Pleasures and Perils: Girls' Sexuality in a Caribbean Consumer Culture (Series in Childhood Studies) [Paperback]

Debra Curtis (Author)

Book Description

Series: Series in Childhood Studies | Publication Date: February 28, 2009

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 powerlessness, 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

I have rarely come across a book that I have been as impressed by as Pleasures and Perils. Curtis moves effortlessly between insightful social analysis and detailed stories from the field, giving the narrative an analytic depth that is rare. This book should be widely read for its emphasis on girls' sexuality. It is truly ground-breaking. --Richard Parker, director, Center for Gender, Sexuality, and Health, Columbia University

Sleek, readable, and provocative, this book is one of the best-written monographs I have read in recent years. A perfect text to use in courses on the anthropology of gender and sexuality. --Don Kulick, author of Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes

I have rarely come across a book that I have been as impressed by as Pleasures and Perils. Curtis moves effortlessly between insightful social analysis and detailed stories from the field, giving the narrative an analytic depth that is rare. This book should be widely read for its emphasis on girls' sexuality. It is truly ground-breaking. --Richard Parker, director, Center for Gender, Sexuality, and Health, Columbia University

From the Inside Flap

Pleasures and Perils follows a group of young girls living on Nevis, an island society in the Eastern Caribbean. 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 powerless­ness, self-determination and cultural control, violence and pleasure.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (February 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813544300
• ISBN-13: 978-0813544304
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #222,399 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Explicitly Educational, March 9, 2011

By 

nwhirt - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pleasures and Perils: GirlsÆ Sexuality in a Caribbean Consumer Culture (Series in Childhood Studies) (Hardcover)

Debra Curtis's 'erotic ethnography' of sexually explicit narratives from her informants on Nevis is one of the best learning experiences I've had from a class text. Her objective analysis of coercion, agency, and sexual economics is urgent and powerful. It also deals with conflicting discourses of Christian chastity and public health initiatives that teach nothing in the larger context of violent gender power relations, and the consequences of that on Nevis can be taken as an example for our own culture. Pleasures and Perils exposes the complicated relationships between discourse and sexual agency, the fluidity and malleability of sexuality within a culture and throughout a subject's life, and sexuality as a site of multiple contradictions. Curtis's argument that sexuality is compelled by and compels economics by girls being encouraged to conflate commodity desire with sexual desire resonates worldwide. The reality of sexual violence on Nevis is hidden under a 'blame the victim' mentality, and the Christian-based remonstrances of 'she deserved it' mirror the social situation in North America, and, like Curtis, I believe it relates to imagery in mass media and pornography. Pleasures and Perils is an informative and thought-provoking read, and a very valuable resource.