Miscegenation, sensuality and national identity: The myth of Brazilian sexuality

Abstract

This article looks at the way the notion of uninhibited sexuality in Brazil evolves in the works of European travellers from the fifteenth century and in Brazilian sociology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also analyses why the mulatto woman is the symbol and principal representative of the myth of miscegenation, a fundamental aspect in the conformation of a national identity but at the same time an element which obscures the control of sexuality and the body that exist in Brazilian society.