Sexual Revolutions in Cuba

Passion, Politics, and Memory

Carrie Hamilton

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781469618913, 9780807835197
• eBook ISBN: 9780807882511
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia dell'America Latina e dei Caraibi

In Sexual Revolutions in Cuba Carrie Hamilton delves into the relationship between passion and politics in revolutionary Cuba to present a comprehensive history of sexuality on the island from the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 into the twenty-first century. Drawing on an unused body of oral history interviews as well as press accounts, literary works, and other published sources, Hamilton pushes beyond official government rhetoric and explores how the wider changes initiated by the Revolution have affected the sexual lives of Cuban citizens. She foregrounds the memories and emotions of ordinary Cubans and compares these experiences with changing policies and wider social, political, and economic developments to reveal the complex dynamic between sexual desire and repression in revolutionary Cuba.
Showing how revolutionary and prerevolutionary values coexist in a potent and sometimes contradictory mix, Hamilton addresses changing patterns in heterosexual relations, competing views of masculinity and femininity, same-sex relationships and homophobia, AIDS, sexual violence, interracial relationships, and sexual tourism. Hamilton’s examination of sexual experiences across generations and social groups demonstrates that sexual politics have been integral to the construction of a new revolutionary Cuban society.

INDEX

• Abortion, 15, 45, 96, 97, 249 (n. 210);
  • as form of contraception, 36–37, 99, 246 (n. 134);
  • increase during 1970s and 80s, 35, 36, 86, 88, 246 (n. 134);
  • in media, 100;
  • men’s objections to, 202;
  • in prerevolutionary period, 243 (n. 61);
  • restrictions in 1960s, 29–30. See also Contraception; Pregnancy
• Activism, 22, 53;
  • and gender, 34, 59, 91–92, 93–94, 97, 103, 104–5, 176;
  • and sexual discrimination, 73;
  • and shame, 73. See also Voluntary labor
• Adolescents. See Youth
• Adultery. See Infidelity
• Afro-Cuban religion, 12;
  • and Afro-Cuban heritage, 185–86;
  • in prerevolutionary period, 26, 169;
  • and same-sex sexuality, 185
• Afro-Cubans, 12, 72;
  • and education, 64, 211;
  • and Mariel exodus, 128;
  • in media, 257 (n. 27);
  • middle-class, 82;
  • roles in Revolution, 64;
  • and sexuality in 1950s, 25;
  • sexual stereotypes of, 82, 88, 89, 253 (n. 10)
• —men: prohibition of relationships with white women, 209–11;
  • sexual stereotypes of, 111, 211. See also Masculinity
• —women, 81–89, 184;
  • associated with extended families, 46;
  • associated with prostitution, 47–48;
  • collective memory of sexual violence, 89, 233;
  • and sexuality, 5, 114;
  • stigmatization of sexuality in Colonial period, 23;
  • and work, 64;
  • writers, 114, 253 (n. 21). See also Racism; Women; Afro-Cuban religion; Race; Racism
• Age, 16;
  • and interviews, ix;
  • and masculinity, 16–17, 113;
  • and sexuality, 45. See also Fear; Generation
• AIDS and HIV, 22, 148, 192–200 passim;
  • cultural representations of, 195–96;
  • and education, 49, 99, 192–93, 195, 199–200;
  • and family life, 198;
  • and homophobia, 193–94;
  • and male same-sex sex, 193–200;
  • patterns of infection, 194;
  • and relationships, 198;
  • sanatoria, 44, 192, 194–95, 199;
  • statistics, 192, 262 (n. 14);
  • stigma of, 192, 195;
  • as taboo topic, 192, 195;
  • on television, 133;
  • and unemployment, 197
• —policy, 192, 262 (nn. 7, 8, 15);
  • critiques ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Sexual Revolutions in Cuba
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD Cuban Voices
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION Sex, Politics, and Oral History in Cuba
• ONE Sexual Evolutions
• TWO Love and Revolution
• THREE New Women, New Men?
• FOUR Memory, Revolution, and Homophobia
• FIVE Homosexual Histories
• SIX Listening for Female Same-Sex Desire
• SEVEN Silence and Taboo
• EIGHT Sex in the Special Period
• CONCLUSION
• APPENDIX List of Interviews
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX
• Series