Female Sexiles? Toward an Archeology of Displacement of Sexual Minorities in the Caribbean

Abstract

This essay analyzes narratives by Pedro Juan Soto, Mayotte Capecia, and Michelle Cliff to propose an archaeology and working definition of “sexile” that expands the current use of the term in queer scholarship to explore links between the regulation of female sexuality and the creation of minor sexualities. Female protagonists in Soto and Capecia are exiled to the former or actual metropolis because of their excessive/transgressive sexuality, following an intracolonial pattern of displacement that is similar to contemporary forms of queer sexile in the Caribbean. Cliff’s text, on the other hand, links sexile with homecoming and with the negotiation of common spaces to fulfill disparate forms of desire in the postcolonial context of the Anglo Caribbean. The essay concludes with an evaluation of the advantages and pitfalls of expanding the meaning of the notion of sexile by exploring the intersections of race and gender in the regulation of minor sexualities in the Caribbean.