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The role of ‘pimping’ in the mediation of transactional sex at a university campus in Zimbabwe Tsitsi B Masvawure
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University of Pretoria, Centre for the Study of AIDS, Hatfield Campus , Private Bag X20, Hatfield, 0028, South Africa Published online: 22 Jun 2011.
To cite this article: Tsitsi B Masvawure (2011) The role of ‘pimping’ in the mediation of transactional sex at a university campus in Zimbabwe, African Journal of AIDS Research, 10:2, 165-171, DOI: 10.2989/16085906.2011.593379 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2989/16085906.2011.593379
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ISSN 1608–5906 EISSN 1727–9445 doi: 10.2989/16085906.2011.593379
The role of ‘pimping’ in the mediation of transactional sex at a university campus in Zimbabwe Tsitsi B Masvawure
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University of Pretoria, Centre for the Study of AIDS, Hatfield Campus, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa Author’s e-mail: [email protected] The article focuses on a very specific form of transactional sex that exists at a university campus in Zimbabwe, which students refer to as ‘pimping.’ Drawing extensively on the specific experiences of a male student pimp, the article demonstrates that, in practice, transactional sex takes different forms and is not always confined to two parties (namely, a woman and a man). In this case, ‘pimp-mediated’ transactional sex introduces a third person — the pimp — into what is traditionally understood to be a relationship between the two parties and, in the process, dramatically transforms the social obligations that define this particular social relation. A major transformation that occurs in pimp-mediated transactional sex is that it makes the pimps, rather than the women, the central people in these relationships. This, I argue, makes transactional sex more efficient and potentially increases the female participants’ vulnerability to HIV infection. Keywords: gender, HIV/AIDS, men, sexual behaviour, sexuality, sex work, social anthropology, southern Africa, women
Introduction Numerous studies on HIV and AIDS in Africa have demonstrated the many ways that limited material resources create conditions of extreme vulnerability for women and girls (e.g. Luke, 2005; Kaufman & Stavrou, 2004; Pisani, 2008). These studies have argued that, when faced with economic challenges, many women will resort to transactional sex. The latter refers to ‘non-marital sexual relations’ in which cash and other goods are exchanged (Hunter, 2002). Transactional sex is often differentiated from prostitution or sex work, with many scholars arguing that transactional sex is a less formal arrangement in that the price of sex is often not clearly stated, neither is it agreed upon in advance (Swidler & Watkins, 2007; Bene & Merten, 2008). Epstein (2007, p. 76) further suggests that the goods exchanged in transactional sex are “of less importance than the social connections and relationships they signify.” While in practice transactional sex and prostitution or sex work may overlap, in this article I deliberately maintain the distinction between the two. Transactional sex relationships in Zimbabwe are popularly referred to as ‘sugar daddy’ relationships and ‘small houses.’ The former term is typically used to describe intergenerational relationships between older well-off men and much younger women who are often of school-going age (Silberschmidt & Rasch, 2001; Luke, 2005). It is also often argued that these intergenerational relationships largely involve the exchange of sex and money (Chatterji, Murray, London & Anglewicz, 2004). Some studies have also noted the existence of ‘sugar-mommy’ relationships, in which young men have sexual relationships, often with older and wealthy women, in exchange for material goods
(Kuate-Defo, 2004). However, it must be noted that not all transactional sex relationships entail huge age differentials between the parties involved (Moore, Biddlecom & Zulu, 2007; Wyrod, Fritz, Woelk, Jain, Kellogg, Chirowodza et al., 2010) nor do they always entail a straightforward exchange of sex and money (Leclerc-Madlala, 2003; Masvawure, 2010). ‘Small houses,’ on the other hand, refer to long-term extramarital relationships that married men have. These relationships are termed small houses because they mimic legal marriages in that the parties involved often have children together and the men provide long-term financial support, while the women provide domestic support. Zimbabwe’s adult HIV prevalence has declined from 29% in 1997 to the current estimate of 15.6% (Gregson, Gonese, Hallett, Taruberekera, Hargrove, Lopman et al., 2010; Halperin, Mugurungi, Hallett, Muchini, Campbell, Magure et al., 2011). Despite this rather impressive decline, young women aged 15–24 years continue to account for the bulk of new HIV infections in the country and remain disproportionately affected by the epidemic. This is in part due to the fact that young women tend to date older men, who are likely to be already HIV-infected and to be involved in multiple concurrent sexual relationships (Central Statistical Office [CSO] & Macro International, 2007). Other studies suggest that the power differentials that characterise transactional sex relationships limit young women’s ability to enforce condom use, thereby increasing their risk for HIV infection (Dunkle, Jewkes, Brown, Gray, McIntyre & Harlow, 2004; Iversen, 2005). Research conducted in Zimbabwe points to low rates of condom use, with only 42% of young women aged 15–24 reporting condom use at last instance of higherrisk sex, compared to 68% among their male counterparts (CSO & Macro International, 2007).
