Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In my presentation, I will discuss my transnational research journey as a Mexican immigrant who has lived in the United States for almost 20 years and who goes back home to conduct sexuality research from feminist and community-based perspectives. In this on-going research project, I study the sociology of incest in Mexican society while paying special attention to the sexual and romantic histories of 60 adult incest survivors living in highly industrialized locations in the nation (i.e., Ciudad Juárez, Monterrey, Gudalajara, and Mexico City). In my presentation, I will critically examine the following lessons I have learned from the first stages of this study: (1) the transnational methodologies and epistemologies I have developed while working on this research project; (2) the ways in which I have romanticized transnational feminist research and some of the disappointments and dilemmas that have emerged as I have been immersed in the field; (3) some of the issues and concerns with regard to my own internalized intellectual colonization; (4) the intellectual bridges that I have crossed and reinvented as I have interacted with local, national, and transnational intellectual activists conducting gender and sexuality research; (5) some critical views with regard to issues of intellectual legitimacy, ethical dilemmas, exclusionary practices in academic circles, and personal vulnerabilities and actual risks I have been exposed to as a resarcher; and, (6) the potential avenues to use my transnational research methods and results for the benefit of the study participants and their families and communities.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The paper I would like to present will critically examine constructions of childhood sexual abuse, particularly incest, in contemporary film and television movies and the implications of these constructions for legal and social responses to child sexual abuse. I will ask why incest is portrayed differently and more or less frequently in different popular media and to what extent pop cultural representations of incest are capable of encouraging political resistance to the social structures and relationships that enable child sexual abuse. I will argue that particular kinds of media encourage therapeutic responses to incest, whereas others engender cultural avoidance of the issue altogether. Ultimately, I will argue, few representations of incest in pop culture explore the relationships between gender, power, and family that contextualize abuse, although the appearance of nascent themes of incest in pop culture suggests a cultural anxiety and potentially politicizing recognition of the problem. Movies that will be discussed (and parts of which will be viewed in my presentation) include Eve’s Bayou, The Sweet Hereafter, The War Zone, Monster, Girl Interrupted, and Something about Amelia.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: A Quilt of Incest is a book written from the perspective of dual roles: survivor and therapist. A brief historical review of various countries and ethnicities explore the universality of Childhoood Sexual Abuse. The book includes 32 case studies with illustrations as well as presenting new treatment options.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The near universality of the incest taboo against inbreeding between three sets of dyads in nuclear kinship units is an ideal topic for co-evolutionary analysis that is, the interaction effects between biological and sociocultural processes during the course of hominid and human evolution. Drawing from primatology, neurology, the sociology of emotions, evolutionary biology, anthropology, clinical psychology, and sociology, this paper not only seeks to shed new light on the origins of the taboo itself, but also on variations in (1) the power of the taboo to regulate mother-son, brother-sister, and father-daughter sexual relations; (2) the differences in the rates of incest among these incestuous dyads; and (3) the resulting differences in the psychopathologies that emerge when the taboo is violated.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This comparative case study examines the status of intrafamilial child sexual abuse under so-called “sexual predator” laws such as Megan’s Law. States vary widely in how they define and implement sex offender registration and community notification (SORCN) laws. The paper examines how the operationalization of concerns such as risk, harm, and community safety often discourages or forbids law enforcement officials to apply SORCN requirements to incest offenders. The study points to ways that SORCN statutes, court decisions, and law enforcement guidelines both reflect and re-shape cultural beliefs about sexual violence to justify limiting state intervention in cases of incest and familial child sexual abuse.