Room 519-B | Spanish Presentations Tuesday, July 12, 2005 Time: 8:30 AM-10:30 AM |
Sexuality of Latin American Natives Indigenous - Invited Paper.
Colombino , Andrés Flores *,1, 1 Federación Latinoamericana de Sociedades de Sexología y Educación Sexual, FLASSES, Missing, Uruguay
ABSTRACT- The investigations of Latin-American native′s sexuality have been made from other areas of knowledge, and very few from sexuality. Almost 40.325.000 natives are registered in 23 countries, distributed in 4 groups according to the percentage of the total population. In Bolivia and Guatemala they are absolute majority and in Peru and Ecuador, exists almost half of the total poblation.Mexico is the country with the biggest number of indigenous. In the investigation, there are included only 28 countries that maintain their ancestral land and costumes, they are not all of them, but the ones that we founded in the actual bibliography. Their attitude, values and sexual behavior varies, eventhough they all have a difference between men and women, a soon sexual initiation in women, and an important role of menstruation and pregnancy; as factors that causes the absent of teenage period in the women′s vital cycle. The child birth gets different forms, from lonely and without help, to a social matter, with partner practice couvade of the husbands. The analphabetism is high in every ethnia, but exists more in women. The initiation ceremony is more complete and more variety in women. Sexual freedom varies according to the town, from the necessity of virginity before marriage to the free choose of couple and sexual activities. Poligenic polygamy predominates in older etnias and it seems to have disappeared in poligenic ethnias of Amazonic lands. Most of them practice the monogamy. Sexual dysfunctions are known, and they are designated with different names. The original variety in the sexual positions has been substituted by the position of the missionary, maybe because of the religious influence. Abortion and infanticide are common, but the only described cases are in the south towns of the country. The laws in the countries does not take into account the native′s costumes that could be punishable for the main culture. Mail homosexuality appears frequently in all towns, different from female homosexuality. There are not references about paraphilic sexuality or other different practices, but in the same town it is more often the violence against women. Legends about generation, courtship and infidelity influences the determination of costumes. You can not apply the same educational strategies in sexual and reproductive health in all the native towns, and you must respect the differences and own characteristics. Otherwise, it would be inefficacious. The conclusions seems to be a different program for each town
Key words: Indigenous