caso de la suegra del hipnotizador," Usted, 6 February 1961,
42. and "Cargos a la acción policial," Clarín, 15 March 1961.
43. Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de diputados de la nación, 11 January 1961, 7:5614.
44. Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de diputados de la nación, Ibid., 14 April 1961, 7:5777.
45. Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de diputados de la nación, Ibid., 7:5778.
46. Even though the detentions of homosexuals are not stated in the press reports, historians of homosexuality agree that Margaride's troops were particularly hostile toward gay people during the campaign; see Jauregui, La homosexualidad, 167;
47. Sebreli, "Historia secreta," 322-23;
48. Bazán, Historia de la homosexualidad, 310-12.
49. The press had several opportunities to recover this rumor during the campaign. In one of the few interviews accepted by Margaride the journalist asked: "In the city there is a version that leads us to ask you this question: Is it true that the police notify, by phone, the detention of a husband to his wife?" Margaride answered in a flat way: "This version is addressed to confuse the public opinion, and it is absolutely false." See "... el comisario Margaride," Leoplán, 5 April 1961, 6.
50. The rumor was also at the root of what police higher officials called the "defamation campaign" of the police by the press. In this vein the recently appointed police chief, Recaredo Vázquez, published a little book in March 1961 in which he denounced the "defamation campaign" and called for societal trust and help in the police "social action." See Policía, problema urgente (Buenos Aires, 1961), 126-29.
51. Two details in the script allow us to argue that it involved mostly middle-class families: the telephone calls and the supposed use of transient hotels by the husbands. On the one hand, in the 1950s and early 1960s Buenos Aires telephone services were not extensive, and working-class houses generally lacked them. On the other hand, transient hotels were not frequented by the upper classes: they had either other, more private hotels or the possibility of renting apartments.
52. The government demonstrated its commitment to the defense of the middle-class family not only through the morality campaign but also through other strategies, such as a project to reform the Penal Code by which the penalties for both the "crime of adultery" and prostitution were planned to be increased. Sebastián Soler, Anteproyecto de Código penal (Buenos Aires, 1960), 82-92.
53. Although the project was sent to the Chambers of Deputies and Senators in 1961, its discussion was interrupted by the 1962 coup d'état that overthrew Frondizi's administration. For a general discussion of the transformations in the family during the Frondizist era and the 1960s see Susana Torrado, Historia de la familia en la Argentina moderna (1870-2000) (Buenos Aires, 2003), 154-56, 268-75, 341-47, 394-95.
54. "La policía y su acción de moralización," La Nación, 25 October 1960.
55. "Una campaña por la cultura pública de la Liga Patriótica," La Nación, 20 October 1960.
56. The Argentine Patriotic League was initially constituted by young members of the upper-class families who, in the immediate context of the Russian Revolution and the increasing labor activities, organized armed squadrons to prevent strikes and other mobilizations. These squadrons' "golden years" were the 1920s, when they also successfully conspired against the democratic government of Hipolito Yrigoyen, promoting its overthrow by the first coup d'état led by the army in 1930. From the 1930s onward the Patriotic League lost part of its public presence and only sporadically reappeared, generally to underscore the "moral" limitations of democracy. See Sandra McGee Deutsch, Counterrevolution in Argentina, 1900-1932: The Argentine Patriotic League (Lincoln, 1986).
57. "Medidas para proteger la moralidad infantil," La Nación, 16 November 1960.
58. The Council was an official institution that depended on executive power. It was traditionally in charge of administering the institutes or places of isolation of "abandoned and delinquent minors." In 1960 it was reorganized and incorporated new members, mostly from Catholic organizations. In the process of reorganization it also extended its activities to so-called preventive areas. See Antecedentes, ley orgánica y su reglamentación-consejo nacional de protección de menores (Buenos Aires, 1960).
59. Among the new activities of the Council the most important were the exercise of control and censorship over cinematography, radio, and television and the exercise of "police of minority," which implied the creation of parents' patrols. According to the Council's minutes, in the months of the morality campaign one hundred parents were incorporated into the patrols. See Actas del consejo nacional de protección de menores, bk. 1, no. 24, 17 May 1961, 324.
60. The League of Family Mothers was a Catholic association created in 1951 during the crisis in the relationship between Peronism and the Catholic Church. For the immediate context of its creation see Lilia Caimari, Perón y la Iglesia Católica: Religión, estado y sociedad en la Argentina (1943-1955) (Buenos Aires, 1994), 296-99.
