The imaginary about sexual initiation: intersections of gender, race/color and sexuality between young people of the lower classes in the city of Belém (Pará), Brazil

Abstract

This paper proposes an analysis, based on interviews conducted in the project “‘To enter into a world that is not mine’: sexual initiation in interviews with poor young people and middle classes in the city of Belém (Pará), Brazil”. It analyzed the “sexual scripts” of young women and men (heterosexual and homosexual), residing in “central” and “peripheric” areas in Belém, the capital of Pará, Brazil. Our locus of research was the institution Casa do Estudante Universitário do Pará (CEUP), with locations in a middle class/upper middle class neighborhood, and in the Guamá suburb, a “periphery” of Belém. We emphasize the significant role of families of origin in the reproduction of social and sexual conduct, and the different ways interviewees manage sexual initiation according to beliefs and imaginaries situated at the intersection of gender, sexuality and race/color.