A Chola Sex Party: Anal And Concha Art

Abstract

This piece explores the visual art and performance of Wynnie Mynerva (1992–), interpreting their aesthetic use of violence and sadism. My reading of Wynnie’s work articulates cholanness in relation to Blackness, unearthing the colonial etymology of “cholo.” I argue that the body of chola women is at very center of the “abigarrado cholo sex,” a sexual/reproductive system of extraction of labor and pleasure. Wynnie’s visual experimentation toys with castration and revenge, and with the non-generative pleasures of anal sex and anti-natalism. To think through the contemporary uses of chola, I use the work of Black feminist scholars in the US and the Caribbean, establishing hemispheric connections with Latin American feminist scholars and activists.