@phdthesis{8721033,
  abstract     = {{Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in rural KwaZulu Natal and the urban
township of Soweto, in South Africa, this research project is concerned with the
everyday lived experiences of heterosexuality as reflected on by men and women who
make up black families. In this dissertation I examine the way in which heterosexuality
as an institution and practice and the meanings associated with everyday discourse are
socially constructed and how these regulate everyday life.
As its starting point, this dissertation is critical of the notion of a distinctive
“African sexuality” characterised by sickness, disease and disorder and challenges
many of the common ways in which (hetero)sexuality is understood and researched in
Africa and specifically South Africa. In this way the dissertation argues that while the
seriousness of the HIV pandemic persist, sexualities research cannot be solely imagined
in terms of viral transmission, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘risk’. Factors influencing the social
construction of sexual realities are much more complicated than previously imagined.
In fact, the prime mover of this research is the critique of heterosexuality as was offered
by feminists and critical heterosexuality scholars who located heterosexuality within
wider gender relations and stressed that heterosexuality involves far more than (erotic)
sexuality. Such a perspective thus enabled this dissertation to be situated within such a
broader rethinking of issues related to gender, sexualities and power in contemporary
post-apartheid South Africa, simultaneously reasserting the significance of structural
and material inequalities in studying heterosexuality. It therefore pursues an
understanding of heterosexuality that expands debates about the social organisation of
sexual experience and the social imagination of the sexual subject.
Stimulated by social constructionist concerns in this dissertation I argue for the
problematisation of the taken-for-granted, unquestioned everyday practices located in
societal discourses that influence heterosexuality as an institution and practice. This
enabled a focus on the reflection on complex cultural operations and social policing
along with the legacies of apartheid that makes heterosexuality seem ‘normal’ and thus
raise questions about how heterosexuality organises the sexual lives of black men and
women in a contemporary democratic South Africa. Here the cultural setting is
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important and is emphasised to draw attention to the very specific interconnections
between gender, race, class, and sexuality.
Over the last two decades there has been a lot of socio-political transformations
that have impacted and reconstituted how families understand heterosexuality in
decisive ways. Topics such as silence around sexuality, intimate sexual violence, love,
respect, culture, blackness, ilobolo, marriage, pleasure and beliefs about being a good
man or a woman permeated conversations about the social construction of
heterosexuality.
Methodology
After much contemplation, a qualitative research approach was considered as a more
suitable methodological approach, for interrogating politics of gender and sexualities
requires in-depth exploration with participants. Moreover, this was a pragmatic and
political choice, aimed at engaging with and troubling normative discourses about
gender and sexuality through meaningful conversations using the local languages of
black men and women. As such it is informed by a critical sociological approach which
engages with feminist theories and methodologies. A combination of ethnographic
observations, life-history interviews and focus group discussions are used to give voice
to the everyday experiences of heterosexuality. During these face-to-face interactions
important yet complex core concepts such as ‘sexuality’ are broken into familiar
elements through the use of local metaphors, stories and language style that is
contextual to South Africa for ease of entry into data gathering. In this way I was able
to gather rich grounded narratives about the everyday experiences of heterosexuality.
Set in rural KwaZulu Natal and the township of Soweto a total of 25 black
families were recruited by using a convenience snowballing sampling method. It was
important that at least two members per family take part in this study, as I was interested
in the processes of intra-familial, cross-generational cultural transmission that enable
the reproduction of heterosexual lifestyles and identities.
Findings
Previous empirical studies have raised critique that black women’s sexualities are
silenced. Parallel to this work, the main findings of this ethnographic study point to an
interesting interplay between passive and active forms of silence in the production of
black women’s sexualities. A careful analysis of the confrontation of these silences
shows that black women’s sexuality is not necessarily directly repressed, rather passive
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forms of silences employed through various discourses appeal to the construction of a
specific femininity that is valued in the rural areas and townships. Politics of
respectability between women of different generations are important and productive of
this valued femininity. They facilitate the reproduction of normative gender roles while
simultaneously acting as an apparatus for the social control and disciplining of women’s
sexuality. Passive silences also reveal the complexities between sexuality and culture.
Furthermore, active silences are intentional acts of silencing and often rely on scare
tactics and moralising young women from experimenting sexually. This silence
functions by way of complete erasure of sexual pleasure and the outright lack of
acknowledgement of a positive expression of erotic sexuality by the older generation
of women. Consequently, young women’s sexual agency is constrained, and this
results in feelings of ambiguity where sexual pleasure is concerned. An exciting and
fulfilling sexual life is promised to those who remain virgins before marriage and are
given the status of respectable women.
However married women’s sexual lives tell a different story. Findings in this
study highlight that in marriage, particularly wherein ilobolo is paid other complex
entangled dynamics impact women’s sexual agency and their perceptions and
understanding of sexual violence. Women’s lived realities of marriage suggest that
sexuality is shaped by various perceptions including beliefs about the significance of
family. A critical factor that was reiterated several times is that of the stability of the
family. When black women get married, the union is not about two individuals, that is
the woman and her husband, but it is about bringing together two extended families,
which are then consulted when issues of coercive sex are experienced. Families’
perceptions about marital sex, gender, class and importantly race intersect in
normalising coercive sexual experiences that women are subjected to.
Nevertheless, many black young men and women insist on paying ilobolo when
they get married, despite the fact that marriage has become increasingly rare in
contemporary South Africa, because of the inability of many to afford ilobolo. This
persistence also manifests in ideas about reclaiming and affirming black cultural
identity in a post-colonial and post-apartheid South Africa for young men particularly.
In negotiating everyday heteroerotic subjectivity the findings show that as
researchers we are not impervious to the impact of our research process. The fieldwork
process revealed that one’s heteroerotic subjectivity can be a ground from which the
most interesting insights and intuitions about daily realities can emerge.}},
  author       = {{Mphaphuli, Memory Mulalo Livhuwani}},
  keywords     = {{Heterosexuality,intersectionality,South Africa,race,gender,class}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{XIV, 148}},
  publisher    = {{Ghent University. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences}},
  school       = {{Ghent University}},
  title        = {{A balance of stories : a contemporary narrative of the social construction of heterosexuality within black South African families}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}