AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	64. Sexualities in Africa
Paper ID	451
Author(s)	Oxlund, Bjarke
Paper	View paper (PDF)
Abstract	Issues of love and sex are continuously discussed at both great length and considerable detail among students at the campus of University of Limpopo, where I am currently doing ethnographic fieldwork. Many informants have defined love to me as an emotion of great intensity and underscored elements such as good communication, trust, care and mutual understanding as essential ingredients of love. This goes to show that the notion of romantic love is present as an ideal and concept. In the local township lingo the ideal partner is known as the 'regte' (Afrikaans for the right one), but informants translate it into a steady boy or girl friend in English. Compared to the romantic western notion of ‘the one and only’, the 'regte' is not necessarily an exclusive category, but can be the one at the top of a hierarchy of a whole series of relationship categories. In brief, the 'regte' is marriage potential; a person deserving of respect, care and love; in essence a person that the extended family would accept and bless as part of the family. The main point here is that it is to some extent acceptable and possible to have sexual partners over and above your 'regte'. You may keep a 'regte' in your home area, while at the same time engaging in more or less steady relationships on campus. The less steady relations are known under a variety of concepts and metaphors of which the main ones are: course pushers; cherries; roll-ons; taste-and-pass; take-aways; side-kicks; cheese-boys; cheese-girls; ministers and chickens. The different partner concepts are in no way mutually exclusive and the status of relations are – needless to say - fluid and vary over time. In the full paper I would like to analyse the often gender-specific meanings of each category and elaborate on how they are based on differences in class and socio-economic status and form the conceptual basis for transactional sex. While the practice of simultaneously having a romantic love and other lover relations might come across as a paradox to the western eye, a lot can be explained by the notions and inherent values of sex presented to me in various ways by informants. It seems to be a general idea that an adult person, who has “tasted” sex, can’t go “hungry” for months on. In case that person possess resources of various kinds (money, a car, brand clothes, cell phone and social skills), it is practically unthinkable that this status is not transformed into relationships of sex and love. It is furthermore an implicit understanding that it is harmful to your physical and mental status, if you are not having sex. In Sotho you become a 'bari'; a fool, a dumb person; a weakling; someone who cannot stand on her or his own feet. In essence you are not an adult.

The right one and the other ones: Notions of love, sex and relationships among students at University of Limpopo, South Africa