4: The Caribbean
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- 4.2: Quinceañeras - Girls’ Coming-of-Age Parties in Contemporary Havana, Cuba
- In this chapter, the author explores the phenomenon of flamboyant girls’ fifteenth birthday parties (quinceañeras) as a gender-specific ritual. The author discusses the ways that this life-cycle ritual celebrates the girl’s entry into sexual adulthood, portrays her as an object of heterosexual desire, while simultaneously granting the girls ritual and exotic agency.
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- 4.3: Jamaican Realities of Masculinities and Sexualities- Where Have We Come Since Michel Foucault?
- In this chapter, the authors apply a gendered perspective to analyze views of masculinity among men from various socioeconomic groups in Jamaica. Using Michel Foucault’s ideas of sexuality, they explain how the act of sexual intercourse is seen as more than the act itself but an essential part of one’s identity. For Jamaican males, their sexualities are closely tied to their masculinities and what it means to be a Jamaican man.