Gender and sexuality in Latin America

Abstract

This chapter considers some aspects of gender and sexuality in Latin America. In doing so, it seeks to explore how gender and sexuality interact and to give some historical context. It examines different expressions of female and male sexuality in the region and how certain ideas of being a ‘proper man’ or ‘proper woman’ are reproduced. To understand such issues, it is important to consider how ideas of gender and sexuality have changed, as well as how political and historical factors have shaped understandings of gender and sexual identities. Despite appearances, gender identities, and even sexuality, are not fixed. Rather they reflect a myriad of different influences which affect how an individual understands and acts upon her/his notion of gender and sexual identity. The content and meaning of such identities vary across time, geography, class, ethnicity, age and so forth: for example, being a middle-class, professional, white woman in her thirties in Buenos Aires is quite distinct from being a poor, black woman in her fifties from north-east Brazil. It is also important to remember that sexuality is not a descriptor merely for what one does, but also for how one identifies: in Latin America men who have sexual relations with men do not necessarily consider themselves gay or bisexual, as the discussion below highlights.