African Journal of AIDS Research is co-published by NISC (Pty) Ltd and Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
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This article focuses on a very specific form of transactional sex that exists at a university campus in Zimbabwe and which students refer to as ‘pimping.’ The first aim of the article is to show that, in practice, transactional sex takes different forms and is not always confined to two parties — namely, a woman and a man. In this case, ‘pimp-mediated’ transactional sex introduces a third person — the pimp — into what is traditionally understood to be a relationship between the two parties and thus fundamentally transforms the practice. The second aim is to investigate the specific ways that the presence of the pimp transforms transactional sex relationships, especially with regard to the social obligations that such relationships often entail.
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Methods This article is derived from a larger ethnographic study conducted between August 2006 and December 2007 at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) in Harare. This study examined the ‘sexual cultures’ of female and male students at the institution and the implications of these for the transmission of HIV. Over a period of 16 months, I conducted numerous in-depth interviews and had numerous informal conversations with a core group of 40 students (20 females and 20 males). I also spent considerable time, during the day and in the evenings, among these students. This enabled me to observe students in their day-to-day interactions with peers and as they went about their daily activities. This article draws specifically on data obtained from unstructured in-depth interviews that I conducted with three male students and one female student, all of whom were involved, to varying degrees, in pimp-mediated transactional sex. The interviews ranged from 30 minutes to two hours in length and all were held on the campus at venues chosen by the informants. I also draw on informal conversations about the phenomenon, which I had with female and male students who were in my core sample. I obtained permission from the students concerned to audio record the interviews and assured them of anonymity and confidentiality. Consequently, I use pseudonyms throughout, and have also left out potential identifiers, such as the students’ actual degree programmes. To further protect the identities of my informants, I encrypted and password-protected all audio files as well as used pseudonyms in the transcripts. The three male students interviewed were in their third (and final) year of study, and only one, referred to here as Jabu, acknowledged that he acted as a pimp. The other two male students, referred to as Steve and Mandla, denied ever being pimps but claimed to have ‘in-depth’ information on the practice because they knew male students who were pimps. The female student discussed in this article had firsthand knowledge of pimp-mediated transactional sex as she claimed that she had been ‘pimped.’ My access to these students was made possible through the help of two key informants: a final-year male student who first made me aware that such a practice existed at the institution, and who consequently introduced me to the student pimp discussed here. The second key informant was a female student I met at a church function on campus, who later introduced me
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to the only female student, whom I refer to as Itayi, in the sample. The small sample is largely due to the fact that the practice of ‘pimping’ is highly stigmatised at the university, hence only a few students were willing to talk to me about it. In fact, I only learnt about the phenomenon 14 months into my fieldwork, and even then it was wholly by chance. A friend’s brother (also a student at the institution) told me of the practice after he discovered that a couple of his classmates were pimps. Once I started asking around, I soon realised that many students at the institution were aware of the practice but were simply not talking about it publicly. Although the small sample is a limitation and makes it impossible to generalise the findings, I am much more interested in drawing attention to the existence of an unusual phenomenon — pimping — and explaining how it works, so as to inform future research agendas as well as actual HIV interventions. All interviews were conducted in English (although most students regularly used some chiShona words when they spoke) and were transcribed verbatim. The data analysis was inductive and iterative. I began by sorting through the data and identifying themes, usually within a few hours of conducting an interview. I then relied on subsequent interviews and informal conversations with various students to explore interesting themes further as well as to clarify and verify the information I had. Thematic content analysis continued well after fieldwork, and here I paid particular attention to similarities and differences in students’ descriptions of pimping. The use of several informants is one strategy that qualitative researchers use to verify the trustworthiness of information received (see Robson, 1993). The setting The University of Zimbabwe (henceforth UZ) was established in 1955 by the then colonial government of Rhodesia (Gelfand, 1978). At the time of the research it had approximately 14 000 undergraduate students and 2 000 postgraduate students (Terry, Mhloyi, Masvaure & Adlis, 2006). Less than 35% of the student population were females. UZ is a residential campus and can accommodate at least 3 000 students in 11 residences, nine of