“A Guy ‘Does’ and You Don’t,They Do You Instead”: Young People’s Narratives of Gender and Sexuality in a Low-Income Context of South Africa

Abstract

The intensive research focus on young people’s sexuality in relation to risk means that young people’s sexuality is often pathologized. We thus miss out on the day-to-day lived realities of how young people negotiate gender identity as well as sexuality in complex, nuanced, but normal ways. This article contributes to an emerging body of research that highlights how young people negotiate gender identity and sexuality in their day-to-day lives, by focusing on the narratives of young persons engaged in heteronormative relationships in a resource constrained setting in South Africa. We offer insights into dominant, but also alternative discourses of gender and sexuality that are not highlighted in the literature in this field. Furthermore, we offer new empirical insights into how socioeconomic status shapes their gender identity, beliefs about sex and their sexual practices, contributing to a small but emerging field of research engaging with the intersection of gender, sex, and socioeconomic status.

Keywords

feminities masculinities sex and gender sociology social sciences intimacy youth socioeconomic status

Introduction

Young people’s sexuality is the topic of a great deal of research interest. The bulk of such research interest is concerned with how to control and subdue sexuality, with concerns for risk and danger being the primary focus. As early as the 1980s, Fine (1988) noted that female sexuality was most often understood in relation to danger and victimization and that there was a missing focus on desire. Almost two decades later, Fine and McClelland (2006) noted that little had changed. Although they focus on female sexuality, it might be argued that this trend features in research on young people’s sexuality in general. In Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, much of the interest in young people’s sexuality originates from the wide field of HIV and AIDS and sexual violence research, and is thus primarily focused on how to understand and control young people’s sexual risk taking behavior (Berten & Van Rossem, 2009; Carey et al., 2011; Hahm, Lee, Rough, & Strathdee, 2012). In particular, poor and marginalized young men and women receive the bulk of attention in this field (Mah & Maughan-Brown, 2013; Nattrass, Maughan-Brown, Seekings, & Whiteside, 2012). While such research is important, an unintended consequence has been that sex and sexuality among poor, Black youth has been described as excessive, and risky (Tamale, 2011)—as something to be “fixed.” Similarly, conceptions of masculinity and femininity are seen as contributing to risk behavior.

Thus, historically little attention has been paid to the everyday sexual self-conceptions, contestations, experiences, and performances of gender and sexuality as a normal aspect of life. This focus has shifted in the last few years with researchers increasingly interested in how young people negotiate gender and sexuality both internationally (Brown-Bowers, Gurevich, Vasilovsky, Cosma, & Matti, 2015; Froyum, 2010; Lusey, San Sebastian, Christianson, Dahlgren, & Edin, 2014) and in Southern Africa (Bhana, 2013; Bhana, 2017b; Bhana & Anderson, 2013a; Everitt-Penhale & Ratele, 2015; Jewkes & Morrell, 2012; Langa, 2010; Mudaly, 2013). As such the role of agency, negotiation and desire in the development of gender identity and sexual practices have come to be better understood. Nevertheless, as Bhana (2017a) notes

in African childhood studies, ideas about love, sex and gender are often ignored. Despite love’s overarching presence children and young people are often written about as loveless. . . . Under the surveillance of sexual violence, disease and girls’ particular vulnerability across Africa, much of the scholarship has remained concerned with children as victims and cast within the frame of a suffering sexuality. (p. 243)

Bhana (2017b) makes the further point that research on youth sexuality should take a more substantive view, moving away from the narrow focus on danger and risk to explore agency, desire and young people’s views on love and sexuality. This article takes heed of this call and contributes to the gap in literature by drawing attention to young people’s views on gender identity, sex, sexuality, romantic relationships, and desire. It further contributes by highlighting the intersectionality between gender and socioeconomic status and how these two factors shape gender and sex.

The aim of this study was to investigate the ways in which dominant and alternative discourses shape gender identity, and in turn sexuality among young people engaged in heteronormative relationships. A secondary aim was to understand how socioeconomic status influenced expressions of gender identity and sexuality. Drawing on two qualitative studies conducted in the same community, we discuss how young people’s constructions of gender are negotiated and how this aspect influences expressions of sexual desire and sexual practice. We engage not only with gender and sexuality, but also with the ways in which socioeconomic status influences their discourse and practice in the context of heteronormative relationships.

