Thesis (DPhil (Psychology))—University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / The spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa has continued in spite of initiatives by government and numerous concerned community-based and non-governmental organisations to contain the pandemic. Hegemonic masculinity and traditional male sexual practices associated with such identities have only recently been identified as a key area of challenge in the HIV/AIDS pandemic and more broadly in addressing issues of gender inequality. Practices such as non-negotiation in heterosexual relationships as well as other manifestations of gender inequality remain rife. Not surprisingly, this has led to a proliferation of research on men and boys in South Africa. Yet, while critical men’s studies foreground the centrality of context in the construction of masculinities, the role of particular institutions long associated with the construction of hegemonic masculinity has not been well documented in the light of the HIV/AIDS challenge. Given that HIV infection ratios are higher among soldiers than civilians, and the masculinist culture that prevails in military settings, it is clear that soldiers are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection. This study seeks to understand how men in the military draw on notions of masculinity and heterosexuality in constructing their identity and heterosexual practices. I conducted in-depth interviews with a diverse group of 14 male soldiers aged 23 to 33. All participants were officers pursuing a career in the military who were enrolled in a tertiary institution. The interviews were audio-taped and then transcribed. All the interviews were analysed using discourse analysis, with interpretation being informed by a social constructionist theoretical framework in order to address the intersecting issues of gender, sexuality and masculinity. The discourse analysis carried out on the transcripts highlights the centrality of dominant constructions of (hetero)sexual masculinity. Key here is the ‘male sexual drive discourse’ which has been identified elsewhere in South Africa and internationally, usually coupled with traditional expectations of women’s sexuality as submissive and responsive to that of men. There is, furthermore, a prevailing notion of ‘double standards’ which reward men for risky sexual practices while condemning women for the same practices and for resisting their traditional feminine and sexual roles. The study also found that the military as a macho/masculinist institution plays a key role in exaggerating traditional identities and sexual practices for men, in particular notions of masculinity as equated with physical strength and prowess and traditional constructs of male sexuality as urgent and aggressive. These are exacerbated by the military context in which soldiers, due to the nature of their task, have socio-economic and political power over (female) members of local communities. Long periods of isolation from partners during deployment and courses could also facilitate unsafe sexual practices. The study further points to the salience of social identities such as race and class intersecting with gender in the subjective representations of masculinity and sexuality, with neither of these representations manifested as fixed or unitary. The study foregrounds how male sexual risk-taking facilitates the reproduction of hegemonic discourses on male and female sexuality that continue to repress women’s rights to sexual desire and pleasure, while legitimating hegemonic male sexual practices. The study concludes that tackling HIV in the military demands critical examination of multiple constructions of masculinity: those common to broader groups of men and those peculiar to the context of the military. It is thus argued that the development of effective intervention programmes on the one hand requires an unpacking of broader discourses on masculinity and male sexuality and on the other a specific targeting within the context of military imperatives and conditions.

