THE PRIZE AND THE PRICE SHAPING SEXUALITIES IN SOUTH AFRICA Edited by Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za Published by Press Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa www.hsrcpress.ac.za First published 2009 (soft cover) 978-0-7969-2239-7 (pdf) 978-0-7969-2256-4 © 2009 Human Sciences Research Council The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Human Sciences Research Council (‘the Council’) or indicate that the Council endorses the views of the authors. In quoting from this publication, readers are advised to attribute the source of the information to the individual author concerned and not to the Council. Copyedited by Lee Smith Typeset by Jenny Wheeldon Cover by Farm Design Printed by Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver : +27 (0) 21 701 4477 : +27 (0) 21 701 7302 www.oneworldbooks.com Distributed in Europe and the United Kingdom by Eurospan Distribution Services () : +44 (0) 20 7240 0856 : +44 (0) 20 7379 0609 www.eurospanbookstore.com Distributed in North America by Independent Publishers Group () -: (800) 888 4741 : +1 (312) 337 5985 www.ipgbook.com Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za Foreword v Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 The prize and the price 3 Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl Negotiating new deals 2 Colouring sexualities: How some black South African schoolgirls respond to ‘racial’ and gendered inequalities 21 Rob Pattman and Deevia Bhana 3 Glamour, glitz and girls: The meanings of femininity in high school Matric Ball culture in urban South Africa 39 Elaine Salo and Bianca Davids 4 E-race-ing the line: South African interracial relationships yesterday and today 55 Rebecca Sherman and Melissa Steyn Flipping the coin 5 Renegotiating masculinity in the lowveld: Narratives of male–male sex in compounds, prisons and at home 85 Isak Niehaus 6 Fauna, flora and fucking: Female sex safaris in South Africa 112 Haley A McEwen 7 Are blind people better lovers? 129 Reinette Popplestone 8 Sexuality in later life 144 Helena B Thornton, Felix CV Potocnik and Jacqueline E Muller Contents Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za Paying the price 9 The weather watchers: Gender, violence and social control 169 Lillian Artz 10 Nurturing the sexuality of disabled girls: The challenges of parenting for mothers 192 Washeila Sait, Theresa Lorenzo, Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl 11 A decent place? Space and morality in a former ‘poor white’ suburb 220 Annika Teppo 12 Less is (M)orr: Après le déluge (or rather: more or less…): An essay about and conversation with Margaret Orr 234 Joan Hambidge and Margaret Orr Holding onto the prize 13 Heterosex among young South Africans: Research reflections 267 Tamara Shefer and Don Foster 14 Apartheid, anti-apartheid and post-apartheid sexualities 290 Kopano Ratele 15 ‘Astride a dangerous dividing line’: A discourse analysis of preschool teachers’ talk about childhood sexuality 306 Jane van der Riet Que(e)rying the contract 16 Criminalising the act of sex: Attitudes to adult commercial sex work in South Africa 329 Jillian Gardner 17 Queer marriage: Sexualising citizenship and the development of freedoms in South Africa 341 Vasu Reddy 18 Beyond the Constitution: From sexual rights to belonging 364 Mikki van Zyl Conclusion 19 Shaping sexualities 391 Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl Contributors 397 Index 404 Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za v ‘’ known to me before 1995. However, as a straight man who considered himself socialist pro-feminist, I assumed that the concept was primarily important only to people who identified as homosexual or bisexual. It was their enemy. While I certainly supported their struggles against that enemy in my heart, my head was focused on what seemed to be obviously much bigger struggles. Male violence against women, /, structural adjustment, and other broad anti-democratic forces were all depressingly evident at the time in both my homes (southern Africa and North America). An inkling of doubt about this confident ordering of priorities came soon after I took up a lectureship at the University of Zimbabwe in 1995. Robert Mugabe and his supporters began attacking gays and lesbians with such hyperbolic rhetoric that one could hardly fail to notice a disproportion. Why such a fuss over a gay rights movement that was politically and socially so utterly marginal? I assumed some gay scholar somewhere would take up the challenge to explain (as indeed several did, quite convincingly). The pertinence of heteronormativity to my own research interests only began to dawn on me at a conference that I attended on the history of women and gender in South Africa around this time. After two or three intense days, an anonymous comment appeared on the bulletin board – something to the eect of, ‘Gawd, this conference is so heterosexist!’ It was not too dicult to intuit who among my fellow delegates was the author, and indeed, when I approached him to enquire he readily confessed. More to the point, my new friend patiently walked me through the meaning of the term and the importance of the critique it oered. Exclusive, lifelong heterosexuality is not a natural condition but has to be carefully cultivated and constantly recreated as a hegemonic ideology in the face of changing material circumstances and in relation to multiple marginal identities and practices. Many aspects of the dominant expressions of heterosexuality that we commonly assume to be natural and normal (notably, men are active and penetrators, women are passive and penetrated, but also, old people, children and disabled people are asexual) are in fact deeply contested and contingent. Homophobia (and heterosexism) are not simply the concerns of a non-normative minority but are central to the ways that sexuality for the whole of society is organised and experienced. All my work on the history of gender up to this point suddenly seemed embarrassingly simplistic. My passivity in response to homophobic politics in Zimbabwe suddenly seemed unconscionable. I felt compelled to go back to my Foreword Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za vi sources, and to re-examine my vocabularies and other choices, to see where and how they were aected by this invisible juggernaut, heteronormativity. I felt like a fish discovering he lived in the sea. More than a decade since that epiphany, what a thrill it is to see hetero- normativity so squarely and thoroughly problematised in this erudite yet accessible volume. The book is directed at people like the old me, which is to say, you know about and generally sympathise with gay rights or queer theory, in theory. In practice, you are not quite clear how these might apply to (and enrich) your own work. You might even avoid some of the issues out of anxiety that some uninten- tional mangling of the latest terminology identifies you as embarrassingly out of touch. This book says, don’t worry about it. Just get on board. I don’t mean to be flippant here. On the contrary, much of The Prize and the Price makes for heavy reading. Many of the chapters deal with horrific abuses and dehumanising tendencies in social practice that take