Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Counselling Psychology) in the Department of Psychology University of Zululand, 2003. / This phenomenological study explores the experience of male sex-workers. The aim of this study was to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of this complex phenomenon and hopefully serve as a foundation for future research and counselling interventions in this field. A comprehensive literature review examining the individual and contextual issues rooted in the world of commercial sex between men is provided, and forms a firm foundation and backdrop for this study. The design of this study was qualitative and proceeded from a phenomenological stance. Data was collected through in-depth, unstructured interviews with four, white South African men who were currently working as male prostitutes. The interviews were recorded on audiotape and transcribed verbatim for each participant. The data was then categorized, coded and analyzed inter-individually in order to discover common and contrasting themes and patterns. These were tied together to form a hypothetical and general description of the experience of the male sex-worker.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Social Work))

Sex work is a crime in South Africa. With the prevalence and deleterious social and economic effects of HIV, in health literature sex work has often been understood in relation to the way that it intersects with the transmission of the epidemic. This positioning of sex work then inadvertently stigmatises sex workers who are often cast outside the rights-based discourses that characterise South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy. In order to address this problem, this study explored the perceived barriers and facilitators to sex workers’ accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare (SRHC), gaps in the current service offerings relating to sex worker’s sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and the general experiences of SRHC amongst 11 female sex workers in Johannesburg, South Africa. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with these sex workers, who were based in Johannesburg City Deep. The resultant data were transcribed and subjected to a thematic analysis. The study shows that various structural and individual level barriers are perceived to prevent access to SRH. In particular, the analysis suggests that the disease-specific focus on sex worker-specific projects poses a barrier to sex workers’ accessing a complete range of SRHC services. Violence enacted by healthcare professionals, police and clients fuelled a lack of trust in the healthcare sector and displaced the participants from their basic human rights. It is also worrying that religion posed a threat to effective SRHC because some religious discourses label sex workers as sinners who are perceived to be excluded from forgiveness and healing. Finally, motherhood proved to be a point at which the participants actively managed their health and engaged with and in broad-based SRHC. Participants frequently only sought SRHC at the point at which an ailment affected their livelihood and ability to provide for a family. Taken together, these findings seem to show a range of formidable challenges to sex workers’ understanding of themselves in a human rights discourse. This study’s findings are of particular importance to rethinking the legislation that criminalises sex work, as well as healthcare initiatives geared both towards sex workers and women in general.

Thesis submitted for fifty percent completion of the degree of Master of Management in the field of Public Policy at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 28 March 2017 / In South Africa, sex work is illegal, and sex workers have operated in the shadows for decades, although the profession has been around for centuries. Sex workers are marginalised and vulnerable which affects their power and authority to participate in public policy deliberations. Their ability to participate in community forums and public discussions about issues that affect them is limited mainly due to their lack of agency, social exclusion and stigma. Ultimately, their equality in the democracy they live is compromised due to social norms, cultural values and religion. This study investigated the barriers that sex workers face to participate in public policy making. This research was a basic interpretive qualitative study which was conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa. Data was collected using structured and semi structured tools through focus group discussions with active sex workers and key informant interviews with policy makers, academics and legal experts. The data was collected and analysed through an exploratory lens that allowed a story to unfold and used people’s experiences to shed light on what these barriers were. The results from the study concluded that sex workers are in fact socially excluded within the communities they live and this exclusion fuels internal and external stigma. This structurally decreases their human and social agency and systematically excludes their voices, human rights, legitimate policy needs and opinions from public policy making processes within their communities. In order to address this structural disadvantage, an advanced form of behaviour change of communities, policy makers and public service personnel is recommended. / MT2017

