Machismo prescribes that homosexual
encounters among Latino men are
conducted along highly gendered lines:
men tend to be anally insertive or receptive over the
lifecourse, but
not both. Some have argued that Latino
men have more lifecourse homosexual relations in comparison to other
racial/ethnic groups. This is often due
to the perception that Latin America has a quasi-institutional
orientation
toward homosexuality, which sharply contrasts it with the United States. Although scholars suggest that sex role
preferences and a greater likelihood for homosexual encounters exist
among
Latino men in the United
States, limited empirical data
validate
these claims. I analyze Latino /
non-Latino differences in male homosexual behaviors and sex role
preferences by
using the 2002 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth, a
nationally-representative area probability sample of nearly 5000 men. Findings reveal that non-Mexican Latino, but
not Mexican, men possess increased likelihoods of ever having
homosexual
encounters in comparison to non-Latino Blacks and Whites.
Latino men prefer insertive or receptive sex
in comparison to non-Latino Blacks and Whites, but this difference is
largely
due to education. Mexican men tend to be
orifice-specific (oral or anal), while non-Mexican Latinos are more
oriented to
both oral and anal sex. Nonetheless, all
Latino men are more likely than non-Latino Blacks and Whites to refuse
to
answer questions pertaining to male homosexual behavior.
I conclude by discussing the racial/ethnic
implications of sex role preferences for HIV/AIDS transmission in the United States.