Background: In Ethiopia the first case of HIV infection was identified in 1984. Since then HIV/AIDS has created an enormous challenge to several communities, affecting the social and economic well-being of the entire nation. Realizing the enormous consequences of the epidemic, the Ethiopian government deployed tremendous efforts to create HIV awareness in order to bring changes in HIV-related behaviors to reduce the risk of HIV infection. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the role of HIV-related knowledge, attitude and behavior in HIV/AID prevention in Ethiopia. AIM: The aim of the study was to assess the changes in HIV-related knowledge, attitude, and behavior between 2005 and 2011 and its impact on HIV status among Ethiopians. METHODS: The study used a nationally representative sample from the cross sectional years of 2005 and 2011 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS). Sample sizes of study population were 12,845 in 2005 and 28,532 in 2011. SAS-callable SUDAAN was used provide descriptive characteristics of socio-demographic characteristics and independent variable of HIV-related knowledge, attitude, and behavior. The binary and multivariable logistic regression analysis was conducted to assess changes in HIV-related knowledge, attitude, and behavior and, association between these factors and HIV status. For all results, statistical significant were determined if there were no overlap in the 95% CI of the percentages being compared. RESULTS: There was no difference in correct comprehensive knowledge of HIV between 2005 and 2011. However, there was significant change in knowledge of Mother to Child transmission (MTCT) of HIV, accepting attitude towards people living with HIV (PLWH) and sexual behavior between 2005 and 2011. Respondents who had high level of knowledge of MTCT increased from 40.2% in 2005 to 71.0% in 2011. Likewise, respondents with high level of accepting attitude towards PLWH also increased from 3.9% to 10.8%. Besides, in 2011 fewer people had started sex before the age of 15 years old, and more people knew sources of condoms in comparison to 2005 However the percentage of people who had multiple sexual partners increased from 1.2% to 1.8% between 2005 and 2011 respectively. The study also found significantly protective association between HIV positive status and having low or medium level of knowledge of MTCT of HIV (OR 0.08 or 0.78) and accepting attitude towards people living with HIV (OR 0.12 or 0.48). In contrast, HIV infection was significantly associated with having multiple sexual partners (OR 4.49). Conclusion: Efforts deployed by Ethiopian government and other international organizations in response to HIV/AIDS epidemics have had success in terms of improving MTCT knowledge of HIV, accepting attitude towards PLWH, knowledge of sources of condom and sexual debut between 2005 and 2011. Surprisingly, we did not find an evidence of high level of HIV knowledge to be protective against HIV infection in the current study. Therefore continuous intervention is recommended to seal the gap between knowledge and sexual practices that may influence safer sexual behavioral changes.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Anatomy / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Master / Master of Philosophy

This study examined differences in psychosocial adjustment and sexual function between female survivors of Hodgkin's disease and a control group of recently diagnosed but untreated cancer patients. The Hodgkin's disease survivors were assigned to one of two groups depending on whether they had retained ovarian functioning following their cancer therapy. Differences among the three groups were examined on variables consisting of the principal components derived from scores on the: Derogatis Sexual Functioning Inventory (DSFI); Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI); and Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale (PAIS). These variables included: DSFI (General background and sexual functioning, Attitudes and feelings, and Information and Drive); BSI (General distress, and Somatic anxiety); and PAIS (General social functioning, and Health care orientation). No statistically significant differences in psychosocial adjustment and sexual function were found among the three groups. Additional analyses suggested that women who required therapeutic abortions to terminate pregnancies (existing at their diagnosis or occurring while they were receiving cancer treatment) had greater problems in psychosocial adjustment and sexual function than those who did not require abortions.

This study investigates two aspects of tropical reef fish mating systems: the prevalence of paternal care in those species that exhibit some form of parental care, and the evolutionary stability of simultaneous hermaphroditism. Studies of three species of tropical reef fishes from the Gulf of California were used to investigate these two different types of mating systems. Two species of demersal egg guarders with paternal care, Malacoctenus hubbsi and Abudefduf troschelii, were studied to determine the importance of a male's mating status (the number of eggs in his territory) in regard to female choice of mates. In both species, females did not base their choice of mates on the number of eggs in the male's territory, males increased their level of parental care with increasing egg number, and egg survivorship where estimated was independent of brood size. These results corroborate, and offer the first experimental field verification of a crucial assumption of a minimal-care hypothesis proposed a decade ago by Williams (1975). Male reproductive success was studied in greater detail in one species, M. hubbsi. Territory parameters, rather than male size, were the major determinants of male reproductive success. This independence relative to male size was attributed to the unpredictability of good future territories. In Serranus fasciatus all individuals begin reproduction as simultaneous hermaphrodites, but lose female function at large sizes to become males. Males obtain disproportionate reproductive success by maintaining harems of hermaphrodites and defending them from adjacent males. These harems are similar to those found in some sequentially hermaphroditic species. Hermaphrodites obtain most of their reproductive success through female function by spawning with a male, but also engage in an alternative male strategy--streaking on pair spawns--to obtain some male reproductive success. This small amount of male reproductive success by hermaphrodites appears to stabilize simultaneous hermaphroditism with most resources allocated to female function. Facultative alternative male mating strategies in hermaphroditic individuals joins spawning reciprocation as the only known behavioral strategies that provide evolutionary stability for simultaneous hermaphroditic individuals in populations of tropical reef fishes.

