O Icheke National Campaign Plan - CONCURRENT SEXUAL ...

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National Campaign Plan: Multiple Concurrent Partnerships40Annex 5. TYPES OF MCPFrom review of available literature and from key informant interviews conducted with stakeholders andimplementers during the preparation of this campaign plan, many different types of MCP emerged. Fromthe available evidence, a typology of multiple concurrent partnerships was drawn up, with variations of MCPcharacterised according to the primary function of the additional partnerships (note that the typology doesnot include the main partner in the lives of those engaged in MCP).Partnerships as an Alternative to Enforced AbstinenceThe function of these partnerships is to fulfil a basic need for sex during periods when people who want tobe sexually active would otherwise experience enforced abstinence. These typically occurWhen a person is physically separated from their primary partner for work or other reasons and eitherforms casual relationships or establishes other relationships to fill the gap. Although these partnershipscan usually be turned on and off as necessary, sometimes they continue after reunion with the primarypartner. Key informants cited physical separation as a key reason for MCP, and specifically mentionedgovernment workers posted away from their families. They mentioned loneliness, desire for sexualgratification and absence from the family environment that provides some safeguard against riskybehaviour. One key informant said, ‘When men are together in one place they tend to behave verydifferently from when there is a mixture. What they do and talk about is usually centered on women andsex’.When a primary partner is in the later stages of pregnancy and the months after childbirth, when sexwith her is not permitted by cultural norms.During a transition between partnerships, when a relationship has formally ended or is formally off butsexual relations continue until / unless one or both partners move on to a new relationshipWhen a person is unsure of relationship prognoses and maintains more than one partner to ensureback up, or protect against future enforced abstinence.In the early months and years after sexual debut, when young people embark on a series of exploratoryone-night stands and short-term flings to mark a ‘coming of age’ in their minds and before they form anyprimary partnership.Partnerships for Sexual VarietyThere is widespread, if often tacit, acceptance that, as well as needing sex, people need sexual variety. Menespecially are assumed to need more than one woman to satisfy them sexually. There is also a less widelyaccepted norm that women need to be satisfied sexually and will go outside of their main partnership if theyneed to. Received wisdoms, such as ‘small houses strengthen relationships’ and ‘man cannot live on breadalone’, support these norms.These relationships often have a compensatory function, providing benefits that are lacking in a main partnershipor relief from stress or boredom. Key informants mentioned dissatisfaction or problems, specifically sexualproblems, within marriages or primary partnerships as contributing to MCP. Small houses were identifiedas providing entertainment and respite from family life, and were said to meet men’s every desire, whethersexual or emotional.
National Campaign Plan: Multiple Concurrent Partnerships 41Sexual variety can be achieved through a number of different means, whether a person has a main, long termpartner or not: one night stands, no-strings partners, frequent partner exchange, or concurrent / overlappingshort term flings. Those with a main, long term partner also maintain one or more small houses. In the citiesof Gaborone and Francistown, small houses may be in the same city as a main partner, otherwise they aregenerally maintained in a separate location to the main partner, such as the home village or cattle post. Bothmen and women have small houses, although the practice is more prevalent among men and when womentake a small house there is often a reactive or revenge motivation (i.e. she takes a small house because hermain partner has other partners). In some cultures, and particularly in rural areas, the secondary partners maybe from the extended family and the partnerships known about at least within the family.With the exception of the last-mentioned scenario, partnerships whose main function is provision of sexualvariety can generally be terminated freely by either party. From early in people’s sexual lives, they tend to havea main partner with others having the status of sidekicks.An important sub-type of partnerships whose primary motivation is sexual variety is men who engage incross-generational relationships with younger women or girls. These men often have an age mate main partnerand / or more than one younger partner concurrently, and the relationships with the younger partners tendto be short term flings of a few weeks or months. In Gaborone there are a small number of older womeninvolved in relationships with younger men, but most cross-generational relationships are between older menand younger women. For men, relationships with younger women may be about more than sexual variety,gratification or ego, they are seen as ‘necessary’ for sexual cleansing or rejuvenation.Relationships whose function for one partner is sexual variety are often the same relationships whose functionfor the other partner is material gain (discussed below), with (in most cases) the man using his relative wealthto buy access to sexual variety.Once partnerships whose main function (for men) is sexual variety have begun, women tend to have littlesay in condom use, regardless of age disparity. If men choose to use condoms in these relationships it isprimarily for their own interest (usually pregnancy prevention) and not out of consideration for their partner.These relationships can often be classed as relationships in which condoms are usually used, but where slipupsoccur due to alcohol consumption, non-availability or simple laziness; older men are less likely to usecondoms than younger men.Partnerships for Material GainRelationships that fulfil functions related to material needs typically involve women exchanging sex for goodsand/or money, but these partnerships are explicitly not commercial sex, in the minds of either the men orthe women involved in them.What is often pejoratively termed ‘transactional sex’ is a normal and acceptable function of many sexual relationshipsin Botswana and other countries in the region. Sexual relationships are accepted as being aboutexchange and it is normal for women to assess potential partners in terms of the material benefits they canprovide. For women, material gain can be the primary function of one-night, short-, medium- or long-termpartnerships. Although there are some men who enter into sexual partnerships for financial gain (usuallywith older women), this is atypical.
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