Sex and Conquest : Gendered Violence, Political Order and the European Conquest of the Americas

Rating:
Summary: sex before the conquest
Review: trexler's study of preconquest sexuality is thorough and thought-provoking. he investigates countless indigenous and spanish sources to come up with a compelling argument that berdaches--indigenous males who cross-dressed and perfomed female sex and social roles--were part of the majority of indigenous cultures. he also demonstrates how those individuals were viewed by their peers and by the spanish, and how the spanish/european fear of homosexuality, specifically "passive" homosexuality, is responsible for the disappearance of the berdache. this book was highly readable for the more novice reader, but incredibly well documented (one hundred pages of notes) for the more academic reader. this book will likely go down as the definitive study on pre-conquest indigenous (homo)sexuality.

Rating:
Summary: sex before the conquest
Review: trexler's study of preconquest sexuality is thorough and thought-provoking. he investigates countless indigenous and spanish sources to come up with a compelling argument that berdaches--indigenous males who cross-dressed and perfomed female sex and social roles--were part of the majority of indigenous cultures. he also demonstrates how those individuals were viewed by their peers and by the spanish, and how the spanish/european fear of homosexuality, specifically "passive" homosexuality, is responsible for the disappearance of the berdache. this book was highly readable for the more novice reader, but incredibly well documented (one hundred pages of notes) for the more academic reader. this book will likely go down as the definitive study on pre-conquest indigenous (homo)sexuality.