sociology 152: Term 4 assignment

4278135@myuwc.ac.za
The Politicisation of Sexuality
In this essay, I will be discussing why sexuality in post-apartheid South Africa is such a
contested topic. I will also be looking at specific topics within sexual politics concerning the
general theme of sexuality and how it in turn correlates with the influences of apartheid in
South Africa.

Firstly, I want to start by looking at the term sexuality. The Oxford dictionary, defines it as
the following “a person’s identity in relation to the gender or genders to which they are
typically attracted to; sexual orientation”

So, in moving on, I want to discuss the concept of sexual liberalisation as well as look at how
specifically in the context of South Africa and apartheid, it restricted the means necessary for
allowing individuals to practise their preferences when it came to sexuality. The idea of
sexual liberation is closely associated with the sexual revolution that took place to a great
extent throughout the 60s to the 70s. This notion of sexual liberation sparked movements that
strived to confront the ideals of society that repressed sexual life specifically for those that
did not fit the binary classifications (Giami, 2020). Sexual liberation as defined by the
Merriam-Webster dictionary is to be freed from or opposed to traditional societies as well as
sex roles and attitudes (Merriam-Webster, n.d.).

“Sexual liberalization At a time when many other parts of the world were sites of increasingly (albeit
unevenly) liberal, experimental sexual practice, the apartheid regime subjected sex and sexuality to
particularly heavy censorship and repressive policing, which actively excluded the kinds of public
sex-talk which marked the growth of consumer capitalism, particularly in the West, in the latter half
of the twentieth century (see Altman 2001: 52-8; Hennessy 2000: 99). Particularly obsessive in its
determination to prohibit sex across racial boundaries, and driven by typically colonial anxieties about
rapacious black sexuality, the apartheid state accumulated an extensive armoury of regulations and
prohibitions to control the practice and transaction of sex, its public representations and performance.
Within these political and legislative strictures, sex within the domestic domain was deemed a 'private
matter' - with no sense of the contradiction entailed. So, sexual violence (particularly within 'the
home') was typically not a site of political concern, unless the perpetrator was black and the victim
white, in which case the public outrage was virulent. Sex across the black-white racial divide was
forbidden, and miscegenation intensely stigmatized. Reinforced by laws which criminalized
homosexuality, a deep-seated and widespread homophobia deterred the open expression or assertion
of any sexualities deemed transgressive. Legislation prohibited any of the media from explicit
depictions of sex or avowedly sexual conversation. Pornography was wholly banned; the public
display of eroticized nude bodies (particularly male) was unthinkable. This draconian policing of
sexuality was fundamental to the apartheid project. Inherent in the call for 'white supremacy' was a
zealous drive to preserve the 'purity' of the white 'race', by preventing the sexual sullying of the white
body. Powerful imagery of the black mass, and the ever immanent threat of its overwhelming
(oorstroming) the far smaller numbers of whites, fanned fears of black 'overpopulation' and the
imperative of controlling black fertility. Nor was the sense of sexual menace confined to the predatory
black mass. Sexual malignancy was seen lurking within the body of the white nation too, in the form
of the 'communistic' left-wing - its politics a symptom of its sexual permissiveness and moral
depravity. So stringent censorship and a regime of moral prohibition were seen as critic expurgate the
threat of white dissidence and preserve the rigours of a “civilised” way of life” (Posel, 2005).

From the information above we can see, how in actuality the apartheid regime played a
critical role in controlling how people thought about sexuality and sex in general. Sex was
seen as a topic to be addressed as in private rather than looking at it through the lens of
collective society. It was politicised through the various structures and legislations that
opposed anything that was sexual in nature (Posel, 2005). It could be said that sex was
something that opposed the ideals of the white supremacists that sculpted apartheid and were
driven in keeping that ideals in practise (Posel, 2005). This gave no rise in opportunity for
sexual liberation to be expressed through groups of individuals.

Sex in post-apartheid South Africa got a leap of importance in terms of the need that it had to
be a topic of discussion and it came through a very unfortunate catalyst to say the least. This
was done as a product of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as it was named that rose in South Africa.
To raise awareness of this issue, organisations and eventually government had to incorporate
sexual education as into the public spheres and did this through different forms of media and
schooling curriculums.

