Peter Aggleton

Deevia Bhana

Mary Crewe

This book—Sex, Sexuality and Sexual Health in Southern Africa—is structured around four major themes: gender and sexuality diversity; love, pleasure and respect; gender, sexual violence and health; and sexuality, gender and sexual justice. Chapters in this book analyse sexuality in relation to recent developments in the Southern African region and what this might mean for contemporary theory, policy and practice. Sex, sexuality and sexual health are often viewed through a narrow biomedical lens, ignoring the fact that they are profoundly social and historical in character. The contributors in this book bring to light the entanglements of sexuality with respect, recognition, rights and mutual respectful pleasure. Authors draw attention to partnerships, allyships and feminist, queer and trans coalitions in the pursuit of sexual health and justice in the region. The book will be of interest to final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and activists as well as those working in Women and Gender Studies, Critical Sexuality Studies, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Development Studies, Public Health, Psychology, Education, Sociology and Anthropology.

Sex, Sexuality and Sexual Health in Southern Africa

This book is an ethnography of teachers and children in grades 1 and 2, and presents arguments about why we should take gender and childhood sexuality seriously in the early years of South African primary schooling. Taking issue with dominant discourses which assumes children’s lack of agency, the book questions the epistemological foundations of childhood discourses that produce innocence. It examines the paradox between teachers’ dominant narratives of childhood innocence and children’s own conceptualisation of gender and sexuality inside the classroom, with peers, in heterosexual games, in the playground and through boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. It examines the nuances and finely situated experiences which draw attention to hegemonic masculinity and femininity where boys and girls challenge and contest relations of power. The book focuses on the early makings of gender and sexual harassment and shows how violent gender relations are manifest even amongst very young boys and girls. Attention is given to the interconnections with race, class, structural inequalities, as well as the actions of boys and girls as navigate gender and sexuality at school. The book argues that the early years of primary schooling are a key site for the production and reproduction of gender and sexuality. Gender reform strategies are vital in this sector of schooling.

Gender and Childhood Sexuality in Primary School

Love, Sex and Teenage Sexual Cultures in South Africa interrupts the relative silence around teenage constructions of love in South Africa. Against the backdrop of gender inequalities, HIV and violence, the book situates teenage constructions of love and romance within the wider social and cultural context underwritten by the histories of apartheid, chronic unemployment, poverty, and the endless struggle to survive. By drawing on focus group discussions with African teenage men and women, the book addresses teenage Africans as active agents, providing a more nuanced picture of their desires and their dilemmas through which sexuality and love are experienced. The chapters in the book conceptualise desiring love, material love, pure love, forced love and fearing love. It argues that love is intrinsically linked to cultural practices and material realities which mold particular formations of teenage masculinities and femininities. This book will be of interest to academics, undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in sociology, HIV, health and gender studies, development and postcolonial studies and African studies.

Deevia Bhana

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