Hamilton, Sexual Revolutions in Cuba: Passion, Politics, and Memory by Carrie Hamilton (review)

Based on a selection of thirty interviews from more than a hundred recorded by the “Cuban Voices” oral history project, Carrie Hamilton has created an amazing oral history resource that interrogates how sexuality and desire did and did not change after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Combining long excerpts from life history interviews of island-dwelling Cubans with relevant primary and secondary sources, Hamilton thoroughly examines the complex intersectional relationship of desire, race, sex, and class. In doing so, she highlights topics not covered in past histories of Cuban sexuality (such as female same-sex desire and sexual violence), as well as the limitations of Western constructions of sexuality (such as “the closet”).

Beginning with a comprehensive history of sexuality and sexual expression during the Cuban revolutionary regime, the first chapter underscores the tensions between the old, pre-revolutionary Cuba and the new, post-revolutionary Cuba (1959–present). Hamilton argues that changes in sexual values and behavior can be attributed equally to changes in social and economic circumstances and to legal and political changes, which were often uneven and inconsistent in their enforcement. The second chapter is devoted to an examination of how feelings of love, romance, and intimacy have been associated with the political cause of the revolution and its success. Examining memories of changes and continuities in heterosexual relations since 1959 in the third chapter, Hamilton notes that these memories often fall into predictable patterns: women focus more than men on family and men more than women on extramarital affairs. But these interviews also reveal new concerns, such as paternal abandonment and its impact on future fatherhood.

The third, fourth, and fifth chapters inspect same-sex relationships, providing a wealth of new stories and perspectives for future analysis. The fourth chapter discusses memory, revolution, and homophobia, which is a highly fractured subject in Cuba, as younger narrators may remember hearing stories about state-sanctioned abuse, the UMAP (Unidades Militares para la Ayuda de Producción) labor camps, etc., but never in much detail. In addition, many homosexual Cubans left during the mass Mariel emigration in 1980, resulting in less overt displays of sexuality and homophobia within Cuba. The fifth chapter scrutinizes in detail a single interview with a self-identified homosexual man in relation to similar interviews and other texts in order to draw attention to a range of issues and intersections, including migration within Cuba, the differences between urban and rural sexual behavior, homophobia, sex work, etc. “Listening for Female Same-Sex Desire,” the sixth chapter, centers its attention on the self-styled “women who love women,” who have rarely been represented in prior studies of Cuban sexuality (174). Hamilton argues that this absence is due to Western constructions of lesbian sexuality that emphasize the butch/femme dichotomy over more fluid constructions of lesbian sensuality embraced by Cuban participants (hence the chapter’s emphasis on “listening” for female same-sex desire). This chapter also offers an excellent analysis of the intersections of race and sexuality through a discussion of the Afro-Cuban religion known as Santería and sexual identity.

Like many oral historians, Hamilton understands the power of silence and thus devotes the seventh chapter to three taboo topics in Cuba: AIDS, domestic and sexual violence, and interracial sexual relationships. As AIDS is not considered a homosexual disease in Cuba, the taboo has more to do with issues surrounding socialized medicine than homophobia. Similarly, the taboo against discussing domestic and sexual violence results from the Cuban revolutionary position that such violence would no longer exist once women had economic and social equality. Unfortunately, this denial has had fatal consequences as the practice can become normalized under the guise of invisibility, since Cuba has no shelters, victims’ advocates, etc. Finally, interracial sexual relationships have also increased, as racism was allegedly eliminated with the revolution. However, Hamilton’s narrators still find the idea problematic, especially when black men become involved with white women...