Known for his writings on the construction of sexual identities, anthropologist and cultural studies scholar Roger N. Lancaster ponders four decades of visits to Mexican cities. In a brisk series of reflections combining storytelling, ethnography, critique, and razor-edged polemic, he shows, first, how economic inequality affects sexual subjects and subjectivities in ways both obvious and subtle, and, second, how what it means to be de ambiente--"on the scene" or "in the life"--has metamorphosed under changing political-economic conditions. The result is a groundbreaking intervention into ongoing debates over identity politics--and a renewal of our understanding of how identities are constructed, struggled for, and lived.