‘I Had a Guilty Conscience Because I Wasn't Going to Marry Her’: Ethical Dilemmas for Mexican Men in their Sexual Relationships with Women

Abstract

In Mexico's predominantly Catholic culture, the enjoyment of sexual rights faces many challenges, both at the political and the personal level. Although often connected, the meanings of sexuality and reproduction are fundamentally different and so, correspondingly, are possibilities for the exercise of reproductive rights versus sexual rights. Such views are ‘gendered’ by the idea that women's desire and sexual activity should be controlled and men's masculinity should be affirmed through sexual performance. Drawing on in-depth research conducted among young Mexican men in rural communities, this article examines the ‘ethics’ implicit in men's accounts when talking about sexual desires, pleasures and practices with women. Findings point to the need for a stronger ethics of sexual citizenship in Mexico as part of enabling conditions for the exercise of both men's and women's sexual rights.