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2008 SERIES

EPISODE 6 - Transactional & intergenerational sex

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Nonelwa Tetafuthi

Young women often get involved in relationships with older men and because of the expensive gifts or social status that comes with the relationship. This is called Intergenerational/Transactional sex.

In this sixth episode of the 2008 series of Siyayinqoba Beat It!, we meet Nonelwa Tetafuthi at Site C in Khayelitsha. Nonelwa experienced pressure from her family to find a man who could support her financially, and this pressure led to her becoming involved with men who would support her in various ways. It became a way of life for Nonelwa: to go in search of much older men who would give her basic things like rice and meat in exchange for sex. She was living a comfortable life without a job, but it led to her contraction of HIV. Through pressure from her family she was forced into this lifestyle without her or her family understanding the consequences.

Read a transcript of Nonelwa's experiences here.

In another segment, we meet an anonymous HIV positive married man who is having a relationship with a much younger girl. Interestingly enough, the man protects his younger girlfriend by using condoms. We find out what sort of things he has to do to keep her in the relationship; and gain insight into how it makes older men feel better about themselves to be in relationships with far younger women.

Want to know more about this relationship.

In our final segment, an anonymous lady tells us about her older lover and how they never use condoms. She is afraid that the money and gifts will dry up or he will leave her if he knows she is HIV positive, which she is.

Read why this women knowingly has unsafe sex.

Siyayinqoba doesn't judge the choices these women and men have made. We raise concerns over the lack of power they have in matters pertaining to safe sex and the lack of alternatives to multiple partner relationships involving mostly older men and younger women. Young women and girls need to empower themselves and make the right, often difficult, decisions with their older lovers and insist on using condoms.

It's a heartbreaking topic but one that Siyayinqoba Beat It! tackles head on in this hard-hitting episode.

IT'S A FACT

Sugar daddy

 

 New thinking on how HIV epidemics grow focuses on multiple and concurrent partnerships: when an individual has more than one partner that they regularly have sex with.
During casual sex, so-called "one night stands", men and women are more likely to use condoms; but in partnerships or relationships that are sustained over time, partners tend to enter a comfort zone where condoms are no longer used.
In Southern Africa in particular, men and some women have many partners with whom they have relationships that are sustained over time.
The number of partners men have in Southern Africa may actually be fewer than their counterparts in North America or Europe, but in those parts of the world "serial monogamy" with higher condom use and less overlapping partnerships is the norm.
In a 2006 study in Malawi it was found that 65% of the population of the study area was sexually connected, this was not driven by highly active individuals, it was fairly evenly spread.
In parts of Southern Africa where multiple partnerships are the norm,  particularly areas heavily affected by long standing patterns of migrant labour (like Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Southern Mozambique and of course South Africa itself), viruses and other germs can quickly spread through the sexual network, and the HIV prevalence is high (up to 30% in Swaziland).
In those part of Sub-Saharan Africa, where multiple partnerships are less prevalent (such as Senegal), HIV prevalence is much lower (less than 3% in Senegal).
In South Africa in 2005 over 30% of males between 20 and 24 reported having more than one current partner (South African National HIV Prevalence, HIV Incidence, Behavior and Communication Survey, 2005). In a 2002 survey in Lesotho, nearly 20% of males reported two or more partners in a month.
In those countries where multiple concurrent partnerships were high, but have for a variety of reasons started to come down (such as Uganda, Zimbabwe and Kenya), the HIV prevalence rate has also started to come down quite quickly. These reasons may include very high death rates, social and social and economic instability.
Partnerships between older men and younger women are a particularly high risk circumstance for HIV infection. Older men are more likely to be HIV positive, and are frequently not inclined to use condoms. Their younger partners are often not in a position to negotiate condom use, and then these young women who are infected may then infect their younger male partners. In this way the cycle of infection continues.
Having fewer partners reduces the risk of HIV infection, but surveys have revealed that most people are not aware that having multiple partners simultaneously carries a health risk.
In South Africa in particular, with over 10 million people unemployed and another 10 million barely making a living in the informal sector, multiple partner relationships are often more attainable for women than economic empowerment. It is difficult to promote alternatives when there are very few realistic alternatives to promote.