I happened to read Juana María Rodríguez’s latest publication, Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex, while traveling through bustling public spaces. As I read the text in crowded subway cars and cramped airplane seats, I began to recognize my own embodied experience with it. The cover unmistakably announces its contents, featuring a self-portrait of actor Vanessa del Rio, who stars in adult films, alongside the titular words PUTA LIFE, emblazoned in large, bold, magenta letters. Did the strangers sitting next to me read and understand these words? Would they be offended or intrigued? What might they think about my own proximity to puta life, and where did all of this unexpected discomfort come from?

My own reaction revealed the stigma that has been conceptually and visually mapped onto the figure of the puta, which Rodríguez argues embodies the epitome of “latinized feminine excess” (1). Both desired and vilified, historically...

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