Sistering and sexual socialisation: a discursive study of Xhosa women’s sisterly interactions concerning sex and reproduction

Abstract

Considerable research has been devoted to understanding and promoting parent-child sexual socialisation. Less attention has been paid to experiences of sibling interactions concerning sex. Drawing on discursive psychology, this study explores how women report interacting about sex and reproduction in their sisterly relationships. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted, using Free Association Narrative Interview technique, with five Black isiXhosa-speaking, middle-aged and working class women in South Africa. Findings show that the participants construct their sisterly interactions concerning sex drawing on three interpretative repertoires: silence; safety and secrecy; risk and responsibilisation. The silence repertoire constructs sex talk between sisters as vague and non-viable. Within the safety and secrecy repertoire, sisters are constructed as sharing sexual secrets and providing a safe space for sexual exploration. The risk and responsibilisation repertoire is deployed when understandings of ‘proper’ feminine behaviour and sexual purity are breached, with sisters emphasising the importance of avoiding risk and acting responsibly. Thus, alongside encouraging the expression of women’s agency in relation to sexuality, sisters potentially join a patriarchal policing and the shaming of women’s sexuality. These contradictory repertoires have implications for sexual health programmes and interventions targeted at family communication about sex.

Keywords:

• Sexual socialisation
• reproduction
• sisters
• siblings
• South Africa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 According to Delius and Glaser (2002), this intergenerational silence around sex, often viewed as embedded in ‘culture’ (30) in many South African communities, is a product of the introduction of Christianity and migration.

2 The socially constructed nature of ‘race’ is acknowledged in this work and the researchers thus use single quotation marks to connote this signifier. The signifier is still considered relevant globally but also specifically in South Africa where racism continues to influence lived experiences.

3 The term working class in this study refers to those often economically marginalised on the basis of income, education and occupation. They hold lower paying jobs due to the hierarchical impacts of the above mentioned indices (Liu et al. 2004). However, within the South African context where there is high unemployment, the working class are often ‘privileged’ within their particular social contexts by virtue of being employed. Nevertheless, the number of dependents on an individual’s salary in the context of high unemployment is often high.

4 An Indigenous language to the Eastern Cape of South Africa where the research was conducted.

Additional information

Funding

This article is based on research supported by the South African Research Chairs initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation of South Africa [Grant no. 87582].