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Showing posts from October 8, 2009

Studies on male homosexuality in Latin America

Nesvig, Martin. 2001 “The Complicated Terrain of Latin American Homosexuality”. Hispanic American Historical Review 81(3-4): 689-729. Nesvig argues that it is relevant to look at the sexual mores of the colonial period as many of these notions persisted into the modern period in Latin America. He notes that homosexuality was considered the ultimate sin against Nature, God, and the Crown. However, this did not stop the fact that it was a fairly common and semi- institutionalized practice. Because cities offered more opportunity for anonymity and for the development of a clandestine subculture with its own slang and codes it was rather an urban phenomenon. Reviews historiographies of homosexuality, informed by the paradigm of honor/shame, where sexuality is a key component. The metaphor of penetration is contained in the myth of La Malinche, makes being penetrated something that equates being colonized, degraded and defeated. Nesvig argues that scholarship on male homosexuality have been