Sex, Sexuality and Gender: Let's Talk about It

Author(s): Cheryl de la Rey and Michelle Friedman

Source: Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, No. 28, Women's Sexuality (1996),
pp. 39-47
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Agenda Feminist Media
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 Sex, sexu~~~alt and ener

Sexuality is a part of our lived experience as humans, yet we struggle to

talk about it, except perhaps in the most abstract way. Often when sex is
the topic, people lapse into giggles, no matter what their age. Agenda _
asked Cape Town Associate Members, CHERYL DE LA REY and MICHELLE FOCUS
FRIEDMAN, to organise a focus group discussion to get women to talk
about sexuality, especially that part of our lives that experiences desire,
sexual pleasure ... the erotic

Lindy Wilbraham: Ijoined the staff at
the University of Durban-Westville in
January, 1995. 1 was previously at UCT
Most of my research on sexuality was done
in a discourse analytical framework,
drawing on different theories within
discourse and looking at dissemination of
relationship knowledge and knowledge
about sexuality via advice columns in
women's magazines.
Jane Foress Bennett: I work as a
consultant at the Africa Gender Institute at
UCT, and I have worked a bit for the
Trauma Centre and Khanya College as well.
Most of my research has concentrated on
UCT Prior to this, I was based at the Child
Guidance Clinic at UCT My research looked
into the social constructions that people have
around teenage pregnancy, because the
predominant norm is ostensibly a negative
view of teenage pregnancy. We began
Mothokoa Mamashela: I lecture in law by searching
at the National University of Lesotho but am
for a
currently doing a PhD at UCT in family law
and the specific area is illegitimacy under definition
customary law. I am trying to find out if
there is such a concept in customary law.
Defining sexuality
In the fashion typical of academics, we

sexual violence and I have become more began by searching for a definition. The

and more aware of how hard it is to think opening question was: What do we mean

about sexual violence without actually by the term sexuality? Mothokoa began by

taking very seriously what sexuality is. reflecting on sexuality in relation to:

Because I am lesbian and because I have
worked in a number of places around the
politics of sexuality, it is an area that I think
deserves a lot more discussion. I don't
know why I attach my identity to it, but it
is a political attachment rather than a kind
of emotional attachment.
Ronelle Carolissen: I work at the Trauma
Centre currently. I will be finishing there at
the end of this month to do part-time private
practice as a psychologist and part-time work
at the Primarq Health Care Department at
... the labels that are attached to the different
sexes and the roles that are constructed
about the labels.
Ronelle pondered a while longer and
then said:
For me, sexuality is actually quite a difficult
concept to define, because I think it is very
difficult to separate sexuality from sex and
gender and the kinds of roles ascribed to
both of those.
After some discussion, Jane tried
to clarify:

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 FOCUS SEX, SEXUALITY AND GENDER: LET'S TALK ABOUT IT

different aspects of desire that we act out

0 with other people. And those have

implications for the kinds of people we are,
0 11

and we become, and state the positions we

lb .

.4. I

I &: I
take up in our sexual lives.
p v This threw some light on an earlier
t
comment by Jane about why she attached
I - A
her identity as a lesbian to a discussion
about sexuality. Identity and sexuality re-
emerged as an issue when we spoke about
labelling and language.
I - -"--
Language and sexuality: silences
I ck:
ck
Part of the difficulty the participants
m
QD experienced in trying to define sexuality is
3.1
that (as Mothokoa pointed out) 'nobody
I often experience a conflation between wants to talk about it ... the topic is shrouded
discussion about sex/gender and in mystery'. Why is there a sense of silence
discussion about sexuality and because of about such a powerful area of our lives?
that conflation, it is very hard to talk about Mothokoa provided some insight by
sexuality outside of talking about men and suggesting that women face particular
I don't want women's roles. But what about desire? If constraints in talking about their personal

