Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Journal of Anthropology
Volume 2013, Article ID 298670, 11 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/298670
Research Article
An Exploratory Study of Male Adolescent
Sexuality in Zimbabwe: The Case of Adolescents in
Kuwadzana Extension, Harare
Sandra Bhatasara, Tafadzwa Chevo, and Talent Changadeya
Sociology Department, University of Zimbabwe, P.O. Box MP167, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe
Correspondence should be addressed to Tafadzwa Chevo; tafadzwachevo@hotmail.com
Received 8 April 2013; Revised 28 August 2013; Accepted 6 September 2013
Academic Editor: Kaushik Bose
Copyright © 2013 Sandra Bhatasara et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
Although young people in Zimbabwe are becoming sexually active at a very early age, there is no unifed body of knowledge
on how they regard sex and construct sexuality and relationships. In many circumstances adolescence sexual agency is denied
and silenced. Tis study explored adolescents’ discourses on sexuality, factors afecting adolescent sexuality, and sexual health.
Fusing a social constructionist standpoint and an active view of agency, we argue that the way male adolescents perceive and
experience sexuality and construct sexual identities is mediated by the sociocultural context in which they live in and their own
agency. Although adolescents are mistakenly regarded as sexual innocents by society, we argue that male adolescents are active
social agents in constructing their own sexual realities and identities. At the same time, dominant structural and interactional
factors have a bearing on how male adolescents experience and generate sexuality.
1. Introduction
Tis study explores empirically adolescents’ construction of
sexuality. According to Nyanzi [1] sexuality is constructed as
the domain exclusive to adults with preconditions of physical
and social maturity. Tus, notions of child sexuality are ofen
viewed as taboo, antithetical, nonissues, or even dangerous
and cause for moral panic. Such perceptions of “unknowl-
edgeable or ill-informed adolescents” and “high-risk adoles-
cents” are rife in the literature on youth and HIV/AIDS [2].
Adult sexual cultures and religious and moral discourses are
deployed or implicated in positioning adolescent sexuality
as taboo. Putting sexuality and children together remains
problematic and morally troubling regardless of policy eforts
to change this [3]. As noted by Renold [4], underlying this
trouble are familiar ideologies that associate school-going
learners with sexual innocence which creates the myth of an
asexual child who must be protected from corrupting sexual
information, producing a regulatory mechanism through
which morality, sexuality, and young people at school are
framed. Longstanding tropes of sexual innocence position
the child as an object of concern, thwarting sexual curiosity
[5]. In spite of such narrow conceptualizations of children,
a number of studies demonstrate that adolescents are active
sexual beings. Against representations that associate children
with sexual innocence, this study examined adolescents’ dis-
courses on notions of sexuality as well as their sexual health as
it has been demonstrated that their needs are diferent from
those of adults. Te focus of the study is particularly on boys
because they are implicated in literature as having an active
role in sexuality as evidenced by the fact that the burden of
negative sexual consequences usually falls disproportionately
on females [6].
2. Background
Sexual activities among adolescents are reported to be
increasing worldwide [7]. Research in sub-Saharan Africa has
documented high and increasing premarital sexual activities
among adolescents. It is generally recognized that African
adolescents are sexually active and sufer from consequences
of routine unsafe sexual practices such as teenage parent-
hood, illegal abortions, and sexually transmitted diseases
(STDs) including HIV/AIDS. Schaalma and Kaaya [8] note