MPH / Department of Public Health / The exchange of money or gifts for sexual relationships, also called transactional sex, is considered a sexual risk behaviour worldwide and continues to pose sexually-transmitted infections,unwanted pregnancies risks and other health complications among people engaging in these type of relationships. The aim of the study was to explore the perceptions of students regarding transactional sex and its effects on health at the University of Venda. The study utilized a qualitative, descriptive phenomenological design to understand the perceptions of students regarding transactional sex. The target populations of the study were registered students at the University of Venda. Purposive technique was used to recruit 18 participants. Data was collected using in-depth interviews and analyzed using using Tesch’s thematic analysis. The study concluded that students at the University of Venda perceive transactional sex as a material-based relationship, prostutition, immoral behaviour and abusive relationship.Students perceived socio-economic status, social classes, behavioural aspects and peer pressure to be the driving factors pushing students to engage in transactional sex. Transactional sex is common among the University community and has far-reaching public health as well as social consequences. Students at the University of Venda perceive transactional sex an a bad behavior. This calls for the University to ensure that there are enough extra-mural activities for students to engage in,which could generate some pocket money, awarenesses and educate student not to engage in transactional sex and also provide health talks through printing of pamplets communicating massages against this practie.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: One of the characteristics of discourses about people who are marginalised such as sex workers, in many societies, is the way they are rendered through these very discourses as "Other‟ through, for example, forms of generalisation and homogenisation, attributions of immorality and infantilisation, which construct sex workers as bad or as helpless victims with little or no agency. In opposition to these discourses, my research is primarily concerned with advancing the voices of sex workers engaged in particular contemporary forms of sex work made possible by the access to the internet, and exploring with them how they construct and experience sex work: how they present and identify themselves. A qualitative, netnographic methodology influenced by grounded theory was employed, drawing extensively on semi-structured interviews with 15 independent escorts who advertise on a South African escorting website, referred to as Redlace.com. Content analysis of this website provided an additional source of data. The construction of the sex worker as someone who is simply controlled and exploited by others and who has no mind of her or his own, I found, was very much at odds with the manner through which the independent escorts in my study presented themselves. As I started conducting the interviews, I discovered that even the term "sex worker‟, which I had always understood as non-judgmental, was considered inappropriate and pejorative by most of the women in my study. In my discussion, I illustrate how, by soliciting clients via the internet, escorts are able to gain control over their working conditions allowing them to work independently and anonymously, which in turn renders them less publicly visible compared to other sex workers who solicit clients form the street. While I identify various continuities and discontinuities between independent escorting and other forms of sex work, the most profound and unanticipated difference was how some independent escorts whose independence and dissociation from organised forms of sex work in institutions such as brothels or escorts, placed them in a position where they were able to, and wanted to, present the "girlfriend experience‟. Herein the independent escorts performed and/or became like girlfriends offering sex, but sex mediated by "dating‟, and expressions of care and warmth symbolically associated with developing girlfriend/boyfriend relations.

This study explores the self-representations of cross-border migrant, female sex workers in Johannesburg and compares these representations to those created by public discourses around cross-border migration, sex work, and gender. With a focus on issues of agency, vulnerability, and power, the study questions the impact of prevalent representations of these women by others on their individual self-representations. The participatory approach of this study builds on previous participatory research projects with migrant sex workers in Johannesburg and employs creative writing as a methodology to generate narratives and thus adds to literature about alternative methodologies for reaching currently marginalised and under-researched groups. Organisations such as Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and Sisonke Sex Worker Movement have worked with sex workers to generate digital stories for advocacy; however, academic research employing storytelling as a methodology has not been done with migrant sex workers in South Africa. While existing evidence indicates that cross-border migrant, female sex workers are often marginalised by state and non-state actors professing to assist them, this study emphasizes the voices of the women themselves. Over the course of three months, I conducted creative writing workshops with five female Zimbabwean sex workers in Hillbrow, Johannesburg; the women generated stories in these workshops that became the basis for one-on-one unstructured interviews. I compared the self-representations that emerged from this process with the representations of migrant sex workers that I determined from a desk review of the websites of organisations that contribute to trafficking and sex work discourses in South Africa. With the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Bill close to becoming law in South Africa and the prevalent assumption that systemic trafficking problems are related to the sex industry and irregular migration, developing a better understanding of migrants involved in sex work in South Africa is particularly important. Furthermore, a national focus on reducing and even preventing immigration—and the stigma attached to migrants—adds urgency to the elucidation of the lives of migrants. This study investigates how female Zimbabwean sex workers in Johannesburg—often positioned as vulnerable and sometimes misidentified as trafficked—see themselves in a country increasingly concerned with issues of (anti-)immigration and (anti-)trafficking. Furthermore, sex work is criminalized in South Africa and social mores attach stigma to prostitution. Contrary to assumptions that all sex workers are forced into the industry or foreign sex workers trafficked into the country, the participants in this study spoke of active choices in their lives—including choices about their livelihood and their movement—and describe their vulnerabilities and strengths. Perhaps the most striking similarity between participants was the women’s acknowledgement of the dangers they face and the decisions they make, weighing risks and gains. This recognition of agency ran through the six key themes that I generated through thematic analysis: Conflicting Representations of Sex Work, Stigma and Double Existence, Health and Safety, Importance of Independence, Morality of Remittances, and Mobility. Throughout the analysis, I argue that the participants in the study present themselves as aware of the dangers they face and calculating the risks. The participants responded enthusiastically to the creative writing methodology—through their stories, discussions, and interviews, they portrayed a complex, at times ambiguous, portrait of migrant sex workers in South Africa. While recognizing their double vulnerability—as illegally engaging in sex work and, often, illegally residing in South Africa, they also emphasized their strength and agency.

