Paz'sPasivo

Thinking Mexicanness from the Bottom

Bibliographic Data

ID2170355
AuthorsXiomara Verenice Cervantes-Gómez (0000-0003-1581-646X, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume29
Issue3
Pages333-347
Publication date2020-07-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Latin American Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1356-9325 • E-ISSN: 1469-9575
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13569325.2019.1675146
OpenAlexW3015026647
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited12

This essay reads Octavio Paz's El laberinto de la soledad (1950) as a fundamental text that describes the tensions between modern expressions of Mexicanness and sexual behavior. Taking seriously Paz's anxiety about sexual positionality, in which he proposes that Mexico can either assume the position of the chingón (top; fucker) or the chingado (bottom; fucked), this article asks: What is at stake in localizing and reading national narrative literature through the figure of the bottom? Paz's anxieties about sexual practices are marked by death-dealing assumptions about the longevity of the nation. This article thus offers a close-reading of risky allegories made about sex between men in the work of Paz to propose queer frameworks, what the article describes as "pasivo ethics," that engage with nationalist narratives that underscore that gay sexual practices are constitutive of nationalist discourse

Art · Literature · Narrative · Nationalism · Political science · Queer · Reading (process · Sociology · Cuban History and Society · Gender Studies · Latin American and Latino Studies · Latin American Literature Studies · Law · Psychology

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