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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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‘Real intimate sex involves my emotions, body and soul’. Towards a new methodology of the study on sexuality
| Panel |
64. Sexualities in Africa
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| Paper ID | 640 |
| Author(s) |
Spronk, Rachel
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | The majority of sex research in Africa has been conducted from a development or health perspective. It is against this dominant trend in –mainly- Aids-related sex research (to study sex as a problem, a ahistorical and generalising tendency, a tendency to use sexuality in a self-evident and instrumental manner) that I propose three foci for sexuality as a field of study: the personal, inter-subjective and social dimensions of sex. Sex is a vehicle for powerful feelings that are experienced very subjectively; in other words, sex is personal. When engaging in sex, sex is usually an inter-subjective exchange between people; so sex implies intimacy. Sexuality is also a particularly sensitive conductor of cultural influences and hence of social and political divisions; sexuality is also socially defined. Based on a case study among young professionals in Nairobi, I argue that accounts of sex, intimacy and sexuality eventually come down to studying personal sensations. These sensations are comprised of the complex conjunction between physiological arousal, erotic practices and interpretative processes; they are thus situated at the threshold where body and discursive knowledge converge and merge. |
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