Approaches to Understanding Youth Sexuality

Concern in research about youth sexuality, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, has primarily been on how to control it to avoid risk taking. Historically, such research has been underpinned by the Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, 1990), which assumes that “knowledge of various aspects of HIV/AIDS [and other sex-related risks] allows for appropriate actions to be taken in relation to prevention” (Shisana et al., 2009, p. 51—words in brackets authors’ own). Research attention has subsequently shifted, given our awareness that knowledge is a poor predictor of behavior (Berten & Van Rossem, 2009), to focus on the ways in which gender identity shapes sexuality. Such literature engages with the ways in which young people negotiate gendered roles and expectations, and the implications this negotiation has for them in relation to their expectations and enactment of sexuality (Bhana & Anderson, 2013a; Jewkes & Morrell, 2012; Lusey et al., 2014). Within this body of literature, gender, and sexuality are theoretically linked. Kimmel (2005) argues that sexuality is socially constructed and that it relies for its intelligibility on gender. Gender is thus understood as a performance, which gains its authority through reiterative practice (Butler, 1993). It is through our understanding of masculinity and femininity that we construct sexuality, and it is through our sexualities that we confirm the successful construction of our gender identity (Kimmel, 2005). Thus, how young women and men conceptualize sex, its meaning and their sexual identity is shaped by structures that inform gender identity and sexuality, and it is these structures and discourses that have been the focus of much recent literature.

Increasingly, within this body of growing literature, there is acknowledgment that gender and sexuality are constantly negotiated. As such, various discourses of masculinity and femininity are engaged with by young men and women as they seek to express their gender identity and sexuality (Everitt-Penhale & Ratele, 2015; Langa, 2010). While the starting point for understanding masculinity is the argument that there is a “hegemonic” masculinity (Connell, 1995), that is, a dominant type of masculinity to which all ascribe to some degree, there is acknowledgment of multiple masculinities (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). From this perspective, there is contestation over whether a single “hegemonic” masculinity exists and agreement that masculine identity is a fluid concept, drawing on various available masculinities. Similarly, while Connell (1995) argues that femininity is necessarily a subjugated femininity that is always defined in relation to masculinity, it is nevertheless fluid and contested.

Drawing on this theoretical insight, a substantial and important literature highlighting the ways in which dominant discourses of masculinity and femininity shape risky sexual practices has emerged (Barker & Ricardo, 2005; Jewkes, Skweyiya, Morrell, & Dunkle, 2011; Leech, 2010; Reddy & Dunne, 2007; Winskell, Obyerodhyambo, & Stephenson, 2011; Wood, Lambert, & Jewkes, 2007). In such studies, attention is paid primarily to hegemonic masculinity—framed around dominance over women and other expressions of masculinity; and subjugated femininities—characterized primarily by submission and moderation of one’s own desires. These empirical contributions are important in fostering our understanding of the ways in which gender norms shape sexual practice and the implications for sex education. However, they mask the alternative discourses and performances of masculinity and femininity. Recently, however, there has been a growing body of literature that does highlight the ways in which masculinity and femininity are negotiated and contested, and how this shapes sexual agency, desire, and practice.

In such research some acknowledgment is given to how young men and women challenge dominant notions of femininity. For instance, O’Sullivan, Harrison, Morrell, Monroe-Wise, and Kubeka (2006) note that young women expressed desire and wanted to initiate sexual relationships, although this approach was not common. Jewkes and Morrell (2012) highlight how young women choose to enter into multiple partnerships, particularly when their chosen partner had engaged in multiple partnerships or abstain from sexual relations, despite pressure from main partners. Pettifor, MacPhail, Anderson, and Maman (2012) also demonstrate how young women express a desire for gender equitable partnerships and freedom over sexual decision making, but ultimately acquiesce to partner demands in their relationships. Bhana and Anderson (2013b) note how young girls express a desire for gender equitable relationships. Graham (2016) demonstrates how older young women (emerging adults) remember expressing empowered gender identities as adolescents but return to dominant, submissive femininities as they become mothers and wives, and experience their options for self-actualization diminishing in a resource constrained setting.

In relation to masculinity, a growing body of literature has engaged with how young men negotiate hegemonic masculinity. Langa (2010) demonstrates how adolescent boys living in a South African township engage with contested “good” and “bad” masculinities. Langa and Smith (2012) assess how adolescent fathers attempt to challenge dominant notions of “no good” absent fathers by being involved “good” fathers with their own children. Graham (2014) illustrates how young men in an informal settlement express both dominant expressions of masculinity and related sexual practices but also negotiate their gender identity and sexual engagements in the context of multiple alternative discourses of masculinity. Lusey et al. (2014) highlight the ways in which young, religious, Congolese men engage with discourses of hegemonic masculinity as well as church messages that seem to contradict the hegemonic discourse, with implications for how they negotiate sex. The abovementioned studies have thus increasingly contributed to our understanding of the ways in which young people negotiate sex and sexuality as part of their everyday lives—in healthy, “normal” ways and not simply in ways that are laden with risk and danger (Allen & Carmody, 2012; Rasmussen, 2012). Nevertheless, there continues to be a dominance of research focusing on young people’s gender and sexuality in relation to risk and an under-appreciation of the multiple, fluid and dynamic ways that young people engage in discourses of gender and sexuality. Furthermore, the ways in which socioeconomic status shapes these discourses and practices is only recently being engaged with in studies that focus on the intersection between gender, race, class, and sex (Bay-Cheng & Bruns, 2016; Lesch & Adams, 2016; Mphaphuli, 2015; Muchomba, Chan, & El-Bassel, 2015).

