Sexuality, Power, and Social Order in Cartagena, Colombia
Author(s)
Streicker, Joel
Abstract
Sexuality plays a major role in discourse concerning social order among older popular-class men known as ‘respectables’ in the Santa Ana district of Cartagena, Colombia. The men view violations of sexual norms as threats to the social order, and male domination in heterosexual relationships is used to represent other normative hierarchical relations of age, gender, class and race. The respectable men criticize self-interested action on the part of the rich, women and younger men, especially when sexuality is involved, as contributing to the breakdown of social order. However, the social order they defend is one which primarily served the interests of these older men.
