Exploring sexualities and homosexualities in Mexico: a view from within

Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 2003 by Eusebio Rubio-Aurioles

The Night is Young: Sexuality in Mexico in the Time of AIDS. By Hector Carrillo. The University of Chicago Press, 2002, 352 pages. Paper $20.00; Cloth $58.00.

The popular expression "the night is young" is often used to urge someone to stay at an event, encouraging hopeful anticipation of good things yet to come, even if what has already occurred is not convincing. Therefore, The Night is Young is a good title for a book attempting to describe sexuality in Mexico, luring the ambivalent reader to stay and enjoy "the party."

I found myself experiencing ambivalence as I began to read this book. On the one hand, I had in front of me an interesting account of sexual life in Mexico. On the other hand, many of the initial promises of the book, beginning with its subtitle (Sexuality in Mexico in the Time of AIDS), seemed like an impossible challenge considering the method used by the author.

Immediately, the reader learns that it is not a book about sexuality of Mexico; it is only an account of urban sexualities in one major city, Guadalajara. Furthermore, it is not a broad description of sexuality, even if there was an attempt to include a diverse sample. The book clearly focuses on homosexuality and HIV prevention. Most important, while the book attempts to address human diversity, it misses one of the main characteristics of Mexican culture: its great diversity. In many sections, Carrillo simply affirms generalizations of Mexican culture that pertain to the narrow population studied, which is not representative of the diversity of the cultural milieu of the entire country. Nevertheless, the "night is young" and if you "stay for the party," the book provides interesting new information and helps balance the little extant information on sexuality of Mexico.

Carrillo presents his conclusions after 7 years of visits to Guadalajara, the second largest city of Mexico, and 65 in-depth interviews of volunteers, 30 of whom identified as homosexuals. Carrillo, himself a Mexican, has spent enough time in the United States to consider himself both an insider and an outsider of the Mexican culture. After his experience and interviews, his book is a summary of systematic cultural formulations of Mexico. The composition of the sample of the study and Carrillo's activities in visiting Guadalajara reveal his clear interests: AIDS prevention and homosexuality. The focus on AIDS prevention is perhaps both the book's greatest strength and its greatest limitation. While the book title promises a broad view of sexuality in Mexico, it really provides a very good account of the societal changes that have occurred in the last 2 decades among the Mexican urban middle class in relation to views of homosexuality and AIDS.

The book consists of an introduction, three sections, two methodological appendices, notes, and bibliography. In the introduction Carrillo offers a good summary of the historical context in which homosexuality evolved in Mexico during the last 2 decades. Part 1 focuses on sexual identities, with interesting formulations on the processes the author documents through his observations during interviews with participants and interactions during his activities in AIDS prevention. Part 2 explores the processes of sexual socialization. Part 3 focuses on AIDS and AIDS prevention activities and strategies in Mexico, offering what is in my judgment the most valuable set of reflections and contributions of the author.

The main contribution of this book is Carrillo's description of the process of cultural change, with its implications for AIDS prevention strategies. He exposes the inadequacy of the "rational" approach in AIDS prevention--which emphasizes risk reduction through the rational realization of personal convenience--in a culture that prioritizes the value of emotion over reason. While Carrillo's interviewees understood well the reasons for taking preventive measures when having sex, many shared accounts of specific events during which, despite knowing the risk involved, they chose to engage in risk-taking behavior due to the emotional intensity of the sexual moment.

Cultural change is something that is, at the same time, desired, strived for, and resisted in today's Mexican middle class. Both a result of the globalization process and the failure of traditional values to bring societal wellness to people, Mexicans are striving for new formulations of traditional beliefs. Carrillo eloquently captures the mainstream development and changes of sexual values and roles in Mexico. He presents an interesting systematization of these changes, especially when he explains the categories of sexual identities he encountered in his study. Carrillo discusses two competing yet complementary models of sexual identities: one based on sex and gender, another based on object choice. While the model based on sex and gender calls for a characterization of sexual behavior based on masculine and feminine dimensions, the object choice model recognizes an independence of gender characterizations from homosexual or bisexual behaviors.