This article endeavors to answer the research question: How do young people living in an under-resourced informal settlement in South Africa negotiate gender identity and sexuality? In this article, we contribute further empirical literature to highlight the contested ways in which masculinity and femininity, and sexual practice are negotiated. Our concern is to contribute further empirical literature to the topic of sexualities by illustrating how private intimate sexual relations and thoughts about gender and sexuality are interpreted through multiple meanings, which are culturally and contextually available to young people (Jackson & Scott, 2010). We specifically highlight how socioeconomic status plays a role in the ways in which young men and women engage with gendered discourses.

Method

This article draws on data from two in-depth qualitative studies conducted in the same informal settlement outside of Johannesburg, South Africa.

The first study was an ethnographic enquiry. It focused on the lives of nine young men and women. Four of the participants were couples at the time of the study, the remaining five were unrelated to one another. The participants, all of whom were between the ages of 18 and 28 years,¹ were recruited by walking through the community and inviting young people to participate. The nine participants were those that consented to participate and remained involved over the 9-month span of the study (a further three who initially consented dropped out of the study over time—their data were deleted as per ethical requirements). Efforts were made to ensure that not more than two participants came from the same social circles to avoid the study only pertaining to one peer group. However, volunteer bias was a limitation of the sample. The focus of the study was on the ways in which young people negotiated gender identity and risk in their everyday lives, which were shaped by marked socioeconomic deprivation, and the implications this had for their sexuality. Each participant was interviewed at least three times. The in-depth interviews focused on understanding their life histories, questions about how they viewed themselves as young men and women, and how they negotiated relationships with their partners. Informal conversations often arose between the researcher and the participants during the time that was spent in the community with the young people. These often revolved around their day-to-day activities and struggles, relationship problems and concerns, or leisure activities. They also often illuminated the ways in which the participants expressed their gender identity both in relation to other young people and the researcher and were insightful in offering data that could be used to triangulate that garnered through the more formal interviews. These informal conversations were documented in a research diary immediately following the day in field and were not audio-recorded. Observation too provided the opportunity to view how they enacted their gender identity and sexuality among peers and in relation to the researcher. Observation was ongoing during the time the researcher was in field and not engaged in interviews or conversations. The field site was visited at least once a week for 9 months, but often more frequently. Data collection ceased when data saturation had been reached as per Moser and Korstjens’ (2018) guidelines for ethnographic enquiry. Analysis was grounded in the voices of young people and, through a process of constant comparison (Riessman, 2008), emergent themes regarding discourses of masculinity and femininity were developed. Interpretations of data were presented to participants in a process that allowed them the opportunity to verify or challenge interpretations. This process increased the authenticity and trustworthiness of the analysis process (Schwandt, Lincoln, & Guba, 2007).

The second study, conducted 6 months after the first and over a 2-month period, was an intersectional exploration of marginalized sexuality. It employed a qualitative approach grounded within interpretivist epistemology (Heath, Brooks, Ireland, & Cleaver, 2009), which was aimed at allowing research participants to tell their stories. This approach ensured a move away from discourses of pathologization to more complex understandings of heterosexuality. Participants were purposively sampled. The criteria used were that they had to be between the ages of 21 and 28 years, living together as a heterosexual couple, and had not participated in the first study. Participants were recruited using the same strategy employed in the first study. Both partners had to consent to participating in the study. In-depth interviews and focus groups were employed in a phased approach, aimed at fostering a comprehensive understanding of the development of heterosexual identities and practices. In the first phase, face-to-face narrative interviews were used to collect stories about young people’s lives and socioeconomic and demographic background. The second phase of data collection involved the use of focus group discussions aimed at unpacking the societal discourses that young people draw upon in constructing their sexual lives and the related gender performativity. The last phase of data collection included another round of narrative interviews. This phase provided an opportunity to probe some of the issues that were raised in the focus group discussions and how they pertained to their individual sexual lives. The data were analyzed using an intersectional approach (Davis, 2008). Both studies received ethical approval from the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Humanities Ethics Committee and followed processes of informed consent and confidentiality.