No abstract available. / Thesis (LL.M.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

AFRIKAANS: Kinderprostitusie is 'n sosiale probleem wat wêreldwyd voorkom. Kinders wat nog nie puberteit betree het nie asook adolessente word deur souteneurs en hulle ouers of voogde by kindersekswerk betrek. Hierdie kinders wat dikwels die enigste broodwinners van die gesin is, word aan vernederende en in sommige gevalle gedwonge seksuele aktiwiteite, geweld, intimidasie en dwelms blootgestel. Die aard, omvang, werkswyse asook die emosionele, psigiese en fisieke gevolge van prostitusie op die kind is aan die hand van 'n verkennende, kwalitatiewe ondersoek (Gauteng - spesifiek Johannesburg en Pretoria) bestudeer. Die ondersoek word teoreties gerig deur onder andere die sosiale struktuur- en prosesteorieë. Verder is verskeie risikofaktore ten opsigte van kindersekswerk geïdentifiseer. Die moontlike dekriminalisering van prostitusie asook die effek wat dekriminalisering van prostitusie op kindersekswerk sal hê, is onder die loep geneem. Verskeie aanbevelings in verband met verdere navorsing rakende kindersekswerk is gemaak en moontlike oorkomingstrategieë ten opsigte van kindersekswerk is ook geïdentifiseer. ENGLISH: Child prostitution is a social phenomenon that occurs worldwide. Children, prior to reaching puberty, and adolescent's, are drawn into child sexwork by pimps, their parents or guardians. These children, often the only breadwinners of their families, become exposed to humiliation and in numerous situations coercion, violence, intimidation and drugs. The nature, extent, working environment and the emotional, psychological and physical effects of child prostitution on the child are explored through an explorative and a qualitative study (Gauteng - specifically Johannesburg and Pretoria). The study is theoretically driven through, inter alia, the social process and structural theories. Several risk factors regarding child sex work are identified. The possible decriminalization of prostitution and the effect thereof on child sex workers was considered. Several recommendations for further research on child sex work were made and possible prevention strategies were also identified. / Dissertation (MA (Criminology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Criminology / unrestricted

