Why multiple sexual partners?

摘要

Multiple sexual partnerships-particularly overlapping or concurrent partnerships-by both men and women lie at the root of the generalised epidemic of HIV in southern and eastern Africa. Accordingly, earlier this year the UNAIDS regional office for eastern and southern Africa, along with the World Bank and Harvard University, held a technical meeting and issued recommendations about communication interventions to address multiple sexual partnerships. Understanding why people have multiple partnerships is key to efforts to change behaviour, with the realisation that behaviours range from polygamy itself, to longer-term quasi-polygamy (sometimes described as having a "small house"), to sporadic sexual encounters. A superficial view is that men are driven by uncontrollable sexual urges and the cultural legacy of polygamy, while women are trapped by economic necessity and male domination-a daunting prospect for behavioural change. Although this picture undoubtedly reflects some truth, an emerging and rich sexual ethnographic literature, notably including aten-country study from South Africa's The Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication, reveals considerable individual autonomy and basis for interventions to change behaviour.