Rites of Passage to Patriarchy: Adolescent Boys’ Narratives of Sexuality and Fertility in Rural Northern KwaZulu-Natal

Abstract

This article reports on a qualitative study that sought to examine understandings of sexuality and fertility among 18–19-year-old adolescent boys in rural northern KwaZulu-Natal. Adolescent boys’ constructions of sexuality and fertility in this study reflect a complex fusion of sociocultural processes, religion and unequal gender norms. How young men understand these factors tends to encourage risky sexual behaviour, and often leads to pregnancies among adolescent girls. In-depth individual interviews and a focus group discussion were conducted with six adolescent boys attending primary healthcare clinics in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Central to the adolescent boys’ discourses about sexuality and fertility was the desire to achieve the status of manhood. The findings suggest that adolescent boys were “inducted” into manhood as they learnt to wield gendered power in heterosexual relationships. In assuming patriarchal power and attaining the status of manhood, adolescent boys objectified girls and reduced them to unequal sexual partners whose role is to bear them children.