Femme-Macho & Virgin-Whore Dichotomy circa 2004

I enjoy looking back at what I wrote in my blog over these past 5 years. There's a lot of growth that I can see and there is also a lot of similarities that I see remaining. This is exciting for me. I started writing online in 2004. Here's one of the first entries I ever published. Lots of ideas here; kind of incoherent at times, but important thought processes occurring.

Virgin/Whore Dichotomy?!

why am i and my latina homegirls plagued by the virgin/whore dichotomy!? why must we be seen as either sex feigns or virginal? what about women who buy into this only to say "i'm neither, i'm in the middle"? am i really a femme-macho for now. don't know what that is? check out aida hurtado's the color of privilege three blasphemies on race and feminism. hurtado defines a femme-macho as one who: unlike the virgin or the whore, can either be attractive or unattractive. A strong personality is what characterizes her. The strength of the femme-macho does not lie in her racial/physical appearance but, rather, on remaining emotionally uninvolved though sexually active.

The man’s challenge is to deflower the femme-macho emotionally. "The femme-macho can be sarcastic, funny, outrageous, aggressive, mean, or belligerent, but she cannot be tender, loving (except in a political or abstract sense), frightened, or insecure (p. 50-51). This description is in some ways liberating and in others restricting. A woman who chooses not to give up her ability to enjoy herself sexually, can only do so at the cost of not experiencing an emotional relationship with her partner(s).

The issue of fluidity comes into play when Hurtado states that the “femme-macho also plays with the notion of bisexuality” (p. 51). Identities such as bisexuality have not been discussed in Latina feminist literature, or queer literature, as much as lesbianism has. Hurtado used her discussion of femme-machos to discuss lesbianism in the Chicano community. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s book Borderland/La Frontera, she discusses her perspectives on the Chicano community and her lesbianism. Anzaldúa writes “I made the choice to be queer (for some it is genetically inherent)” (emphasis Anzaldúa’s) (p. 41). Her statement to be queer speaks to her conscious decision to challenge stereotypes about women and the relationships they are capable of having and their positioning on the hierarchy Hurtado discusses.

Emma Pérez writes that the “arguments that men pass down to white women are passed down to us. We are forced to address issues as they define them, not as we define them. Our work reconstructs as much as it has always deconstructed the white-male order and white-feminist assumptions about women of color” (1991, p. 161). If anything, the virgin/whore dichotomy is not a Latino construct, it is a white one, along with ideas of machismo and Marianismo. The theories are backwards.

In Puerto Rico, traditional sexuality and relationship formation does not mean sexual oppression, traditional means historically known, autonomous, liberated sexuality, and oppressive and rigid sexuality and relationship formation is historically known to be a construction of colonizer’s “white” sexuality. The idea that Puerto Rican women, when sexually active, having more than one partner in their lifetime, and cohabitating with a partner, is not a result of acculturation to US society, but is actually a result of historical “traditional” Puerto Rican ways of living, loving and creating social support systems.

Attempts all racial/ethnic researchers, scholars, authors and others make to identify Latinas, especially Puerto Rican women’s, sexuality and relationships as dichotomous in a virgin/whore situation is inaccurate. I perceive this attempt to be a “new” and “modern” form of colonization of Puerto Rican women. Neocolonization doesn’t occur too far from “home,” and this example of Puerto Rico demonstrates that point.

I believe that it is appropriate to end this paper with a quote by Anzaldua. In her section “somos una gente” (we are one) she writes “I think we need to allow whites to be our allies…They will come to see that they are not helping us but following our lead” (p. 107). What is currently considered “liberated” white acculturated sexuality does not help Puerto Rican women and some Latinas, it is Puerto Rican women and Latinas helping liberate white sexuality.

I would rely on the memory of my mother telling me that I should live with a man for at least one year before marrying him. When I asked her why she said that, she responded that it was something she wished she had done before marrying my father (they have been separated for 10 years), that people change and that I will change and that I have to be aware and prepared for those changes before I get married and/or choose to share my life with someone.

Clearly, my Puerto Rican mother supports cohabitation and advocates it, she uses her own experiences to guide me towards a better understanding of my relationships and sexuality in hopes that I come to realizations about who I am and what I want, deserve, desire and need before I make life changing commitments. I believe this is her guiding me to creating and achieving what Chela Sandoval calls “revolutionary love.” June 8, 2004: 7:13 pm