Female Desires

This groundbreaking collection includes thirteen essays from historians, sociologists, and anthropologists who discuss transgendered females and same-sex desire among women in Asia, Latin America, Native North America, and Africa. Offering compelling evidence against the commonly accepted notion that non-Western women are generally passive victims of male domination and compulsory heterosexuality, these essays on lesbian desire in ancient and modern India, butch-femme social types in Indonesia and Peru, and the lesbian movement in Mexico dispel the myth that same-sex female desire is rooted in Western neo-imperialist culture.

Discusses same-sex desire among women in non-Western cultures. The book explores female eroticism in societies such as India and Polynesia, aiming to dispel ideas that non-Western women are victims of compulsory heterosexuality and that same-sex female desire is rooted in Western culture.Evelyn Blackwood and Saskia Wieringa have compiled thirteen essays from a group of historians, sociologists, and anthropologists who discuss same-sex desire among women outside the West, exploring female eroticism in such societies and cultures as India, Polynesia, Latin America, Native North America, and southern Africa.Female Desires offers compelling evidence against the commonly accepted notion that non-Western women are generally passive victims of male domination and compulsory heterosexuality. It also dispells the idea that same-sex female desire is rooted in Western neo-imperialist culture: contributors show non-Western women to be active agents of their own sexual identities. Essays include Giti Thadani on lesbian desire in ancient and modern India, Saskia Wieringa on butch-femme social types in Indonesia and Peru, and Norma Mogrovejo on the lesbian movement in Mexico.In a larger sense, the essays attempt to look past the ethnocentric categories in which sexuality, identity, and culture are often considered.