Family Secrets is a thought-provoking feminist-informed sociological study exposing the deeply troubling, hidden, and unspoken issues of incest and sexual violence in Mexican families. Based on 60 in-depth individual interviews the author personally conducted in Ciudad Juárez, Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Monterrey, she exposes the rich life stories of people who are as complex and multilayered as the incestuous experiences themselves. Incest may include a wide spectrum and highly nuanced and diverse expressions of coercion, as well as secrets around sex and romance within families. The sexua ... More

Family Secrets is a thought-provoking feminist-informed sociological study exposing the deeply troubling, hidden, and unspoken issues of incest and sexual violence in Mexican families. Based on 60 in-depth individual interviews the author personally conducted in Ciudad Juárez, Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Monterrey, she exposes the rich life stories of people who are as complex and multilayered as the incestuous experiences themselves. Incest may include a wide spectrum and highly nuanced and diverse expressions of coercion, as well as secrets around sex and romance within families. The sexual cultures of incestuous families in Mexico take place within a context of silence around sexual activity, creating an atmosphere of ambivalence and ambiguity in which sexual secrets fester. These cultural ambiguities are reinforced by the double standards of morality that disadvantage women within both the family and society. The author examines these stories through interconnected concepts such as gender servitude, family and social codes of honor and vergüenza, the family as the symbolic hacienda and el derecho de pernada, kinship reassignments, heterosexual incestuous lifestyles of romantic love and sex, visible and underground patriarchies, historical constructions of the paterfamilias and sexual slavery, cultural rituals of misogyny, family cultures of rape, family sexual harassment, family genealogies of incest, homophobia and family hate crimes, and kinship sex, among other intellectually provocative and revealing concepts. The sexual politics of incestuous families take place in a nation historically exposed to Christian-based values shaping sexual morality, and a flawed, corrupt, and outdated legal system.