Debra Curtis

Pleasures and Perils follows a group of young girls living on Nevis, an island society in the Eastern Caribbean. Curtis shows that girls are often caught between conflicting discourses of Christian teachings about chastity, public health cautions about safe sex, and media enticements about consumer delights. Sexuality’s contradictions are exposed: power and powerless­ness, self-determination and cultural control, violence and pleasure.

Pleasures and Perils follows a group of young girls living on Nevis, an island society in the Eastern Caribbean. Curtis shows that girls are often caught between conflicting discourses of Christian teachings about chastity, public health cautions about safe sex, and media enticements about consumer delights. Sexuality’s contradictions are exposed: power and powerless­ness, self-determination and cultural control, violence and pleasure.