Sexuality and the Unnatural in Colonial Latin America

Download or read book Sexuality and the Unnatural in Colonial Latin America written by Zeb Tortorici and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sexuality and the Unnatural in Colonial Latin America brings together a broad community of scholars to explore the history of illicit and alternative sexualities in Latin America’s colonial and early national periods. Together the essays examine how "the unnatural” came to inscribe certain sexual acts and desires as criminal and sinful, including acts officially deemed to be “against nature”—sodomy, bestiality, and masturbation—along with others that approximated the unnatural—hermaphroditism, incest, sex with the devil, solicitation in the confessional, erotic religious visions, and the desecration of holy images. In doing so, this anthology makes important and necessary contributions to the historiography of gender and sexuality. Amid the growing politicized interest in broader LGBTQ movements in Latin America, the essays also show how these legal codes endured to make their way into post-independence Latin America.