“AIDS, violence and sexual menace The proliferation of post-apartheid sex-talk is not confined to
these circles or registers, however. The acceleration of South Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the
ways in which a host of NGOs have 7 Thanks to Nthabiseng Motsemme for this insight. 8 In its bid to
reach youth with its messages about safe sex and the prevention of HIV infection in ways which
explicitly mimic the imagery of popular youth culture, the loveLife billboard campaigns have used
increasingly provocative and revealing bodily poses to represent a 'positive lifestyle', or 'loving life'.
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htt SEX, DEATH AND THE NATION 133 responded to it, has produced a very voluble, but of sex-
talk, in a remarkably wide range of public set evidence of the disease was undeniable during the 198
HIV/AIDS has largely been a post-apartheid proble epidemic in South Africa has lagged about fifteen
to t that of other parts of Africa. As late as 1990, the est of HIV infection in South Africa was less
than 1%. These figures grew dramatically more serious by the mid-1990s, reaching 22.8% by 1998 -
and as high as 32.5% in some parts of KwaZulu Natal (Marks 2002: 16). In other words, during the
apartheid era, the spread of the disease within South Africa remained relatively slow; its acceleration
occurred in the wake of the transition. In the midst of lingering silences from political leaders during
Mandela's presidency (notably on the part of Mandela himself) followed by heated denials and
controversies during Mbeki's presidency (to be discussed in more detail later), many NGOs have
reacted with both vigour and concern. Extensive (although not necessarily successful) public health
education campaigns have been mounted, with the priority of heightening public awareness about the
transmission of HIV. And since this is largely sexual (at least according to mainstream science, which
the NGO sector has endorsed), these campaigns have tried to bring the subject of sex out into the open
and stimulate a national conversation about sex, sexuality and the risks of contracting HIV. Media-
based AIDS education campaigns in South Africa have chosen to focus strongly on issues of sex and
risk, rather than on other facets of the epidemic and its impact (HSRC 2002: 8-9) - a strategy which is
at least partly a response to other efforts within the polity to keep the lid on the question of prevailing
sexual norms. Many of them vigorous and well-funded, these initiatives have made full use of the
spaces opened up by the country's democratic constitution, in their bid to 'get the nation talking about
sex'. The most prominent of these has been organized by a largely internationally donor-funded NGO,
loveLife. Initiated in 1999, the loveLife health education campaigns are the most expensive of their
kind in the world. A panoply of different vehicles and media - ranging from billboards, pamphlets and
advertisements in the national press through to youth workshops, sports-days and helplines - mobilize
a variety of strategies for putting issues of sexuality on public agendas. Combining 'traditional
marketing techniques with the best principles of public health education', loveLife explicitly and
deliberately fuses their messaging about safe sex with iconography of 'popular youth culture', so that
'safety' becomes 'cool'. The concern with 'safety', however, adds other inflections to the public
conversations about sex. The emphasis throughout loveLife's campaign is to link sexuality to issues of
self-esteem, 'positive lifestyles', and empowerment (particularly in the case of women and girls). It is
an attempt to normalize, and thereby also legitimize, open sex-talk by providing a vocabulary which
detaches sex from the titillating, the seedy and the 'naughty'. Sexuality is presented as a site of
rational, individual choice and agency - an opportunity for empowerment and 'healthy positive living'.
And the health education campaign is an effort to constitute an essentially modern sexual subject, one
who is knowledgeable, responsible, in control, and free to make informed choices:.”, (Posel, 2005).
Now the topic of HIV/AIDS is not a positive one in this context as it was used as a means to
stigmatise as well as create controversy around sexuality. When it comes to sexuality, sexual
liberation could be seen as a contributor to the rise of the disease. It also created a rise in rape
and violence against women which was done by men. It also led to various means of social
control which entrap women and don’t allow them specifically to express their sexuality as
they see fit.

Although with that said, when looking at it through an understanding with society being the
focus, there are positive implications for society as a whole. This being sex, a theme which
was seen as something taboo, can now be discussed in various settings as it is becoming more
normalised to be having these conversations with the intent of educating one another. It can
also be seen as something that allowed a platform to be built for sex and sexuality in general,
specifically in South Africa. When looking at the changes that have been implemented after
the apartheid, sexuality and all it entails have now been given the right to be topic that is
addressed in public, and individuals are now allowed to exercise their freedom to express
themselves however they desire. The question remains as to why it is such a contested
subject?

