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Cultivating a lesbiana seria identity

Sexualities

Published online on

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.