Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions

Richard G. Parker

Description

Winner of the Ruth Benedict Prize from the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists

Originally published in the early 1990s, Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions quickly became a classic ethnographic study of the social, cultural and historical construction of sexuality and sexual diversity. Drawing on extensive field research and interviews, together with the analysis of historical and literary texts, anthropologist Richard Parker mapped out the multiple cultural systems that structure gender, sexuality, and erotic practices in Brazil, and helped to open up a new wave of social science research on sexuality.

Using ethnographic methods focusing on sexual meanings as an alternative to traditional surveys of sexual behavior, Parker argues that sexual life can only be fully understood through an analysis of the cultural logics that shape experience. Drawing on the tradition of interpretive anthropology, he focuses on the diverse sexual scripts that have been articulated in Brazilian culture and examines the often contradictory ways in which these scripts shape the sexual experience of different individuals. He highlights the sexual socialization of children and young people, and the changing sexual realities of adults living in a rapidly changing world. He underlines the ways in which complex cultural forms such as carnaval can be understood as stories that Brazilians tell themselves about themselves and about the meaning of sexuality in contemporary Brazilian life.

Sujets

• Latin American Studies
• Human Sexuality
• Sociologie, société et politique
• CAB Direct (database)
• Sexuality
• Psychology
• Anthropology
• Cultural Studies

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 18 septembre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780826516763
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions

Sexual Culture in

Contemporary

 Brazil

Richard G. Parker With a new preface by the author

Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions

Bodies, Pleasures,

and Passions

Sexual Culture

in Contemporary Brazil

SECONDEDITION With a new preface by the author

Richard G. Parker

Vanderbilt University Press Nashville

© 2009 by Richard G. Parker

Originally published in 1991 by Beacon Press. Second edition published in 2009 by Vanderbilt University Press. All rights reserved

13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5

This book is printed on acidfree paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

Excerpts from Gilberto Freyre,CasaGrande e Senzala: Formação da Familía Brasileira sob o regime da Economia Patriarcal, 22d edition (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria José Olympio Editora, 1983), translated asThe Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), are reprinted here by permission of Fundação Gilberto Freyre.

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Parker, Richard G. (Richard Guy), 1956– Bodies, pleasures, and passions : sexual culture in contemporary Brazil / Richard G. Parker ; With a new preface by the author. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9780826516756 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Sex customs—Brazil. 2. Sexual ethics—Brazil. 3. Sexual behavior surveys—Brazil. I. Title. HQ18.B7P37 2009 306.70981—dc22 2009007459

For Vavá

Ah esse Brasil lindo e trigueiro, É o meu Brasil brasileiro, Terra de samba e pandeiro, Brasil, para mim . . . Brasil, para mim . . .

[Ah that Brazil, dark and beautiful, Is my Brazilian Brazil, Land of samba and tambourine, Brazil, for me . . . Brazil, for me . . . ]

—Ary Barroso, “Aquarela do Brasil” (Watercolor of Brazil)

Contents

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Preface  ix Acknowledgments  xxi

A Note on Translations  xxiv

Introduction  1

Myths of Origin  8

Men and Women  34

Norms and Perversions  76

Bodies and Pleasures  111

The Carnivalization of the World Conclusion  184 Appendix 1. Notes on Field Research  195

 153

Appendix 2. Informants Cited in the Text  199 Notes  203 Bibliography  211 Index  225

Preface

Since the original publication ofBodies, Pleasures, and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazilin 1991, there has been a veritable explosion in social research on sexuality. From a relatively limited field, dominated pri marily by biomedical and sexological research, the study of sexuality has in recent years expanded rapidly across a wide range of social sciences. Signs of the field’s coming of age are everywhere around us. New scholarly and scien tific journals focusing on sexuality, society, and culture have been launched. New research centers focusing on diverse aspects of sexuality have been cre ated. Interdisciplinary academic degree programs have been established. Re spected foundations and research funding agencies have made sexuality a priority. Perhaps most notably, the volume of publications reporting sexu ality research findings has increased rapidly in recent years. While many of these developments are concentrated in the leading intellectual centers of resourcerich societies, the trend is clearly global, with important new de velopments taking place as much in the South as in the North.

Sexual Meanings

Two decades ago, the state of what has now come to be known as sexuality studies was very different indeed. Only a handful of empirical studies focus ing on the social and cultural dimensions of sexuality had been published, and the field was almost completely dominated by what had been described as a kind of “essentialist” understanding of sexual life (Weeks 1985). Within the parameters of this view, sex had been conceptualized as a kind of over powering and universal drive: a force residing within all human beings and shaping not only their personal lives but their social experience as well. As

ix