a man who you are talking about sexuality, aren't you experiences of sex:
talking both about reproductive relations
If you want to say when you express
wastes my within and across cultures, and another
pleasure: 'I did enjoy making love with that
time thing which is about pleasure. What makes
man', the construction of that expression has
people's bodies feel what we call sexual
different connotations to different people, the
pleasure? There is such a strong urge,
major one being that you are a loose woman.
certainly, to see it played out that it affects
It is part of the social construct(ion) of
the way that whole cultures get shaped -
sexuality - we are not supposed to be
men are allowed to do this and this and
expressive, and say: 'Heh, I had fun last
women aren't allowed to. This is not about
night'. So, somehow there is inhibition with
reproduction, although it is tied in with it. It
women to talk about sexuality. I remember
is actually about whose bodies are allowed
saying to my friends: 'Any man who wastes
to experience a certain form of pleasure
my time at night is out, out, out. I don't want
with other people's bodies. I think
a man who wastes my time. ' And then they
separating out, at least in our heads,
would say: 'Oh, for me, Ijust love him even
because it is not separated at all, that there
are three things: sex/gender system, though he is not good in bed.' Ijust laugh,

reproductive labour and what we do when no, no, no! For me, pillow talk is the first

we sleep with other people for pleasure.
Identity and sexuality
Lindy drew our attention to how we could
look at discourses of sexuality:
... in terms of offering us identities; so that we
take up positions in terms of different things
that we do sexually with other people or
thing that comes into play. If there is no
pillow talk then, out! And, I suspect that is
why most marriages are miserable -
because peoplejust marry the first man that
comes across. They don't really quite know,
and even if they know they are not satisfied
in bed. There is not much pillow talk, well,
theq are not supposed to express that; it's OK,

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 SEX, SEXUALITY AND GENDER: LET'S TALK ABOUT IT FOCUS

as long as the man enjoys it. For you, it look deeper into what actually happens in
doesn't really matter. real-life situations when we talk about these
Jane then made an observation that things. It is, in fact, the older women, who
caused much laughter - that it is never are oppressing in the sense that you cannot
publicly acknowledged that a relationship express yourself sexually. Men at a certain
may end because the other person is a level, but women are also involved.
terrible lover but usually 'they are throwing
Lindy: I think that often other women label
her out because she is too controlling'.
women as loose. That is often a female
Ronelle recalled that one of the
labelling - women don't like other loose
interesting parts of her study on
women and it is almost that they are a threat
teenage pregnancy was that sex never got
to their men. It is kind of quite a protecting
talked about:
position that other women are a threat to
Itjust happened - they got pregnant. It that, in a sense, especially if they are loose.
never got talked about and certainly not to That is, that they have no scruples, they will
me as a researcher from the outside. But seduce and wreck and they'll ...
what I was thinking about earlier on, is that
Jane: One of the ways of 'putting down'
look, there are places where people do talk
people who are homosexual involves
about sexuality, but it often becomes quite
describing sex in perverted ways. The
a pejorative discussion. It is not the normal
things that people hate about a gay woman
kind of discussion over the supper table. It
is that one of the first things that people will
will happen in the pub where people are Women
say is: 'The things those people do, ugh.'
drunk, or it will happen at a pyjama party,
(Lindy: 'and that they are promiscuous') ... don't like
or something like that - in a situation that
Yes, and that they abuse little boys and do
isn't part of the normal discussion that you other loose
horrible things to them. And it is the same
have in your home. And certainly, you
with being women, although they do not women
don't talk about those sort of intimate
know what they do, so that is what they
sexual details to a stranger who comes to
say: 'What do they do?'. But also that they
ask you questions in a research context.
do not behave like other women, 'they'
Labelling others prey on other women. You must beware
and if you are not and you meet one, watch
Mothokoa: Most of the time in such
out! Because she is going to come and get
discourse on sexuality, it appears that men
you. And that means that when, as a
oppress women. They should not express
lesbian, you are trying to talk about having
themselves, but our inheritance studyq found
otherwise. When a widow
mourns her husband,
depending on the time of the
year (season) that the
husband dies, the mourning 46~0 - i
period can be three months,
six months or a year. Now
during that period she is not
supposed to have sex. She is
not supposed to have Qr_

