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  • “My Body is My Piece of Land”Female Sexuality, Family, and Capital in Caribbean Texts
  • Sandra C. Duvivier (bio)

[S]exuality in the Caribbean has been and continues to be material for the reproduction of the workforce, family, and nation as well as for boosting national economies and, as such, constitutes important economic resources in the region. Sexual-economic exchanges appear as crucial for the sustenance of the region in the face of inequalities that global capitalism has created in the small Caribbean nations and territories.

—Kamala Kempadoo1

For the poor, the whole notion of sexuality is difficult: it’s not a matter of identity as we see it in a modern, affluent Western society. Rather, [ . . . ] sexuality is [often] something you use to find shelter, food and safety. It has a use; it has a value.

—Joanna Bourke2

Scholars and activists have begun to pay critical attention to the employment of sexuality, particularly female sexuality, as a viable means of socioeconomic advancement in the Caribbean. Primarily emerging within the past two decades, the publications have often centered on the commodification of sexuality within the public sphere: through the tourist industries. These industries largely perceive Caribbean bodies as “exoticized,” overly sexualized “others,” which attests to the global political economy’s exploitation of Caribbean people generally and Caribbean women particularly. More critical attention could also be given to “private” representations of the sex industries in these locales, as many sex workers’ activities occur outside of the public sphere with Caribbean counterparts as their main clientele. However, these sex workers, especially their manipulation by financially secure patrons, serve metonymically for the Caribbean sex industries within the larger global political economy.

Guitele Jeudy Rahill’s novella Violated (2001) and Rick Elgood and Don Letts’ film Dancehall Queen (1997) explore the politics of black female sexuality in relation to upward mobility and economic survival in Caribbean settings. The black female body in these texts is currency signifying the potential for basic survival, financial security, and socioeconomic advancement for the girls/women in question and their families. These families at times sanction the use of female sexuality, even at the expense of unwilling young “participants,” perceiving it as the most profitable means by which to attempt to transcend poverty. This essay, locating Haitian and Jamaican bodies, respectively, within [End Page 1104] global political economy, examines female sexuality as “marketplace” that reaps familial financial benefits in Violated and Dancehall Queen. In so doing, it analyzes the intentional use of the black female body for mobility purposes. It diverges, then, from other scholarship on race and sexuality, which largely focuses on “outside” (national and global) exploitation of the black female body.

“Peggy went out to buy water and instead brought you all something even better”: Violated and the Economy of Sexuality

Haitian American therapist Rahill’s severely underconsidered novella Violated provides a fictional representation of sexuality’s currency in Haiti. Informed heavily by many of her patients’ experiences with sexual abuse, Rahill’s Violated also explores the ways certain sexual exchanges occurring in Haiti are upheld in the United States, where some characters later migrate. Interrelated with sexuality in this text are its “purchase” and the ramifications of sexual activity on its largely underage laborers: namely Peggy Pouchot, and, to a lesser degree, daughter Kasha.

In the novella’s opening, set in the backdrop of 1950s/pre-Duvalier Haiti, dark-skinned, nouveau riche Henri Berceuse makes an attempt to “purchase” light-skinned, noticeably poor Peggy for sexual services. With Henry’s placing currency and value on Peggy’s complexion, which causes him to lust after her, Rahill alludes to Haiti’s skin-color politics. For instance, although changing with time, Haiti has been known for maintaining an unequal society divided by socioeconomic status and color. The “elite” Haitians and those holding important political positions/power, at particular historical junctures, have been disproportionately lighter-skinned.3 With her portrayal of Peggy as poor and having no special lineage, however, Rahill complicates class/color politics. She further problematizes these politics with her depictions of Peggy’s complexion rendering her prone to sexual violation as a means of socioeconomic advancement.

Occurring in the more industrialized Port-au-Prince, where...

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