Sexual mores, promiscuity and ‘prostitution’ in Botswana

Helle‐Valle, Jo

doi:10.1080/00141844.1999.9981609

Cited by 20 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Some observers have historically suggested that transactional dynamics are essentially ubiquitous in sexual relationships within sub-Saharan Africa, arising and deriving from the practice of lobola (bride price) and the concomitant -and compared to Western attitudes, relatively unstigmatised -tendency to view women's sexuality as instrumental and open for commoditisation (Caldwell, Caldwell et al, 1989;Helle-Valle, 1999). More recent literature on transactional sex, however, suggests that while economic exchange as a key dynamic in sexual relationships is indeed common, it is far from universal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transactional sex with casual and main partners among young South African men in the rural Eastern Cape: Prevalence, predictors, and associations with gender-based violence

Dunkle

Jewkes

Nduna

et al. 2007

Social Science & Medicine

263

256

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We explored the prevalence and predictors of transactional sex with casual partners and main girlfriends among 1,288 men aged 15-26 from 70 villages in the rural Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with young men enrolling in the Stepping Stones HIV prevention trial. A total of 17.7% of participants reported giving material resources or money to casual sex partners and 6.6% received resources from a casual partner. Transactionally motivated relationships with main girlfriends were more balanced between giving (14.9%) and getting (14.3%). We constructed multivariable models to identify the predictors for giving and for getting material resources in casual and in main relationships. Each model resulted in remarkably similar predictors. All four types of exchange were associated with higher socio-economic status, more adverse childhood experiences, more lifetime sexual partners, and alcohol use. Men who were more resistant to peer pressure to have sex were less likely to report transactional sex with casual partners, and men who reported more equitable gender attitudes were less likely to report main partnerships underpinned by exchange. The most consistent predictor of all four types of transaction was the perpetration of intimate partner violence and rape against women other than a main partner. The strong and consistent association between perpetration of gender-based violence and both giving and getting material goods from female partners suggests that transactional sex in both main and casual relationships can be viewed within a broader continuum of men's exercise of gendered power Corresponding Author

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transactional sex with casual and main partners among young South African men in the rural Eastern Cape: Prevalence, predictors, and associations with gender-based violence

Dunkle

Jewkes

Nduna

et al. 2007

Social Science & Medicine

263

256

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“…6 The practice of counselling in Pentecostal circles promises marital fulfilment as a recipe for a successful relationship (Amanze, Nkomazana, and Kealotswe 2007), which is particularly attractive to members of the emerging middle classes, and, inversely, they see the figure of the counsellor as a person capable of opening up a form of communication on intimate matters that is considered beneficial. Counselling is a new but also secluded domain in which -contrary to cultural conventions of discretion regarding a public discussion of the topic (Helle-Valle 1999Heald 2006) -sexual matters can be addressed explicitly. While many studies of Pentecostalism and its interaction with sexuality and relationships stress the importance of these forms of counselling, much less is known about the inclusion of pseudo-psychological notions of behaviour and how this form of knowledge is made relevant in the way Pentecostal counsellors structure their exchanges with counselees.…”

Section: R Van Dijkmentioning

confidence: 98%

Counselling and Pentecostal modalities of social engineering of relationships in Botswana

Dijk

2013

Culture, Health & Sexuality

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In African societies where HIV and AIDS are widespread, counselling is being used in an attempt to control people's sexual relationships and has become an important industry. Counselling is centrally placed in many AIDS-related policies in Botswana and is sponsored by both the government and religious organisations. Within the broad spectrum of Christianity, Pentecostal churches are very active. They emphasise the refashioning of relationships by mediating moral imperatives and by engaging with psychological knowledge on personal behaviour and on techniques of counselling in a changing context of sexuality. This paper explores the significance of religious counselling in terms of the disciplining effects concerning personal behaviour and the ways in which this form of communication is generating a wider interest in this society. This is particularly attractive to members of the educated classes who are engaging with Pentecostal counselling as a way of refashioning their domain of intimate relations. Yet, it does not only provide informed ideas on intimate relations--being often one of the proclaimed objectives of counselling - it also produces a communication about intimate matters that is intended to inform a critique of socio-cultural conventions. This is a counter-cultural dynamic of counselling, which has been little noticed in the academic study of counselling practices in Africa.

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“…'Promiscuity' is associated not merely with having multiple sexual partners but with having sex recklessly, with disregard for one's own and others' welfare. For instance, mothers who make their breastmilk 'dirty' by having sex with other men while pregnant or nursing, or who spend the gifts they receive from lovers on beer rather than on food for their children (Helle-Valle 1999), are liable to be called 'promiscuous' because sex under these circumstances deprives their children of the means to grow. Women are more likely than men to be called 'promiscuous' largely because 'hot blood' in the female body is seen as especially dangerous to sexual partners and children, as well as to a woman's own fertility (Upton 2001).…”

Section: 'Promiscuity' and 'Hot Blood'mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Widow in Blue: Blood and the Morality of Remembering in Botswana's Time of Aids

Klaits¹

2005

Africa

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Popular talk and silence about AIDS in Botswana have been shaped by survivors' efforts to manage the ways in which they remember relationships arising from procreation. The emotional force of death induces the immediately bereaved and wider communities of survivors to recollect who has shared blood with whom through sexual intercourse. Such acts of remembering may have decisive repercussions on relations of kinship, marriage and mutual support. For Batswana, ‘remembering’ is a form of acting as well as feeling, possessing a capacity to shape moral conduct for the long term. In the context of death, local debates about what and how to remember reflect contested endeavours to make relations based on blood persist beyond a person's passing. Focusing on a particular set of local perspectives on the morality of remembering, the article shows that members of an Apostolic church in Gaborone encourage one another to remember in a manner reflecting distinctive methods of maintaining relations of kinship and care.

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Sexual mores, promiscuity and ‘prostitution’ in Botswana

Cited by 20 publications

References 16 publications

Transactional sex with casual and main partners among young South African men in the rural Eastern Cape: Prevalence, predictors, and associations with gender-based violence

Transactional sex with casual and main partners among young South African men in the rural Eastern Cape: Prevalence, predictors, and associations with gender-based violence

Counselling and Pentecostal modalities of social engineering of relationships in Botswana

The Widow in Blue: Blood and the Morality of Remembering in Botswana's Time of Aids

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