The area in which the studies were conducted is made up of shack dwelling structures and dusty footpaths. Basic services are limited with communal taps, no electricity, and pit latrine ablution facilities. Although there are no official statistics for the area, it is evident from statistics from surrounding (more formal) areas and observations of the community over time, that most people in the area are either casually employed or unemployed (Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, 2010). As a result, poverty and food insecurity levels are high. Locating the studies within this context means that a key feature of life that shapes young people’s negotiation of sexuality is the extreme socioeconomic realities and challenges they face on a daily basis.

Findings

In this section, we outline the key discourses of gender identity that emerged in the discussions with participants, and indicate how they shape young people’s everyday sexuality within the context of heteronormative relationships taking place in a resource constrained setting. We demonstrate the prevalence of hegemonic constructions of gender identity as well as the ways in which these are somewhat subverted by alternative discourses of gender identity. A key point we make is how these different and seemingly contradictory discourses are held by the same individuals and that they are shaped by socioeconomic context.

Taken-For-Granted Gender Essentialism

The most common expression of gender identity—masculinity and femininity—was rooted in a determinist understanding of gender. The participants essentialized gender identities to explain the different and assumed necessity of gender roles and expectations. Their ideas about the differences between men and women are explained as natural, biological or god-ordained, leading to the taken-for-granted assumption that gender roles and identities are therefore also natural, biological, or god-ordained.

Sizwe most explicitly expresses his views on the essential differences between men and women:

To me a man is a provider; he takes care of his family and. . . eish, eish. . . I will go to the Bible where God says that “God is a man’s head and a man is a woman’s head” and he says a man will provide for his family, protect his kids and he will do everything for the family. And a woman shall . . . I hate the word submit . . . when I say submit it seems like a woman will be slave of a man, not really, it more like a helper sort of. She helps him along those things. You see?

Sizwe confidently asserts that normative gender categories are natural because God created them that way, and consequently they cannot change or be done differently. A key feature of dominant discourses of sexuality is gender asymmetry, where women are identified as “helpers” to men with their presumed “place” within heterosexual relationships as mothers and wives, who must “submit” to men. This understanding is rooted in deeply patriarchal assumptions, where the man is the provider and protector of the family.

It is due to his masculine privilege that Sizwe is unable to recognize how such perceptions subordinate women’s needs to the needs of men. However, in the quotation above, he also recognizes the sensitivity of what he is saying, particularly since he is saying it to a female researcher. Hence he backtracks on the word “submit” and is able to argue that women’s submission must not be seen as a form of servitude. In an attempt to clarify this view, he further contends that

We are supporting each other, I don’t know, we make perfect sense if we support each other but we are different. We are not the same.

The notion of the man as provider and protector—one of the many expressions of masculinity, which was seen as the “natural” way of things—was a strongly held discourse shaping gender identity for both men and women. For instance, both Teboho and Ikanyeng noted that their ability to be in a relationship with a woman was contingent on their ability to provide. They viewed his primary role in the relationship as a provider. When asked why he was not currently in a relationship, Ikanyeng responded:

The reason is that I am not working, so I cannot have a girlfriend. Firstly she will tell me that she needs money for this and that, to do her hair, and I do not even have R10 to my name, so when I am unemployed I am okay without girls.

Similarly Teboho noted that he was not in a relationship because he had to have enough money to buy:

A brick house and car so I can show a girl and her family that I can look after her. I can’t just go and look for a girlfriend without these things in place.

The gender normative idea of men as providers also extends to the notion of male power in the household—it was taken for granted that the man is “naturally” the head of the household. Mandisa, a young woman, made this plain as follows:

But as the man he wants to control you more, because he is the head of the household.

For Mandisa, a man as the “head of the household” often has power over a woman, because he rules over her:

As head of the household it simply means that he should be the one in charge and that his orders must be followed and obeyed by all who live in the house. Everything he says we must do.

This was substantiated by Rethabile, another young woman, who contended,

Mostly men do that, if he is a man, he will tell you as a woman that I am the head of the household, so you are supposed to do what I am saying.

Such normative discourses of gender identity are rooted in an understanding of the biological differences between men and women—biological essentialism—and shape the way young men and women understand their bodies and sexuality. This conception is evinced in Dineo’s explanations of how men and women are different and thus, how they experience sex differently:

As a woman, you cannot compare yourself with a man, because as a woman you end up looking like ‘sebotho²‘ and you don’t have feelings anymore.

A guy “does” and you don’t; they “do” you instead, and you also get diseases from this sort of thing. If I try and do what he does, I will get finished and deteriorate.

Dineo here asserts that men and women are not only different in their roles in relation to one another, but are sexually different. She argues that women cannot have multiple sexual relationships with the same persistence as men because women’s bodies are physically weaker than men’s bodies. For her, this reasoning leads logically to the conclusion that women are passive, “they do you as a woman,” as such women are merely the receptacles for male desire. However, men are active in that they are the “doers” in the sexual act. Furthermore, Dineo argues that women were not created to be as sexually strong as men.

