Anthropology and Sexuality

Sexualidad en parejas con problemas de fertilidad

by Jorge Alberto Álvarez-Díaz

Public Display of Affection: The Making of Marriage in the Venetian Courts before the Council of Trent (1420- 1545). In: The Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy, Hg. Matthews- Grieco, S. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 173-197.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Navigating Risk: Lessons From the Dockside Sex Trade for Reducing Violence in South Africa's Prostitution Industry

by Henry Trotter

Sexuality Research & Social Policy: Journal of NSRC, 4/4 (Dec 2007): 106-119

The diversity of South Africa's prostitution industry exposes sex workers to varying levels of violence. The street,... more The diversity of South Africa's prostitution industry exposes sex workers to varying levels of violence. The street, truck stop, hotel, agency, brothel, and dockside trades are characterized by different structural features that determine the prevalence of client, police, and third-party abuse against prostitutes. Comparing the structural elements of each sector allows not only gauging the likelihood of violence within a given niche but also devising more precise policy instruments to reduce violence at an industry-wide level.

This article, "Navigating Risk," focuses on the dockside prostitution sector in Cape Town and Durban, showing how its structural features enhance the women's power vis-à-vis their clients and the police. It discusses 5 key variables that influence the likelihood of violence within each prostitution sector:

* the social and legal status of the client
* the location of the negotiation
* the location of the sexual act
* the level of discretion in the solicitation process
* and the role of third-party involvement

Detailed policy recommendations conclude the argument.

The Women of Durban's Dockside Sex Industry

by Henry Trotter

in Rob Pattman and Sultan Khan (eds.), Undressing Durban (Durban: Madiba Press, 2007), 441-452.

This article, "The Women of Durban's Dockside Sex Industry," looks at the lives of female prostitutes in... more This article, "The Women of Durban's Dockside Sex Industry," looks at the lives of female prostitutes in Durban's dockside sex sector. They solicit at a nightclub catering to foreign sailors. The paper considers their experiences as sex workers and how they deal with stigmatization, family concerns, chemical abuse, moral dilemmas, diseases, and violence. It assesses their fears and frustrations. And it ponders their dreams and longings for what they hope to achieve through this work.

The article concludes with the idea that dockside women are relatively empowered compared to their streetwalking & brothel-working counterparts. Since most hail from upcountry locales, they successfully live "double lives" that protect them from family and communal reprisal. Since their clients are foreign transients, the men pose no threat to their identities (they have no social power outside the dockside world). Since the women solicit from a safe nightclub, they retain the right of refusal. And because they're the knowledgeable locals, they choose the location of sex, which enhances their power to insist on condom-use.

Ironically, these upcountry women are perhaps the most cosmopolitan citizens of Durban as they entertain dozens of nationalities every evening.

Transliberación de la corporalidad: Transitando la transexualidad desde la bioética

by Jorge Alberto Álvarez-Díaz

Anatomy of a Cargo Cult: Virginity, Relic Envy, and Hallowed Boxes

by Ryan Byrne

Resurrecting the Brother of Jesus, eds. Ryan Byrne and Bernadette McNary-Zak (University of North Carolina Press, 2009) pp. 137-186

¿ Cómo se piensa lo “queer” en América Latina?(Presentación Dossier)

by Maria Amelia Viteri

Shifting Positionalities: The Local and International Geo-politics of Surveillance and Policing

by Maria Amelia Viteri

Newsletter Nº 9 Noviembre de 2009 / ADOPCIONES, FAMILIAS, INFANCIAS / De géneros, familias e infancias

by AFIN Barcelona

Dirección Newsletter: Esther Grau y Diana Marre
Contenidos del Nº 9: Oliver Du Arte
Edición, Formato y... more Dirección Newsletter: Esther Grau y Diana Marre
Contenidos del Nº 9: Oliver Du Arte
Edición, Formato y Difusión del Nº 9: Julia Ramiro
ISSN: 2013-2956

Cada vez son más las imágenes que en la vida cotidiana tenemos sobre la diversidad cultural cuyo sentido puede ser difícil de entender ya que son interpretadas desde el lenguaje global, construido desde Occidente. Los grandes problemas de sentido que se han generado a partir del quiebre de los referentes tradicionales, a partir de la fragmentación y la particularización de las identidades y de los entrecruzamientos de corrientes étnicas y culturales, han servido de contexto para formar escenarios discursivos que permiten la existencia, representación y escenificación de nuevos géneros e identidades que difieren del modelo hegemónico, patriarcal y heteronormativo.