Particularly given these extremities of the ap post-1994 have been nothing short of dramatic There
has been a veritable explosion of sexual debate. Yet these changes are by no means either wholesale
or uncontested. Issues of sexuality have an extraordinary prominence, but not in ways which
indicate widespread comfort or acceptance of their profile or substance. Indeed, the anxieties,
denials and stigmas which persist in the midst of new and unprecedented declarations of sexuality -
often provoked directly by them - contribute directly to the new sites and intensities of the
politicization of sexuality

We have looked at apartheid influence as well as how the HIV/AIDS created a two-pronged
stance on sexuality. In the context of the society, these two factors alone are exactly why its
such a contested topic. The latter is of greater significance when looking at sexuality as it was
an issue mainly faced as South Africa was transitioning put of apartheid (Posel, 2005). But
there is another which plays a role in it being so contested. One can describe it as being the
glorification of sex, which essentially the point is that now sex is seen everywhere.
“Africans can now partake fully in global trends to sexual explicitness in mainstream media, along
with of ever more hard-core pornography. And the versions being exhibited in South African settings
increasing images of 'cool' alongside more local registers. The cultural logic of late capitalism -
particularly its valorization of the pleasures of consumption (Altman 2001; Hennessy 2000) -
articulates closely with national trajectories of class and status formation, particularly in respect of
younger generations and their burgeoning elites. Here, the urge to consume has become the fulcrum
of intersecting political interests, economic imperatives, cultural aspirations and notions of selfhood.
And particularly among black youth growing up in metropolitan centres - the so-called 'Y Generation'
(see e.g. Nuttall 2004) - consumption is closely coupled with sex, making for the overt sexualization
of style, status and power. For large numbers of young women, sex is often the indispensable vehicle
for consumption. In the midst of powerful hankerings for designer labels, mobile phones, access to
smart cars, etc., as the conditions of social status and style, transacting sex either for immediate
payment or more regular financial support (in the case of an ongoing relationship) or directly for the
goods themselves, is often the condition of their acquisition.5 Sex is also the object of consumption,
in a genre of popular culture which eroticizes possession and accumulation as icons of sexual
prowess and libido. For young men with aspirations to macho status, an expensive car and flashy,
designer clothing have become signifiers of their sexual bravado as men 'in control', with the power
to command multiple sexual partners.6 For young women intent on establishing their social standing
by 'driving on the left side' of these hip young men, borgwa ('bourgeois') dress and accessories have
become a statement of sexual capital as much as social style (Selikow et al. 2002: 25). Sex is
consumed, at the same time as consumption is sexualized - in ways which mark the engagement of
popular culture in South Africa with more global cultural repertoires of sex. But in the South African
case, these meanings are over-determined by the local history of political struggle”, (Posel, 2005).

When looking at the westernization of the world and how connected everything seems to be,
what we consume whether be it music or shows we are watching even the access to the
internet and pornography that we seem to have nowadays, although it is another platform to
encourage sex education and advocate for sexuality being publicised, there is a great concern
for the effects this has on society namely in South Africa. Wherever we look things are
sexualised due to a result of sexual liberalisation and this can be problematic as now in this
modern South Africa, where the aged women specifically are expressing this newfound
sexual permissiveness, rape and violence against women seem to be at an all-time high.
So, in conclusion, the three factors mentioned, them being apartheids restriction on sex and
sexuality, HIV/AIDS and the new age glorification of sex as a result of sexual liberalisation
could all be presented as arguments as to why it is still such a contested subject and why it
has become so politicised as a topic.

References
Giami, A., 2020. Digital Encyclopedia Of European History. [Online]
Available at: https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/gender-and-europe/demographic-transition-
sexual-revolutions/sexual-liberation-and-sexual-revolutions
[Accessed 8 October 2022].
Merriam-Webster, n.d. Merriam-Webster.com. [Online]
Available at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liberated
[Accessed 9 October 2022].
Posel, D., 2005. Sex, Death and the Fate of the Nation: Reflections on the Politicization of Sexuality in
Post-Apartheid South Africa. s.l.:Cambridge University Press.