Sexuality In South Africa Research Articles

Multimorbid life expectancy across race, socio-economic status, and sex in South Africa

Multimorbidity is increasing globally as populations age. However, it is unclear how long individuals live with multimorbidity and how it varies by social and economic factors. We investigate this in South Africa, whose apartheid history further complicates race, socio-economic, and sex inequalities. We introduce the term ‘multimorbid life expectancy’ (MMLE) to describe the years lived with multimorbidity. Using data from the South African National Income Dynamics Study (2008–17) and incidence-based multistate Markov modelling, we find that females experience higher MMLE than males (17.3 vs 9.8 years), and this disparity is consistent across all race and education groups. MMLE is highest among Asian/Indian people and the post-secondary educated relative to other groups and lowest among African people. These findings suggest there are associations between structural inequalities and MMLE, highlighting the need for health-system and educational policies to be implemented in a way proportional to each group’s level of need.

Spatial Heterogeneity in Determinants of No Condom Use at First Sex in South Africa

Background Condom use, especially at first sex for unmarried people, is an important behaviour that reduces the risk of HIV transmission, and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), as well as unwanted pregnancies. In reviewing the literature, little information was found to elucidate the spatial context of condom use among people who had an early sexual debut. Understanding factors that influence no condom use at first sex in different local or geographical areas can add value in addressing these risky first-sex practices and minimise the risk of getting HIV, STDs, and unwanted pregnancies in South Africa, especially among young people. Therefore, this paper aimed to determine the spatial heterogeneity of factors associated with no condom use at first sex in South Africa using Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) with Poisson distribution and local bivariate relationships. Methods This article used data from the fifth South African National HIV Prevalence, HIV Incidence, Behaviour and Communication Survey (SABSSM V) of 2017. Spatial autocorrelation, GWR using Poisson distribution, and local bivariate relationships were undertaken using ArcGIS Pro. Results Geographically weighted regression using Poisson distribution results highlighted being female, being young, having never married, being unemployed, having sexual debut at a younger age, having two or more sexual partners, having no risk of being infected with HIV, and having good Self-perceived Health (SPH) to be significant factors influencing no condom use at first sex, with pseudo R2 = 0.96 and AICc = 692. Local bivariate relationships showed the relationship between no condom use at first sex and most explanatory variables to exhibit a positive linear relationship in most districts with the exception of having never married, which showed a positive linear relationship in only 18 districts, while 33 districts showed a concave relationship. These relationships were all significant with p < 0.05. Conclusion This localised analytical approach may contribute to the development of geo-targeted interventions and policies tailored to specific regions within South Africa, thereby improving the effectiveness of efforts to promote safe first sexual practices. Educational programs targeting youth should be developed to further raise awareness of the risks associated with unprotected sex and the importance of condom use. More efforts should be made to break the barriers, such as sexual relationship power, gender, and sociocultural and religious influences, which tend to put young, never-married, and unemployed women at risk of no condom use at first sexual debut. It is further recommended that the type of relationship between no condom use at first sex and each explanatory factor at the local region be considered during geo-targeted interventions as this will assist in the type of intervention and duration of intervention.

Technologies of Visibility

Technologies of Visibility

Queering the Ecclesia: Exploring “Institutional Culture” as a Path toward a Socially Just Church

Ecclesiological research on queer sexuality in South Africa has often been restricted to studying heteronormative church policies and doctrines as well as their implementation. This has confined possibilities of transforming church into a specifically queer affirming and more generally socially just space, to a matter of policy change. Similarly, transformation in higher education research in South Africa previously adopted a “transformation by numbers” approach centred on policy change. However, urgent calls to decolonise higher education has highlighted the limits of this “inclusive” approach and shifted the field’s focus to an approach that interrogates the “institutional culture” of organisations to understand the ways in which such cultures might epistemologically and functionally preclude inclusion. Drawing on the case study of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA), this paper proposes the extension and appropriation of the concept of “institutional culture” as it is used within higher education research for ecclesiological research, in order to expand queer possibilities of being a more socially just church.

The Sexuality of Disabled Bodies and Individuals with Disability in South Africa's Comprehensive Sexuality Education Scripted Lesson Plans

Local research has utilized both practical (youth with disabilities accessing sexual and reproductive health services) and theoretical knowledge (decoloniality, disability and sexuality) to understand the sexuality of persons living with disabilities. However, this knowledge has not been utilized to examine the visibility of disability and sexuality in South Africa's comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) scripted lesson plans (SLPs). A content analysis was conducted of all the Department of Basic Education's CSE SLPs (Grades 4–12). The study indicated that only in Grade 10 is disability and sexuality discussed in 3 activities. Within these activities, some attempt has been made to demystify certain misconceptions about the sexuality of disabled bodies (i.e. as celibate, asexual beings, with no romantic or sexual interests). The activities further debunk how various types of disabled bodies are sexual beings (i.e. not just those in wheelchairs). However, the fact that these discourses only emerge and left in Grade 10, raises concerns about the inclusivity of the CSE curriculum for disabled youth (e.g. CSE not acknowledging issues of power and consent amongst youth living with disabilities). A critical discussion is provided of the gaps identified and recommendations provided by existing practical and theoretical knowledge to inform the current CSE SLPs.

Tales of Female Sexuality and Scandal: Lauren Beukes’s “Princess” and Archived Asylum Texts

In the short story “Princess” (Slipping: Stories, Essays and Other Writing. San Francisco: Tachyon, 2016), Lauren Beukes presents a tale of a princess who discovers her clitoris. Subsequent to this discovery, the princess's sexuality rapidly develops to encompass the pleasures derived from autoeroticism, as well as the sexual acts performed by her handmaid. Yet, the princess's sexual pleasure is only one part of the story. The other part is how society recoils in shock and engages in vehement scolding of the princess's expression of female sexual pleasure. Beukes's tale sparked my curiosity to explore narratives of female sexuality in archived texts. Such an undertaking is motivated by the dearth of historical studies of female sexuality in South Africa. One case in point is the study of female sexuality in the Victorian period, where the primary focus of academic scholarship is on rape and sexual violence. In this article, I seek to broaden the South African narratives of female sexuality in the late nineteenth century to include aspects pertaining to pleasure, as well as to enumerate how female sexual desire was often tied to scandals, public shock, and transgressions of femininity. To achieve this goal, I offer a micro-study of female sexuality at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum.

What can homonationalism tell us about sexuality in South Africa?: Exploring the relationships between biopolitics, necropolitics, sexual exceptionalism and homonormativity

ABSTRACTThere are important opportunities to further consider how the framework presented by homonationalism can apply beyond relationships connected to the US or the Middle East where it is traditionally applied. From a southern perspective and focusing on post-apartheid South Africa, this article examines how homonationalism’s framings may help us understand the subjectification of diverse sexualities in the country through their connection to national and regional politics. It begins by exploring the historical connections between biopolitics and necropolitics in South Africa’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, to highlight how different contemporary sexual subjectivities are imbricated with different types of biopolitical population regulation. It then argues that such differences are reflected through and furthered by the way South Africa has projected ideas of its sexual exceptionalism within the wider region, a process that itself relies on South African-specific homonormativity.

Unpacking the 2-year age-gap provision in relation to the decriminalisation of underage consensual sex in South Africa

Over the past 24 years, the South African criminal justice system has undergone major transformations in relation to sexual offences, including sexual violence against children. More recently, there have been a number of developments to certain provisions in the law relating to sexual offences involving children. In response to the Teddy Bear Clinic Court Case and Constitutional Court ruling, sexual offences legislation related to underage consensual sex was amended. In this regard, the legislation now decriminalises underage consensual sexual activity between adolescent peers aged 12 - 15-year-olds. In addition, the law provides broader definitions for consensual sexual activity, including decriminalising consensual sex and sexual activity between older adolescents (above age of consent for sex, i.e. 16 - 17-year-olds) and younger adolescents (below the age of consent for sex, i.e. 12 - 15-year-olds), granted that there is no more than a 2-year age gap between them. One of the reasons for decriminalising consensual sexual activities between adolescent peers was because the expanded legislation cast the net for sexual offences so wide that the effects had far-reaching harmful impacts, particularly for girls, who would then be exposed to the criminal justice system. This paper focuses on unpacking the 2-year age-gap provision in SA legislation relative to selected better-resourced countries, including the rationale and the potential implications for adolescents (outside of the 2-year age gap provisions), for researchers, service providers and policy-makers. It concludes with some recommendations for law reform and further research.

Unpacking the 2-year age-gap provision in relation to the decriminalisation of underage consensual sex in South Africa

Over the past 24 years, the South African criminal justice system has undergone major transformations in relation to sexual offences, including sexual violence against children. More recently, there have been a number of developments to certain provisions in the law relating to sexual offences involving children. In response to the Teddy Bear Clinic Court Case and Constitutional Court ruling, sexual offences legislation related to underage consensual sex was amended. In this regard, the legislation now decriminalises underage consensual sexual activity between adolescent peers aged 12 - 15-year-olds. In addition, the law provides broader definitions for consensual sexual activity, including decriminalising consensual sex and sexual activity between older adolescents (above age of consent for sex, i.e. 16 - 17-year-olds) and younger adolescents (below the age of consent for sex, i.e. 12 - 15-year-olds), granted that there is no more than a 2-year age gap between them. One of the reasons for decriminalising consensual sexual activities between adolescent peers was because the expanded legislation cast the net for sexual offences so wide that the effects had far-reaching harmful impacts, particularly for girls, who would then be exposed to the criminal justice system. This paper focuses on unpacking the 2-year age-gap provision in SA legislation relative to selected better-resourced countries, including the rationale and the potential implications for adolescents (outside of the 2-year age gap provisions), for researchers, service providers and policy-makers. It concludes with some recommendations for law reform and further research.

Volume 44: Research with sex workers in South Africa

abstractThis article presents findings from a study that was undertaken in collaboration with 19 internal and cross-border migrant women, men and transgender persons who sell sex in the Limpopo and Gauteng provinces of South Africa. It draws on data from an adapted photovoice methodology and other qualitative approaches such as journaling, mapping and open-ended interviews, to explore the diverse needs, experiences and aspirations of those who participated. Shedding light on the ways in which migrant sex workers navigate their ‘complex personhoods’, it illustrates the dangers of gendered laws and practices and the urgency to move away from salacious narratives that disregard, flatten and/or overlook migrant sex workers’ lived experiences. It also provides a reflection on the strengths and limitations of participatory research with migrants who sell sex in South Africa.

Labels, victims, and insecurity: an exploration of the lived realities of migrant women who sell sex in South Africa

ABSTRACT Based on research work among cross-border migrant women who sell sex in South Africa, this paper examines the ways in which the label ‘victim’ of human trafficking ignores the complex realities of human mobility. We argue here that as state legislative and policy measures, in relation to human trafficking, justify the securitisation of borders and the curtailment of migrant rights, an accompanying hegemonic discourse serves to deny the agency of migrant women sex workers. As a result, the linkages between human trafficking and migration are experienced by migrant women sex workers through new layers of vulnerability and insecurity.

THE IMPACT OF LEGISLATION ON CHILDHOOD SEXUALITY IN SOUTH AFRICA

The purpose of this submission is two-fold. Firstly, it undertakes a socio-legal analysis of child sexuality and sexual behaviour. The goal of the analysis is to confront, albeit synoptically, common-held misperceptions, both legally and socially, on the subject of childhood sexuality. Secondly, the submission considers how legislation and judicial interpretation has responded to the expression of a child’s sexuality in South Africa. The legal and judicial analysis is centred on the categorization of age, and queries the wisdom of confining normal, non-deviant sexual development in terms of disparate age classifications as expressed in South African Legislation.

Relationships, intimacy and desire in the lives of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth in South Africa

ABSTRACTThis article answers the following questions: how do nine lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) young people in South Africa understand and talk about relationships, intimacy, and desire; what does this understanding and talk tell us about gender and sexuality in South Africa; and how useful is the metaphor of the ‘closet’ to understand how LGB youth talk about relationships, intimacy and desire? At the time of the study, they were between 16 and 19 years old and attending school in grades 10 to 12. We used in-depth interviews, which were more like conversations, where primarily open-ended questions focused on these young people’s experiences, and found that relationships of love and care, the desire for love and intimacy, and the ability to exist alongside and for others pervade these young people’s lives. In this regard, employing postcolonial and Southern theory we argue that the youth use the concept of the closet, but that they understand it differently. We also argue that the concept of the closet may not accurately capture the particular positions that youth occupy in society because the concept of the closet suggests separation rather than engagement. The notion of being separate from the surrounding community is anathema to and contradicts these nine young people’s worldviews and those of the communities in which they live.

Language, gender and sexuality in South Africa

This special issue on the theme of language, and sexuality in South Africa does not emerge in an academic vacuum. It is the continuation of a long-standing academic dialogue which has played out, inter alia, in two issues of the journal Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies dedicated to and (de Kadt 2002), and and gender (Reddy and de Kadt 2006), respectively1, as well as in a recent edited collection entitled Gender and Language in Sub-Saharan Africa: Tradition, Struggle and Change (Atanga, Ellece, Litosseliti and Sunderland 2013). In contrast, this special issue seeks explicitly to foreground sexuality as a category of investigation in its own right alongside gender. Of course, this is not to say that previous scholarship has ignored sexuality - quite the contrary (see e.g. Reddy (2002) onhomophobia in Southern Africa, and Reddy and Potgieter (2006) on the Zuma rape trial). Yet it is striking how analyses of language and sexuality have generally been framed under the umbrella titles of and gender/gender and language.

TALKING TO YOUNG PEOPLE ABOUT SEX IN SOUTH AFRICA: NEIGHBORHOOD AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES

Our study seeks to untangle systemic influences on specific family dynamics understudied in a non‐Western context. Specifically, we examine the associations between caregivers’ perceptions of neighborhood cohesion, neighborhood safety, and social support, and one aspect of parenting relevant to the South African community from which data were drawn, caregiver–youth communication about sex. Multivariate regression models demonstrate interactive relationships among our variables of interest (p ≤ .05). For caregiver–youth dyads (N = 99), living in a neighborhood caregivers perceived to be relatively cohesive or safe was associated with differential relationships (i.e., conditional effects; p ≤ .07) between caregiver social support and youth report of communication about sex. Our findings indicate that neighborhood and social‐level influences on parenting are not universal. Moreover, cross‐cultural adaptations of family‐based behavioral interventions to prevent HIV should consider the role of caregiver social support within diverse neighborhood contexts.

Experiences of forced sex among female patrons of alcohol-serving venues in a South African township.

South Africa has among the highest rates of forced sex worldwide, and alcohol use has consistently been associated with risk of forced sex in South Africa. However, methodological challenges affect the accuracy of forced sex measurements. This study explored the assessment of forced sex among South African women attending alcohol-serving venues and identified factors associated with reporting recent forced sex. Women (n = 785) were recruited from 12 alcohol-serving venues in a peri-urban township in Cape Town. Brief self-administered surveys included questions about lifetime and recent experiences of forced sex. Surveys included a single question about forced sex and detailed questions about sex by physical force, threats, verbal persuasion, trickery, and spiked drinks. We first compared the single question about forced sex to a composite variable of forced sex as unwanted sex by physical force, threats, or spiked drinks. We then examined potential predictors of recent forced sex (demographics, drinking behavior, relationship to the venue, abuse experiences). The single question about forced sex had low sensitivity (0.38); more than half of the respondents who reported on the detailed questions that they had experienced forced sex by physical force, threats, or spiked drinks reported on the single question item that they had not experienced forced sex. Using our composite variable, 18.6% of women reported lifetime and 10.8% reported recent experiences of forced sex. In our adjusted logistic regression model, recent forced sex using the composite variable was significantly associated with hazardous drinking (OR = 1.92), living farther from the venue (OR = 1.81), recent intimate partner violence (OR = 2.53), and a history of childhood sexual abuse (OR = 4.35). The findings support the need for additional work to refine the assessment of forced sex. Efforts to prevent forced sex should target alcohol-serving venues, where norms and behaviors may present particular risks for women who frequent these settings.

Male Sex Workers' Constructions of Selling Sex in South Africa

Male Sex Workers' Constructions of Selling Sex in South Africa

Male Sex Workers' Constructions of Selling Sex in South Africa

Male Sex Workers' Constructions of Selling Sex in South Africa

Male Sex Workers' Constructions of Selling Sex in South Africa

Male Sex Workers' Constructions of Selling Sex in South Africa

Male Sex Workers' Constructions of Selling Sex in South Africa

Male Sex Workers' Constructions of Selling Sex in South Africa