Sexual becomings: examining subjective theories of nonnormative sexualities in urban Shipibo-Konibo people

This article explores how a group of urban Shipibo-Konibo men and women in Peru make sense of nonnormative sexualities through the notion of subjective theories: culturally situated explanations people develop about themselves and others. Drawing on twenty-four in-depth interviews with heterosexual and gay Shipibos in Pucallpa and Ica, we identify two dominant themes. First, collaborators explained the current heightened visibility of sexual diversity in Amazonia through temporal idioms of ‘before’ and ‘nowadays.’ While they described rural communities of the past as places where queerness was largely hidden or invisible–shaped by secrecy, Christian influence, and gender-stratified arrangements–urban life was seen as enabling greater visibility, albeit alongside rejection and stigma. Second, collaborators explained queer subjectivities through the notion of becoming: a cumulative, embodied, and relational process shaped by childhood gender transgressions, intimate encounters, and urban migration. These accounts rearticulate Amazonian logics of incorporation–where subjectivities are formed through exchanges of affects, substances, and practices–while intersecting with global queer discourses. Together, Shipibo theories of sexual becoming provincialize Western assumptions of fixed identities, offering alternative ways of imagining queer subjectivities in indigenous urban worlds. The article contributes to rethinking sexual modernity in Amazonia beyond liberal frameworks of recognition.