Anxious pleasures : the sexual lives of an Amazonian people /

Gregor, Thomas.

Anxious pleasures : the sexual lives of an Amazonian people / Thomas Gregor. - Pbk. edition. - Chicago : University of Chicago Press, (c)1987. - 1 online resource (xii, 223 pages) : illustrations

Includes bibliographies and index.

List of Illustrations; List of Tables; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1 The Mehinaku and the Sexual Data; 2 Mehinaku Men and Women: A Sociology of Marriage, Sex, and Affection; 3 Facts of Life and Symbols of Gender; 4 Sexual Relations; 5 Food for Thought: The Symbolism of Sexual Relations and Eating; 6 Men's House; 7 Anxious Pleasures; 8 Anxious Dreams; 9 Tapir Woman: Socialization and Personality Theory; 10 Ears, Eclipses, and Menstruating Men:The Feminine Self in Masculine Culture; 11 The Universal Male; References; Index.

""Good fish get dull but sex is always fun."" So say the Mehinaku people of Brazil. But Thomas Gregor shows that sex brings a supreme ambiguity to the villagers' lives. In their elaborate rituals-especially those practiced by the men in their secret societies-the Mehinaku give expression to a system of symbols reminiscent of psychosexual neuroses identified by Freud: castration anxiety, Oedipal conflict, fantasies of loss of strength through sex, and a host of others. ""If we look carefully, "" writes Gregor, ""we will see reflections of our own sexual nature in the life ways of an Amazoni.



9780226150161


Mehinacu Indians--Sexual behavior.
Indians of South America--Sexual behavior--Brazil.
Sex role--Brazil.


Electronic Books.

F2520 / .A595 1987