Sexual Health Exchange, 1996 - no. 3

Aadielah Maker of the South African National Progressive Primary Health Care Network interviewed urban and rural youth to determine their views on girls, boys and sex. Their comments, which reflect learned social norms and ideas, demonstrate why there is an urgent need for sex education both for adults and youth; some examples:

• "You will go mad if you do not have sex" and "You only fall pregnant if you have sex at night." Young women, township
• "Other boys look at your face and if you have pimples then they say that sperms are in your face and manifest as pimples. Therefore you try hard to get rid of them [through sex]." Young man, village
• "Having one partner is boring because it is like when you are playing a video cassette and keep on rewinding it and playing the same thing. You cannot play one cassette without it becoming boring." Young man, town
• "Sometimes you become involved with a person you don't love just to show your unfaithful boyfriend that you can ease your broken heart." Young woman, village
• Virginity "applies also to boys who have never had sex though it would be difficult since a boy would be laughed at by other boys if he were known to be a virgin." Young man, township
• "Love is worth nothing if [there is] no sex." Young woman, village
• "I was not brought up in a family in which I was given the privilege of voicing my problems with my parents or discussing issues related to our health as young people....I would like to discuss my problems...with my mother." Young woman, informal settlement
• Girls "are falling pregnant because there are no old women who teach young girls about behaviour and even inspect them [for virginity]...Boys are making girls pregnant because they have also lost their cultural practices." Young man, village

Excerpted from "The right to sexuality education", AIDS Bulletin, 1995, 4/2: 2728.

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