Sexual Revolutions in Cuba: Passion, Politics, and Memory

INTRODUCTION: Sex, Politics, and Oral History in Cuba

introduction Sex, Politics, and Oral History in Cuba Do political revolutions bring changes in sexual values and practices? How do people living under a revolutionary regime perceive the relationship between political revolution, on one hand, and both the persisting and the changing patterns in sexual morality and behavior over time, on the other? How do these changes and continuities intersect with relations of class, race, gender, and generation? And why is revolution itself often expressed in the language of love, romance, and passion? These are some of the questions addressed in this book, through an exploration of the history of sexuality in Cuba from the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 to the early twenty-first century. During these five decades the Cuban revolutionary regime intervened in citizens’ sexual lives in myriad ways: through policy and legal reform, mass education programs, pronouncements of leaders on the relationship between good revolutionaries and good sexual subjects, incentives to encourage certain forms of sexual union, and repressive methods to discourage and punish others. But above all the enormous economic, political, and social upheaval ushered in by the Revolution brought transformation to all areas of life, including the family, reproduction, sexual values, and intimate relationships. Cuban sexual ideology did not change overnight after 1959. New revolutionary values continued to coexist with prerevolutionary ones, in a potent and often contradictory mix of the old and the new. Moreover, revolutionary leaders did not have a coherent set of views on sexuality.In the majority white, heterosexual men from middle-class families, they frequently betrayed views associated with the prerevolutionary dominant classes, in particular about the desired roles of women and men and the undesirability of homosexuality . Finally, like all forms of social change, alterations in sexual values and practices did not depend merely on legal measures and structural changes in the public, political realm, but involved as well longer-term cultural shifts, 2 introduction especially in the family. In Cuba as elsewhere, some people embraced new opportunities while others resisted them as a perceived threat to respect and decency. Generation was an important—but not the only—factor in this pattern . This book analyzes sexuality in Cuba during the first fifty years of the Revolution through the analysis of oral history interviews with island-dwelling Cubans. While written documents and speeches provide important information about the views and intentions of revolutionary rulers and elites,oral history allows us to move beyond the legal and political realms to the nuances of how official policy did, or did not, affect the lives of ordinary citizens, and how these citizens contributed in turn to wider social and political change (a fundamental part of any revolutionary process). Because people rarely tell their life stories in a straightforward, chronological way, and because they often measure time not with reference to dates but in relation to generations, oral history provides a particularly useful tool for assessing the impact of policy on everyday life. the aim of the book is threefold: (1) to provide an overview of the main developments in the history of sexuality in Cuba since 1959, from the perspective of people living in Cuba during these years; (2) to intervene in—and add new dimensions to—ongoing debates, and to make the case for exploring henceforth less-examined themes; and, (3) to interrogate the relationship between history and memory through the theme of sexuality, in the process reconsidering notions of chronology and periodization in relation to the Cuban Revolution. The book covers a broad territory, its diverse themes brought together through three primary arguments. First, the changes that took place in the realm of sexuality after 1959 were less a result of deliberate policies on sexuality than of wider social, political, and economic transformations. Second, variations and consistencies in sexuality were intimately tied to social power relations of gender,race,and social class.Finally,our understanding of the history of sexuality is enhanced by an attention to the relationship between history and memory. Oral history offers a useful counterpoint to chronological accounts that rely on major policy decisions, public discourses, and statistical evidence. It also provides a necessary antidote to official versions that recount history as progress. Life-story interviews demonstrate that prerevolutionary sexual ideology and power relations, as well as early revolutionary prejudices, introduction 3 continued to shape attitudes and experiences well after they had been officially overcome or abandoned. Histories,Theories, and Methods...