pleasure and people who

implement or enforce that are
the women. So we need to

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 FOCUS SEX, SEXUALITY AND GENDER: LET'S TALK ABOUT IT
a sexuality you do that surrounded by a
homophobia that has already named you
as 'too sexual'. So it gets to be very hard ...
Mothokoa raised some thought-provoking
questions during our discussion: What do
we expect out of sex? Are we expecting
pleasure, are we expecting children? She
remembered how she had listened to a
radio programme on orgasm and she then
realised that not many women know what it
is all about.
Learning about it
In Xhosa society, some traditions around
sexuality have been forgotten. She
explained:
In my society in the olden days, one good
thing is that they used to teach young girls
and boys how to make love. Without
putting it in a curriculum at the primary
school, or something, like what is going on
What do we right now. In some societies, a younger
brother would sleep with an elder brother's
expect out
wife - his sister-in-law. And the rationale
of sex? behind that is that the sister-in-law is an
experienced woman, so she teaches him the
tricks of life. It smacks of betrayal, but he
shouldn't do it too often. He must be taught
how to ... what are we talking about here,
how many people enjoy this thing we are
talking about?
Cheryl: I am quite fascinated about those
articles in the Cosmopolitan - every month
they have a column. I think the one read:
'How to get sexual pleasure in seven
minutes'. What interested me about it, is that
when you read it, you haven't a clue about
what parts of the body are involved. Which
parts to put with which parts, nothing ...
Lindy: You have this famous one on how
to give a good blow job, and there were no
parts of the anatomy mentioned and you
start off at a bit of a loss, you know, when
you get to the end of it. What those kind of
articles do is open up this big space of
anxiety because you think, people out there
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,, \
r
V
? ' ? N
/1
(
1'
are having a lot more fun than me, and this
is what they do.
Ronelle: But I think this is when sexuality
becomes a commercial enterprise because
those kind of articles are always blown up
on the excuse of fun. Blown up on the front
cover, and people buy it because it is
usually in a plastic cover and then they are
totally disappointed when they open it and
read it because there is a thin line between
perceptions of pornography and what is
good to read (information).
Jane: But I'm even wondering whether it
isn't the same for men. You know, we are
talking about where is the pleasure. That
book about male sexuality and working-class
British men in the 1950s ... it is too small,
they cannot do it right, what is happening
here ... and the sense actually is that maybe
if women do not know, do men know?
We all nodded in agreement with
Mothokoa's observation that sexuality is
such an important part of our lives and yet
we are not taught about it. But she set us
laughing again when she described it as a
'hit and miss kind of situation'.
This perhaps leads to the kind of
situation Ronelle found in her study on
teenage pregnancy in Mamre, a semi-rural
 SEX, SEXUALITY AND GENDER: LET'S TALK ABOUT IT FOCUS
area, where, in the talk about the event of
the pregnancy, she was given the
impression that:
... babiesjust arrive. (Lindy: 'storks') And
often, any sort of sexuality education was
absent; even the technical-medical
information was absent. But there was a lot
of mythology as well, at the same time,
around the experiences related to
contraception. For example, you could not
fall pregnant if you were on contraception.
It is probably not an empty myth, because
most of the people just get injections, or
people are just injected with Provera. They
do not experience menstruation, and so a
sign of their fertility is removed and so,
therefore, there is something wrong with
contraception, according to a lot of people
who were interviewed. They were prepared
to talk about contraception and why they
don't want to use it. Also authoritarian
attitudes of medical staff, in terms of saying
you have to have it. But definitely nothing
about sexuality and experiences they had in
terms of sexuality.
Mothokoa then talked about the
usefulness of some rituals that were found
in traditional societies:
Take the male circumcision, for instance,
that shouldn't take a minute or so. And
those boys go to a cave for about three to
six months. So, to me it is notjust the
chopping off of the skin that goes on there.
There is more to it than that. But since what
goes on there is top, top secret, people never
get to know the rituals that take place
there. Inmates are not allowed to talk about
their experiences - they are not supposed
to divulge what goes on in there. Which
makes me feel that there is more to it than
just chopping off the skin.
The same applies to the girls' initiation.
They also take months and they are also
taught a lot more than just how to make
love. There are songs that tell the story
about what goes on in there, sometimes
about what they are taught. It is about
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sexuality. All I am saying is that some of
these were looked upon as ugh, barbaric. In
fact, they were terribly educational for the
people that went there, and we have lost it.
And some of these rituals have been done
away with, thus robbing boys and girls of a
