What I find interesting as I read is how talk of non-monogamy is deprioritized in favor of a focus on heterosexuality and same-sex sexuality. What makes this book most interesting to me is the fact that the author's research and documentation actually chart the existence of openly non-monogamous relationships with both genders rather than closeted affairs where the wimmin secretly long to have relationships with only wimmin but can't because of social constraints/lesbophobia. When I choose not to ground in tired Springeresque silencing, longing dramas or restriction and fear, without a belief in the necessity of various closets, this book's strength for me lies in its ability to chart what has always been true - that relationships in the diaspora have always been fairly creative and not at all constrained by the norms of the dominant society. Approaching the text with a belief in poly profoundly shifts my reading of this book in ways that give me pleasure and a sense of greater possibility. That works. :)
The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora
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