which are located on the campus and two located in the city centre. UZ is also the oldest university in the country and was the only university in the country for over three decades. There are now 12 universities (7 public and 4 private) in Zimbabwe. This study was conducted at a time when Zimbabwe was experiencing a major economic and political crisis. When data collection began in August 2006, the country’s annual inflation rate had just surpassed 1 000%; by the time I ended fieldwork in December 2007, the inflation rate was an estimated 215 000% (Hanke & Kwok, 2009). Life on campus was therefore an ongoing struggle for survival for students, many of whom were dependent on financial support from the government. Unfortunately, the amounts that students were receiving from the government were barely enough to cover basic tuition, let alone living expenses. In 2006, for instance, resident students were charged 40 million
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Zimbabwean dollars (then the parallel market equivalent of US$27) for accommodation and food for the semester. In February 2007, this amount shot up to 365 million Zimbabwean dollars (~US$19 at the prevailing street rate) and yet students only received stipends of one million Zimbabwean dollars (i.e. less than US$1) for a 15-week semester. This situation was further compounded by severe shortages of cash as many people, students included, were often unable to access money from their banks for days on end. The majority of students that I interacted with during my fieldwork were therefore involved in some incomegenerating activity. These activities ranged from selling snacks (mainly fruits and popcorn) to offering services, such as CD burning and ‘dealing in forex’ by buying and selling foreign currency (mostly American dollars, the British pound, the South African rand and the Botswana pula) at a profit. Even then, many resident students were going without regular meals, often subsisting on bread alone. Consequently, in 2006, university authorities decided to solve this problem by making meals compulsory for all resident students. This meant that all students who secured on-campus accommodation for the semester paid for their accommodation and meals in advance. The success of this policy, however, was short-lived, as the quality and quantity of meals quickly deteriorated due to a combination of factors, key of which were hyperinflation and pricecontrol-induced food shortages. One morning in June 2007, students were confronted with locked doors when they went for breakfast: food supplies had run out and the university had run out of funds to purchase new stock. Academically, life was no better for students either. During the first semester in 2006, lectures were held intermittently because lecturers were on strike for inflation-adjusted and more-competitive salaries. As it was, lecturers were among the poorest-paid professionals in the country, with professors earning as little as US$50 per month (Gaidzanwa, 2007). Many students thus spent most of the first semester with very little to do. The phenomenon of pimping should therefore be understood within this broader socioeconomic context. Findings and discussion An overview of pimp-mediated transactional sex at UZ Holsopple (1999, p. 47) defines a pimp as “any man or woman who induces, promotes and profits from the prostitution of women or children.” Although I do not consider female students who are involved in transactional sex to be prostitutes, Holsopple’s (1999) definition is apt because the male students I discuss here benefitted directly from their female counterparts’ involvement in sexual-economic exchanges. I will also show in the discussion that the male students in question induced, promoted and profited from their female counterparts’ involvement in transactional sex. However, in contrast to the pimps who are commonly described in the literature on prostitution and sex work, the pimps that I discuss here did not appear to ‘own’ or have any ‘claim’ over the female students that they worked with. As such, the relationship between the female participant
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and the pimp, though still unequal, tended to be relatively less violent and less coercive. In essence, pimping (or pimp-mediated transactional sex as I prefer to call it) at the institution worked in the following ways: a male student facilitated a relationship between a ‘big dhara’ and one or more female students. Briefly, a big dhara is a term that students at UZ use to refer to older, wealthy men who come to the institution in search of female students to date (see Masvawure, 2010). The term dhara is derived from the Shona word mudhara, which means ‘older man.’ Therefore, the term ‘big dhara’ literally translates to ‘big older man.’ The word ‘big’ in this case refers to these men’s portly physical statures as well as to their perceived wealth, while the ‘mudhara’ part refers to the men’s older ages. In pimp-mediated transactional sex, female students were expected to provide the big dharas with a variety of services, which included, but were not limited to, companionship and sex. The pimp was then paid for his role in facilitating the relationship as well as for managing future outings and handling all communication between a big dhara and a female student. This article is primarily based on the experiences of Jabu, a male student pimp. Jabu claimed that he had been ‘supplying’ some of his big dharas with female students for over two years. He also claimed that he had as many as 27 female students that he ‘marketed’ to various big dharas in the city. When I mentioned this number to the other two male students in the sample, Steve and Mandla, they indicated that this was only possible among the more established pimps. Steve and Mandla were also of the view that the majority of male students involved in pimping dealt with much smaller numbers of female students. Steve explained: ‘When you get to those numbers, that is, ten or more, you are actually like [one of] the big guys. Most of the time you only have like two people. Two or three. Maybe four.’ This seems to suggest some sort of pimping hierarchy at the institution, with a male student like Jabu located in the upper echelons of such a hierarchy. The quote above further suggests that the majority of pimps had less than five female students that they might be ‘marketing’ at a given time. The 27 female students that Jabu said he was marketing included classmates as well as female students that he had randomly approached on campus. Jabu explained the latter strategy as follows: ‘Just look at a person’s face and you [will] know that this person might be game for this. You take a gamble [and] go up to her. She might slap you. That’s a risk you take. You explain what’s in it for her so [that] she realises how much she can make. If she says no then you approach someone else. Watch a person for five minutes and you [will] learn quite a lot.’ Male students acting as pimps commonly recruited female students that they knew well, such as classmates. This recruitment could be overt or covert, as this quote by Steve shows: ‘Sometimes you can just tell. When you are hunting, you find the weakest prey. Sometimes you can just
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take from a group of friends without really saying you need to do so and so. Sometimes, you simply know people who usually go out. Just like that.’ The ‘weakest prey’ in this instance, referred not only to economically needy female students but also to those female students who partied a lot. Such students were said to be much more open to participating in pimp-mediated transactional sex. The female student in the sample, Itayi, had been ‘pimped’ without her knowledge. She had only found this out months later after she tried to end her relationship with the big dhara. She discovered, then, that her male friends had lied that one of them was related to the big dhara. She also discovered that her friends had been receiving payment from the big dhara for their role in setting up the relationship and that this payment had stopped when she ended the relationship. In the excerpt that follows, Itayi described her experience of being pimped, starting off with how she met her big dhara, what the relationship involved and how she eventually found out that she had been ‘pimped’: ‘One day they told me that ‘someone’ wanted to meet me. They claimed that this person had seen my photo from one of them and he thought I was good-looking. When I told them that I was not interested, they assured me that they knew this person well, that he had lots of money and that they would be present when he visited, so that I wouldn’t be alone with him. They told me that this guy had even given them some money to buy me some takeaways. Each time they would visit [my room] they would bring me some takeaways and say that the money came from this person. Eventually, I agreed to meet him and a few days later my friends showed up in my room with this old man. He was old! Maybe fifty or even sixty years old! He would buy me things or send me money through my friends [i.e. the male students] and we would go out and have fun. It was only after I decided to stop seeing this guy that I realised that my friends had lied to me. I became suspicious when they kept pressuring me not to end the relationship. Eventually they admitted that they were getting paid by the old man for having hooked [us up]. If I ended the relationship, they would no longer receive any money from him. I was hurt when I discovered this and, for a while, I stopped hanging out with these guys.’ While it was not clear in my discussions with students just how prevalent pimping was at the institution, all the students I interviewed, however, including other students in the core sample, were aware of its existence and most claimed that they knew of someone who was involved in it. Jabu indicated that he personally knew 20 male students who were pimps and he attributed this to the harsh economic situation in the country: ‘If you had asked me this question a few months ago, I would have said that [the practice] is not common.’ He noted that pimping was ‘easy money’ and that the ‘demand’ for such services was high. Jabu also explained that he had tried to deal in foreign currency on the parallel market, as many Zimbabweans were doing, but had found it time-consuming and dangerous, given
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that the police were constantly on the lookout for illegal foreign currency transactions. As far as he was concerned, pimping was much ‘safer’ and more lucrative. Both Steve and Mandla, on the other hand, mentioned that most male students who engaged in pimping did so in order to meet their basic subsistence needs. The male students mentioned two ways that one could become a pimp: one could be approached, at random, by a big dhara or one could be approached by big dharas that one knew. Jabu, for instance, had a brother who was a politician and this gave him relatively easy access to politicians and businessmen. The latter make up the bulk of big dharas. Jabu claimed that he had six government officials that he was supplying with female students. In contrast, Mandla stated that he had been randomly approached by a big dhara who wanted assistance accessing female students at the institution. Mandla stated that he had refused and insisted that he had never participated in pimping. His account below illustrates how easy it is for male students to become pimps: ‘[I was given a ride by a guy driving a] Merc [Mercedes Benz]. When we got to campus this guy asked me if I could arrange some girls for him. He gave me his cell [phone] number and said I should call him once I got someone. He also said that I would be handsomely rewarded [for this service]. I was not interested and so I never called him back. But that’s just how easy it is to get into this business. These guys are looking for USAs [an acronym that stands for university spinsters association and which is used to refer to female students at the institution].’ The students that I spoke to were of the view that it was more common for big dharas, rather than male students, to initiate the pimping relationship. Others, however, suggested that pimps could introduce their male friends to the practice. Although pimping seemed to be more commonly practiced by male students, most students were of the view that female students could also be pimps; they simply did not know any who were. According to Jabu, anyone could be a pimp as long as they were sociable and willing to ‘shelve [their] conscience [away].Your conscience can’t come along in this business.’ All three male students — Jabu, Mandla and Steve — and the other male student informants were much aware of the ‘morally’ problematic nature of their dealings even though they usually tried to downplay this by pointing out that pimping was lucrative for both the female and male students involved. Pimping as a lucrative business venture Throughout the interview, Jabu consistently used business terms to describe what he did: ‘I like to refer to it as commodity broking. It’s marketing really…business, nothing more, nothing less. I’m the business person here [and] I believe that I should make the most money, but that’s not usually the case anyway. But I make quite an amount. I am not complaining.’ He also cast his role as that of a business person who takes advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. In the excerpt above, Jabu suggested that female students
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were ‘commodities’ and that he was merely ‘marketing’ them to a ready audience. He also alluded to the highly lucrative nature of the practice for both male and female students and even suggested that the female students involved made more money than he did. During one interview, Jabu said he had recently received a gift of a video camera, which he estimated was valued at US$400, from a big dhara who had been on a trip to China: ‘Those guys [big dharas] are a bit more generous. Not overgenerous, but he [sic] wouldn’t mind parting with some stuff, like 10 million [then the equivalent of US$100 on the parallel market]. To them it doesn’t mean much. I have made in excess of thirty, forty, fifty million [i.e. US$300–500] from some transactions.’ Considering that most lecturers at the institution were making much less than US$200 per month, Jabu was therefore making a lot of money from pimping. It was also not unusual, as described in the next section, for payment to take non-monetary forms. The other students in the sample corroborated the lucrative nature of the practice and they mentioned that ownership of multiple and expensive cellphones and clothes was often enough evidence that one was a pimp. According to Mandla: ‘If you see a particular male student who was always broke now suddenly wearing designer labels and always having the latest cellphones, chances are [that] he is a pimp. That is a sure sign.’ ‘Ties that bind’? Interrogating the pimp–big dhara relationship What then do pimps bring to transactional sex? At first glance, it appears that the pimp is no more than a mere middleman, which then begs the question: Why are the pimp’s services retained beyond the initial contact between a big dhara and female student? Further examination, however, clearly shows that the pimps were central in these relationships. They managed transactional sex relationships on behalf of big dharas and ensured that complications did not arise in the relationships. For instance, the pimps offered ready alibis, especially where spouses were concerned. Jabu explained: ‘If he [i.e. the big dhara] was to have a personal girlfriend, that would automatically entail personal links: phone calls and all, which usually lead to complications. The bulk of these guys are married men, you see. [But] if I am to call him at midnight and the wife answers the phone, I just say — Maiguru [i.e. a term of respect used to refer to an older brother’s wife], may I talk to mudhara [a term that denotes an older person]? That’s how simple it is. No suspicion, nothing. It takes away the issue of personal attachment. It makes it easier for guys who want to maintain a clean sheet, if I may call it that, with their missus [wife] at home.’ The literature shows that men who engage in transactional sex tend to be married and that most do not want their wives to find out about their extramarital affairs (see Hunter, 2002; Hirsch, Wardlow, Smith, Phinney, Parikh & Nathanson, 2009). Hence, by handling all communication between the
