Big Brain Lectures: Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex (SF)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

About Us:

Big Brain is a speaker series in San Francisco where academics and passionate people give lectures in the coolest bars and cafes in the city!

Event Description:

​ How do images shape the way we think about sexuality, race, and power?

​Join us at The Sycamore for a talk with Juana María Rodríguez, cultural critic, public speaker, and award-winning author whose work examines sexual cultures, racial politics, and the many tangled expressions of Latina identity. In her latest book Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex (Duke UP 2024), Rodríguez traces how the figure of the puta—the whore, that enduring image of Latina feminine excess—has been constructed through criminal photography, documentary film, illustrated biographies, and photojournalism.

​Through stories of porn stars and masked wrestlers, street vendors and sexiles, she reveals how visual tropes of racial and sexual deviance have exposed women to stigma, misogyny, and violence. Yet, within those same representations, Rodríguez lingers on moments of possibility—flickers of care, resistance, and connection that suggest more ethical ways of seeing and relating.

​Juana will unpack how sexuality becomes visible, politicized, and contested—and why those images matter for reimagining justice and care today. ✨

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Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.