| Summary: | The frontier between Mexico and the United States is known for some of the most violent crimes in contemporary Mexican society, and these include women’s exploitation. Argentine writer Rolo Diez chooses to set his crime novels in this context of violence and criminality: La vida que me doy (2000) and Matamujeres (2001) explore the exploitation of women through brutality, prostitution, disappearances and murders. Certainly willing to depict the brutality of this lawless chaos, crime novels often comply with sensationalist codes such as eroticization of female bodies and complaisance in representing the extreme violence of cartels and prostitution. Thus, they cannot avoid the ethical questioning they are willing to submit contemporary Mexican society to. This essay explores to what extent literature is able to examine brutal exploitation without being endangered by exhibitionism. After examining the possibility for literature to represent obscenity without perverting both the author and the reader, this article will analyse Rolo Diez’ representation of sexual business and violence towards women in Mexico, and question whether or not his crime novels avoid the risk of voyeurism.
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