Proximal and Distal Indirect Influences on Adolescent Sexual Activity and Post Risky Sexual Behaviors INTRODUCTION: Prior literature has revealed a correlation between adolescent sexual debut and parenting behaviors. However, most existing studies has only focused on parental monitoring and control. This limitation, in addition to small, cross-sectional studies, has resulted in inconsistent and limited findings. These gaps are addressed in this present paper by investigating how family connectedness contributes to the age of sexual debut. It is hypothesized that adolescents who are 13 years of age and have a lack of family connectedness engage in high-risk behaviors sooner than their 13-year-old peers with greater family connectedness. METHODS: Data were drawn from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. This paper focused on adolescents born in the year 1983 who had no sexual debut at baseline. Those selected were initially interviewed for baseline family connectedness and prospectively followed up to adulthood. Family connectedness was measured using five aspects: shared activities, parent-adolescent communication, parent admiration, parental support and the presence of family dinners. SAS 9.4 was used to perform survival analyses to examine the rate of teenage sexual debut by family connectedness. RESULTS: Findings suggest that family connectedness, specifically weekly family dinners and parent-child communication were significant familial factors that delayed adolescent sexual behavior. The hazards ratio of having an adolescent sexual debut at any time for an individual who had family activity at least once a week was 0.91 (95CI: 0.74, 1.14), having weekly family dinner (HR 0.70; 95CI: 0.53, 0.93), communication with parents (HR 0.78; 95CI: 0.68, 0.91), perceived parental support (HR 1.04; 95CI:0.91, 1.02), think highly of parents (HR 1.08; 95CI 0.93, 1.25). CONCLUSION: This study attempted to observe other factors outside of the parental monitor and control that could contribute to adolescent sexual activity. However, family connectedness was found to be a protective factor only among family weekly dinner and parent-child communitcation. Public health policy and interventions aimed at family connectedness alone will unlikely influence adolescent sexual behaviors. Therefore, other factors along with family connectedness should be further assessed to discover its true correlation on sexual debut.

This study examined whether cultural values and gender moderate the association between mother-adolescent communication about sex and adolescents’ sexual behavior/intention to engage in sex and condom use attitudes. One hundred and fifty Latino adolescents completed an anonymous survey that measured sexual health outcomes, mother-child communication, and cultural factors. In bivariate analyses, adolescents with a higher sense of familismo had a more positive attitude towards using condoms and more acculturated Latino adolescents were less likely to speak to their mothers about pre-coital or coital sexual topics. Females spoke more about sex with their mother, compared to males. Traditional gender roles moderated the relation between mother-adolescent communication about sex and condom use attitudes. Acculturation, familismo nor gender significantly moderated the relationship between communication about sex and sexual health outcomes. Further research should explore whether certain cultural factors influence parents to talk to their adolescent about specific topics related to sex.

Master of Science / Department of Psychological Sciences / Gary Brase / An evolutionary perspective suggests that changes in resource availability produce changes in fertility decisions and desires, and that these adaptive mechanisms are sensitive to sociocultural factors that act more proximally to the decision-maker. The current work systematically investigates several factors as potential predictors of fertility decisions at the level of the individual decision-maker in a three-study design, adding to an existing literature of fertility decision-making that has focused on demographic-level shifts. In study 1 (N=228, 69.3% female, average age=25.6), study 2 (N=232, 72.4% female, average age=24.7), and study 3 (N=333, 67% female, average age=25.1) data was collected from a general Internet sample and a student sample. Findings suggest that high resource variability produces insecure romantic attachment, which is associated with increased fertility plans and desires. Further, this work indicates that fertility decision making mechanisms are sensitive to sociocultural factors, particularly gender roles and identities, cultural pressures to become a parent, mothering expectations, and relationship status. These findings suggest that demographic-level changes in fertility can be understood, with strong predictive models, at the individual-level of analysis.