‘Boys and Girls should not be too Close’: Sexuality, the Identities of African Boys and Girls and HIV/AIDS Education

Abstract

This article explores the significance of sexuality in relation to the ways boys and girls in southern and eastern Africa construct their identities. It draws on a UNICEF-funded study conducted in the region with 6-18-year-olds from 2001 to 2002. This addressed young people as active and intelligent beings and encouraged them (in interviews and diaries) to elaborate upon their interests, pleasures and anxieties, and their relations with contemporaries and adults of either sex. It seemed impossible, at times, for the young people not to allude to sexuality, and this and their emotional engagement when addressing sexuality in the interviews suggested that sexuality was fundamental in their lives. Focusing in particular on young people’s accounts of contemporaries and others of the opposite sex, the article investigates how sexuality was invoked (and contested) by boys and girls and the sorts of identities they assumed in relation to the ways they spoke and wrote about sexuality. In the conclusion I argue that the issues raised by Carole Vance about female sexuality are extremely pertinent for understanding and working with both girls and boys in sex education, being introduced in many African countries in response to HIV/AIDS. The implications of this research for developing student-centred, gender-sensitive and relevant forms of HIV/AIDS and life skills education which address the sexual and non-sexual cultures, pleasures and anxieties of girls and boys are discussed in some detail.