Sexuality and Shame Theme Analysis

The Poet X follows 15-year-old Xiomara, a second-generation Dominican American living in Harlem. In part because of Xiomara’s upbringing in the Catholic Church and in part because of her family’s Dominican traditions, Xiomara’s sexual coming of age is something that she, as a curious and questioning teen, can’t ignore—but it’s something that disturbs her mother, Mami, and that Mami tries her hardest to squash. As Xiomara begins a romantic relationship with her lab partner, Aman, she must therefore try to reconcile what she hears about sex at home with her own desire for a physical relationship. Her family’s shame only makes Xiomara feel even more alone in the world; by comparing how she’s expected to behave with how her father, Papi, is allowed to behave, Xiomara recognizes that as a young woman, she can’t win. The novel thus makes it clear that shame, especially when it comes to one’s sexuality, encourages double standards and causes people to feel needlessly anxious, guilty, and insecure.

Since beginning to develop physically at age 11, Xiomara has had a difficult relationship with her body. She writes that her body seemed to develop out of nowhere and now, at age 15, Xiomara is taller than lots of boys and very curvy. While this is something that plenty of young women go through during puberty, Xiomara isn’t given any of the tools or the knowledge to understand her body—or, for that matter, to celebrate it. Instead, Xiomara wants to make herself small so that she can ignore the parts of her body that attract attention, and at home, Mami makes it very to clear to Xiomara that with a woman’s body, it is Xiomara’s responsibility to minimize her body’s importance and protect herself from unwanted advances. The one major event that solidified Xiomara’s belief that she needs to minimize her body came when she started menstruating. Xiomara knew that the “time of the month” was something that women experienced, but she had no idea what that meant and thus wasn’t prepared to deal with her own period. Then, when Xiomara purchased tampons and asked Mami for help about how to insert them properly, Mami slapped her and accused her of being sexually promiscuous. This event made Xiomara feel extremely ashamed of her body, thanks to the combination of not knowing what was happening and then being completely blindsided by Mami’s reaction when she did figure it out. This incident reflects Mami’s belief that Xiomara’s growing body, and later Xiomara’s budding sexuality, is something to be controlled by Mami, not by Xiomara herself.

In addition to being made to feel as though she has no agency over her body or sexuality, Xiomara is told again and again that when men catcall her, it’s her fault and she needs to stop it. However, Xiomara recognizes that men speak crudely to her regardless of what she’s wearing, saying, or doing. Especially considering how Xiomara sees that men—especially her own father, Papi—are treated and spoken about in terms of their sexuality, Xiomara is reminded constantly that she and other women have little say over what happens to their bodies. In his younger years—that is, before Xiomara and Twin were born—Papi was a known philanderer who drank in bars, slept with many women, and inappropriately touched others. Yet Xiomara recognizes that Mami scolds and punishes her for not being able to deflect the advances of the next generation of men like Papi. In effect, Mami excuses the actions of men like Papi and the drug dealers who catcall Xiomara to instead pin the blame on these men’s female targets.

Xiomara encapsulates her understanding of this double standard when she explains the word cuero, which is the Dominican slang term for a promiscuous woman. She notes that the term can be applied to quite literally any woman who, for any reason or no reason, seems inappropriately sexual. No such term exists for men, even if there’s clear evidence of sexual activity or desire. Through this term, Xiomara is further conditioned to believe that female sexuality isn’t okay under any circumstances, while male sexuality is something that’s not only acceptable, but even celebrated.

All of this becomes extremely difficult for Xiomara to make sense of when she begins to spend time with her lab partner, Aman, and finds herself wanting to experiment sexually with him. Because of what Xiomara has been told at home about kissing and sex, she wonders if even being curious is a horrible crime, and this makes her feel even more conflicted about her relationship with Aman. Because of the shame that Xiomara feels about her body and her desire to experiment, she struggles to genuinely enjoy things with Aman, especially after the fact. With this, the novel shows clearly how shame can rob individuals of pleasure. However, Xiomara also writes that Aman makes her body, which she usually feels is too big and too sexy no matter what she does, feel good and like something she should be proud of. This realization, combined with Xiomara’s questioning of why kissing, masturbating, and other sexual contact is so bad if it feels good, ultimately leads her to begin rejecting Mami’s teachings about sex and bodies. By questioning the shameful attitudes towards sex that she has been taught, Xiomara is able to begin putting together her own understanding of how to conduct herself in a sexual relationship.

Importantly, once Xiomara begins to shrug off some of the shame that she connects to her body and her sexuality (and after Mami burns her poetry notebook, which destroys Xiomara’s trust in Mami and her beliefs), Xiomara begins to feel more confident in a number of other ways. She even agrees to open up a conversation with Mami about their relationship. Though the novel ties Xiomara’s shame most clearly to sex, it also suggests that shame about anything can make a person less confident overall. On the other hand, developing confidence, self-respect, and the courage to make one’s own decisions gives a person the tools to let go of their shame, and in turn lead a happier and less anxious life.