61. In 1960 the League of Family Mothers joined in the formation of the Catholic "Family Front," which also incorporated the League of Family Fathers, the Union of Parents of Catholic Schools, and the Christian Parents Confederation. See "El Frente de Familia," Revista Eclesiástica Argentina, no. 15 (May-June 1960): 598-99.
62. "La Liga de Madres dirigió una nota al Jefe de Policía," La Nación, 15 March 1961.
63. The police chief made the most of this letter in his campaign against "police defamation," and on 18 March he publicized his answer to the League of Family Mothers' letter. See "El jefe de policia agradece una nota," La Nación,
64. and "El jefe de policía contesta a las Madres de Familia," La Prensa.
65. "During the campaign at least two of the La Nación editorials systematized this explanation: "Defensa de la juventud," 25 October 1960, and "La campana moralizadora," 13 March 1961. For a description of the construction of the "hormonal explanation" of adolescence in 1950s Canada see Adams, The Trouble with Normal, 43-47. According to Adams, this "hormonal explanation" led almost automatically to the discursive construction of youths as oversexualized subjects.
66. The police chief sought to organize soccer championships in which boys could play with police officials and become friends. See Recaredo Vázquez, Policía, problema urgente, 122-24.
67. At the same time, the National Council of Minors' Protection had the intention to open locales in all neighborhoods to promote the healthy entertainment of "adolescents of both sexes," such as sports or even dancing, but under the surveillance of the Council's members. See Actas del Consejo nacional de protection de menores, bk. 1, no. 15, 267-73.
68. Daniel James, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class (New York, 1988), 113-19.
69. "La Revolución en Cuba," La Nación, 2 January 1961.
70. The calculation is based on the daily reports provided by La Nación and La Prensa between 20 October 1960 and 12 May 1961.
71. "Suicidóse una detenida en el Departamento de Policía," La Nación, 13 May 1961;
72. "La muerte de una joven investigan," La Nación, 20 May 1961.
73. A group of Socialist deputies asked the minister of the interior to investigate the case, presenting as evidence that Luisa Arias's dead body was found seminaked. Drawing on this fact, they accused police officials of raping and ultimately murdering her. See Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de diputados de la nación, 30 May 1961, 1:480.
74. Two years later Margaride declared in an interview that he preferred not to publicize the reasons for his decision to resign his position. In addition, he neglected once again the rumors about the telephone calls and minimized the status of the campaign. See "Margaride: Gané más amigos que enemigos," Primera Plana, 18 June 1963, 32-33.
75. The films are La cigarra no es un bicho (dir. Daniel Tinayre, 1963)
76. and Hotel alojamiento (dir. Fernando Ayala, 1965).
77. "Pastoral del arzobispo de Buenos Aires, Cardenal Antonio Caggiano: un grave problema de nuestra hora: Desviación y perversión del sentido moral," Criterio, 22 March 1962, 225.
78. During the 1930s, for instance, the Catholic Mario Fassano was the leader of a campaign to both "nationalize" and "moralize" the content of the movies of the new Argentinean cinema from his weekly magazine, Cinegraph (published between 1932 and 1939). Jaime Potenze had the same role from the 1940s onward in the Catholic magazine Criterio. In addition, Catholic Action groups weekly publicized in Criterio their recommendations of movies based on their supposed moral qualities.
79. The Honorary Council was created by a decree of the executive power, signed by Dr. José María Guido in the last days of his brief presidency (1962-63). Indeed, Guido was the successor of the overthrown Frondizi and governed with the support of one sector of the armed forces. In the general elections of March 1963 Dr. Arturo Illia was elected president and assumed his position on 12 October.
80. Decreto-Ley 8205/63, Boletín Oficial, 27 September 1963, 3.
81. The first prohibition affected Ingmar Bergman's The Silence in February 1964. For a history of the practices of censorship led by the Honorary Council as well as other institutions during the 1960s see Andres Avellaneda, Censura, autoritarismo y cultura en Argentina 1960-1983, vol. 1 (Buenos Aires, 1986).
82. For a description of the courses that led toward the first integrative seminar see "Conclusiones del I seminario sobre la función social de la TV, Liga de padres y madres de familia, 12-14 de agosto de 1965," Criterio, 27 January 1966, 63-65.
83. "Juventud y difusión," Minoridad: Revista del Consejo nacional de protección de menores, October 1962, 2. In the early 1960s the Council began a public campaign addressed to parents that included spots in radio, television, and cinemas. The slogans of this campaign were questions such as: "Parents: Do you know where your daughter or your son is now? Who are his friends?" and "Which is the television program that your son is watching? Take care: it might be prohibited for him."
