This paper explores the
meanings attached to gay sexuality through the self-labelling practices of a
group of young gay-identified students in focus group and individual interviews
in Johannesburg, South Africa. These meanings include constructs of the
dynamics surrounding safe sex negotiation and risk related to "top-bottom"
subject positioning as well as the erotics of power and desire that are imbued
in these practices and positioning.
Using performativity theory as a
theoretical tool of analysis, I argue that constructs of "top-bottom"
subjectivities can be seen to meet certain erotic needs for LGBTI youth,
including reasons related to physical safety for LGBTI people living in
dangerous spaces. The performance of "bottom" identities in sexual
intimacy and behaviour is further deployed in the expression and performance of
power that the participants construct as erotic.
The implications for sexual
health intervention include understanding the gendered performance influences
of sexual behaviour including safe sex, exploring creative ways that practices
of sexual health can be engaged with this population group in a way that
accommodates the erotic pleasure interfaced with sexual identity
identifications and performances of "bottom" identities.
Purchase full article at: http://goo.gl/v8WcNl
By:
1Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University
of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Electronic address:
Peace.Kiguwa@wits.ac.za.
Reprod Health Matters. 2015 Nov;23(46):117-26. doi: 10.1016/j.rhm.2015.11.016. Epub 2015 Dec 17.
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