Race and Sexuality
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Abstract
This entry illustrates the ways in which race and sexuality are co-constructed, suggesting that racial ideologies have continuously relied on sexual stereotypes for meaning. Histories of racial exploitation including slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow segregation were predicated on the hypersexualization of black men and women and the supposed moral superiority of white sexuality. This hypersexualization was used to condone lynching and rape and more generally justify racial apartheid through fears around miscegenation. Similarly, colonization and conquest, sexual tourism, and the militarization of sexuality have used sexual fantasies and exploitation of the “other” as tools of subordination. These images persist today as women of color are often hypersexualized in the media.
DOI
10.1002/9781119085621.wbefs230
Recommended Citation
Moras, A. (2016). Race and sexuality. In Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of family studies. John Wiley & Sons.
Comments
Entry in Encyclopedia of Family Studies.
ISBN: 9780470658451, Online ISBN: 9781119085621