certain age a place to meet and learn about
sexuality. This is one school of thought.
Lindy agreed that there has been a:
... loss of that traditional knowledge base -
the breakdown of sexual information from
parents, those cultural taboos about talking
about sex within certain different cultural
environments. And what is it replaced
with? This kind of mechanistic, medical
know-how: this is how you put a condom
on, and you practice with a banana. And
what gets completely excised from that
This is how
kind of talk is exactly what Jane was
talking about in the beginning - to do with you put a
desire. They don't want a banana; itjust
condom on,
kind of cuts all that kind of desire talk out
and we have medical discourse. and you
Gendered bodies practice
As the facilitators, one of the themes we
with a
raised for discussion was the body, sex and
sexuality. Jane reflected that it is very hard banana
to talk about myths surrounding different
types of bodies in relation to sex because:
... when you talk about the size of bums,
breasts, or big women or small women,
how do we do that without walking into a
great bunch of stereotypes - racial
stereotypes, like African men, this sort of a
dick; white men, that sort of a dick? And
how do you unpack, start to talk about,
bodies -just bodies - without trying to
walk through all the garbage that is about
what kind of sexual bodies there are? What
can offer that which is more exciting to the
racial dominance of white people? There is
a whole discourse in some lesbian networks
about the difference between what is called
'vanilla sex' and 'antivanilla sex'. And what
vanilla sex is like (the regular old boy sex),
what is not vanilla sex, which is what
43
 FOCUS SEX, SEXUALITY AND GENDER: LET'S TALK ABOUT IT
trendy people do and it involves
experimenting with sex toys, experimenting
with all sorts of things, including perhaps
power relations. But what bothers me about
it is the colour terms attached. The idea is
that vanilla sex is boring but something
that is not vanilla, which is clearly
probably chocolate, is there for excitement.
Then I want to say: 'Hold on, hold on, what
is it in naming exciting bodies, as somehow
dark, and what are the implications of that
for all the bodies that are darker?' How can
we talk about bodies without that?
Mothokoa had another dimension of the
body and sex issue:
What we discovered during the inheritance
study is that a widow is not supposed to
enjoy sex for the duration of the mourning
period, which could be up to a year. If she
did, and if it was well known, she would
People's have some form of incurable VD. But these
days, some have changed their minds and
experience
say: 'Ugh, yes, men arejust wasting our
gets into time, we are going to enjoy our sex'. But
some women actually believe that if they
their bodies
had sex during that period, they would
develop this incurable kind of VD. This is a
very big challenge in terms of a woman's
body which is supposed to react in a certain
way if she does A, B or C. And yet, nothing
happens to the man she makes love to.
Jane: Well, you are going right back to the
first point you made about what it means
for a woman to have sexuality. The body
becomes contaminated, so here she has VD,
but it is also the looseness - that's a form
of body contamination as well. She is
breaking the rules.
Cheryl: There is also a notion about
labelling loose women versus nonloose
women ... about how you can see it in
the body...
Ronelle: Like you can see they are no
longer virgins, or something like that?
Cheryl: '...yes.
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Jane: Of course, but that is the terrible
thing about it. Umm, in all honesty, I would
have to say, yes, absolutely. People's
experience gets into their bodies. And if you
have had experience, particularly that
experience of sexual interaction, it is going
to get into your body. If you have good
experiences of that it is in your body also.
Because you are in your body, like if you
are hungry, you can see that; if you have
been battered, you can see that. I am not
saying that there are not other more
complex areas of how the body works, but
as soon as I said 'yes', actually it is possible
to see in the body someone's involvement
with a happy sex life, Ijust walked straight
into the stereotype. You can see a loose
woman, and I don't want to do that. I want
to say no, you can't see if someone's having
a sex life or not, but I know that is not true.
You know, people's walk changes, people's
interaction with other people changes, and
you can see the other way around, when
horrible things are happening - the way
people become closed in, shut down, scared
of their bodies. Yes, you can see it. But what
does that mean?
But who is the 'you' that is doing
the seeing?
Lindy: I think our ability to read those signs
on the body certainly is a cultural thing.
Power and sex
At this point, we asked participants to talk
about notions of power, specifically power
and sex, in a positive sense, for example,
when one enjoys the sexual feelings of one's
body and the pleasure of desire; knowing
somehow you can, at certain moments,
ignite desire in another person - this a very
powerful feeling, a feeling of power.
Lindy: Fairlady, Femina, and You
magazines ... I think, yes, there is a certain
kind of discourse around encouraging
women to discover their power as objects,
and that draws in this whole kind of
 SEX, SEXUALITY AND GENDER: LET'S TALK ABOUT IT FOCUS