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female students and big dharas, the pimps greatly minimised the chances of big dharas’ wives finding out, as the excerpt above suggests. This particular role therefore made pimps indispensable as far as big dharas were concerned. The students in the sample explained that female students who participated in pimp-mediated transactional sex were often aware that they, in contrast to the pimps, were dispensable and could easily be replaced if they were perceived to be getting too difficult and demanding. The second role that the pimps played was to facilitate the big dharas’ easier access to female students. This is because, unlike in ‘standard’ sugar-daddy relationships, the big dharas did not have to personally ‘hunt’ for and coax young women into dating them. Instead, the big dhara only had to make a phone call to a pimp and specify the kind of female partner that he wanted and when he wanted to see her. It was thus the responsibility of the pimp to find the ‘right’ female student for the big dhara. Consider this description by Jabu: ‘Mr X calls [me and says] — Young man, I intend to travel to Mutare [a picturesque resort town in the northeast, which shares a border with Mozambique] over the weekend. I would like someone to accompany me and keep me company. I will be going on Friday and coming back Sunday. Can you find someone? I would like someone who is a social bug, someone who can talk, etcetera — In my mind I know my person already.’ The third role that the pimps played was ‘preparing’ the female students for their outings with big dharas. ‘Preparing’ a female student included explaining what was expected of her during an outing, as well as ensuring that she was appropriately attired for whatever outing she was required for. Itayi, the female student in the sample, for instance, indicated that her big dhara often gave her money (via her male friends) to have her hair done in a specific way. Her big dhara also gave her money to buy clothes for specific functions. Preparing a female student also meant explaining to her that she might be expected to provide sexual services. This was especially the case when big dharas requested female company for out-of-town excursions. Jabu noted that some big dharas could be ‘demanding’ — in the sense that they were often men of influence (politicians and business executives) who are used to having things done their way. Such big dharas were said to be unwilling to use condoms. Jabu indicated that he always tried to supply such big dharas with ‘assertive’ female students who could negotiate for condom use. What is especially fascinating about pimp-mediated transactional sex is that, unlike in standard transactional sex where the relationship between an older man and young woman is central, here the relationship between the pimp and big dhara is paramount. This relationship is maintained and strengthened through the forging of fictive familial ties that enable pimps and big dharas to relate to each other as a younger and older brother or a nephew and uncle would. From the reports given by the three male students in the sample, big dharas seemed happy enough to play the role of older brother/uncle in these relationships, as indicated by the gifts that they regularly gave the pimps, of which
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cellphones were a big part. While cellphones were important for communication purposes, the fact that they were constantly upgraded to the latest models suggests that they performed more than just a utilitarian function. Ownership of expensive phones and fancy clothes were mentioned by the male students as some of the things that gave away one’s identity as a pimp. In addition to these gifts, invitations to parties and outings were some of the non-monetary ways that fictive affinal relationships (i.e. relationships not actually connected by kinship or marriage) were strengthened. These parties could be very simple affairs in which big dharas treated pimps and their friends (sometimes even the pimps’ girlfriends) to food and drink or they could be very formal affairs in which big dharas entertained business colleagues. A male student claimed that he had attended a number of such parties after being invited by friends who were pimps: ‘I know of male students who are involved in this practice just for the free beer and [the] free food that they get when they hang out with these big dharas.’ Business parties, on the other hand, provided opportunities for pimps to network with influential people, such as potential employers. The male students I spoke to claimed to know other male students who had found employment or vacation jobs because of their links to big dharas. Other ‘gifts’ that sustained the brotherly bond between pimps and big dharas took the form of outings to popular tourist destinations. A few pimps were said to have even travelled abroad as a result of the networks they had established through their interactions with big dharas. Anthropologists have long shown that gifts create ‘ties that bind.’ Rubin (1975), for instance, noted that in those transactions in which women are the transacted item, it is the men who do the transacting who are linked or ‘tied.’ This seems to be the case with pimping at the UZ campus; here, the social obligations of the transactional relationship are primarily between the big dharas and pimps. It is pertinent at this point to address the question of why big dharas willingly invest so much, financially, in these relationships. It is clear that pimps were privy to information that, if made public, could be detrimental to the reputations of the big dharas involved. It therefore seems that part of the remuneration that the pimps received was for their actual services as well as to prevent them from divulging incriminating details about the big dharas. Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind, as Ashforth (1999) and Hunter (2002) have shown in South Africa, that transactional sex relationships are also about competing for social status and prestige among one’s peers as much as they are about sexual-economic exchanges. My discussions with the three male students in the sample suggest that a second reason that big dharas were willing to invest in the services of a pimp was that the latter made it possible for big dharas to be seen in the company of attractive and intelligent young university women. This, in turn, earned them prestige in their peer groups (see Masvawure, 2010, for an in-depth discussion of what big dharas gain from transactional sex). Students in the study were of the view that female university students, in contrast to high-school girls, were ideal candidates for pimp-mediated transactional sex because of their intelligence, independence and relatively flexible
