Incitements to desire: Sexual cultures and modernizing projects

This review essay considers recent work on sexuality and modernity, broadly conceived. Examining two studies from China and two from parts of Latin America, I suggest that fruitful research and writing is focusing on regions that are undergoing economic transitions marked by growing private sectors and market reform as a consequence of globalization. In these areas one finds both economic and sexual “opening up” to change, with diverse cultural and political implications at the local and the national levels.