84. In the late 1950s Eva Giberti began her career as adviser on the relations between parents and children in magazines addressed to women (like Para Ti and Vosotras) and newspapers (El Mundo) and then moved to TV with a program called Escuela para Paares (School for Parents). Florencio Escardó was a well-known hygienist and pediatrician when in 1963 Primera Plana invited him to write a weekly column on "familial health."
85. Florencio Escardó, Anatomía de la familia (Buenos Aires, 1961), 135-41. The book had at least five editions during the 1960s.
86. Florencio Escardó, Sexología de la familia (Buenos Aires, 1961), esp. 25-37;
87. Eva Giberti, "Educación sexual," in Escuela para padres (Buenos Aires, 1961), 2:53-78. Giberti relies, at least partially, on the four-step method of transmitting sexual education developed by Escardó. Both emphasized that the father had to teach the son and the mother, the daughter. Even though they provide practical examples for families from different social strata, it is clear that they focused on middle-class, "well-constituted" families, who were also the readers of their books and articles.
88. Mariano Plotkin, Freud in the Pampas: The Emergence and Development of a Psychoanalytical Culture in Argentina (Stanford, 2001), 108-14.
89. In his exploration on the diffusers of psychoanalysis-psychoanalysts, psychologists, or psychoanalytically inspired sociologists-Plotkin concludes that, through their activities in the popular media, they became increasingly recognized as the experts in issues related to sexuality (ibid., 117).
90. Among the many films that represented the lack-of-communication topic during the early 1960s are Los de la mesa 10 (dir. Simón Feldman, 1960);
91. Los jóvenes viejos (dir. Rodolfo Kuhn, 1961);
92. Los inconstantes (dir. Rodolfo Kuhn, 1963);
93. La terraza (dir. Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, 1963);
94. and Paula Cautiva (dir. Fernando Ayala, 1964).
95. Most of them focused on this issue, especially with regard to middle- and upper-class youth. "La balsa," allegedly the first song within the emergent Argentine rock and roll, revolved around the same topic. The song was composed by Tanguito, a local legend, and first performed by Los Gatos Salvajes. For an analysis of the more extended cultural meanings of the lack-of-communication issue see Pujol, La década rebelde, 46-51.
96. "Argentina 1980: Entre la incomunicación y el miedo vive la generación del futuro," Primera Plana, 19 March 1963, 22-24.
97. This survey, along with the ones that appeared in Primera Plana and to which I refer in the following pages, was also analyzed by literary scholar Laura Podalsky. Nonetheless, Podalsky focuses on the surveys as markers of an increasingly public discussion of sexuality without pointing out the central, generational component that they displayed; see Podalsky, Specular City: Transforming Culture, Consumption, and Space in Buenos Aires, 1955-1973 (Philadelphia, 2004), 189-92.
98. "Encuesta: La mujer moderna no se ruboriza pero sigue respetando al hombre," Primera Plana, 18 July 1963, 18-20;
99. "Encucstas: El hombre argentino cree en el amor, pero sigue subestimando a su pareja," Primera Plana, 3 September 1963, 18-20.
100. The notion of hyperconsumerism was also central for identifying the "true" youthful features, although it constituted a "matter of discussion." For instance, when Primera Plana emphasized this characteristic, many letters to the editor criticized the article by arguing that this was a matter of American or European youth but not Argentine youth; "La generación de Rita Pavone," Primera Plana, 12 June 1964, 32-33,
101. and "Cartas al director," Primera Plana, 14 July 1964.
102. "Encuesta: ¿Revolución sexual en Argentina?" Confirmado, 19 August 1965, 32-35.
103. "Informe sobre la juventud," Confirmado, 15 September 1966, 34-36.
104. Eva Giberti also made efforts to distinguish between Argentine teen groups (barritas), which supposed the normal form of "socialization in its stage of their life," and the more "dangerous gangs." With regard to the former she asks parents to be tolerant and sympathetic; with regard to the latter, which "are not so common in Argentina," she advises parents not to repress but to "understand in psychological terms" that gangs are symptoms of "the failures of adult society." Eva Giberti, Escuela para padres (Buenos Aires, 1961), 3:272-76.
105. Julio Mafud, La revolución sexual argentina (Buenos Aires, 1966), iv, emphasis in the original.
106. Julio Mafud, La revolución sexual argentina, Ibid., (1966), 109-16.
107. Mafud supposedly conducted "deep interviews" with a vast sample of "young women and men" and transcribed some of their stories. In the chapter devoted to "Homosexualidad e iniciación" (Homosexuality and Initiation) Mafud emphasized that young men only had homosexual partners in their sexual initiation (when they were about sixteen or seventeen years old, according to his survey). In addition, Mafud linked this fact to the difficulties of the exercise of "public prostitution in Buenos Aires." This conclusion as well as the lack of "scientific rigor" of the survey were at the core of the negative response that the book received. See "Una revolución más," Confirmado, 29 December 1966, 67.
