Sexualities and genders in Zapotec Oaxaca

L. Stephen

The southern Mexican state of Oaxaca provides a cross-section of the multiple gender relations and sexual behaviors and roles that coexist in modern Mexico. Looking at contemporary gender and sexuality in two Zapotec towns highlights the importance of historical continuities and discontinuities in systems of gender and their relationship to class, ethnicity (earlier coded as race), and sexuality. The various sexual roles, relationships, and identities that characterize contemporary rural Oaxaca suggest that instead of trying to look historically for the roots of "homosexuality," "heterosexuality," or even the concept of "sexuality," we should look at how different indigenous systems of gender interacted with shifting discourses of Spanish colonialism, nationalism, and popular culture to redefine gendered spaces and the sexual behavior within them. Clear differences between elites and those on the margins of Mexican society underscore the importance of divisions by class and status.