Intimacy during fieldwork also poses ethical dilemmas for gay/lesbian anthropologists who study homosexuality. In fact, many anthropologists, such as Ester Newton, Ralph Bolton, and Stephen Murray, write about sexual encounters in the field. Bolton maintains that the only way to obtain reliable data about sex practice is to become a sexual participant (Johnson, 2000). Here, one finds a dangerous line between ethics and the methodology of sexual participant observation. Other anthropologists, such as Evelyn Blackwood and Kate Altork, create reflexive ethnographic works about the possibilities and limitations of same-sex relations in the field. Overall, Lewin and Leap provide important theoretical questions and invite reflection on one's own gendered and erotic subjectivities (Johnson, 2000). The discipline and researchers must realize that anthropologists are gendered beings and, thus, experience different inhibitions, anxieties, and identity struggles.

Latin America and Homosexuality Research

Although the literature is growing, the bulk of homosexual research focuses on male homosexual behavior in the urban areas of Brazil and Mexico. Power and gender imagery are common, as well as the "passive" and "active" constructions of male homosexuality. The concept of the penetrator as masculine (macho) and the penetrated as feminine largely defines spheres of sexuality in Latin America. A common Colombian saying actually claims, "Soy tan macho que me cojo otro hombre - I'm so macho that I fuck another man" ("Living la vida loca." Economist, 1999). Male transvestitism, cross-dressing, prostitution, bi-sexuality, and interfaces with machismo are all common foci within this area of study.

In general, one can make correlations between specific countries and the focus of study (within homosexuality). Cuban material includes topics such as exile, revolution, male homosexuality, AIDS, and machismo (Leiner, 1994; Lumsden, 1996; Ocasio, 2002). Transvestitism, prostitution, and male homosexuality are typical Mexican research topics, while Argentinean research focuses on the Gay/Lesbian Movement (Higgins and Coen, 2000; Prieur, 1996; Signal, 2002; Stephen, 2002; Taylor, 1978; Brown, 2002). Brazil, like Mexico, emphasizes male homosexuality, prostitution, and transvestitism, but also includes HIV/AIDS, gay communities, Gay Liberation Movements, and the influence of the Carnival (Green, 2002, 1999, 1994; Kulick, 1998; Melhhus and Stolen, 1996; Parker, 1997, 1999). In Puerto Rico, research has been done on the lesbian community, domestic violence between same-sex partners, and HIV intervention (Hidalgo and Elvia-Hidalgo, 1976; Toro-Alfonso, 1999). Thayer (1997) produced information on the Lesbian Movements, identity, revolution, and democratization in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Other countries such as Peru and Guatemala have been the source of information mainly on male homosexuality. In addition, there also exists some evidence for pre-Columbian practices of homosexuality in historical and/or archeological inquiries. One such example, "Gender, Male Homosexuality, and Power in Colonial Yucatan," by Signal (2002), discusses the connection between homoeroticism, colonialism, and discourse among the Maya. His argument centers mainly on the symbolic, ritual, and political uses of power and sodomy (Sigal, 2002). Also, some research exists in the borderlands on Chicana lesbians (Trujillo, 1991; Zavella, 1997).

Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movements

A substantial amount of research on homosexuality in Latin America chronicles and/or analyzes the development of gay/lesbian liberation movements. The discussion of discrimination, oppression and repression, violence, exile, and internalized homophobia are several common topics. The common ebb and flow characteristic of politics in Latin American countries plays a major role in the analyses and descriptions of such social actions and movements. However, ethnographers differ in theoretical approaches, methodology, and ethnographic models.

Some take on active applied anthropological roles. For example, James N. Green not only participated in the Gay Liberation Movement in Brazil, but also served as a leader of the left wing from 1977-1981 (Green, 1994). Anthropologist Luis Roberto Mott, who was the founding president of Grupo Gay in Bahia (the country's largest surviving gay rights organization), collects data on the indiscriminate murder of homosexual men, lesbians, and transvestites in Brazil (Green, 1999). Horrifically, he finds that "a homosexual is brutally murdered every four days, a victim of homophobia that pervades Brazilian society" (Green, 1999, p. 3).

Other anthropologists take a more theoretical and less activist approach, such as Thayer who uses case studies from Costa Rica and Nicaragua to provide a theoretical breakdown and critique of the New Social Movement Theory (NSM) and addresses the importance of variation in identity-based movements. She argues that,

Three factors account for the differences in the way movements in distinctive national contexts construct collective identities: 1) economic structure/model of development; 2) state-civil society relations; and 3) the broader field of social movements (Thayer, 1997, p. 386).

She evaluates the importance of class diversification, feminist movements, internal vs. external models, public-private spheres, "lesbophobia," academic community support, democratization, and political stability. In her conclusion, she gives particular attention to individual agency and, thus, regional variation in Latin American social movements:

Organizing lesbian movements anywhere in Central America, and many other places, requires the will to defy deeply rooted notions of sexuality and personhood, and the courage to imagine different kinds of relationships. But social movements are built, and the collective identities constructed, by particular people in particular locations at particular moments in history. These movements are as Snow and Benford argue, 'signifying agents' (1992, p. 136). What they signify and why, what they struggle for and how, these are questions which can only be answered by looking beyond structural shifts and the confines of formal political institutions to the sociopolitical relationships that shape the lives of the human beings who make them (Thayer, 1997, p. 405).

Brown (2002) reviews Argentina in his work, "Con discrimination y repression no hay democracia: the Lesbian and Gay Movement in Argentina." He conducted field research that included in-depth interviews with social activism and participant observation. Brown, like Thayer, criticizes the absence of sexuality and gay/lesbian movements in discussions and syntheses of modern social movement theory. His main approaches include political-opportunity-structures, centrality of identity, and creation of activism and their respective organizations. Overall, he addresses change through time of the nature of lesbian and gay activism in Argentina. He, like Thayer and other politically focused anthropologists, links lesbian/gay movements to democratization, the influences of the United States and Europe, and feminism. He emphasizes the analysis of identity throughout and foresees for Argentina that "large-scale transformation might not occur anytime soon, but the lesbian and gay movement in Argentina is accumulating many small-scale victories along the way" (Brown, 2002, p. 135).