[Aztlan] Sexuality in Mesoamerica (re-formated)

[Robert Evans]

David, you say "one regularly finds depictions of fully nude males as captives across the Maya realm (from Palenque to Uxmal), implying that public displays of nudity may have carried a similar humiliating context as one finds in Western society."

We modern-day Westerners latch on to the nudity as humiliation. It's fair to imply some sort of public humiliation for a captive to be paraded around by his captors but the "nudity in public" might not be the humiliating factor at all. Perhaps nudity in public was not humiliating, or not humiliating in a sexual sense, particularly for those of lower social status. Perhaps the "humiliation" in these cases was for a warrior to be seen as dis-armed and without symbols or armor, the nudity being merely coincidental?

Cheers, 

Robert Evans
revans at atoda.com
http://www.atoda.com


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