Gendered construction of sexual risks: implications for safer sex among young people in Kenya and Sweden

Abstract

This study compared perceptions of sexual risk and sexual practices among youth in Kenya and Sweden. Self-generated questions on the body, perceptions of sexual risk and sexual practices were collected in Kenya while focus group discussions and individual interviews on these same issues were used in Sweden. The most striking differences between the two countries were in the level of knowledge on matters of sexuality and the ability to talk with ease on these matters. The refusal in Kenya to provide adolescents with information and services has left the ‘safe period’ as their only protective option and pregnancy as the overriding concern. Communication at the partner level and lack of condom use are problematic in both countries and even where access to information and preventive services exist these may not be used optimally. In both countries, boys had more sexual freedom, while girls were controlled through labelling and rumours, and girls were assigned responsibility for safer sex. We conclude that sexual education should be based more broadly on an understanding of the social norms defining sexual behaviour. It is at the level of sexual relations that the tensions between culturally-defined sexual and gender norms and public health assumptions should be addressed, a level at which health policy and education are silent in both countries.