Let's begin, safely, with an idea. An idea about a cataclysmic fuck, Mexico's big bang. Half a century ago, Octavio Paz wrote of the "masks" Mexicans have crafted over time, mythic identities whose function is to hide the trauma of "la chingada " (from the verb chingar, "to fuck," literally and figuratively), that is, the Conquest, which was essentially a sexual act the rape of native by conquistador, from which modern Mexico's mestizo identity was born. Not suprisingly, the most common, and powerful, of the Mexican masks are sexual ones.
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The "macho" (hard-working, hard-drinking, hard-fucking) was necessary for Mexican men to regain some sense of manhood after la chingada. Likewise, the obsession with virginity imposed upon, and internalized by, Mexican women was a way to purge the memory of primordial rape.
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The Catholic Church, true to its nature as a brutally patriarchal institution, played an important role in the formulation of this construct. But in the end, a mask is just a mask it does not alter what lies behind it, although it can create a tension between myth and essence that results in comic, tragic, and downright surreal acting-out.
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