The sexual erotic market as an analytical framework for understanding erotic-affective exchanges in interracial sexually intimate and affective relationships Mara Viveros Vigoya* Faculty of Human Sciences, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia (Received 31 March 2014; accepted 20 October 2014) This paper examines the way in which erotic-affective exchanges in interracial relationships have been analysed in Latin America. It considers how race, gender and class operate within a market of values such that erotic, affective and economic status are shaped by racial, gender and class hierarchies. In this paper I analyse historical and social arrangements that embody the region’s political economy of race and sex. Such a perspective allows me to address the simultaneous co-existence of socio-racial exclusion and inclusion and the repressive and productive effects of power, attraction and anxiety as aspects of lived experiences in relation to sexuality. From there, I outline an analytical framework that references an erotic or pleasure-based market in which capital and other resources are exchanged from a structural perspective stressing relationship alliances. I conclude by identifying the scope and limits of such an approach. Keywords: sexual eroticism; markets; Latin America; interracial sex; intersectionality Interracial sexually intimate and affective relationships Interracial sexually intimate and affective relationships include a wide range of exchanges that cannot be reduced to the institutionalised categories of interracial marriage or prostitution, as these two areas represent extreme poles of the relationship spectrum and thus tend to overlook the wide range of transactions that can occur in between, and the manner in which these can blur boundaries between interest and money-driven sexual relationships and relationships based on generosity and gifts. In this sense, it may be more realistic to talk of there being a continuum of sexual-economic exchange (Tabet 1987, 2004). Interracial sexually intimate and affective relationships in contemporary Latin America occur in a context defined by the social transformations that took place throughout the 1990s aimed at strengthening economic modernisation, political democratisation and constitutional changes. Through their new constitutions, many Latin American nations sought to resolve this ambiguity, from being culturally defined as mestizo to being officially recognised as multicultural in character. Roger Bastide’s (1970) book, Le Prochain et le Lointain, paved the way for much work on interracial sexually intimate and affective relationships, as noted by Wade (2008). Numerous studies (Ferna ´ndez 1996; Kutzinski 1993) in Cuba, Brazil and Colombia have reported on the recurrence of sexualised images of populations and individuals of African origin and have shown the role that celebrations, sports and advertisements play in the dissemination and q 2014 Taylor & Francis *Email: mviverosv@unal.edu.co Culture, Health & Sexuality, 2015 Vol. 17, No. S1, S34–S46, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2014.979882