slimming business, the beautification

cosmetic business, because there is
enormous power for women in being
desirable, and desired objects. I am never
quite sure any more whether that is a
male gaze, because I think that gaze has
become quite a female gaze too now.

r ~~~~~
Women watch other women, and women
can read signs on other women. Women
look at other women as if it is men
looking at other women. You know that
is problematic for me, because I think it is
passive no, its rather encouraging
women to actively take care of
themselves and to wear slinky things,
and to fit more cosily into feminine
stereotypes because, through doing Qk

that, they are able to discover more

power, in terms of heterosexual people around me. I watch what happens to
relationships, because there is power in who I am and to who other people are when
being a beautiful object. I decide to inhabit 'Jane the desirable', and I

Jane: This is a very tricky area for me, don't do it, because I don't know any more

because I am a lot more comfortable talking what it means.

about the way in which sexuality might Lindy: 'Are you saying that thin was
interface with other forms of power - more powerful?'
political power, class power. There is
Jane: 'Phew, in my experience, yes, so
something about my own experience of being
dramatically more powerful.'
perceived as sexually powerful, or
experiencing other people's sexual power as Lindy: 'Yes, I would agree with that.'
an individual thing, that is so uncontrolled
Women can
Jane: I was treated - by the men and
that it actually ... that I find it very hard to women I encountered - as seductive. I was read signs
talk about, very frightening as well. And to very scared because it wasn't my sexuality.
on other
just give an example, I am somebody who I hated it, I stopped it.
has been a lot of different sizes in my life, and women
Mothokoa: It is also amazing how
the difference between the kind of personal
powerful women are in seducing men. At
power and power located in my body when I
the end of the day, they are shy to
was so thin (I was almost anorexic) and now,
acknowledge it. But that same woman
is absolutely marked. The way that Igot
won't say: 'Eh, another notch'. It is a
made way for by men and women when I
disgrace to say that you eyed a man out,
inhabited a (white) stereotypically 'sexually
yet we do it all the time. Somehow we don't
powerful' body, the way women of middle
see the achievement of getting the man
class looked at me, with a combination of
you've been eyeing out as power. You sort
jealousy and horror, made me very disturbed
of slide back and let him steal your show.
... it scares me silly, in the same way that it
scares me silly when I decide to dress up in a Michelle: 'You would be called loose if
certain way and I watch what happens to you acknowledqe it.'