place within the rubric of ‘normal’ – rape, paedophilia, layer upon layer of racism, exploitative and degrading sex work or sex tourism, and more. This will not really surprise most readers, I expect. South Africans since 1994 have had to begin to renegotiate the norms of race, class, gender and other identities laid down over centuries of ideology, violence and law. It would have been dicult and painful even without the explosion of heterosexually transmitted /. The authors do try to bring out elements of positive change, dignity and pleasure to be found within this discouraging menu. Still, it is hard to avoid the feeling that even with good intentions and lots of money, South Africans will be working to resolve these issues for a long time. We should probably not assume that good intentions and money can be relied upon. Happily, as the chapters in this book demonstrate, there is room for optimism that currently hegemonic heteronormativity is being challenged in promising ways. People’s dignity, creativity and complex sexuality can be freed up from the toxicity and limitations of the past. It also gives me a feeling of optimism that works such as this are strong enough to be noticed beyond the roiling but small environment of South African academe. Much of the theorisation of sexuality in the west, for example, including supposedly cutting-edge queer theory, is terribly westo- centric, parochial or patronising towards African scholars and theorists. My hope, which the editors modestly articulate, is that The Prize and the Price can contribute to the enrichment and maturity of sexuality studies globally. Marc Epprecht Associate Professor, Department of Global Development Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za vii Firstly we would like to thank our authors for their patience and commitment to the project. We are also grateful to i and Simply Said and Done for logistical and administrative support, and thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments. Melissa I appreciate Reg for his love and support and Thembisa for her constant assistance that frees up my time. Mikki I cannot express my gratitude to Pauline, for her enduring love, support and loyalty. Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl Cape Town, June 2008 Acknowledgements Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za viii For everyone who has ever wanted to enjoy their sexuality. Melissa For Emily: may she have the freedom to be herself. Mikki For my mother, who taught me to think for myself, and always to Pauline. Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za Sex is for pleasure. It is for the nation and people. (Nomxolisi Dandaza, nursing sister and mthwasa, sangoma ‘initiate’) (in Thornton 2003: 4) Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za [...]... past The concern of the book is the invisible power of heteronormativity as the enduring dominant ideological formation in post-apartheid South Africa, exercising control over who we are and who we should be, and the costs of being diferent The title, The Prize and the Price, alludes to the manner in which the desired and the desirable are constructed through the simultaneous constellation of the undesired... in the interviews was to address the young people as authorities and experts about themselves and to encourage them to set the agenda; we picked up on issues which they raised and encouraged them to relect and elaborate upon these We wanted to ind out from them what it was like being young people of their age, and the signiicance they attached to ‘race’, gender and sexuality in their accounts of themselves... political and moral regulation The realm of sex-desire is built upon ‘asymmetrical’ gender norms and the precept of continuous heterosexual becoming of ‘women’ and ‘men’ Therefore desire is deeply marked by sex and gender, and central to an the prize and the price 7 Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za analysis of sexuality and power The histories detailing the physical phenomenon of orgasm in the west... relations with learners of the same and other ‘races’, with boys and girls, and with adults; pleasures and anxieties; aspirations; interests and leisure-time activities; and relections on being learners But how and in what order these were addressed and how much time was accorded to each depended on the young people we were interviewing, how they framed the discussion and their engagement with particular... University of the Western Cape in the late 1990s, Shefer and Foster present their contributions to debates about theory and interventions through the lenses of gender and heterosex They ind that research on sexual practices in South the prize and the price 13 Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za Africa follows the global trend of focusing on behavioural interventions in unsafe sexual practices The proliferation... language and silences We also relect on our relations with our interviewees, for how they present themselves depends on the kinds of relations they develop with us and, of course, we with them (In this sense we understand the interviews as co-constructions.) In doing so, we refer briely to some of the emotions our interviewees evoked in us and what these implied about them and the dynamics of the interview... 2000) Black Gandhi girls’ opposition to Indian girls Usually we began the interviews after the introductions by asking the group what they liked or disliked about school, and it was in response to this that Lulu, a girl in the Gandhi group, mentioned being one of the few black people in her class and being treated with contempt by the other learners: the others they treat you like, “who the hell?”,... the interview by the girls themselves In this interview the girls provided rich examples of subtle and blatant forms of racism perpetrated mainly by Indian girls against them They were 24 the prize and the price Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za highly engaged emotionally, raising their voices and talking over each other, with the microphone, which speakers were asked to place near their mouths,... chapter the challenges that mothers face in managing the sexual development of their daughters with 12 the prize and the price Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za disabilities highlight the intersectional marginalisation of young black girls with disabilities in an impoverished area of the Northern Cape Living in communities where gender-based violence is rampant, their mothers are challenged by the. .. moving from the actively pursued, the desired and the accepted, through the tolerated, restricted and constrained to the outlawed At the marginalised end of the continuum, social meanings constitute and are constituted by institutional regulations which control sexualities through labelling them as sinful, sick or criminal, where individuals pay the price for their desires that ofend At the centre, . being dierent. The title, The Prize and the Price, alludes to the manner in which the desired and the desirable are constructed through the simultaneous. pay the price for their desires that oend. At the centre, reproductive marriage confers the prize and signifies the victory of the heteronormative. The