Palesa shares this view:

You must notice that men and women are different, for instance who ages faster between a man and a woman? A man can still perform, and do whatever at the age of 54, but as a woman at the age of 54 you do not have feelings and you don’t even get aroused anymore, even when your husband tries to caress you, you get angry at him. Why does that happen? Because you are finished and he isn’t, he is still going strong! (Palesa)

The idea of men’s strength also extends to the expectations of sexuality for young men. Sexual strength or virility was seen by young men and women to be of great importance as a demonstration of their masculinity. Rasta discusses the pressure he experiences to prove virility as an aspect of manhood. For him, virility is demonstrated by being attractive to women and, importantly, by not turning down sex with a woman who has approached him since this refusal might suggest impotence.

Rasta:

Ja, she . . . she, she . . . you know if I didn’t give her [sex] né, you will find girls laugh here, you think that they like me. Hhayi, they do not like me that they like you, she said you don’t have it [sexual power]. I sleep with her all night, he does not have it [sexual power]

Interviewer:

But you know you have it.

Rasta:

Ja, I have it but those words . . . They say you know they say, eh, actions speak louder than words. Ja, it’s either you are gay or you know, you don’t have it, you know, or it’s like this, I’m scared that she will see or it’s like, you know, you know girls talk, you know, they talk whatever, they talk. Hey girls

Interviewer:

So what will that mean to you if . . .

Rasta:

No, it hurts, to me it does not mean nothing, but it hurts when I can hear that there is a girl that says I have nothing [no sexual power]. Yoh! You want to go and prove.

What is evidenced from the above is that the young men and women who participated in the study hold essentialist notions of masculinity and femininity, and see these expectations as being rooted in biology or a natural or god-ordained order. The beliefs that shape their gender identity also shape their sexual practices.

The dominant discourses of gender identity and sexuality that are internalized by these young men and women are rooted in deeply patriarchal assumptions that serve to reinforce men’s privilege. This idea was most evidenced in the discussions that the participants had about condom use, which clearly show how young men’s needs are prioritized over a young women’s desire for condom use.

The female participants indicated facing pressure to allow young men to enjoy sex with them and ultimately to ejaculate, by removing the condom. As Palesa reflects,

Others say that they cannot have come/ejaculate with the condom because they do not feel the woman. And then they also promise not to ejaculate inside of you and that they will come out as soon as they feel that they are about to come.

For Palesa’s boyfriend a condom reduces the sensation he needs in order for him to have an ejaculation. As Morrell (2006) argued, ejaculation for young men has particular meaning; it is tied to notions of masculine prowess. Masculine domination is further manifested in and constituted by the ways in which young people structure their sexual experiences, and this can be illustrated by the following narrative by Dineo:

No, it is true, I have met a guy who could not “come,” and I “came” like three times before he could ejaculate. He said to me that he will never “come” if he still has the condom on, so he asked to take it out and promised to ejaculate on my thighs instead. He took it out and it didn’t take long for him to come soon afterwards on my thighs.

In this instance, despite young women attempting to negotiate condom use and demonstrate agency, the man’s sexual needs define and dominate the sexual experience. It is evident that the young women wanted to use condoms to prevent pregnancy or STIs; however, the man’s sexual pleasure is prioritized and ultimately ends up taking precedence during the sexual encounter.

Furthermore, once a young woman is engaged in a committed relationship (which may only be defined by a relationship lasting longer than a week in certain cases), insisting on condom use can be interpreted as admitting to being unfaithful, which is not viewed as an acceptable behavior for women. As Sizwe notes regarding condom use with his girlfriend:

We don’t use condoms because if she can suggest that we must use condoms it means she is doing something out there or she knows that she is sick.

Lerato also discusses how she felt she could not negotiate condom use with her long-term partner, even though she knew (and accepted as his right as a man) that he had other sexual partners. She reflects on how she knew it was risky to her health to not insist on condom use, but that it was even more risky for her relationship with him to do so. She was concerned that if she did request him to use a condom, he would view her as having been unfaithful. In this illustration the implications of the dominant notions of gender identity for sexuality are seen both in Lerato’s inability to negotiate condom use in her sexual relationships with her partner, and in her acceptance that her partner had a right to have multiple partners, while she was expected to remain sexually and romantically faithful to him alone.