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 FOCUS SEX, SEXUALITY AND GENDER: LET'S TALK ABOUT IT
<7 5>
42. A
?-
A
-I
Ronelle: Interestingly enough, often when
heterosexual relationships go wrong, there
is often that sense of power in withholding
sexual favour It is seen to be mtore
destructive for the man not to have access
to sexual activities, more so than the
It is very
woman, so the woman experiences it as a
difficult for sense of power. I am seeing such a lot of
that in therapy cases, in couple therapy,
me to
where there is a lot of that happening,
distinguish if because it is such a powerful position to be
operating from. The woman using her body
I am feeling
as an object, because of the kind of
sexually perception that exists that men need sex
more than women.
fired for the
Michelle: I want to ask something else
day
that I am very interested in. All the
examples that we have been talking about
that you have used with power, power is a
relational thing, but they have all been in
relation to someone else, someone out there.
Is there also a sense of us feeling sexually
powerful in relation to ourselves?
Lindy: Those moments for me are so
fleeting, that the way to hold it for longer is to
feel it in relation to or bounced off someone
else. There is this whole thing that women
are relational beings as opposed to being
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autonomous inside their own skins, and that
they come to know themselves relationally.
Mothokoa: I think that it is atypical for a
person to isolate themselves, so to speak,
and say: 'Oh, I am dressing up today - I
just want to sit in a corner of my house and
stay there the whole day.' You are always
anticipating something - going out, to
meet some friends or a boyfriend, a specific
person. We are sort of relational. Even when
you are feeling good, somehow you want
people to know and when you get a
compliment 'you're looking good', you even
feel better, although you know that you are
feeling good.
Ronelle: Speaking for myself, it is very
difficult for me to distinguish if I am feeling
sexually fired for the day, unless it is sort of
in relation to other people. And I think that
one is often less aware of your own
sexuality or feeling good in that way when
you are alone. It is less part of the
consciousness than if you are interacting
with other people.
Sex, sexuality and abuse
lane: Asking about feeling your own
sexual meaning ... How many of us have
sexual meanings? How many of us have
sexual meanings that aren't absolutely an
engagement with forms of abuse and
whatever those abuses look like? And how
many women can actually sit in a corner of
their house and say: 'I know about giving
myself orgasms and feeling strong', etc.
That strikes me as a very unrealistic way of
understanding how people, who have
grown up in this culture surrounded by
abuse, get to have sexuality at all. And we
haven't talked about that, and I think it is
important that we haven't. But you have to
come back to it in the end, because when
you say, how do 1, Jane, feel in relation to
my sexuality, I cannot easily distinguish
that from my own experiences of sexual
violence. And I think that is very
 SEX, SEXUALITY AND GENDER: LET'S TALK ABOUT IT FOCUS

interesting, and I wonder how many other

people wrestle with the same negotiations.

This is a question that remained Cheryl de la Rey and Michelle Friedman are
unanswered since we had already extended both Associate Collective Members. Cheryl is a
our session from the agreed-upon hour and lecturer in Gender Studies and Social
a half to two hours. Psychology in the Department of Psychology
In conclusion, we quote Ronelle's at the University of Cape Town. Michelle is the
reflection that: Programme Coordinator for the African
Gender Institute, Cape Town. As facilitators,
... there is a very thin line between this
Cheryl and Michelle decided to keep their
kind of discussion group and a therapy
voices out of the discussion as much as
group, but what I was also thinking in the
possible. They produced this account of the
course of this discussion is that it has been
discussion by editing 20-odd A4 pages of
something of a 'feelers' session but of a
transcribed talk. The participants were shown
limited nature, in a sense. So we can
their drah before publication
suggest that you have four or five groups
because there are a series of topics, with the
first one starting on sexuality.

AGENDA 47

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