108. The identification between modernization and "incorporation" of U.S.- or Europe-based cultural production and "attitudes" was not new in Argentina, but magazines like Primera Plana reinforced the chain linking youth\new\foreign attitudes and culture. This process was common to other Latin American countries during the early 1960s, as Eric Zolov analyzes through the "incorporation" of rock and roll among the Mexico City middle classes (Re-Fried Elvis, chaps. 2 and 3).
109. "Las Ligas de padres y madres de familia abogan por una politica familiar definida y coherente: Carta al Presidente Illia," Criterio, 28 August 1964, 595.
110. For an analysis of the broader meanings of this coup d'état in Argentine politics see Guillermo O'Donnel, El estado burocrático- autoritario (Buenos Aires, 1982).
111. On 29 July 1966, then known as "the night of the large sticks," Federal Police violently entered into the School of Exact Sciences and the School of Philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires and, after dissolving student assemblies, took both students and professors to precinct houses. During the following weeks many chairs of academic departments as well as more than a thousand professors and instructors resigned their positions, and many of them went into exile. Sergio Morero, Ariel Eidelman, and Guido Lichtman, La noche de los bastones largos (Buenos Aires, 2002).
112. For an analysis of the discussions about the "social function" of the public universities as developed among student and faculty organizations see Beatriz Sarlo, La batalla de las ideas (1943-1973) (Buenos Aires, 2001), 63-79.
113. The total number of students enrolled in public universities rose from 137, 673 in 1958 to 207, 463 in 1965 (Plotkin, Freud in the Pampas, 74).
114. In a previous book Plotkin documented that the student body had begun to grow during the first Peronist government, during which an initial process of "democratization" of higher education took place. See Mañana es San Perón: Propaganda, rituales políticos y educación en el régimen peronista (1946-1955) (Buenos Aires, 1993), 333.
115. During the 1918 University Reform students obtained the right to participate in the government of the autonomous universities. However, scholars agree that it was not until the late 1950s that student participation became fully complete (Sarlo, La batalla, 68).
116. See also Richard Walter, Student Politics in Argentina: The University Reform and Its Effects, 1918-1964 (New York, 1968), 155-82.
117. The Superior Council of the University of Buenos Aires, composed of students, alumni, and faculty, signed that letter, which described the coup as unconstitutional. The University of Buenos Aires was therefore the only major institution opposing the coup (Morero, Eidelman, and Lichtman, La noche, 23).
118. The Secretariat of Municipal Inspection was the institutional office through which the municipal police power was exercised. It entailed the supervision of the fulfillment of municipal ordinances, mostly those related to public hygiene, security, and morality. Rafael Bielsa, "Poder municipal de policía," in Derecho administrative (Buenos Aires, 1966), 356-80.
119. "Asumió su cargo el inspector general de la municipalidad," La Prensa, 23 July 1966.
120. "Detúvose a integrantes de un trío musical," La Prensa, 1 August 1966.
121. Así Segunda, 4 August 1966.
122. It is almost impossible to know the exact number of arrested people during the campaign; either the Federal Police did not give numbers to the press during these months or the press did not publish them, being afraid of possible censorship. In any case, the only figure belongs to the three first weeks of August and indicates that 355 people were arrested for different violations. See "Detenidos por delitos varios y contravenciones," La Nación, 23 August 1966.
123. "Funcionarios municipales contra el liberalismo ateo y la pornografía," La Nación, 28 July 1966. Apparently, because of the virulence of both Margaride's and Green's words during that TV program, Mayor Schettini prohibited them from making public declarations.
124. An article underscored the apparent contradiction of the censorship by signaling how these magazines could freely circulate in the United States, a country that was recognized "precisely by its Anti-Communism." See "La agonía de los desnudos femeninos," Primera Plana, 16 August 1966.
125. For an excellent analysis of the practices of censorship as condensations of both political and sexual repression in the context of the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état (strikingly similar to the Argentinean in 1966) see Deonísio da Silva, Nos bastidores da censura: Sexualidade, literatura e repressão pós-64 (São Paulo, 1988).
126. Colonel Schettini signed Decree 8620, which required all public locales to install white spotlights in order to "correctly see the additions, and clearly establish the prudent behavior of the clients." See Boletín municipal-año 1966 (Buenos Aires, 1967), 87.
