Pleasures and Perils: Girls' Sexuality in a Caribbean Consumer Culture

Debra Curtis

Published by Rutgers University Press 2009

Pleasures and Perils

Girls' Sexuality in a Caribbean Consumer Culture

Debra Curtis

In the series Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813546964

Overview
Contents

About this book

Pleasures and Perils follows a group of young girls living on Nevis, an island society in the Eastern Caribbean. In this provocative ethnography, Debra Curtis examines their sexuality in gripping detail: why do Nevisian girls engage in sexual activity at such young ages? Where is the line between coercion and consent? How does a desire for wealth affect a girl's sexual practices?

Curtis shows that girls are often caught between conflicting discourses of Christian teachings about chastity, public health cautions about safe sex, and media enticements about consumer delights. Sexuality's contradictions are exposed: power and powerless¡ness, self-determination and cultural control, violence and pleasure. Pleasures and Perils illuminates the methodological and ethical issues anthropologists face when they conduct research on sex, especially among girls. The sexually explicit narratives conveyed in this book challenge not only the reader's own thoughts on sexuality but also the broader limits and possibilities of ethnography.

Author / Editor information

DEBRA CURTIS is an assistant professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island.

Reviews

"Pleasures and Perils is an accessible yet theoretically astute introduction to theories of sexual subjectivity, discourse, and mediation. It is also a compellingly written story about an island in transition and about the girls who are coming to adulthood as these shifts take place."

— New West Indian Guide

"Pleasures and Perils is an accessible yet theoretically astute introduction to theories of sexual subjectivity, discourse, and mediation. It is also a compellingly written story about an island in transition and about the girls who are coming to adulthood as these shifts take place."

— New West Indian Guide

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Chapter 1. Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 2. Globalizing Nevis: Radical Shifts from Subsistence to Consumerism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	30
Chapter 3. Competing Discourses and Moralities at Play Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
Chapter 4. Consuming Global Scripts: Media, Sex, and Desire Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
Chapter 5. The State and Sexualities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
Chapter 6. Rethinking Sexual-Economic Exchange Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
Chapter 7. Theorizing Sexual Pleasure Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Chapter 8. Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	180
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	202
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213