Condoms in pockets and HIV-free certificates: mother-daughter communication about sex and risk in a time of AIDS epidemic in South Africa

Wilbraham, Lindy

Title: Condoms in pockets and HIV-free certificates: mother-daughter communication about sex and risk in a time of AIDS epidemic in South Africa
Creator: Wilbraham, Lindy
Date: 2015
Type: text
Type: article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143693
Identifier: vital:38274
Identifier: https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
Description: Responsive to the perceived high risks of sexual coercion, unwanted pregnancy and HIV-infection of girls in particular, several South African sexual health promotion campaigns have used media targeting parents (mothers in particular) to instruct them on how sex should be talked about with young people to ‘risk-proof’ them. Such an instrumentalist public health discourse posits this intergenerational communication as an ‘ongoing discussion’ of events, feelings, issues and risk-safe practices around heterosexual sex negotiation. A Foucauldian view finds these conversational imperatives pitched against much-talked-about resistances to talking about sex; and the saturation with risk of ambivalent mothers and silent daughters. Mother-daughter communication about sex and sexualities – as an uneasy western ideal of attachment parenting – has tangled roots in psychoanalytic theory and feminisms where sex as the core of modern subjectivity is normalized, capacities for intimacy are trained, and affiliative sexuality is modelled in ways that balance the rights and responsibilities of sexual agency/citizenship. This paper begins with two narrative fragments from a sexual health campaign that addressed mothers and daughters, and recounts how these ‘stories’ produced derisive laughter when introduced into group discussions with young/older women. The paper follows two lines of exploration. Firstly, is western idealized fabrication of inter-subjectivity between mothers and daughters desirable and feasible in post-apartheid conditions of epidemic in South Africa? And secondly, what if the narratives of lives and experiences we offer by way of health education materials provoke uncertainties, gaps and interrogations about sex, mothering and communication, instead of offering homilies and solutions?
Format: pdf
Language: English
Relation: International Society of Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP), Wilbraham, L., 2015. Condoms in pockets and HIV-free certificates: Mother-daughter communication about sex and risk in a time of AIDS epidemic in South Africa. International Society of Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP). 9th Biennial Conference, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, International Society of Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP) volume 2015 number 0 2015
Rights: Publisher
Rights: Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Rhodes University Proatia Statement (https://www.ru.ac.za//governance/proatia/)

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Wilbraham, Lindy (Prof)

RU Department of Psychology

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