Beyond Practice and Constraint: Toward Situating Female Sexual Agency on St. Croix, USVI

Women are shaped by the social structure, but they are not simply passive products. They act. They respond. They pursue. This holds true for many aspects of women\u27s complex and dynamic lives, including their sexual health. Daily, women negotiate social expectations, individual proclivities and desires, and the need to provide for themselves and their families. Through the use of ethnographic methodology, focusing on three major social pillars--the regulation of the female body, the organization of social space, and the structuring of gender--this investigation, based on the island of St. Croix, USVI, seeks to offer an ethnographic assessment of women\u27s attempts to enact sexual agency and the social structures that constrain their decisions. As scholars continue to work toward a better understanding of the sexual health of women in the Caribbean, establishing a better understanding of their sexual agency is essential