Tropics of Desire Interventions from Queer Latino America [Paperback]

From its sweaty beats to the pulsating music on the streets, Latin/o America is perceived in the United States as the land of heat, the toy store for Western sex. It is the territory of magical fantasy and of revolutionary threat, where topography is the travel guide of desire, directing imperial voyeurs to the exhibition of the flesh.
Jose Quiroga flips the stereotype upside down: he shows how Latin/o American lesbians and gay men have consistently eschewed notions of sexual identity for a politics of intervention. In Tropics of Desire, Quiroga reads hesitant Mexican poets as sex-positive voices, he questions how outing and identity politics can fall prey to the manipulations of the state, and explores how invisibility has been used as a tactical tool in opposition to the universal imperative to come out.
Drawing on diverse cultural examples such as the performance of bolero and salsa, film, literature, and correspondence, and influenced by masters like Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin and a rich tradition of Latin American stylists, Quiroga argues for a politics that denies biological determinism and cannibalizes cultural stereotypes for the sake of political action.

A vivid analysis of how many Latin Americans have crafted alternative modes of understanding sexuality. Incisive and witty, Quiroga's survey of the constructions of homosexuality in Latin America and the Latino U.S. includes brilliant readings of major literary figuresVillaurrutia, Pinera, Cabreraas well as pop culture icons, from La Lupe to Ricky Martin. I've been waiting for this book, savoring its previews. Reading Quiroga's agile and powerful prose is itself one of the adventures offered here. His balancing act between deadly serious issues of identity and control and the fun and pride of maneuvering accentuates these spectacular accounts of lesbian and gay creativity in the dense social contexts of Latino lives. A brilliant and provocative book, admirably observant of historical del£å