Likeness: Translated by Ana M. Spitzmesser

The Likeness explores how gay and lesbian sexuality is affected by social and psychological constraints in a world inextricably bound to heterosexuality as the socially dominant mode. Juanjo Viéitez's quest for the elusive «likeness» as sexual and emotional identity becomes doomed as he adopts different sexual attitudes in a vain effort to achieve authenticity in his personal relationships. But in another sense, Juanjo Viéitez's struggle to overcome sexual barriers becomes the struggle of Spanish gay and lesbian culture to find a space of its own, free of the gender and sexual antagonisms that often alienate, even destroy, its still fragile and problematic existence.