Everything Wrong with the Sexy Latina Image
A friend from work jokingly told me about how disappointed her boyfriend’s friends were that I was no longer single. They had never met any Latinas and apparently they had been hoping I would turn up to an upcoming BBQ alone. Her comments were delivered as a compliment.
I wondered: What is so appealing about meeting a Latina? Why does it have to matter if I am single or not? These guys have never seen a picture of how I look and I have never spoken to them. This further made me wonder: What would make meeting a Latina seem so inciting for men who know nothing about me? They do not even know which Latin American country I am from. In fact, on that same evening, my colleague asked me if I was planning to go back to Venezuela any time soon. I am from Mexico.
Of course, this is just one of many similar episodes I have experienced. But the question still stands: what does it mean to be a Latina? What does it mean for me, and what does it mean for others, such as 22-year-old white British guys? The problem with exploring meanings, is that you encounter many different definitions of the same thing and, very often, all of them collide.
For me, being a Latin American woman in the UK is intrinsically attached to strength and ambition. Yet I do not think the portrayal of women in mainstream media necessarily shows that. Latinas on screen seem to be curvy, beautiful, dressed in revealing clothing (or naked) and sexually available. Personality-wise, Latinas are often portrayed as hardworking - but doing low-paid jobs - lacking education and professional ambition.
“For me, being a Latin American woman in the UK is intrinsically attached to strength and ambition. Yet I do not think the portrayal of women in mainstream media necessarily shows that.”
When they are portrayed in slightly more powerful roles, they seem to exert power over men via seduction and erotic games. In other cases, they are passive witnesses of their lives, governed by violent men. They are often portrayed as emotional, fiery, angry and jealous. I am referring to the generally available English-speaking Latin American themed series or films. I am not naming any specific films or series on purpose as it is not the individual characters, but the combination of them, and the consistency of the traits in these characters which represent a problem.
Latin American themed series and films have created a solid Latina stereotype, one that has been normalised. The narratives of these stories have created a fictional ‘core’ of what being a Latina is supposed to mean. The ‘nature’ of Latinas is thus consistently presented in terms of mysterious, uneducated, exotic and hypersexualised beings. This way of portraying women dehumanises Latinas. For an outsider, this also diminishes their perceived agency to make decisions and have goals outside their hypersexualised ‘nature’.
There is a problem with machismo in many Latin American countries. Precisely for this reason, the portrayal of women as powerless or purely seductive beings, especially in the international arena, does not help the situation. At all. It further reproduces and feeds the problem of machismo. Even more worryingly, it may even normalise machismo outside as well as inside Latin America. When humans become accustomed to a socially-accepted ‘truth’ they stop seeing it as anything else, and the hypersexualisation of Latinas should not be one of those truths.
“A big part of being comfortable with your own sexuality is being able to decide when and how you want to embody that sexuality.”
The point of these lines is not to make an overly dramatic or cynical statement about how miserable Latinas feel when others think they are sexy (without having even met them). It is more about what it means for a Latina to be proud of who she is, when she perhaps does not want to overemphasise her sexuality. Or when she does not want to be thought of in terms of her sex-appeal.
A big part of being comfortable with your own sexuality is being able to decide when and how you want to embody that sexuality. Having the freedom to concentrate on embodying and emphasising other traits of your personality. This is particularly important in professional settings. We want to be taken seriously. We want to be seen as professionals with ambitions and a lot more to offer than just sex appeal or beauty.
So to answer my own question - what is wrong with the image of the ‘sexy’ Latina? Latin American women, just like women of other ethnicities, are the rulers, agents and decision-makers of our own sexuality. It is wrong for others to assume our sexuality exists for public consumption. Considering how much Latin American countries are already struggling with gender crimes, we really do not need anything else that reduces Latinas to their sexuality. Being hypersexualised outside Latin America is troubling and in many ways insulting.
