Family secrets : stories of incest and sexual violence in Mexico / Gloria González-López.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

González-López, Gloria, 1960- author.

Series:

Latina/o sociology series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Incest--Mexico.

Incest.

Sex crimes--Mexico.

Sex crimes.

Families--Mexico.

Families.

Sex.

Mexico.

Sex--Mexico.

Physical Description:

xiv, 321 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2015]

Summary:

In Family Secrets. Gloria González-López tells the life stories of women and men in Mexico whose lives were irrevocably changed in the wake of childhood and adolescent incest. In Mexico, a patriarchal, religious society where women are expected to make themselves sexually available to men and where same-sex experiences for both women and men bring great shame, incest is easily hidden, seldom discussed, and rarely reported to authorities. Through gripping, emotional narrative, González-López brings the deeply troubling, hidden, and unspoken issues of incest and sexual violence in Mexican families to light. She contends that family and cultural structures in Mexican life enable incest and the culture of silence that surrounds it. She examines the strong bonds of familial obligation between parents and children, brothers and sisters, and elders and youth that, in the case of incest, can morph into sexual obligation; the codes of honor and shame reinforced by tradition and the Church, discouraging openness about sexual violence and trauma; the double standards of morality and stereotypes about sexuality that leave girls and women and gender nonconforming boys and men especially vulnerable to sexual abuse. A riveting account, Family Secrets turns a feminist and sociological lens on a disturbing issue that has gone unnoticed for far too long. Book jacket.

Contents:

Acknowledgments / Con profunda gratitud

En familia : sex, incest, and violence in Mexican families

Conjugal daughters and marital servants : the sexual functions of daughters in incestuous families

A la prima se le arrima : sisters and primas

Nieces and their uncles

Men's life stories

Toward a feminist sociology of incest in Mexico

Appendix A. Study participants

Appendix B. Methodological considerations

Appendix C. Incest in 32 Mexican state penal codes

Appendix D. Uncle-niece cases

Notes

References

Index

About the author.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781479855599

1479855596

9781479869138

1479869139

OCLC:

906010922