There is Condom-Less Sex But There are Glow-in-the-Dark Condoms Too: Girls Debating Safe Sex

Abstract

The study examines multimodal, nonverbal communication on birth control, teenage pregnancy and abortion among a number of female students who expressed themselves through anonymous writings on toilet doors of their educational institution in Malta. Their diverse perspectives on these themes were also related to contraception and sexually acquired infections and how these compromise sexual pleasure in heteronormative relations. Data is comprised of digital photographs of toilet graffiti. The study draws on discourse analysis to understand girls’ thinking about safe sex and surrounding issues according to the discursive formations present in their writings. This approach affirms that written texts are ascribed meanings according to social and cultural contexts in which they occur. Their debates on how lack of contraceptive use might materialize the pregnant and/or the infected body are culturally mediated through a number of discourses surrounding safe sex. The study demonstrates that the girls’ articulations affirm the complexities surrounding their described heterosexual relationships in relation to the un/condomised bodies of the other. Condom-less sex and glow-in-the-dark condoms use are considered two liminal states that between them hold a discursive continuum on issues about sexual pleasure. By debating safe sex students could move across this continuum; not necessarily in a linear way but backwards and forwards according to culturally prescribed dictates on safe sex.