The above data confirm what others have found—that young men and women internalize essentialist and heteronormative ideas about gender and that these notions of what it means to be a man or a woman shape their sexual engagements (Bhana & Anderson, 2013a, 2013b; Jewkes & Morrell, 2012; Shefer, Kruger, & Schepers, 2015). These ideas about gender are both shaped by and influence their understanding of how the masculine body and the feminine body work, and in turn their expectations and enactments of sexuality. For young men and women, masculinity is defined by the ability to provide and to demonstrate virility. It also involves the submission and vulnerability of women. These are ideas that young men and women do engage in as they negotiate their sexualities. They see men and women as essentially different in terms of their social expectations and roles, their bodies and experience of their bodies, as well as in the experience and expectations of sex. This viewpoint serves to essentialize gender difference, control women’s bodies, and reinforce male dominance.

But these are not the only discourses that young people engage in. In the next section, we illustrate how alternative discourses of gender identity are at play in the everyday lives and sexual interactions of young people.

Alternative Masculinities and Femininities

Both of the studies that this article draws on demonstrated the myriad ways in which young people—the same young people who had internalized dominant expressions of masculinity and femininity—expressed and identified with alternative discourses of masculinity and femininity. These included, for young men, challenging the notion of virility through multiple partnerships, and avoiding sex. For young women demonstrating agency and power within relationships is a key mechanism by which they attempt to engage with alternative discourses of femininity, perhaps borne of popular media discourse about women’s equality. Thus, while dominant patriarchal and essentialist notions of gender are strongly evident among the young people who participated in both studies, there is also evidence that competing discourses of gender equality are at play as they negotiate their gender identity and in turn their sexuality.

Alternative gender discourses also play out in how young men see themselves. While the pressure to demonstrate virility, through ejaculation and engaging in multiple partnerships, is most certainly a strong force in their lives as discussed previously, some of the participants challenged these notions. Rabatho, for instance, chose not to engage in the demonstration of virility by having multiple partners. When the question of multiple partners was discussed with him alone, without the pressure to prove himself in the presence of other young men, he acknowledged that there was an expectation for men to perform and to have multiple partners, and he did not question this expectation as a societal norm. However, he emphasized in discussions that this conception of manhood was not the kind of man he was. He wanted to be seen as being different:

Men are naturally like this, but I have something else that allows me to be different.

When pushed to explain what he meant, he noted that he was trying to be different to other young men. In order to do so, he drew on what he had been exposed to in the Pentecostal Christian Church to which he belonged. He claimed to want to “save himself” (remain a virgin) for the woman he would eventually marry. He explained that his strength came from resisting the sexual urges he experienced. Rabatho thus showed how he was being influenced by competing discourses about what being a man meant—one in which value was placed on multiple partnerships, and one in which value was placed on marital monogamy. Similarly, Ikanyeng, who had explained that he could not be in a relationship because he could not provide for his partner, also engaged with alternative notions of masculinity with implications for his sexual practice. He was a devoted follower of the Zionist Church and felt that monogamy was important. He thus holds competing discourses of masculinity together—the hegemonic notion of man as provider, and the alternative notion of being monogamous. This idea translated into self-imposed sexual abstinence. He repeatedly claimed to not engage in sexual relations at all until he could provide for a partner.

Mashudu also often spoke of the challenge he faced between the pressure to engage in multiple partnerships and the pressure to remain faithful to his girlfriend. Both actions demonstrated an aspect of masculinity that was important for him, but represented conflicting expectations. Among his friends, Mashudu felt the pressure to have multiple partners, but among his strong-knit family, the pressure was to be “a different kind of man.” Mashudu’s negotiation of his gender identity influenced his sexuality. Mashudu vacillated between periods of seeking and engaging in multiple partnerships and periods of remaining faithful to his “main” partner—the mother of his child. Like Rabatho, Mashudu negotiated his masculinity within the context of competing expectations and discourses, with implications for his sexual practices.

For young women, the influence of the promotion of gender equality in the media in South Africa seems to shape how young women view themselves. One discourse that challenged patriarchal gender norms was the “50/50” discourse. The “50/50” discourse allowed young women in particular to exist in a hybrid space where they inhabited a double-consciousness with regard to the performance of their femininity. First, they occupied the traditional gender role of a submissive female who is docile to the norms of patriarchy for survival purposes, while simultaneously appropriating gender equality discourses created to empower women. For example, Dineo explains below:

However now it is “fifty-fifty,” and when he tells you that he doesn’t want something and you must also tell him about things that make you unhappy. We need to listen to each other if we are a normal couple.

This view was shared by some of the men. Even Sizwe, despite his strongly normative beliefs about gender, acknowledged that he often shared household chores with his girlfriend:

Yes even now as she is my girlfriend, I cook for her, I do the laundry and go fetch water. Then we will relax and chat like we are siblings. Then she will go see people outside and come back and by then I would have washed the child.

