‘My friends would laugh at me’: embedding the dominant heterosexual script in the talk of primary school students

ABSTRACT

The dominant ‘heterosexual script’ positions men as sexually desiring subjects who initiate sex and use active displays of power to attract women, and women as passive sexual objects who use indirect means to attract men (e.g. physical appearance). While much research has highlighted how this script is deployed in high school settings, less work has attended to primary schools. We demonstrate how the script operates in the talk of primary school students in low resource South African schools. Data were generated in group discussions conducted for a mid-term review of a school-based sexual violence prevention programme. We show how the heterosexual script is embedded in students’ accounts through the regulatory mechanisms of interpersonal and social risks: threats of being ‘dumped’, sexual coercion, violence, and humiliation. These risks are learnt from an early age and may outweigh sexuality education messaging provided later on, which has implications for such interventions. To address this we advocate for early engagement with young people using a dialogical approach that creates a relational context for resistance to inequitable sexual scripts.

KEYWORDS:

• Heterosexuality
• sexual scripts
• gender-based violence
• sexuality interventions
• comprehensive sexuality education
• young adolescents

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Nondumiso Gqomfa, Tsidiso Tolla, Zimasa Mafenuka, and Thandokazi Vongwe for their valuable contributions to this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Enough’ (Xhosa).

2 Urban areas designated for Black people during apartheid that often remain under-developed and under-resourced.

3 South African schools are ranked from 1 (low) to 5 (high) according to resources and level of poverty in the community where the school is based.

4 Interviews were facilitated and translated by a native Xhosa-speaker, using back-translation to check accuracy.

5 Colloquial expression of pity.

6 A male who is unpopular with women, impotent or not sexually active (see van der Riet et al. 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication under Grant HSRC 28/03/2015. Comic Relief 360G-CR-517007.

Notes on contributors

Tracy Morison

Tracy Morison is a senior lecturer in the School of Psychology at Massey University (Aotearoa/New Zealand), an associate editor for Feminism & Psychology, and an honorary research associate of the Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction programme at Rhodes University (South Africa) where she obtained her Ph.D. She uses in-depth qualitative methodologies, underpinned by feminist and other critical theories, to investigate topics related to gender, sexualities, and reproduction. She has also written on qualitative methodology and feminist theory.

Catriona Ida Macleod

Catriona Ida Macleod is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and chair of Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction at Rhodes University (South Africa), as well as the editor-in-chief of Feminism & Psychology. Her research covers a range of topics in sexualities and reproduction, notably teenage pregnancy, abortion, and sexuality education. She contributes extensively to scholarship in feminist theory, feminist psychology, and postcolonialism.

Ingrid Lynch

Ingrid Lynch is a Senior Research Specialist in the Human and Social Capabilities Division of the Human Sciences Research Council (South Africa). Her research examines the socio-cultural determinants of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender-based violence (GBV) and utilises intersectional, mixed-methods, and participatory methodologies. She also has an interest in critical feminist approaches to genders and sexualities.