Sexual Panic as Ritualized Performance in Bluefields, Nicaragua

Abstract: This ethnographic study examines how the annual San Jerónimo procession in Bluefields, Nicaragua reveals “Creole Sexual Panic”—a deep cultural form, which among a complex of other effects, constrains young Afro-Caribbean Creole women’s erotic autonomy and reproductive justice. Through analysis of street performances in which young Creole men dressed as elderly Black women interact with young women participants, the paper demonstrates how colonial legacies of anti-Blackness and heteropatriarchy shape sexuality and reproduction in contemporary Creole culture and society. Drawing on Geertz and Lorde, this research shows how Creole Sexual Panic operates as a deep cultural form expressing societal anxieties about Black women’s sexuality and as an oppressive mechanism that limits their erotic autonomy and dignity.