Synopses & Reviews
Latina/os are currently the largest minority population in the United States. They are also one of the fastest growing. Yet, we have very limited research and understanding of their sexualities. Instead, stereotypical images flourish even though scholars have challenged the validity and narrowness of these images and the lack of attention to the larger social context. Gathering the latest empirical work in the social and behavioral sciences, this reader offers us a critical lens through which to understand these images and the social context framing Latina/os and their sexualities.
Situated at the juncture of Latina/o studies and sexualities studies, Latina/o Sexualities provides a single resource that addresses the current state of knowledge from a multidisciplinary perspective. Contributors synthesize and critique the literature and carve a separate space where issues of Latina/o sexualities can be explored given the limitations of prevalent research models. This work compels the current wave in sexuality studies to be more inclusive of ethnic minorities and sets an agenda that policy makers and researchers will find invaluable."Latina/o Sexualities is a brilliant collection that provides groundbreaking analyses of the myriad connections between sexuality and race."
Maxine Baca Zinn, Michigan State University"A path breaking contribution and the definite resource for interdisciplinary scholars in the growing field of Latino sexualities. A highly sophisticated intervention that fills the existing void of empirical research in this area, while drawing from and critically engaging with the social and behavioral science literature. This volume will forever challenge us to rethink the categories, methods and approaches scholars use in this rapidly developing field of study."
Arlene Davila, author of Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race"Filled with provocative arguments and illuminating insights, Latina/o Sexualities marks a new and exciting epoch in the study of human sexuality and its interactions with race and class; a must-read for scholars and students of ethnic studies and human sexuality."
Rafael Diaz, Cesar E. Chavez Institute, San Francisco State University
Review
andquot;A pathbreaking contribution and the definite resource for interdisciplinary scholars in the growing field of Latino sexualities. A highly sophisticated intervention that fills the existing void of empirical research in this area, while drawing from and critically engaging with the social and behavioral science literature. This volume will forever challenge us to rethink the categories, methods and approaches scholars use in this rapidly developing field of study.andquot;
Review
andquot;Filled with provocative arguments and illuminating insights, Latina/o Sexualities marks a new and exciting epoch in the study of human sexuality and its interactions with race and class; a must-read for scholars and students of ethnic studies and human sexuality.andquot;
Review
andquot;Latina/o Sexualities is a brilliant collection that provides groundbreaking analyses of the myriad connections between sexuality and race.andquot;
Review
andquot;Two groundbreaking, indispensable guides for serious scholars of sexualities who wish to understand both the heterogeneous sexualities of African Americans and Latinos as well as how greater attention to race, ethnicity, class and culture provides important new directions for the field.andquot;
Review
andquot;This is a rich, multifaceted volume that leaves few if any stones unturned in exploring the themes of sex, sexuality, and feminism in relation to Black women.andquot;
Review
andquot;This volume provides an illuminating discourse about the meaning, metaphors, and magnitude of black female sexuality as an agent of both oppression and transformation.andquot;
Review
andquot;Amigas y Amantes makes a significant contribution to understanding the lives of 'sexually nonconforming' Latina women. Acosta compellingly reveals the life experiences of these women, the challenges they face, and the way they handle these challenges.andquot;
Review
andquot;Amigas y Amantesand#160;offers a thought-provoking sociological lesson about gender conformity and femininity and the fascinating ways these may shape a Latina motherandrsquo;s concern about the nonconforming sex life of her daughter.andquot;
Review
andquot;Acosta explores the experience of Latinas who do not conform to traditional gender or cultural roles by identifying as lesbian, bisexual, or queer. A well-written, deeply engaging sociological work that discusses and promotes thought on gender conformity and femininity within the Latina culture. All academic libraries with sociology or women's studies programs absolutely must own this book. Essential.andquot;
Review
andquot;
Amigas y Amantes offers a richly nuanced portrait of LBQ Latinasandrsquo; family lives. Acosta skillfully foregrounds the voices of her respondents to make visible the tensions and contradictions entailed in their efforts to bring together their
families of origin and choice, and, also important, to create spaces for the existence of the families they envision for themselves.andquot;
Synopsis
Situated at the juncture of Latina/o studies and sexualities studies, the contributors to
Latina/o Sexualities synthesize and critique the literature and carve a separate space where issues of Latina/o sexualities can be explored given the limitations of prevalent research models. This work compels the current wave in sexuality studies to be more inclusive of ethnic minorities.
Synopsis
Latina/os are currently the largest minority population in the United States. They are also one of the fastest growing. Yet, we have very limited research and understanding of their sexualities. Instead, stereotypical images flourish even though scholars have challenged the validity and narrowness of these images and the lack of attention to the larger social context. Gathering the latest empirical work in the social and behavioral sciences, this reader offers us a critical lens through which to understand these images and the social context framing Latina/os and their sexualities.
Situated at the juncture of Latina/o studies and sexualities studies, Latina/o Sexualities provides a single resource that addresses the current state of knowledge from a multidisciplinary perspective. Contributors synthesize and critique the literature and carve a separate space where issues of Latina/o sexualities can be explored given the limitations of prevalent research models. This work compels the current wave in sexuality studies to be more inclusive of ethnic minorities and sets an agenda that policy makers and researchers will find invaluable.
