Cover not available

Article published In: Transnational discourses of peripheral sexualities in the Hispanic world
Edited by Michael J. Horswell and Nuria Godón
[Journal of Language and Sexuality 5:2] 2016
► pp. 250–275

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Kiss with a fist

The chola’s humor and humiliation in Bolivian lucha libre

 | Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
Published online: 29 September 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.5.2.06hay
Lucha libre, a form of exhibition wrestling, has recently gained popularity in Bolivia, thanks to mixed-gender matches featuring traditionally-dressed women known as the cholitas luchadoras. Within their matches, the act of kissing is often used as a form of humiliating an opponent. This article explores the convergence of eroticism and humiliation in these kisses as an entry point for a broader understanding of the deployment of power in the Bolivian context. Taking both the symbolic language of bodies in the ring and audience discourses about that action, I explore how associations between humiliation and demasculinization may reinforce the potency of masculinity as a position of power. Further, seeing the chola as representative of the Bolivian nation helps us to understand the ways that humiliation works as a recognizable trope for Bolivian audiences, lending import to these seemingly superficial performances.
References (73)
Albro, Robert. 2000. The populist chola: Cultural mediation and the political imagination in Quillacollo, Bolivia. Journal of Latin American Anthropology 5 (2): 30–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. The indigenous in the plural in Bolivian oppositional politics. Bulletin of Latin American Research 24 (4): 433–453. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. The culture of democracy and Bolivia’s indigenous movement. Critique of Anthropology 26 (4): 387–410. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Atkinson, Michael. 2002. Fifty million viewers can’t be wrong: Professional wrestling, sports entertainment, and mimesis. Sociology of Sport Journal 191: 47–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Austin, Andrew. 2004. Explanation and responsibility: Agency and motive in lynching and genocide. Journal of Black Studies 34 (5): 719–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 2000. Mythologies. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, Richard & Briggs, Charles L. 1990. Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 191: 59–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beekman, Scott. 2006. Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blanco, Jose Joaquin. 1990. Un Chavo Bien Helado. Mexico: Biblioteca Era.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre & Wacquant, Loïc. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cadena-Roa, Jorge. 2002. Strategic framing, emotions, and Superbarrio—Mexico City’s masked crusader. Mobilization: An International Journal 7 (2): 201–216. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Canessa, Andrew. 2006. Todos somos indígenas: Towards a new language of national political identity. Bulletin of Latin American Studies 25 (2): 241–263. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Sex and the citizen: Barbies and beauty queens in the age of Evo Morales. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 17 (1): 41–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. Forgetting the revolution and remembering the War: Memory and violence in Highland Bolivia. History Workshop Journal 681: 173–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cardyn, Lisa. 2002. Sexualized racisms/gendered violence: Outraging the body politic in the Reconstruction South. Michigan Law Review 100 (4): 675–867. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Céspedes, Gilka Wara. 1993. Huayiio, Saya, and Chuntunqui: Bolivian identity in the music of “Los Kjarkas.” Latin American Music Review 14 (1): 52–101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cherry, Elizabeth. 2002. The toughest SOBs on cable: Gender roles in professional wrestling. Paper presented at the Meeting of the Southern Sociological Society , Atlanta, Georgia.
Conquergood, Dwight. 1986. Between experience and meaning: Performance as a paradigm for meaningful action. In Renewal and Revision: The Future of Interpretation, Ted Colson (ed), 26–59. Texas: Omega.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Das, Veena. 2008. Violence, gender, and subjectivity. Annual Review of Anthropology 371: 283–299. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Das, Veena & Kleinman, Arthur. 2000. Introduction. In Violence and Subjectivity, Veena Das, Arthur Kleinman, Mamphela Ramphele & Pamela Reynolds (eds), 1–18. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de la Cadena, Marisol. 2001. Reconstructing race: Racism, culture and mestizaje in Latin America. NACLA Report on the Americas 34 (6): 16–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Douglas, Mary. 2005 [1966]. Purity and Danger. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro. 1986. The audience as co-author: An introduction. Text 6 (3): 239–347. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Feldman, Allen. 1991. Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flower, Linda. 1994. The Construction of Negotiated Meaning: A Social Cognitive Theory of Writing. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foundation for Sustainable Development. n.d. Gender equality issues in Bolivia. <[URL]> (September 23, 2015).
Freedman, Jim. 1983. Will the Sheik use his blinding fireball? The ideology of professional wrestling. In The Celebration of Society: Perspectives on Contemporary Cultural Performance, Frank E. Manning (ed), 70–73. Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City: Doubleday.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grindstaff, Laura & West, Emily. 2006. Cheerleading and the gendered politics of sport. Social Problems 53 (4): 500–518. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haynes, Nell. 2013. Chola in a Choke hold: Gender, globalization, and authenticity in Bolivian Lucha Libre. PhD dissertation, American University, Washington DC.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Henricks, Thomas. 1974. Professional wrestling as moral order. Sociological Inquiry 44 (3): 177–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoang, Nguyen Tan. 2004. The resurrection of Brandon Lee: The making of a gay Asian American porn star. In Porn Studies, Linda Williams (ed), 223–270. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holland, Dorothy, Skinner, Deborah, Lachicotte, William & Cain, Carole. 1998. Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hollander, Jocelyn A. 2001. Vulnerability and dangerousness: The construction of gender through conversation about violence. Gender and Society 15 (1): 83–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Howard, Rosaleen. 2010. Language, signs, and the performance of power: The discursive struggle over decolonization in the Bolivia of Evo Morales. Latin American Perspectives 37 (3): 176–194. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hymes, Dell. 1981. In Vain I Tried to Tell You. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jenkins, Henry. 2007. The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jhally, Sut & Katz, Jackson. 2002. Wrestling with Manhood [Video]. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kohl, Benjamin H. 2002. Stabilizing neoliberalism in Bolivia: Popular participation and privatization. Political Geography 211: 449–472. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krishnaswamy, Revathi. 1998. Effeminism: The Economy of Colonial Desire. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lazar, Sian. 2008. El Alto, Rebel City: Self and Citizenship in Andean Bolivia. Raleigh: Duke University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levi, Heather. 1997. Sport and melodrama: The case of Mexican professional wrestling. Social Text 15 (1): 57–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. Lean mean fighting queens: Drag in the world of Mexican professional wrestling. Sexualities 1 (3): 275–285. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity. Durham: Duke University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Linke, Uli. 1999. Formations of white public space: Racial aesthetics, body politics, and the nation. Transforming Anthropology 8 (1–2): 129–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malkki, Liisa. 1995. Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory and National Cosmology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel. 1972. A General Theory of Magic. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mazer, Sharon. 1998. Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Messner, Michael A., Duncan, Margaret Carlisle & Cooky, Cheryl. 2003. Silence, sports bras, and wrestling porn: Women in televised sports news and highlights shows. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 271: 38–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nagengast, Carole. 1994. Violence, terror, and the crisis of the state. Annual Review of Anthropology 231: 109–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pascoe, Cheri J. 2011. Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Postero, Nancy. 2007. Now We Are Citizens: Indigenous Politics in Postmulticultural Bolivia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rahilly, Lucia. 2005. Is RAW war? Professional wrestling as popular S/M narrative. In Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling, Nicholas Sammond (ed), 213–231. Durham: Duke University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Razack, Sherene. 2005. How is white supremacy embodied? Sexualized racial violence at Abu Ghraib. Canadian Journal of Women in Law 17 (2): 341–363.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ritchie, David. 2005. Frame shifting in humor and irony. Metaphor and Symbol 20 (4): 275–294. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sammond, Nicholas. 2005. Introduction: A brief and unnecessary defense of professional wrestling. In Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling, Nicholas Sammond (ed), 1–22. Durham: Duke University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1956. Being and Nothingness. New York: Philosophical Library.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy & Bourgois, Philippe. 2004. Making sense of violence. In Violence in War and Peace, Nancy Scheper-Hughes & Philippe Bourgois (eds), 1–31. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seligman, Linda. 1993. Between worlds of exchange: Ethnicity among Peruvian marketwomen. Cultural Anthropology 81: 187–213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simmel, Georg. 1971. On Individuality and Social Forms: Selected Writings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinha, Mrinalini. 1995. Colonial Masculinity. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Soulliere, Danielle. 2006. Wrestling with masculinity: Messages about manhood in the WWE. Sex Roles 551: 1–11. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stephen, Lynn. 1999. The construction of indigenous suspects: Militarization and the gendered and ethnic dynamics of human rights abuses in Southern Mexico. American Ethnologist 26 (4): 822–842. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stephenson, Marcia. 1999. Gender and Modernity in Andean Bolivia. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stroud, Scott R. 2001. The ideology of the body-slam: A critical examination of professional wrestling. Paper presented at the meeting of the Western States Communication Association, Media Studies Division , Coeur d’Aline, Idaho. <[URL]> (June 21, 2011).
United Nations. 2014. Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience. New York: United Nations Development Programme. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wacquant, Loïc. 2011. Controlled violence: The manly sport. In Gendered Bodies: Feminist Perspectives, Judith Lorber & Lisa Jean Moore (eds), 149–151. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Webley, Irene A. 1986. Professional wrestling: The world of Roland Barthes revisited. Semiotica 581: 59–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weismantel, Mary. 2001. Cholas and Pishtacos: Tales of Race and Sex in the Andes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, Linda. 1991. Film bodies: Gender, genre, and excess. Film Quarterly 44 (4): 2–13. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Proliferating pornographies on/scene: An introduction. In Porn Studies, Linda Williams (ed), 1–26. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Woo, Hyung-Jin & Kim, Yeora. 2003. Modern gladiators: A content analysis of televised wrestling. Mass Communication and Society 6 (4): 361–378. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wright, Timothy. 2000. Gay organizations, NGOs, and the globalization of sexual identity: The case of Bolivia. Journal of Latin American Anthropology 5 (2): 89–111. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Haynes, Nell
2020. Ethnographic exposure and embodied solidarity: getting into the ring with the Cholitas Luchadoras. Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 15:3 ► pp. 292 ff. DOI logo
Sinanan, Jolynna
2020. “Choose yourself?”. Journal of Language and Sexuality 9:1 ► pp. 48 ff. DOI logo
Chow, Broderick & Eero Laine
2019. Between antagonism and eros: the feud as couple form and Netflix’sGLOW. Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory 29:3 ► pp. 218 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue