Girls want money, boys want virgins: the materiality of love amongst South African township youth in the context of HIV and AIDS

Abstract

How do young South Africans give meaning to love? In this paper we draw on findings from an interview study to examine the ways in which young Africans, aged 16 to 17 years in a poor township in KwaZulu-Natal province, express ideals of love and romance. Their claims to love we show are strategic advantages as they negotiate poverty and economic marginalisation. Girls' ideals of love are tied to their aspirations towards middle-class consumerism. Love becomes inseparable from the idealisation of men who provide. Upholding provider masculinity is a strategic means to claim money, fashionable clothes and prestige. Unlike girls, the boys' love investments were focused on farm girls from rural areas in South Africa. Farm girls were constructed as virgins with little investment in commodification. Farm girls are a strategic option through which boys' economic marginalisation experienced in the township girls is reconciled through an exalted masculinity. Love is produced by particular sets of economic and social circumstances through which gender inequalities are reproduced, and should be taken more seriously in working with young people to address gendered social environments and HIV risk.

Beyond love: a qualitative analysis of factors associated with teenage pregnancy among young women with pregnancy experience in Bolgatanga, Ghana

“…It appeared that the young women's motivations to start relationships with boys or to agree to have sex were 'beyond love' . Studies in South Africa (Bhana and Pattman 2011;Harrison, Cleland, and Frohlich 2008) and in Malawi (Poulin 2007) have pointed to a long tradition in poorer societies whereby young people's sexual partnerships are more about economic gain than love. Our findings also support the conclusion of Brook et al (2006) that family poverty is directly related to risky sexual behaviours.…”

Taxi ‘sugar daddies’ and taxi queens: Male taxi driver attitudes regarding transactional relationships in the Western Cape, South Africa

“…Transactional sex that is not sex work in the traditional sense, nor only an outcome of poverty, but is also fuelled by consumerist pressures to acquire goods and social status, as well as linked with culturally-based notions of gender, love and exchange (see Bhana & Pattman 2011;Hunter 2002Hunter , 2010, has also been shown to be common. Studies have indicated that transactional sexual relationships, especially when they involve a number of power dynamics including age and access to resources, play a significant role in unsafe, unequal and coercive sexual practices, and as a result are receiving increased attention in Africa (Clowes, Shefer, Fouten, Vergnani & Jacobs 2009;Dunkle, Jewkes, Brown, Gray, McIntyre & Harlow 2004;Dunkle, Jewkes, Nduna, Jama, Levin, Sikweyiya, et al 2007;Hallman 2004;Kaufman & Stavros 2004;Leclerc-Madlala 2003;Maganja, Maman, Groves & Mbwambo 2007;Masvawure 2010;Ulin 1992).…”

Relevancy for Corporates to Engage in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS in Kinshasa

“…For example, gender inequality in the context of HIV/AIDS is emphasised severally as critical factor justifying the propagation of the virus with the female identified as being more vulnerable than their male counterpart, and as such, constitute the core of HIV/AIDS social marketing strategies (Ghajarieh & Kow, 2011;Nicholas, 2010). Likewise, discussions to determine the likelihood to get HIV infected between poor and wealthy people instigate interest of both social marketing scholars and professionals with one stream asserting that poverty is driving the spread of HIV/AIDS while the other supports the contrary (Ayikwa et al, 2013a;Bhana & Pattman, 2011). Consequently, individuals experiencing precariousness should constitute the target of HIV/AIDS campaigns for those who believe that they are the most at risk of HIV acquisition while wealthier people are likely to be approached by the supporters of the concurrent stream.…”