Pleasures And Perils By Debra Curtis: Chapter Analysis

Debra Curtis brings a lot of information together in chapter five, The State and Sexualities, in her book, Pleasures and Perils: Girls’ Sexuality in a Caribbean Consumer Culture. She uses her observations, interviews, and informative talk show community radio stations to get her understanding of the sexual culture she is surrounded by in Nevis. Curtis explores both some of the institutions around the Nevisians lifestyle alike the Nevisian Ministry of Health as well as the people’s words and experiences to find her understanding as she examines her own findings throughout the text. Through Curtis’s quest and by analyzing her text myself of what is described in the chapter about the Nevisian sexual culture, I am questioning and searching for …show more content…
Curtis describes the beatings as abusive and is in relation to the domestic abuse on the island. Because beatings are understood as respectable punishment towards women and children non-sensual sex and incest is as well recognized as a normal sexual encounter by the male society in Nevis. When Curtis interviewed these men about this particular topic, they did not respond in any abnormal way, but simply made the statement that he made her his. When Curtis asked a man whether he had raped her he would reply with a nonchalant yes as if he felt it was his right. The men and women of Nevis highly believed if the men don’t ‘use it, they lose it’. These kinds of cultural ideas as well as the violence that is accepted is what strictly holds this sexual culture as it is in …show more content…
This show was discussed over nonacademic education like manners, values, and essential skills. The hosts were concerned that parents were not installing these values into their kids and this was because kids were having kids. They believe the problem is that there is no generation gap and it was stated that you’ll see grandmothers and mothers all at the local club. There main issue was that they believed teen pregnancy is a threat to school plus their society and that everyone needed to “fight the evil forces”, which the institutions were trying to do shown earlier in Curtis’s text, but failed because families refused to take up this responsibility and many school counselors were very ill prepared for this responsibility (Curtis 1963: 92). Overall, Curtis implied that this talk show portrayed a lot of ideas that are on people’s mind across Nevis, but are unable to be voiced in the