Identity, desire and truth: homosociality and homoeroticism in Mexican migrant communities in the USA

This paper examines the construction of a homoerotic social scene among Mexican migrants in California. It analyses the discourses of migrant men in the cities of San Diego and Fresno who identify themselves as heterosexual and have not had sexual experiences with men and those of members of civil society organisations doing HIV prevention work with migrant men, to show how an identity-based model of sexuality used by the HIV prevention organisations is counter to the strategic, non-identity-based model constructed by migrant men. With this incongruence as its starting point, the paper offers a critique both of the epistemological factors underlying the category of 'men who have sex with men' and the logic running through HIV prevention discourses that adhere to the Foucauldian notion of the deployment of sexuality, which demands both truth and coherence in subjects' sexuality.