Love, lust, and the emotional context of concurrent sexual partnerships amomg young Swazi adults
Men and women in Swaziland who are engaged in multiple or concurrent sexual
partnerships, or who have sexual partners with concurrent partners, face a very
high risk of HIV infection. Ninety-four in-depth interviews were conducted with 28
Swazi men and women (14 of each sex) between the ages of 20 and 39 in order
to explore participants’ sexual partnership histories, including motivations for
sexual relationships which carried high HIV risk. Concurrency was normative,
with most men and women having had at least one concurrent sexual
partnership, and all women reporting having had at least one partner who had a
concurrent partner. Men distinguished sexual partnerships that were just for sex
from those that were considered to be “real relationships”, while women
represented the majority of their relationships, even those which included
significant financial support, as being based on love. Besides being motivated by
love, concurrent sexual partnerships were described as motivated by a lack of
sexual satisfaction, a desire for emotional support and/or as a means to exact
revenge against a cheating partner. Social and structural factors were also found
to play a role in creating an enabling environment for high-risk sexual
partnerships, and these factors included social pressure and norms, a lack of
social trust, poverty and a desire for material goods, and geographical separation
of partners.
