Power Struggles

Richard Trexler’s Sex and Conquest analyzes Mesoamerican homosexual practices and transvestism to shed light on the conquest. To set the stage he examines the European background where sodomy was used as a display of power and punishment to create effeminacy. He then studies sodomy in the context of Moorish / Spanish struggles in Iberia before moving to the Spanish contact with America, where the conquistadors often used gender issues to portray indigenous peoples as outsiders. He then turns to native transvestism, showing that it had a more permanent role in America, often religious, before examining attitudes towards transvestism. The summary focuses heavily on the violence inherent in sodomy.

Indeed, violence is an underlying theme of the book. Male captives, in both the European and American traditions, were often raped as a display of conquering power and to effeminate the conquered. Even in cases not involving warfare, it was usually connected with issues of power and dominance.

The book also maintains that the Spanish were familiar with homosexuality at contact. Though it perhaps took on a wider variety of roles in the Americas, it was not as major of a difference in culture to the degree that the Spanish used it to portray indigenous peoples as outsiders.

The portrayal of homosexuality makes it seem almost normal at the time, in both America and Europe, and indeed throughout most of human history. Today it is given almost an outsider status, even to the point where the infrequent uses of sodomy in warfare are seen as exceptions and not the rule. An excellent additional chapter, or perhaps book, would trace the attitude towards sodomy from the conquest era to the present, as the book does mention negative attitudes towards sodomy, albeit sometimes hypocritical, on the part of the Catholic Church.

The underlying themes of Pete Sigal’s From Moon Goddesses to Virgins, on the other hand, focus more on the differences between Spanish and Maya sexuality. Sexual desire among the Maya was usually framed around complex rituals whereas the Spanish constructed it frequently around sin, although the reality of the situation often suggested otherwise. Sexuality in the culture of the Maya was often used to communicate with the gods, whereas the focus was on purity with the Spanish. Sex was more public with the Maya and more private with the Spanish.

Much of the argument revolves around the role of the moon goddess and her varied roles. Promiscuous, she was important in creating lineages. The Spanish attempted to replace her with the Virgin Mary. The results, as were most attempts to replace Maya sexuality with Catholic values, created a hybridized version of the two.

Indeed, the most valuable part of the book is the idea that the complete spiritual conquest never happened, which suggests that complete conquest failed to happen in other cases. From Moon Goddesses to Virgins sees colonialism as a renegotiating of power. Although the Spanish held the upper hand in the negotiations, they did not make Spaniards out of the indigenous peoples. The book’s claim that the conquest created a mestizo race of the mind is well said.