The Virgin Who Lives within Her Erotic Worth

Abstract

Chapter 1 introduces a lived bem-estar (well-being) by centering the meaning of Black lesbian vivência(s) and turns to the notions of sexual health broadly and body politics that expose social disequilibrium within gynecological encounters. Falu argues that Brazilian Black lesbians adjust to particular terms of engagement by (re)making themselves, claiming renewed subject positions in erotic power, and reformulating racialized sexual subjectivity in and beyond the gynecological encounter. Through the lens of what it means to be a lesbian virgin, Falu establishes the language used by Black lesbians, interpreted in forms of erotic power to claim space and knowledge with the challenges of derailing speculum exams.