Synopsis
The twelve original essays in Black Female Sexualities reveal the diverse ways black women perceive, experience, and represent sexuality. The contributors highlight the range of tactics that black women use to express their sexual desires and identities. Yet they do not shy away from exploring the complex ways in which black women negotiate the more traumatic aspects of sexuality and grapple with the legacy of negative stereotypes.and#160;
Synopsis
Western culture has long regarded black female sexuality with a strange mix of fascination and condemnation, associating it with everything from desirability, hypersexuality, and liberation to vulgarity, recklessness, and disease. Yet even as their bodies and sexualities have been the subject of countless public discourses, black womenandrsquo;s voices have been largely marginalized in these discussions. In this groundbreaking collection, feminist scholars from across the academy come together to correct this omissionandmdash;illuminating black female sexual desires marked by agency and empowerment, as well as pleasure and pain, to reveal the ways black women regulate their sexual lives.and#160;
The twelve original essays inand#160;Black Female Sexualitiesand#160;reveal the diverse ways black women perceive, experience, and represent sexuality. The contributors highlight the range of tactics that black women use to express their sexual desires and identities. Yet they do not shy away from exploring the complex ways in which black women negotiate the more traumatic aspects of sexuality and grapple with the legacy of negative stereotypes.and#160;
Black Female Sexualitiesand#160;takes not only an interdisciplinary approachandmdash;drawing from critical race theory, sociology, and performance studiesandmdash;but also an intergenerational one, in conversation with the foremothers of black feminist studies. In addition, it explores a diverse archive of representations, covering everything from blues to hip-hop, fromand#160;Crashand#160;toand#160;Precious, fromand#160;Sister Souljahand#160;to Edwidge Danticat. Revealing that black female sexuality is anything but a black-and-white issue, this collection demonstrates how to appreciate a whole spectrum of subjectivities, experiences, and desires. and#160;
Synopsis
Amigas y Amantes (Friends and Lovers) explores the experiences of sexually nonconforming Latinas in the creation and maintenance of families. It is based on forty-two in-depth enthnographic interviews with women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or queer (LBQ) and draws from fourteen months of participant observation at LBQ Latina events that Katie L. Acosta conducted in 2007 and 2008 in a major northeast city. The book examines how LBQ Latinas manage loving relationships with the families who raised them, and with their partners, their children, and their friends.
About the Author
TRIMIKO MELANCON is an assistant professor of English, African American studies, and womenandrsquo;s studies at Loyola University New Orleans. She is the author of
Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation.and#160;
and#160;JOANNE M. BRAXTON is the Frances L. and Edwin L. Cummings Professor of English and the Humanities at the College of William and Mary. She is the author of Black Women Writing Autobiography: A Tradition Within a Tradition.and#160;
Table of Contents
Foreword
Melissa Harris-Perry
Introductionand#160;and#160;and#160; andldquo;somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuffandrdquo;: Black Female Sexualities and Black Feminist Intervention-Trimiko Melancon
Part I Sexual Embod(y)ment: Framing the Body
Chapter 1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Entering Through the Bodyandrsquo;s Frame: Precious and the Subjective Delineations of the Movie Poster Kimberly
Juanita Brown
Chapter 2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Is It Just Baby F(Ph)at?: Black Female Teenagers, Body Size, and Sexuality
Courtney J. Patterson
Chapter 3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Corporeal Presence: Engaging the Black Lesbian Pedagogical Body in Feminist Classrooms and College Communities
Mel Michelle Lewis
Chapter 4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Untangling Pathology: Sex, Social Responsibility, and the Black Female Youth in Octavia Butlerandrsquo;s Fledgling
Esther L. Jones
Part IIand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Disengaging the Gaze
Chapter 5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Mis(Playing) Blackness: Rendering Black Female Sexuality in The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
Ariane Cruz
Chapter 6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Why Donandrsquo;t We Love These Hoes?: Black Women, Popular Culture, and the Contemporary Hoe Archetype
Mahaliah Ayana Little
Chapter 7and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; What Kind of Woman?: Alberta Hunter and Expressions of Black Female Sexuality in the Twentieth Century
K. T. Ewing
Chapter 8and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The andldquo;P-Wordandrdquo; Exchange: Representing Black Female Sexuality in Contemporary Urban Fiction
Cherise A. Pollard
Part IIIand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Resisting Erasure
Chapter 9and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; andldquo;Ou libandeacute;randeacute;?andrdquo;: Sexual Abuse and Resistance in Edwidge Danticatandrsquo;s Breath, Eyes, Memory
Sandra C. Duvivier
Chapter 10and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Rape Fantasies and Other Assaults: Black Womenandrsquo;s Sexuality and Racial Redemption on Film
Erin D. Chapman
Chapter 11and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; andldquo;Embrace the Narrative of the Wholeandrdquo;: Complicating Black Female Sexuality in Contemporary Fiction
Johanna X. K. Garvey
Chapter 12and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Saving Me through Erasure?: Black Women, HIV/AIDS and Respectability
Ayana K. Weekley
Afterword: Being Present, Facing Forward
Joanne M. Braxton
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors