Gender, Relationship Dynamics and South African Girls' Vulnerability to Sexual Risk

Abstract

South African researchers have stressed the importance of gender and relationship dynamics underlying sexual risk, particularly among 15- to 19-year-olds. Nevertheless, we know little about these factors among young girls, who are especially at risk of HIV. The main objective in this study was to explore the ways that young girls aged 16 to 17 years give meaning to boys and boyfriends and the processes through which these relationship dynamics are shaped. In-depth interviews were conducted with a group of black girls in a working class context in Durban about their sexual relationships with boys. Dominant gender norms underlined the ways in which girls discussed these sexual relationships in relation to their lack of power and condom use. Factors such as their class, race and gender interacted with girls' vulnerability to risk of HIV. While girls were complicit in their subordination, particularly in relation to cheating boyfriends, many were critical of boys who displayed patterns of sexual domination. Efforts aimed at reducing sexual risk must work toward shifting dominant patterns of masculinity over femininity to broaden pathways of love, trust, loyalty and understanding.

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African Journal of AIDS Research
ISSN: 1608-5906 (Print) 1727-9445 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raar20
Gender, relationship dynamics and South African
girls' vulnerability to sexual risk
Deevia Bhana & Bronwynne Anderson
To cite this article: Deevia Bhana & Bronwynne Anderson (2013) Gender, relationship dynamics
and South African girls' vulnerability to sexual risk, African Journal of AIDS Research, 12:1, 25-31,
DOI: 10.2989/16085906.2013.815408
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.2989/16085906.2013.815408
Published online: 02 Sep 2013.
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African Journal of AIDS Research is co-published by NISC (Pty) Ltd and Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
African Journal of AIDS Research 2013, 12(1): 25–31
Printed in South Africa — All rights reserved
Copyright © NISC (Pty) Ltd
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ISSN 1608-5906 EISSN 1727-9445
http://dx.doi.org/10.2989/16085906.2013.815408
Researcher: ‘What qualities do you look for in
boyfriends?’
Jo: ‘Someone who understands, you can trust
and talk to … and must also be loyal. He mustn’t
be rude and raw. Nowadays boys just want one
thing … sex … and I spoke to my boyfriend … he’s
willing to wait. I just hope he doesn’t drift away….
that’s how they are if you take too long … they lose
interest.’
Bongi: ‘Most men, they only take what they want.
They either leave you… with sexual disease or
whatever, AIDS and stuff so they go for young
girls … He’ll buy you a cell phone and clothes …
he introduces you to his mother. Maybe when his
mother opens the list you are the 25th… and when
he sleeps with you he moves on to the next one.’
(Excerpt from an interview with black1 girls aged 16
to 17 years in a former coloured school in a working
class context in Durban, South Africa. Names
have been changed to protect the identities of the
interviewees.)
South African girls like Jo and Bongi, aged 16–17 years,
aspire to relationships that are built on trust and loyalty.
However, they argue that boys just want one thing — sex —
and leave girls with sexual diseases such as AIDS. South
Africa’s HIV statistics point clearly to the special vulnera-
bility of young girls to contracting the disease. In South
Africa over 5.6 million people are living with HIV, but a
huge gender disparity exists in rates of infection (UNAIDS
2010). Shisana et al. (2009) reported that among 15- to
19-year-olds, HIV prevalence is about 2.7 times higher in
girls than in young men. Sexual risk must be understood in
the context of varying degrees of power within relationships
and gender-specific norms for sexual conduct (Hoffman et
al. 2006).
Based on interviews with young black girls aged 16 and
17 years, this paper explores the ways in which gender
inequalities, relationship dynamics and vulnerability
intersect. We show how girls’ sexual cultures are situated
within gendered relations of power which are negative
for the development of girls’ agency. We focus on girls’
construction of relationships as it occupies a significant
place in their young lives (Allen 2005). Importantly, girls as
sexual agents attempt to challenge patriarchal structures
and are critical of boys’ sexual conduct. Nonetheless, the
girls tie themselves to dominant gender norms that underlie
enduring forms of gender inequalities.
