Sexuality and the Unnatural in Colonial Latin America

Front Cover
Zeb Tortorici
Univ of California Press, Feb 9, 2016 - History - 239 pages
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. 
 

Contents

unnatural heresies
21
María Getrudis Arévalo
43
The Devil or Nature Itself? Desire Doubt and Diabolical Sex among
58
Female Homoeroticism Heresy and the Holy Office
77
unnatural crimes
93
Prosecuting FemaleFemale Sex in Bourbon Quito
120
Sodomy Gender and Identity in the Viceroyalty of Peru
141
Consensual and Forced Relations
162
The Nefarious Crime in Mexico 18001856
188
Unnatural Sex?
213
Contributors
225
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2016)

Zeb Tortorici is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures at New York University. He recently coedited Centering Animals in Latin American History as well as two special issues of Radical History Review on the topic of "Queering Archives."

Bibliographic information