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Amelia Cabezas assignment

Amelia Cabezas details sexual citizenship as the status of Caribbean women struggling with the controversial field of sex tourism and its scrutiny under Caribbean governments. Cabezas uses the cuban government as a primary example of how governments intervened to “purify” their respective cultures in order to better their images, by labeling women who’s occupations lay outside the heteronormative standards of their society as dangerous criminals that ought to be subjected to rehabilitation. This allowed the government to incarcerate women for crimes against social morality, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation as well as corruption and unfair treatment to the institutionalized – even though prostitution is entirely legal in such areas. This puts the civil rights of the sexual citizen into jeopardy, all the while reinforcing the governments authority under the guise of aiding these women to become better citizens and people in general. The “promise” of saving women from allegedly heinous relations with tourists is met with conflict from women who under impoverished conditions are forced to sell their services to support their children and lifestyles. With no other method of survival, the promise of bettering oneself according to heteronormative structures leaves these women empty handed and at risk of being taken advantage of by men in higher positions, such as corrupt police officers that Cabezas accounts of having raped and robbed women arrested for being with tourists. Thus, the political inclination of the cuban government puts many women in unfavorable positions, listing them as sexual deviants for taking actions that would be applauded for had they been done by a man. Sexual citizenry serves only to profile and deprecate women that do not comply with the social norm that is heterosexual male dominance, all for the economic interest and benefit that mass tourism brings to places like the Caribbean.