Jo and Bongi in the earlier excerpt begin to paint this
picture — one of poverty, sexual coercion, the lure of
commodities (including cell phones, cash and clothes)
(Leclerc-Madlala 2004) and the emotional pressure and
vulnerabilities of holding on to a boyfriend who might
lose interest ‘if you take too long’ to have sex. This paper
addresses some of the complexities as young girls articu-
late their vulnerable position within the broader social and
sexual landscape in South Africa. The vulnerability of girls
to contracting a sexual disease is not only heightened
by poverty and unemployment, but also by the gendered
nature of their roles within heterosexual relationships
(O’Sullivan et al. 2006). The relatively subordinate status
Gender, relationship dynamics and South African girls’ vulnerability to
sexual risk
Deevia Bhana* and Bronwynne Anderson
School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag X03, Ashwood 3605, Durban, South Africa
*Corresponding author, e-mail: Bhanad1@ukzn.ac.za
South African researchers have stressed the importance of gender and relationship dynamics underlying sexual
risk, particularly among 15- to 19-year-olds. Nevertheless, we know little about these factors among young girls,
who are especially at risk of HIV. The main objective in this study was to explore the ways that young girls aged 16
to 17 years give meaning to boys and boyfriends and the processes through which these relationship dynamics are
shaped. In-depth interviews were conducted with a group of black1 girls in a working class context in Durban about
their sexual relationships with boys. Dominant gender norms underlined the ways in which girls discussed these
sexual relationships in relation to their lack of power and condom use. Factors such as their class, race and gender
interacted with girls’ vulnerability to risk of HIV. While girls were complicit in their subordination, particularly in
relation to cheating boyfriends, many were critical of boys who displayed patterns of sexual domination. Efforts
aimed at reducing sexual risk must work toward shifting dominant patterns of masculinity over femininity to
broaden pathways of love, trust, loyalty and understanding.
Keywords: sexual relationships, boys, gender norms, race and class, risk

Bhana and Anderson
26
of girls with regard to boys and men is a critical factor
influencing greater risk to infection, and situates gender and
sexual issues at the centre of the HIV prevention challenge
(UNAIDS 2010).
Girls’ subordinated status in intimate relations and wider
society is highlighted as a key driver of the HIV and AIDS
epidemic (Susser 2009). The feeling of entitlement of men
to have sex has often been identified as a factor contrib-
uting to women’s heightened sexual risk. Sexual scripts
still endorse male assertiveness (O’Sullivan et al. 2006),
contributing to male sexual domination and rendering
women and girls powerless to determine the timing and
nature of sexual encounters. Research shows that gender
norms infiltrate relationship dynamics, where young women
fare afraid of losing their partners and make decisions
based on maintaining relationships rather than on their
emotional and sexual well-being (Holland et al. 1990).
Gender power inequalities work in ways that determine
male domination in the use of condoms, and girls have
been found to be anxious about men not enjoying sex with
a condom. A request for condoms can also be interpreted
as a lack of trust and an admission of their own infidelity.
As Jewkes and Morrell (2010) note, some women appear
unable to exert an influence over condom use through fear
of rejection and stigmatisation by partners.
Young South African women face significant socio-
cultural restrictions in the arena of sexuality, with an
emphasis on maintaining modest behaviour, protecting
their virginity, and avoiding sexual relations until involved
in a regular partnership (Lambert and Wood 2005). Material
challenges together with cultural practices of respect have
promoted obedience and passivity as hallmarks of African
femininity (Hunter 2010).
While acknowledging the lack of women and girl power in
negotiating sex, we must take care not to re-inscribe to the
dominant stereotype of women’s and girls’ passivity. Girls
are not simply passive recipients of boys’ antics. Gender
power is understood to be multiple, fluid and contextual,
with instances where women do resist male power and
challenge men (Shefer 2003). Some research suggests that
young women have greater agency than in the past (Bhana
and Pillay 2011).
Addressing girls’ construction of gender and relation-
ship dynamics, this paper argues that a persistent pattern
of male-dominated construction of sexuality functions to
reproduce girl’s subordination. Girls’ desire for love and
honesty is confounded by the structure of gender relations,
legitimising male power through which their extraordinary
position as sexually vulnerable and subordinate is enforced
or promoted. In this process, however, girls are not simply
acted upon as docile victims of male power: girls are sexual
beings and have agency. A central argument in this paper
is that relationship formations demonstrate girls’ sexual
agency that both challenges and reproduces patriarchal
structures. Girls, we show, criticise boys’ sexual conduct
and are highly alert to their vulnerable position within
gendered hierarchies. Their sexual vulnerabilities are not of
their own making.
Schoepf (2004) notes that in much of Africa economic
and social factors circumscribe the ability of girls to refuse
sex or to insist on condom use. Girls’ economic positions
arise from the complex matrix of poverty and, as Hunter
(2010) reports, under circumstances where gifts play a vital
role in fuelling everyday sexual relationships between men
and women. While girls in this study expressed hetero-
sexual desires and had aspirations and idealised notions of
a heterosexual future, they are often caught up in decisions
about sexual partnerships where choice is constrained
(Jewkes et al. 2010a).
While we do not wish to resuscitate outdated claims
of male domination and female subordination, gender
norms and large-scale structural effects limit the exercise
of girls’ sexual agency. Our central purpose in this paper
is to highlight the enduring forms of sexual and gender
inequalities which effectively limit girls’ choices and call
into question gender norms within relationship dynamics.
Gender norms and expectations about appropriate sexual
behaviour for boys and girls are key in influencing sexual
behaviours of young people (Marston and King 2006).
On the contrary, girls’ actively contribute to construction
and maintenance of counter-feminist masculine ideals of
sexuality (Talbot and Quayle 2010).
The girls in this study come from social environments
where most adults are unemployed or under-employed,
and where households rely on income from cheap and
unskilled labour or government grants. Township environ-
ments bring together major social inequalities, which have
an impact on the ways in which girls construct their sexuali-
ties. Sexuality, as Correa et al. (2008) argue, is a domain of
power of which gender norms are always a part, in differing
ways depending on context. Many studies have investi-
gated the localised complexity of gender and sexuality in
creating patterns of vulnerability, and argued for greater
scrutiny of social conditions and gender power inequalities
in developing strategies for protection against sexual risk
(Dunkle et al. 2007, Harrison 2008, Jewkes et al. 2010a,
2010b). To this we add the localised constructions of
relationships as articulated by black girls in the Wentworth
township of Durban.
Prevention programmes for young people must attend not
only to social structures of power, but to the ways in which
gender norms are played out in the construction of intimate
relationships. This paper highlights the importance of more
contextualised understandings of gender and sexuality.
The study
This paper draws from a larger qualitative research project
titled ‘16 turning 17 youth, gender and sexuality in the
context of HIV and AIDS’. This project explored the ways
in which young people in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, give
meaning to gender and sexuality in the context of AIDS. So
far, the research has focused on the meanings that young
people in race- and class-specific contexts articulate for
gender, sexuality and risk in five different schools (Bhana
and Pattman 2011). Interviews have been conducted with
single-sex and mixed-sex groups. This paper adds to this
body of work by focusing on young African and coloured
girls attending a formerly coloured working class school in
Wentworth, Durban. Permission to access the school was
provided by the Department of Education in KwaZulu-Natal.
During apartheid, Merewent High [pseudonym] catered

African Journal of AIDS Research 2013, 12(1): 25–31 27
only for so-called ‘coloured’ children. After the end of
apartheid, black pupils from neighbouring townships like
Umlazi and Lamontville joined the school. Of the school
population today, 92% are coloured and 8% are African, all
from the lower working class socio-economic group.
Many township parents make great sacrifices so that
their children can access schools with better resources
outside the townships (Hunter 2010). Merewent High serves
children who emerge from contexts of unemployment and
poverty. The community is also afflicted by a host of social
ills, including substance abuse, domestic violence, a high
rate of teenage pregnancy and gang violence (Anderson
2010).
Access to the participants was obtained through formal
requests to parents and the school gatekeepers, including
the Department of Education, school principal and teachers.
All the stakeholders were adequately informed as to the
nature of the study. Letters of consent outlining the focus of
the research, purpose and types of questions to be asked
were given to parents for both parents and participants to
read and sign. The parents and participants were assured
that data generated from the interviews would remain
confidential and that the girls’ identities would be protected
by replacing their names with pseudonyms. The girls were
also told that they could withdraw at any stage and were not
compelled to respond to or answer any questions that they
were not comfortable with. The girls were informed at the
outset that as researchers we would be forced to intervene
should any information that was shared prove to be harmful
to the girls or to others.
Five hour-long interviews were conducted at the school.
These interviews were with coloured girls, African girls,
African boys and coloured boys and a mixed sex and mixed
race interview. The findings of this paper are based on
single sex group interviews with African and coloured girls
aged 16–17 years, in an attempt to explore the ways in
which gender inequalities, relationship dynamics and sexual
vulnerabilities intersect. While most of the participants were
fluent in English, they all had a relatively good knowledge of
English and were coherent in responding to questions. Data
were gathered by audio-recording of the group interviews,
which were conducted in an informal manner with the
participants leading discussions and the interviewer acting
more as a facilitator. This approach yielded rich discussion
and was interactive.
Using open-ended, semi-structured interview methods,
we explored the meanings the girls give to their gendered
and sexual identities, their investments in heterosexual
relationships and how they negotiate their difficult contexts
that are laced with patriarchal power differentials. The
open-ended questions allowed the girls to respond in ways
they deemed fit.
After transcribing the interviews verbatim, transcripts
were examined using the iterative process of going
backwards and forwards through the data. This method
facilitated categorising the emergent themes that derived
from the participants’ accounts, and provided a basis for
grouping the responses for a sufficiently nuanced interpre-
tation and interrogation of the data.
Using gender power theory as a heuristic tool, the
findings highlight how sexual risk is understood in the
context of varying degrees of power within relationships and
gender-specific norms of sexual conduct (Hoffman et al.
2006). The discourses that emanated from the participants
illustrate their sexual vulnerabilities that underlie prevalent
gender inequalities.
Findings
Giving additional insight into the ways in which gender and
relationship dynamics contribute to sexual vulnerability,
the data direct us to five points. First, subordination works
in relation to sex with virgins and male investments in it.
In patriarchal terms, virginity locates male prestige. The
conquest of a virgin is the prize that confers power on boys.
Girls are also preoccupied with virginal status, and virginity
loss featured strongly in their narratives of their first sexual
encounters. Not only did they criticise boys’ obsession with
virgins, but they also elevated the status of virgins and
reproduced male investments in female virginity.
Extending this theme is the second point which is related
to reputation and sexual double standards. Girls testified
to an active and desiring sexuality. However, once sexual
engagements were made public (by boys), the girls
reproduced their subjugated position, casting girls in familiar
places in gender relations through which their sexualities
are regulated.
The third point highlights the girls’ vulnerabilities in sexual
relations, which are underscored by economic vulnerability
and the provision of cash, cell phones and clothes (Leclerc-
Madlala 2004). Sex, as Hunter (2010) argues is entangled
with the provision of gifts. Economic constraints and the
desire for consumption enables production of a dominant
masculinity: one which provides but is also the reason for
high HIV prevalence among young women in KwaZulu-
Natal (Hunter 2010).
Fourth, boys usually press for sex early in the relation-
ship, and they often determine conditions for and timing
of sex. Girls’ acquiescence is prompted by the fear of and
emotional effects of cheating, because they feel that boys
will either drift away or be unfaithful if they take too long to
decide to have sex. Cheating and the fear of being cheated
upon produce anxieties and pain, through which male
power is secured.
The fifth point raises the issue of condom use and argues
that whereas young women express the desire to use
condoms, the view is that boys are in control of condoms.
Inability to negotiate condom use is situated in the context
of gender dynamics, where power is vested with the boys.
Girls expressed desires to get married, and to have a house
and children. Some girls talked of fun-loving and supportive
boyfriends. However, the positive relationship constructions
were subsumed by girls’ insubordinate positions pointing to
enduring forms of inequalities within relationships.
These five points are discussed in more detail in the
following sections.
‘Boys want your virginity’
In this section, girls’ understandings of what boys want are
elaborated in relation to virginity. While this paper is based
only on what girls say, they are indeed aware of the power
vested in virginity and invest in it as they are scornful of

Bhana and Anderson
28
boys who want a ‘piece’. In patriarchal terms, virginity
locates the prestige of a man, reproducing patterns of
gender insubordination:
Rene: ‘Boys want your virginity or a piece ... they
call it a piece ... They want to sleep with you. They
say “Ay you know that cherry [girl] … ay I had her”.
That ruins your reputation …’
Rene confirms how virginity and sexual prowess are key
features of masculinity: ‘I had her’ is a marker of sexual
accomplishment. Conquering a virgin, the ultimate symbol
of purity, is like a merit badge certifying manhood. Not
only are the girls scathing of boys who want ‘your piece’
(as virginity is referred to), but they argue that unequal
age relations compound gender relations with older boys
wanting fresh girls (virgins) in Grade 8, through which their
masculinities are affirmed:
Jo: ‘To get a name. They want to be famous … cool.
And they always go for … small girls first … The
boys in our class, they always look at those girls …
And some boys they only go for the Grade 8 girls
because they [are] virgins … they’re fresh.’
Jo illustrates age and sexual dynamics which put younger
girls in Grade 8 (generally 13 or 14 years old) in a more
precarious position as they are regarded as ‘fresh’ or
virgins. Sexual experiences among boys are viewed by
peers as the exhibition of sexual power; sex with a virgin is
the ultimate certification of manhood. As Jo states, having
sex with a virgin gives a boy a ‘name’ and fame. Barker
and Ricardo (2006) report that sexual bravado as a means
of peer affirmation continues into adulthood. Fame and
masculine reputations are built around this; in contrast,
girls suffer damage to their reputations as sexual bravado
is celebrated by boys. While boys’ power is elevated in
this sexual conquest, the public revelation of ‘I had her’
has effects for girls’ reputations, which reproduce gender
insubordination. Girls are involved in intimate sexual
relations, but the good girl/bad girl dichotomy produces
a regulatory environment to sanction and control girls’
sexuality. However, the damage to the girl’s reputation must
be seen as a means through which girls themselves lock
into the dichotomy reproducing their subordinate position
and feeding into male sexual domination.
Girls’ anxieties around the status of the virgin and boys’
sexual preoccupation with virginity feeds into male power
as it reproduces the symbolic power of virginity. While
condemning boys who take their virginity and who have
multiple partners, virginity loss featured strongly in their
accounts of first sexual encounters, which consistently
elevated virginal status, and in so doing conferred power on
boys:
Lorna: ‘… you think you so in love with this boy in the
meantime he got his own girlfriend. He only likes you
because you pretty. And you act so raw around him and he
doesn’t even know what’s your name… you do wild stuff in
the meantime when you get home your virginity is gone, it’s
gone …’
Lorna refers to virginity loss as “your virginity is gone, it’s
gone”. Complaining about their virginity loss is not simply
about being scathing about their boyfriends, but functions
as a means to reproduce the importance of virginity and
girls’ investments in it. In this way girls reproduce the
idealisation of female purity and virginity while simultane-
ously and contradictorily being critical of boys’ investments
in it.
Reputation and sexual surveillance
Girls are sexual agents and have sexuality. They express
desire and are excited about the possibility of loving
relationships, as we began to show in the introductory
transcripts. However, the concern about their reputations
produces a sexual double standard through which sexuali-
ties are controlled and regulated:
Noni: ‘I go out with my friends to like parties and
stuff like that; there we spend our money on alcohol.
When you do things… the whole world knows what
you were doing wrong. If you made a mistake and
kissed this boy, ay, they just make up stories…’
Rene: ‘You get some girls in some cases, if they
like have a crush on a boy and just to have them
they’ll do anything to be with them. They’ll like stick
with them and even say “Ay, come to my house this
week, we can sleep together” and she say “Ay, he’s
nice, I’m gonna go”. And after that it’s finished and
he’ll say like ‘Ay I had that cherry [girl] yesterday’.
Jo: ‘Yes… all over on Mxit . Even if it’s kissing.
That’s why I don’t just go kissing. I’d rather be in
a long relationship with one person than go around
kissing boys, because you can get a bad reputation
even if it’s just one kiss; he’s like “Ay, I had her”.’
These girls’ comments show how the construction
of sexuality is premised on boys seeking to prove their
sexual conquests to their peers — ‘they make up stories’,
‘he’s like “Ay, I had her”’ — which damages girls’ reputa-
tions. Sexual power produces the status of studs (Allen
2005). Successful masculinity necessitates an exercise
of power over women as triumphant sexual gladiators
(Connell 1995). Boys are inducted into sexual practices and
exercising them becomes a life-long project, as much of the
research illustrates (Barker and Ricardo 2006). Set against
the accomplishment of masculine sexual power is the
reputational damage suffered by girls from sexual agency.
Girls are sexual but, contradictorily, have to preserve the
illusion of innocence to protect their reputations. Jo’s
statement highlights an idealised version of purity, serving
the interests of male power rather than suffering reputa-
tional damage by having several partners; she would rather
be in a long relationship with one person to avoid reputa-
tional scars.
Girls’ surveillance of their sexuality was also constructed
in relation to clothing:
Researcher: ‘So if you wearing short skirts what do
they say you looking for?’
Belinda: ‘For sex.’
Researcher: ‘So you have to guard the way you
dress?’’
Belinda: ‘Yes. Well my mother’s actually stopped
me wearing short things. She says to me … they
don’t look at me as a small child anymore … and
they staring at me ...’’
Greta: ‘They call you “ticky-line” [a local version of
the word slut]; you not supposed to dress like this
and all that.’

African Journal of AIDS Research 2013, 12(1): 25–31 29
Sexual surveillance ensures girls’ dress code regula-
tion which, for example, is supported by Belinda’s mother.
However, this surveillance feeds into the myth that girls are
responsible for the sexual conduct of boys, and that ‘short
things’ entice male sexual advances.
Girls are highly sensitive to the gendered social environ-
ment through which their reputations are valued and
accommodated within a context that privileges male sexual
power. Having one boyfriend instead of many and feeding
into dress regulations shows not only their alertness to their
position as sexually vulnerable, but the ways in which they
too accommodate broader sexual meanings that subjugate
women and girls.
Within this sexual double standard, an active, desiring
sexuality is positively regarded in men but is denigrated and
regulated by negative labelling in women.
‘They just flash cards’
Ideologies of gender and sexuality and everyday practices
of subordination interact with economic forces to reproduce
inequalities (Hunter 2010). In the context of poverty, sexual
relationships are entangled with rather than opposed to
economic contexts. For girls in this study, the lure of cash
and cell phones, as Bongi indicated in the introductory
excerpt, compromises their ability to negotiate sex:
Noni: ‘…when you kissing and stuff like that, if you
not brave enough to say, “Ay I’m not ready”, if you
let your boyfriend do anything to you `cos you think
you love him and he loves you, you know or if he
like wants something from you he’ll say, “you’re
my queen”. Then he buys you everything that you
want…’
Love and materiality are intertwined and have effects on
the ways in which girls strategise around sexual relation-
ships. Ideologies of love, as Bhana and Pattman (2011)
indicate, jostle with the surrounding social and material
structures, and are related to power and resources in
ways that both challenge and reproduce gender inequali-
ties. It is thus no coincidence that Noni entangles love, sex,
commodities and romantic words like ‘you’re my queen’.
Noni confirms the differing degrees of power. Boys’ ability
to buy anything is entangled with ideologies of love and
gender, and differentiated norms which put girls at risk. Not
having the confidence to say no, ‘if you not brave enough
to say … I’m not ready’, illustrates the gendered norms for
sexual behaviour.
Research has shown that while girls view sex as an act
of intimacy, love and the ultimate connection, many boys
tend to view it, at least partially, as a way of confirming their
masculinity (Frosh et al. 2002). Male-dominated construc-
tions of sexuality are embedded in a complex matrix
involving power inequalities and the reproduction of gender
norms, together with broader social and material structures
which affect the intimate negotiation of sexuality. Rene’s
narration adds to this conundrum, raising age inequalities
and the phenomenon of the ‘sugar daddy’:
Rene: ‘They just flash cards, phones and say, “I’ll do
anything for you”. And sometimes just say if say a
girl can’t afford to buy things… a sugar daddy then
they’ll like that older person … girls just go for that
person … Before you know it, you’re finished.‘
Hunter (2010) writes of the widespread links between
gifts and sex embedded within sugar daddy relationships.
Gifts, money and other commodities fuel everyday sexual
relations. The privileged economic position of particularly
older men (sugar daddies) in relation to young girls living
in the context of poverty fuels sexual inequalities through
which gender inequalities are forged. Importantly, as Rene
points out, ‘girls just go for that person’. Girls engage in
sugar daddy relationships as agents of sexuality to access
economic goods. Rene also notes, however, that such
relationships have gendered implications, suggesting that
‘before you know it, you’re finished’.
‘You don’t wanna give me that, that’s why I’m cheating’
Sexual relationships underpinned by gender inequalities
and sexual coercion increase girls’ sexual vulnerability. In
this section, girls talk about coercive sexual practices which
constrain the choice to say no to sex. Coercive sexual
practices must be situated within an emotional framework
of vulnerability through which gender inequalities are
reproduced. The girls talked about the pressure to have
sex and the consequences of waiting too long [to have sex].
Many gave in to the pressure to preserve relationships, and
acquiesced to sexual demands. Some were cheated on or
lost a boyfriend to another girl who was willing to have sex.
A gendered emotional framework is helpful here in
understanding the ways in which coercive sexual practices
operate to effectively promote male sexual power and
constrain the choices available to girls:
Thembi: ‘These days it’s not like that easy `cos
like boys want to have sex these days. It’s like
the only thing they want. You know boys put you
under pressure, `cos you don’t wanna sleep with
them. It’s like so “you don’t wanna sleep with me,
you don’t love me”. Then he goes and looks for
other girlfriends. Then you ask why you cheating -
“`cos you don’t wanna give me that, that’s why I’m
cheating”. So it’s not that easy.’
Sexual coercion, love and sex are intricately related.
The coercive practice through which love and sex are
intertwined has emotional effects. Anxiety about losing
a boyfriend causes the girl to acquiesce to male sexual
demands, and the anxiety produced by cheating and loss of
a boyfriend show the ways in which girls collude in perpetu-
ating male power, so that ‘it’s not that easy’ to say no:
Loren: ‘If you take too long they lose interest, they
find someone else.’
Researcher: ‘Taking too long for what?’
Greta: ‘Miss, you have to give up or they find
someone else who’s willing to do it [have sex],
especially if you got a nice boyfriend and another
girl is after him and willing, they’ll go with him and
you wondering what did I do wrong…when I didn’t
have my boyfriend…I was kissing another boy…
but anyway we were just like kissing friends but he
wanted something else. And er, I said no and he’s
like, “Ooh why you acting immature you know what I
want”…And I said “No I don’t want to, I’m not ready”.
So he’s like, “Ay, you know what, never mind, I got a
girlfriend”. Then after that he went for my friend and
my friend ended up by sleeping with him…’

Bhana and Anderson
30
Greta positions sexuality within male domination, arguing
that you ‘have to give up’, meaning that you have to
acquiesce to the pressure to have sex otherwise boys will
move on to find girls who are willing. The quest to maintain
relationships and to sustain the ideal of love has the effect
of producing less assertive conduct in relation to the timing
and conditions of sex.
Condom use
On the issue of condom use, it was clear that the conditions
of sex were defined by the boys. Bongi’s testimony here
helps to highlight the pervasive forms of inequalities in
sexual relationships that reproduce girls’ subjugated
positions and increase their risk and sexual vulnerability:
Bongi: ‘…the first time when I had sex he like
actually told me that you can’t break a virgin with
a condom…you know my mind is just blank...and I
never thought that I was gonna get pregnant I just
said “haai its alright let’s try it”. I just got used to the
idea that you don’t use condoms until the day I was
pregnant. And we carried on not using a condom
until now…I see his friends they always changing
girlfriends and I’m just thinking when I’m not there
he probably also does the same thing. The only
thing I told him he must please use protection ’cos
I can’t take his cock and walk with it wherever I go,
so just use protection...the other time I told him he
must go test ’cos I know my status that I’m not HIV,
he must also go, he told me if I’m not HIV positive
then he’s not so he’s not going nowhere...So I said
“why don’t you use protection with me?”. He says
“cos we never use protection in the first place, why
should we do it now?”.’
Unlike the girls in the Reddy and Dunne (2007) study,
who argued that safe sex was not necessary for them,
Bongi’s narrative clearly shows the ways in which condom
use is eschewed by masculine prerogatives. First sex was
unprotected. Bongi’s gendered position within intimate
sexual relations is hierarchical. Her mind was blank, power
inequalities played out, and she fell for the myth that you
‘can’t break a virgin with a condom’. No condom usage was
established from the first sexual encounter and the result
was pregnancy. Since then, however, condoms were still
not used, and Bongi’s anxieties around multiple partners
and HIV are clear. She is alert to the possibility that her
boyfriend could be cheating and equally aware of the risk of
HIV. She had tested negative and yet, despite her justifiable
concerns, she succumbs and feeds into dominant construc-
tions of male sexual power, where decisions about safe sex
lie with the boyfriend.
