Love, Sex and Teenage Sexual Cultures in South Africa ― 16 Turning 17

Love, Sex and Teenage Sexual Cultures in South Africa interrupts the relative silence around teenage constructions of love in South Africa. Against the backdrop of gender inequalities, HIV and violence, the book situates teenage constructions of love and romance within the wider social and cultural context underwritten by the histories of apartheid, chronic unemployment, poverty, and the endless struggle to survive.

By drawing on focus group discussions with African teenage men and women, the book addresses teenage Africans as active agents, providing a more nuanced picture of their desires and their dilemmas through which sexuality and love are experienced. The chapters in the book conceptualise desiring love, material love, pure love, forced love and fearing love. It argues that love is intrinsically linked to cultural practices and material realities which mold particular formations of teenage masculinities and femininities.

This book will be of interest to academics, undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in sociology, HIV, health and gender studies, development and postcolonial studies and African studies.

Deevia Bhana is the DST/NRF South African Research Chair and Professor in Gender and Childhood Sexuality at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.