PRACTICE
The division between identity and practice In Latin culture was more pronounced and had ancient historical roots.
The fact that countries like Costa Rica were con-quered by Spain, an empire that sought to exploit rather than colonize, and that migration from the Motherland, contrary to that of the English to the United States, was relatively small, meant that to create a labor market, reproduction was necessary. Hence, the ideas of chastity, fidelity, and a single family were different.
Spain was a Catholic kingdom that fought for centuries against the Muslims and, in 1492, expelled half a million Jews. Their religious intolerance was no less severe than their sexual prudishness. However, unlike continental Spain, Latin America began to become depopulated. Hence, to create a labor market and uti-lize local labor, three alternatives were used: importing slaves, tolerating non-monogamous sexuality, and accepting illegitimate children.
Soon, a gap would emerge between theory and practice. The former stated that they lived in a Catholic society where any sexual transgression would be condemned with ostracism, imprisonment, and persecution, including that of the feared Inquisition. But 41
the practice pointed out that, if progress was desired, monogamy was impossible. The result would be to turn a blind eye, that is, not to enforce the laws and allow the population to have broad sexual freedoms. They even created a saying: “I obey, but I do not comply.”
One could be chaste in public and promiscuous in private; one could be religious and have scattered children; one could be a virgin and engage in oral sex; one could practice sodomy and not be a homosexual.
As the Greeks understood it, it was the practice, not the object of desire, that mattered: a man was a man if he was the one who penetrated.