During observations, we often noted that the young men, who we knew were in normative heterosexual relationships and who held particularly patriarchal notions of gender, nevertheless engaged in domestic duties including laundry and child care. They easily held together their ideas about gender normativity and more liberal views of gender relationships that hinged on notions of equality.

It is clear that these alternative discourses of masculinity and femininity shaped their sexuality. For instance, the young women who espoused notions of gender equality also discussed what that meant for negotiating their sexuality. Dineo draws on the lyrics of a popular kwaito song³ to suggest that women do not need to be monogamous and sexually subservient but can also “play”—meaning to have multiple sexual partners:

As women we must also have the courage to play as well. So it must be a 50/50, if you date and I will also date. As Mandoza sings: “Wonke umuntu o independent, let’s go fifty-fifty.”

Here Dineo challenges traditional expectations of sexuality that foster the notion of sexual exclusivity, that is, partners must be monogamous, especially women. Therefore, by definition, a “50/50” relationship as seen by Dineo defies and challenges heterosexual relationship norms and sexual practices.

These ideas about gender equality and sexuality extend to how women seek sexual pleasure. Dineo discusses how engaging in multiple partnerships affords her the opportunity to secure sexual pleasure that she does not get with her boyfriend:

You see the thing with sex even if you like it, it depends on the sort of person that you are with, and how well he does it. The man that you can be in love with very much and he is supposed to “make love” to you he cannot perform. So your love for such a guy is there, but he doesn’t satisfy you. So I just go out to get nice sex (laughs).

Palesa expressed a similar view:

Well the one you stay with sometimes doesn’t have love and the one from outside will satisfy me with everything. The one in the house will satisfy me by sleeping with me, but a lot of the other things he doesn’t do for me, instead the one from outside will do them for me.

The alternative discourses of gender that promoted gender equality also shaped young women’s agency in relation to negotiating condom use. The data demonstrate that young women were able to insist upon condom use, particularly with a new partner or in the first few days or weeks of a sexual relationship as noted in Rethabile’s remark:

Before he even touches me, I ask where is the condom? Otherwise we go buy at the garage, and if he doesn’t have money or a condom, then we go ask for the free one. If you do not have R10 to buy “Trust” condoms you go for the freebies [government issued condoms called Choice].

Mandisa concurs,

But most of us ask about condoms when we start having sex, but mostly we never ask if you know your status, it is not a normal thing to ask. Or if he does ask or I ask, then it will be like I do not trust him or he doesn’t trust me.

This finding is revealing in what it says about young women negotiating agency. It contradicts much empirical research that claims that young people, especially women, are unable to negotiate condom use because of patriarchal gender norms or economic dependence on their boyfriends (Bhana & Anderson, 2013a, 2013b; Jewkes & Morrell, 2012). These young women demonstrate an unexpected degree of agency in their relationships. They express being more confident and competent to insist on a particular way of engaging in sexual relations than the dominant conceptions of femininity would suggest.

The above data have shown that young people engage in both (not either) normative hegemonic and alternative notions of gender and that these views in turn shape their expectations with regard to sexuality. We now turn to how socioeconomic status shapes both gender identity and sexual practice for these young men and women.

Socioeconomic Status, Gender and Sexuality

Few scholars have engaged with the intersections between socioeconomic status, gender, and sexuality (Froyum, 2010; Lesch & Adams, 2016; Mphaphuli, 2015) and socioeconomic status as a contextual factor to consider in sex and gender research remains an under-researched, although emerging, field. The data from these two studies provide some insights into how gender and sexuality are shaped by socioeconomic status.

As has been discussed above, man as provider is a dominant discourse of masculinity for the young men and women in these studies. However, all of the young men who participated in the two studies were either unemployed or in insecure forms of employment that did not provide significant means to satisfy this role of provider. The young men responded to this status in different ways. For some, such as Rabatho and Ikanyeng, they displayed an alternative masculinity—one of desiring monogamy in a relationship in which they could provide, and therefore claiming to prioritize sexual abstinence while they could not provide. Rabatho and Ikanyeng’s response was unusual and shaped by their religious beliefs.

For many of the other young men, being able to be seen to provide was central to their gender performance, despite not being able to do so consistently. For instance, when Rasta did find work, he felt it was important to demonstrate his “wealth” at the local bar where he would purchase drinks for many women. He explained that it was important to show his “feathers” to attract sexual attention from the women. He also retained a long-term “main” sexual partner with whom he lived, and at times of unemployment, he would return to sexual relations with her alone. He described his relationship with her as one based primarily on care and love in which he provided safety and security to her, which enabled him to have sexual rights to her.

