[Aztlan] Sexuality in Mesoamerica

[Michel Quenon]

For a start, I would suggest consulting a recently published book: "The
Memory of Bones" by Stephen Houston, David Stuart and Karl Taube, in
particular, "The Classic Maya Body" and "Emotions" chapters.

Michel Quenon

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rodrigo Garcia" <rodrigo at paloalto.com>
To: <aztlan at lists.famsi.org>
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 9:28 AM
Subject: [Aztlan] Sexuality in Mesoamerica


> Hi everyone,
>
>
>
> I have a few questions which I can't seem to find much information about
> anywhere and I would appreciate any help you can give me on this.
>
>
>
> What do we know about sexuality in Mesoamerica?
>
> Did people carry the same taboos and negative associations about sex that
> we do today?
>
> Was sex repressed by Mesoamerican religions like it has been repressed by
> many other religions all over the world?
>
> Was nudity accepted in public and if so was sex also accepted in public or
> was it something to be strictly practiced only in private areas?
>
> Was sex restricted only to married couples?
>
> What was considered wrong sexual behavior?
>
>
>
> And I read somewhere that the Totonacs were more "free", open and tolerant
> about sexuality and that they had a lot of sculptures of genitalia. I
> wonder if anybody can direct me to where I can find examples of this. Also
> I tried searching on the Justin Kerr vase collection for "sex",
> "sexuality" and nothing comes up. Does this mean that sexual practices
> were never depicted in Maya art? If this is not true could somebody direct
> me to art where sexual practices are depicted in Maya or Mesoamerican art?
> I know there are at least a few examples of this because a friend of mine
> told me he visited a famous painters house in Mexico and he supposedly had
> many prehispanic clay figurines of couples engaging in sex, something I
> had never heard of before. So I am wondering if the church destroyed a lot
> of these or if they have been kept from the public because of our own
> taboos against sex?
>
>
>
> Thanks for any help on this!
>
>
>
> Rodrigo
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Aztlan mailing list
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/aztlan
> Click here to post a message Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Click to view Calendar of Events
http://research.famsi.org/events/events.php
>
>