Abstract

This chapter analyzes the testimonies of 30 Paraguayan women regarding their affective, sexual, and reproductive relationships in the Paraná Tri-Border-Area (between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay). It shows how communicative taboos lead to a lack of knowledge about sex resulting in teenage pregnancies, violent relationships, and sexual experiences devoid of pleasure. The chapter’s main arguments will be developed in four sections. First, the concept of “inhabiting intersectionality” is discussed, clarifying the theoretical frames of our interpretations on how these women relate their sexuality and pregnancies in these border areas. Then, three dimensions found in the female testimonies are addressed: their experiences with their first partners, the discovery of sexuality, and unwanted or unplanned pregnancy. In these stories, we can see how their lives are marked by social, spatial, and temporal forms of sexual violence that, mutatis mutandis, make up a complex dialectic between the continuity and rupture of patriarchal patterns. Furthermore, the chapter addresses the gender strategies the women use to interrupt sexual violence, arguing that they configure an incisive female agency. The final reflections synthesize the main conclusions of the chapter.