For many of the young women in the study, expressions of desire and agency and challenging gender norms in relationships were central to their expression of femininity. However, their ability to enact these desires was constrained by their poverty and reliance on the financial means of male partners. Thus Dineo, Dudu, and Beauty all talked about how they could get by on their own and were not reliant on any particular man. Dineo even went so far as to be critical of women who deferred to a man. However, for Dudu and Beauty in particular, their ability to “get by on their own” actually meant engaging in multiple partnerships with men who could provide for their needs. In one informal conversation with Beauty, she explained tearfully how she wished she could be a career woman with financial independence but knew that she had to rely on the men in her life to provide for her financially. This situation meant that she often acquiesced to consensual but unwanted sexual engagements with various partners. This finding confirms research by Bay-Cheng and Bruns (2016), which shows that poorer young women are more likely to explain consensual unwanted sexual engagements in terms of their own vulnerability.

It is thus clear that the young men and women in these studies engaged in dominant and alternative discourses of masculinity and femininity with particular implications for their sexual practices. Their position in a resource constrained setting, with limited prospects for employment, shaped their expressions of masculinity and femininity, and in turn their sexual desires and practices in ways that limited their options. For young women in particular, sexual agency and desire were central in what they discussed about their relationships, but their realities were far removed from these hopes.

Conclusion

The findings presented in this article demonstrate that while dominant, patriarchal, essentialist notions of masculinity and femininity strongly shape the gender identities of the young men and women in these studies, and in turn their sexuality, their negotiation of gender identity and sexuality is also contested and fluid. While they acknowledged and foregrounded dominant conceptions of masculine power and feminine deference in relationships and in sexual engagements, they also expressed alternative discourses borne from popular media and religious contexts, among others. These alternative discourses shaped their sense of self as well as their sexual practices in different ways with some young men talking about the importance of monogamy and sexual abstinence and young women desiring multiple partnerships and prioritizing sexual pleasure—these are voices that are not often highlighted in literature on young people’s sexuality. The young people in these studies thus hold seemingly contradictory notions of gender identity and sexual relationships simultaneously. This means that their enactment of their sexuality is not based only on dominant notions of gender identity, but on conflicting and changing discourses of gender and sexuality, which they negotiate in varied ways with their sexual partners and other peers.

In this article, we have also highlighted the ways in which socioeconomic status interacts with gender and sexuality to shape expressions of self and sexual practices, contributing to an emerging, but under-researched field of research concerned with the intersection between gender, class and sexual identity and practice. We have demonstrated how resource constraints create economic vulnerabilities for young women, which in turn limit these young women’s ability to pursue the kinds of sexual relationships they desire, in the ways they want. So while they express a desire to engage in multiple partnerships as independent women, for many of them the multiple partnerships they do engage with are in fact driven primarily by economic need. For the young men in this study, the inability to provide financially for a partner shapes their enactment of masculinity and their ideas about sex. For some, it meant opting for abstinence, while for others moments of earning also meant opportunities to be seen as sexually attractive.

In this article, we have demonstrated the ways in which gender identity and sexuality are negotiated through various available discourses of masculinity and femininity—both dominant and alternative, as well as how socioeconomic context shapes expressions of gender identity and sexuality in heteronormative relationships. Implications of this research include a need for researchers to be cognizant of how the sexual selves of young people are continually developing through sexual interaction with others where meanings are made, remade, and bargained, based on the social and economic context in which they are embedded. Sexual experiences continue to be shaped by gendered discourses and norms that are constantly shifting, as well as the socioeconomic context. Based on this perspective, we can see how diverse sexualities emerge as young people have different and competing sociocultural factors in the form of discourses to draw from, which mix with each sexual encounter, and are mediated through their reflexive “self-conversations.” This awareness is also important for those engaged in sex education interventions, who should be aware of the local dominant and alternative discourses, as well as socioeconomic context, that shape young people’s sexual beliefs and behaviors. As Aggleton and colleagues (2018, p. 254) note, our approach to talking to young people and about sex should be one “in which difficult questions are raised, diversity is recognized, and options are provided for a differentiated yet effective response . . .” and where we are “more honest and contextually relevant” than we have been before. This means that we need to engage with the intersections between gender and socioeconomic status and the vulnerabilities and powers that these demographic markers generate for young people. It also means we need to be able to talk about sex in ways that embrace local context, various different discourses of masculinity and femininity, “pleasure and danger, love and pain, desire and anxiety” (Bhana, 2017b, p. 159) and in ways that prioritize listening to young people.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

ORCID iD

Lauren Graham

Author Biographies

Lauren Graham is an associate professor at the centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg where she leads projects on youth transitions to adulthood, including studies on youth sexuality and risk.

Memory Mphaphuli is a lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of the Free State. She is pursuing her doctoral degree at Universiteit Gent. Her interest is in youth sexuality and intersectionality.

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