Unlike American homosexual identities, Mexican homosexual identities do not endanger people's masculinity if they are the ones who are doing the penetration. According to Almaguer (1998), “the Mexican/Latin-American sexual system is based on a configuration of gender/sex/power that is articulated along the active/passive axis and organized through the scripted sexual role one plays” (p. 257). He lays out the foundation for what other scholars were going to do in the future. He acknowledged the fact that Latinx gay men experience masculinity, sex, and power in a completely different way from their white counterparts do. Part of Almaguer’s argument is that the man who is penetrating (activo) is able to maintain their masculinity and heterosexual identity, while the man who is penetrated (passive) is relegated to a lower position of power. He argues that “anal passivity is stigmatized and that defines the subordinate status of homosexuals in Latin culture. The stigma conferred to the passive role is fundamentally inscribed in gender-coded terms” (Almaguer, 1998, p. 258). It is interesting to see the ways in which masculinity controls power dynamics amongst men in Latinx culture. |
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It shows just how much significance masculinity has and how fragile it really is. In the case of gay Latinx men, the privacy of one’s sexual role is exploited in order to determine how they are perceived by the rest of the community. However, I feel that even for those men who do take on the activo role, they do not have the same privilege and power that a straight Latinx man would have.
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