‘Sex’, ‘networks’, HIV and religion: Basic concepts concerning the value of sex and its exchange in networks

by Robert Thornton

CONFERENCE PRESENTATION:
Sexuality, AIDS and religion: transnational dynamics in Africa
(Oxford, 28-30 September 2011)
Convenors:  Nadine Beckmann, Catrine Christiansen, Alessandro Gusman, Rijk van Dijk (Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group (FRSG) and the International Network on Religion and AIDS in Africa)

This paper seeks to raise a number of fundamental questions about concepts of sex, networks, sexual networks, and... more This paper seeks to raise a number of fundamental questions about concepts of sex, networks, sexual networks, and institutional responses to these in the kind of moral climate and epidemiological environment that has been created by the presence of HIV, AIDS and associated infections.  I assert, first, that HIV is an infection of a social network, not just of individuals. These networks have specific and determinable structure.  These structures in turn determine the rate of transmission of any virus transmitted through very close social contact that involves exchange of bodily fluids.  Since such social contact also involves exchange of much else, including love, wealth, and valuables (both concrete things and intangible values), the epidemiological issue is deeply embedded in other structures that are fundamental to having any society at all.  Thus, a thorough understanding of HIV should involve a deep understanding—probably amounting to a radical reinterpretation—of basic concepts concerning the nature of society.  Since sexual and religious values and acts are generally taken to be elemental (functional primitives) in the constitution of social life, we need to ask why sex and religion are so closely related to each other.  Why, for instance, should sex appear to be a ‘moral issue’, and why should religion in particular (instead of law, politics, administration, or just ‘custom’) be so concerned with its regulation?  What is the moral role of abstinence (or ‘erotic asceticism’) in religion’s use of sex and sexuality?  Why are sexual networks (the social structure of sexual relation-sets) so often tied to religious institutions, and why are institutional forms of regulation so often impotent in the regulation of sexual action?  Answers to these questions—raised and partially answered here—are likely to contribute considerable power to public health interventions related to sexually transmitted infections generally, in addition to permitting a more nuanced anthropological research practice.

Una mirada al espacio gay en Cuernavaca

by Raziel Valiño

The myth of the heterosexual: Anthropology and sexuality for classicists

by Holt Parker

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/arethusa/v034/34.3parker.pdf

Parker, Holt N. - The myth of the heterosexual : anthropology and sexuality for classicists. Arethusa 2001 34 (3) :... more Parker, Holt N. - The myth of the heterosexual : anthropology and sexuality for classicists. Arethusa 2001 34 (3) : 313-362. • The system of sexual classification shared by the ancient Greeks and Romans divided acts and people on the axis of active versus passive. The anthropological concepts of « emic » and « etic » may help clarify our thinking. The terms « sex » and « gender » also deserve scrutiny.

Unimagined community: sex, networks, and AIDS in Uganda and South Africa

by Robert Thornton

Naar een seksueel antinationalisme

by Paul Mepschen

Published in Waterstof 56, mei 2011. Amsterdam: Waterlandstichting.

De Caribisch-Amerikaanse, lesbische dichteres en activiste Audre Lorde schreef in haar memoires: "[O]ur place was... more De Caribisch-Amerikaanse, lesbische dichteres en activiste Audre Lorde schreef in haar memoires: "[O]ur place was the very house of difference, not the security of any one particular difference". In een globaliserende samenleving is Lorde’s adagium relevanter dan ooit. Wij pleiten daarom voor een nieuw seksueel antinationalisme: een radicaal inclusieve homobeweging, die seksuele hervorming weer bovenaan de agenda zet en allianties met islamofoben, nationalisten en racisten uitsluit.

Many Guises, One Mask: The State of Homosexuality in India

by Jerry Johnson

A brief overview of homosexuality and sexual rights in India

A brief look at the state of sexual minority rights in India--along with views on the psychology of gay men in India. A brief look at the state of sexual minority rights in India--along with views on the psychology of gay men in India.

Mother Earth Mediations: turning landscapes into bodyscapes, in the work of Ana Mendieta

by GABRIELLA DARIS

Cuban-American artist, Ana Mendieta, is known for her earth-sculpture-performances. There, she enters into a dialogue... more Cuban-American artist, Ana Mendieta, is known for her earth-sculpture-performances. There, she enters into a dialogue with the natural world, where her earthly corporeal discourse acts as a way of reconnecting with her Cuban cultural and geographical identity. Mendieta is using nature as a place where dwelling, camouflaging, and inhabitation are ways for her to manifest that nature is an extension of her body, a home, or exactly that; that she is part of that nature, and aren’t we all? Nature is for her a protective costume against society; is for her a platform where to play hide and seek, and her absence, like silence, is used as an ontological way of corporeal discourse.

How does one turn landscapes into bodyscapes? How does one gender nature? And is nature part of us, or are we part of nature? This paper investigates the ways artist, Ana Mendieta, uses her body as a mould to produce spaces and all that these spaces represent. It discusses her exploration of the possibilities of the body as a tool for production, as opposed to that of the body being the art object. Given the nature of the female producer and the female form of the mould used for the formation of these earth-sculptures, I look upon the sexualization of these landscapes turned-into bodyscapes. Last but not least, the masculine, colonizing gaze is discussed in contrast to the female absent body, which by having-been-there, leaves impressions, in the form of traces, to be captured by her camera.

(c) Gabriella Daris, 2011.

¡ Venceremos?: The Erotics of Black Self-Making In Cuba

by Jafari Allen

For “the Children” Dancing the Beloved Community

by Jafari Allen

MEANS OF DESIRE'S PRODUCTION: MALE SEX LABOR IN CUBA

by Jafari Allen

Islam and the rules of sexual intimacy

by Ahmed Fazel Ebrahim