127. Federal Police Chief Mario Fonseca recommended that parents prevent their children from going to "certain bars or nightclubs" and instructed the citizenry to carry their IDs, since they could be asked for them even in the streets. See "Conversóse en una reunión acerca de temas policiales," La Nación, 13 August 1966.
128. "Luis Margaride: las buenas costumbres," Confirmado, 4 August 1966, 74.
129. "Atentados: una cruzada a máquina," Confirmado, 25 August 1966, 45.
130. "En auto ajeno extorsionan a parejas," La Nación, 1 September 1966.
131. "La nueva moral en Buenos Aires," Confirmado, 11 August 1966, 34-37. The report asserted that although no transient hotel had been "inspected," an association of owners organized a meeting in order to arrange a common strategy "in the case of."
132. "Buenos Aires: La noche se apaga," Primera Plana, 9 August 1966, 15-19;
133. "¿Primavera con minifaldas?" Primera Plana, 20 September 1966, 46-47.
134. A possible explanation for the absence of "Family Front's" support is due to the fact that the Catholic Church, although represented in the highest levels of the national and municipal governments by well-known representatives and although probably sharing the ideological tenets of the campaign, avoided any explicit institutional affiliation with the government. See "Los católicos y el cambio político," Criterio, 28 July 1966, 523-25.
135. Mariano Montemayor wrote an editorial in which he noted that "the Revolution cannot be done only with morality campaigns; people need other elements to judge the benevolence of the change." See "Una topadora par las trenzas," Confirmado, 28 July 1966, 15.
136. A critical tone regarding the morality campaign is also evident in "La topadora moral," Gente, 4 August 1966.
137. Victoria Langland, in her analysis of the representations of revolutionary youth and sexuality in the context of the late 1960s Brazilian dictatorship, reaches different conclusions. Indeed, she demonstrates that the popular press helped to shape and disseminate an imagery that linked youthful violence to sexual deviance. Victoria Langland, "Speaking of Flowers: Student Movements and Collective Memory in Authoritarian Brazil," Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 2004, 101-19.
138. Mayor Schettini had initially promoted the campaign and even defended it publicly more than once. Nevertheless, some accounts provided by the press after Margaride's and Green's resignations pointed out that the mayor had already broken relations with both of them, supposedly when he ordered that they could not make public declarations. See "El zafarrancho aquel de la comuna," Primera Plana, 29 November 1966, 12;
139. "Buenos Aires Celebrates the Fall of Morality Advocate," New York Times, 26 November 1966.
140. For a vivid narration of the early history of Argentine rock and roll and the emergence of the hippie movement see Miguel Grimberg, Cómo vino la mano: Historia de la música progresiva en Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1977)
141. and La generación de la paz (Buenos Aires, 1983).
142. For this process of political radicalization in Argentina see Liliana de Riz, La política en suspenso, 1966-1976 (Buenos Aires, 2000)
143. and Alfredo Pucciarelli, ed., La primacía de la política (Buenos Aires, 1999).
144. Oscar Terán argues that the 1966 coup d'état implied also the endpoint to cultural and intellectual projects initiated with Frondizi's government. In this vein the intervention of the autonomous universities and the repression of other spaces of cultural production, like the Instituto Di Tella, would have been the signs for the authoritarian conclusion of the 1960s as lived by a whole generation of intellectuals, artists, and political activists (Terán, Nuestros años sesenta, chap. 8).
145. Some clues for this apparent occlusion of sexuality within the revolutionary organizations, mainly formed by young people, are given in recent collections of testimonies. See Eduardo Anguita and Martín Caparrós, La voluntad: Una historia de la izquierda revolucionaria en Argentina, 3 vols. (Buenos Aires, 1998);
146. María Matilde Ollier, La creencia y la pasión: Público, privado y revolucionario en la izquierda argentina, 1969-1976 (Buenos Aires, 1997);
147. Marta Diana, Mujeres guerrilleras (Buenos Aires, 1996).
148. The complete chant was "El pueblo lo pide: queremos las cabezas de Villar y Margaride" [The people are claiming: we want Villar's and Margaride's heads]. While Margaride was subchief, Alberto Villar, a well-known represser during the last days of Onganía's presidency, was appointed chief. During their first month, between 20 January and 8 February 1974, thirteen left-wing militants were assassinated in Buenos Aires, allegedly with the complicity of the Federal Police. See Oscar Anzorena, Tiempo de violencia y utopía, 1969-76 (Buenos Aires, 1988), 297-98.