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This paper looks critically at particularly two harmful sexual practices most prevalent among the Zulu people in Kwazulu-Natal; virginity testing for girls, and the practice 'dry sex.' It is mostly the ripple effects of these practices, regarding the spread of mV/AIDS that is most alarming to medical science, leaving them no option other than to condemn this behaviour. This treatise however endeavours throughout to proffer understanding for the needs of a culture as diverse and unique as the Zulu people. Further, this paper often looks from an overarching African perspective, since despite African peoples' differences in terms of linguistics, geography, religiosity and general differences in daily run of the mill activities, there is a dominant socioreligious philosophy shared by all Africans. The, a, band c of virginity testing, and the resulting moral issues revolving around this practice are addressed. The main issues regarding the repercussions of virginity testing are discussed as well as the medical controversy involved in these issues. This will prove the limited effectiveness of this practice and the potential, yet serious and harmful ramifications it has for girls who are tested. In stark contrast to these girls, stands the girl who starts at a very tender age with the practice of 'dry sex', often encouraged and taught to her by female elders in order 'to please men'. This practice serves as a very powerful tool for commercial sex workers, venturing the streets and the truck driver stops, as it lures men into making her the preferred choice. So desperate are her socio-economic and cultural circumstances that she risks infection, and ultimate death, in order to comply with his need for unprotected and 'dry sex.' Numerous studies alert us to the fact that the drying agents used lead to lacerations of the vaginal walls, causing SID's, which in tum, exacerbate the spread of the disease. Zulu traditions and customs regarding sexuality and sexual relationships proffer essential insight into the Zulu people's sexual behaviour. In order to strike a balance between two diverse cultural groups, the West and African, a critical assessment of the West's own sexual history guides us to understand the West's 'sober' practice of monogamy is no less 'permissive' and 'promiscuous' than the African's practice of polygamy. The paper also investigates the corresponding differences in relation to indigenous knowledge systems versus science. African people discern the body's physiology and anatomy metaphorically and symbolically. We cannot simply gloss over these perceptions, enforcing scientific-based knowledge in our educational programmes, without consideration and accommodation for a very unique way of interpreting one's daily experiences and one's unique self. It is not only our biased discernment of indigenous knowledge that complicates the Aids pandemic considerably, but it is also enhanced by the burden of stereotyped gender-roles. Not only is a paradigm shift regarding the imbalance of power very much needed, we also need to understand that the inculcated anger some men in the Zulu culture fosters is a force to be reckoned with, as it displays psychological underpinnings of damage, signalling very clearly the need for therapeutic measures of healing. Conversely, the female in the Zulu culture has started to empower herself, but not always in terms of a beneficial end in itself. Similarly, it must alert us to the fine line separating the virgin-whore dichotomy, fuelled by her poverty-stricken and maledominated existence. It would appear that what we are fighting for is more than the preservation of life whilst engulfed by AIDS's scourge, but a global vision where the individual, or a whole community, with regard to mVIAIDS, is "self-reproducing, pragmatically selfsustainable and logically self-contained." (Bauman 1994: 188) / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die Zoeloe kultuur figureer daar veral twee tradisionele seksuele gedragspraktyke wat kommer wek by sommige Westerlinge, hier ter plaatse sowel as in die buiteland. Alhoewel hierdie praktyke as natuurlik, eksklusief en algemeen beskou word, is daar huidiglik stemme van protes wat waarsku dat die twee praktyke potentiele gevaar inhou vir die mens se gesondheid en geesteswelsyn. Die praktyke behels dat jong en weerlose meisies vanaf die ouderdom van ses jaar gereeld onderwerp word aan 'n vaginale toets om vas te stelofhulle nog 'n maagd is, en, die voorkeur van sommige mans om omgang te he met 'n vrou wat haar vagina op 'n 'onnatuurlike' wyse droog, hard en styf hou met die oog op 'n meer bevredigende seksuele ervaring vir die man. Baie vroue geniet ook hierdie ervaring. Die mediese wetenskap is veral bekommerd oor die moontlike verband tussen die nadelige repurkussies van die twee praktyke en die vinnige verspreiding van MIVMGS en pleit derhalwe dat daarmee weggedoen word. Die praktiseerders van eersgenoemde praktyk word byvoorbeeld gewaarsku dat dit mag lei tot gevalle van verkragting, anale seks asook kindermishandeling, terwyl laasgenoemde praktyk veral twee hoe risiko-groepe ten opsigte van die VIGSpandemie ten prooi val; die kommersiele sekswerkers in Kwazulu-Natal wat die praktyk gebruik as wapentoerusting, en die land se vragmotorbestuurders wat hierdeur verlei en aangemoedig word. Hierdie vorm van seksuele omgang ondermyn egter nie net kondoomgebruik nie. Studies het bewys dat die gebruik van 'n vaginale uitdrogingsmiddel daartoe kan lei dat die wande van die vagina mag skeur. Beide groepe loop derhalwe nie alleenlik die risiko om 'n seksueeloordraagbare siekte op te doen nie, maar om ook 'n VIGS-slagoffer te word. Terwyl die beperkte effektiwiteit van die twee praktyke deurkam word, poog die verhandeling om deurgaans 'n duidelike ingeboude begrip te handhaaf vir die unieke en eiesoortige karakter van die Zoeloe kultuur. Dit redeneer dat beide groepe, Afrikaboorlinge en Westerlinge, moet probeer verhoed om te polariseer en illustreer dat diverse kultuurgroepe almal, vanuit 'n kultuurhistories perspektief, meerdere of mindere tekens van promiskuiteit en permissiwiteit ten opsigte van seksualiteit toon. Dit spreek vanself dat die twee praktyke ondersoek moet word teen die agtergrond van die Zoeloe's se inheemse kennis met inbegrip van die wyse waarop die menslike fisiologie en anatomie metafories en simbolies verklaar word. Die digotomie wat bestaan tussen inheemse kennis en wetenskap vra dat ons boodskappe gekommunikeer moet word op 'n wyse wat beide gesigspunte konsolideer. Uiteraard kompliseer die stereotipering van geslagsrolle in die Zoeloe bevolking die VIGS-pandemie aansienlik. Dit dra in 'n groot mate daartoe by dat die VIGSpandemie nie suiwer as 'n biomediese probleem manifesteer nie, maar dat ander psigo-sosiale faktore in berekening gebring moet word. Dit werk byvoorbeeld 'n ongebalanseerde magsposisie in die hand wat sommige Zoeloe mans se sielkundige worsteling met hul diepgewortelde, polities geinspireerde woede belig en dui op sommige kontemporere Zoeloe vrouens se toenemende geneigdheid om seks aan te bied in ruil vir geld. Sy doen dit om sodoende haarself van die juk van die Zoeloe man se mag oor haar en haar neerdrukkende sosio-ekonomiese omstandighede te bevry. Die verhandeling beweeg dikwels buite sy grense en fokus nie net bloot op die gedrag van die Zoeloe bevolking nie, maar boorlinge van Afrika in die algemeen. Hierdie oorhoofse Afrika-perspektief vind regverdigingsgronde in die lig van die feit dat boorlinge van Afrika saamgesnoer word deur 'n oorheersende sosio-religieuse filosofie, desnieteenstaande die feit dat daar merkbare verskille voorkom ten opsigte van linguistiek, geografie, religieusheid en ander wat betref hul daaglikse gebruike en omgang.