Cultivating a lesbiana seria identity

Abstract

Based on 22 in-depth interviews and 14 months of participant observation, this article explores collective identity among Latina lesbians who participate in a social group herein referred to as Latinas Unidas. It addresses the layers of belonging Latinas Unidas maintain according to sexual morality. The author notes that the sexually moral ( lesbiana seria) identity to which group members adhere allows them to resist dominant portrayals of themselves as hypersexual, promiscuous beings. Still, in developing this identity, Latinas Unidas members create a charmed circle around their group and distance themselves away from other sexually nonconforming women who do not uphold their values of sexual morality.