Culture, Health and Sexuality
Volume 13, Issue 4, 2011, Pages 415-428

Identity, desire and truth: Homosociality and homoeroticism in mexican migrant communities in the USA (Article)

Parrini R.* , Castañeda X. , Magis-Rodríguez C. , Ruiz J. , Lemp G.
  • a Educación y Comunicación, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Distrito Federal, Mexico
  • b Health Initiative of the Americas, School of Public Health, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States
  • c Centro Nacional para la Prevención y Control del VIH/SIDA, Dirección de Investigación Operativa, Distrito Federal, Mexico
  • d California Department of Health Services, Division of Communicable Disease Control, California, United States
  • e Universitywide AIDS Research Program, University of California Office of the President, Oakland, United States

Abstract

This paper examines the construction of a homoerotic social scene among Mexican migrants in California. It analyses the discourses of migrant men in the cities of San Diego and Fresno who identify themselves as heterosexual and have not had sexual experiences with men and those of members of civil society organisations doing HIV prevention work with migrant men, to show how an identity-based model of sexuality used by the HIV prevention organisations is counter to the strategic, non-identity-based model constructed by migrant men. With this incongruence as its starting point, the paper offers a critique both of the epistemological factors underlying the category of 'men who have sex with men' and the logic running through HIV prevention discourses that adhere to the Foucauldian notion of the deployment of sexuality, which demands both truth and coherence in subjects' sexuality. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.

Author Keywords

Homosexuality Masculinity migrant HIV prevention Mexico

Index Keywords

evaluation publication HIV Infections sexual behavior Human immunodeficiency virus infection Erotica psychological aspect demography interpersonal communication Social Identification human middle aged statistics ethnology Mexico Hispanic Americans qualitative research Residence Characteristics United States Humans homosexuality Hispanic California male Truth Disclosure female prostitution Article adult migration libido Transients and Migrants social behavior
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-79952476431&doi=10.1080%2f13691058.2010.550633&partnerID=40&md5=6e7823c85a7695a9fb34ac2218a098f9
DOI: 10.1080/13691058.2010.550633
ISSN: 13691058
Cited by: 4
Original Language: English