Inequalities in power between boys and girls within sexual
relationships provide an important dimension to sexual
risk. Clearly girls are alert to their vulnerability, but they are
caught within the network of sexual and gender relations
where girls’ subordinate position restricts choices and
possibilities in developing equitable relationships.
Conclusion
This study explored the gender dynamics that influence and
have effects on young girls’ vulnerabilities in heterosexual
relationships. To this end, gender and relationship
dynamics were considered within the broader framework
of gender power inequalities. Confirming the subordi-
nate status of many South African girls, the girls point
to dominant constructions of male sexuality which both
inhibited their agency and through which they challenged
such dominance. The girls were highly critical of boys’
sexual patterns and challenged their dominance, but contra-
dictions were apparent in the sexual double standards
through which their complicity with patriarchal structures
became apparent.
Importantly, girls claim their sexual status and are critical
of boys who demonstrate a rampant male heterosexuality.
These data confirms 16- and 17-year-olds as active sexual
agents, with desire and passions and aspirations towards
gender-equitable relationships based on love, loyalty,
honesty and trust. However, despite being highly critical of
boys’ sexual conduct, the girls situate their sexualities within
asymmetrical relations of power. In their attempts to save
their relationships and address their emotional well-being,
girls set themselves up for sexual risk.
Against the backdrop of HIV, researchers must investi-
gate how young girls negotiate sex and the ability to refuse
sex, and their ability to negotiate condom use. The girls
point to familiar gender-subordinate positions, with boys
in control of condom use. Sex was negotiated within a
framework where the consequence of boys cheating was
an omnipotent force in negotiating sex. The study showed
some examples of girls’ resistance to this pressure and to
girls’ agency despite the dominance of their vulnerability.
Consistent with other research, girls’ vulnerability to sexual
risk is situated within a context of economic depression and
of accessing power and resources through sexual relation-
ships with men who can provide it (Hunter 2010).
Overall, girls’ constructions of relationship dynamics
continue to be modelled around male power and female
vulnerability (Jewkes and Morrell 2010). As in the study by
Hoffman et al. (2006), most of the young girls in our sample
acquiesce to male power, and in so doing reproduce gender
power inequalities.
All the girls had some level of sexual experience, and
some were in established sexual relationships. Some girls
talked of boyfriends who were supportive and loving, and
while this was not the dominant claim in the sample, it
helps reject notions of a homogenous African masculinity
that violates girls. Changing masculinities, as Jewkes and
Morrell (2010) note, are important in addressing gender-
equitable relationships. Some research is already pointing
to these changes (Anderson 2010). Greater efforts are
now being taken to work on longer-term changes to the
construction of alternate forms of masculinity, which shift
away from multiple partners and violence.
In relation to the context of sexual risk and against the
backdrop of AIDS in South Africa, girls are not always able
to insist on condom use. The conditions of sex are framed
by emotional and economic vulnerability. The fear of losing
a boyfriend if you take too long to decide on having sex also
propels decisions that put girls in relationships of vulner-
ability. The thought of cheating also creates emotional
turbulence and patterns of vulnerability for young girls.
Constructions of femininity make it difficult for young

African Journal of AIDS Research 2013, 12(1): 25–31 31
girls to ensure their sexual well-being. Working with both
girls and boys is an important strategy of intervention,
and involves shifting dominant patterns of masculinity and
femininity to broaden pathways towards love, trust, loyalty
and understanding. Ending structural inequalities is also
key to the strategy of ending girls’ continued vulnerability
towards sexual risk in South Africa.
Notes
1 Racial categories remain salient in South Africa, despite the
end of apartheid. While democracy has brought an end to racial
discrimination, four racial categories are widely used in the
country: African, white, Indian and coloured. Notwithstanding the
rising African middle-class, social inequalities persist and reflect
the hierarchies created by apartheid South Africa. The use of
racial terms thus makes it easier to understand and redress past
inequalities.
The authors — Deevia Bhana, PhD, works at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal. She teaches Gender and Education. Her research
interests are in gender, childhood sexualities and HIV.
Bronwynne Anderson is a postdoctoral fellow at the University
of KwaZulu-Natal. She teaches Gender and Education and has
published in the area of young masculinities and sexualities.
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