Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest of the Americas

by Richard C. Trexler

A historical account of the berdache biological men who performed the offices and work of women, including sexual service in Europe and America at the time of the Conquest. Trexler examines the sexual culture of both early modern Iberia and the native American world of that era. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Queer Studies, Academic, Sexuality

292 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Alexandra]

I have never believed someone less!

[Bryn Hammond]

This is a book for you if, only if, you have a fundamental belief in sex as power and very little else. For me it's a dark interpretation of human culture and unwarranted. His theory - incidence of homosexuality has to do with power (and subjection, humiliation) or is primarily to be studied in those terms - is way too blanket across cultures for my trust; he seems to me to treat vastly different cultures as almost equivalent. The evidence he hangs on is often loose, and the fact naively given away in his sentence structure: that is, you can easily read through to: 'although there's not a lot of data on this point, my theory holds'.

Sorry, my skin crawled; I have less negative beliefs. For your guidance, he follows Foucault, he scorns Walter Williams' The Spirit and the Flesh. He discounts the spirituality, or spiritual significance of the berdache.

[Becca w]

Helpful for understanding the historical construction of patriarchy and power