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schedules. However, as the preceding discussion has shown, the pimps benefit tremendously from this type of transactional sex and it is therefore in their best interest to remain in favour with the various big dharas that they service. Conclusions Implications of pimp-mediated transactional sex for HIV prevention The article has had two aims: first, to show that transactional sex can take a different form from standard transactional sex that typically involves two parties, and, second, to show the specific social obligations that a pimp-mediated sexual transaction involves. Most HIV interventions are based on a fairly static understanding of what constitutes transactional sex — namely, interactions between an older man and a young woman, wherein money and sex are the main things transacted. This article shows that under certain conditions, such as a hyperinflationary economic environment, a third party can become involved in these relationships, and in the process dramatically transform the social obligations that these relationships entail. The university students in the study maintained that pimp-mediated transactional sex had become widespread on the campus because of the harsh economic climate in the country. This article has shown that pimping offered economically needy male students a viable income-generating alternative and that they were willing to use any means necessary to alleviate their poverty. The phenomenon of pimp-mediated transactional sex has many implications for HIV-prevention efforts. First, the presence of a pimp inadvertently makes transactional sex more efficient. For instance, whereas in traditional transactional sex big dharas would have to search for young women to date, in pimp-mediated transactional sex this responsibility is transferred to pimps who have relatively easier access to female students and ensures that big dharas have a large and ever-present group from which they select potential sexual partners. This unlimited access is made possible largely because of the presence of a pimp. Jabu’s experiences, for instance, clearly show that big dharas capitalise on their improved access by requesting different female students for different occasions. Second, the existing literature illustrates that transactional sex is associated with higher-risk sexual practices, particularly low condom use. Pimp-mediated transactional sex presents similar challenges. Male students in the sample noted that the big dharas frequently requested female company for out-of-town excursions. This raises concerns about a female student’s ability to successfully negotiate the use of condoms when she is hundreds of kilometres away and is wholly dependent on the big dhara for transportation back to campus. Jabu was aware that this could be a problem, which is why he made an effort to pair very ‘assertive’ female students with ‘difficult’ big dharas. Despite this, he pointed out that five of the 27 female students in his pool had experienced ‘pregnancy scares’ in the past. Although there is no evidence to link these pregnancy scares directly to relationships with big dharas, they do point to unsafe sexual practices on the part of the female students.
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Third, the data presented here underpins the importance of HIV interventions that specifically target economically needy young men. Women are typically viewed as the economically needy ones and many HIV-prevention programmes are designed to cater for their needs. This study has shown that, in conditions of extreme economic hardship, young men will resort to survival strategies that potentially increase women’s vulnerability to HIV infection. Further research that investigates the presence of pimps in transactional sex is strongly recommended. Future research on the topic should also target big dharas for their perspectives and personal experiences in these relationships, as this could lead to better designed and more relevant HIV interventions. Acknowledgements — Sincere thanks to the Centre for the Study of AIDS (CSA) and the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Pretoria for providing institutional support during my doctoral studies. Special thanks are extended to Isak Niehaus, Mary Crewe and Pierre Brouard for their mentorship. Sincere gratitude to the Health Economics and AIDS Research Division (HEARD) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal for convening the Young Researchers Initiative, through which this paper was written. Special thanks to Flora Cornish for her incisive reading of earlier versions of this paper. Lastly, I remain eternally grateful to the Ford Foundation for funding my doctoral studies. The author — Tsitsi B. Masvawure holds a DPhil in anthropology from the University of Pretoria. Her research interests focus on the intersection of gender, sexuality and HIV, particularly as these relate to youths in southern Africa. Her doctoral dissertation examined how ‘campus sexual cultures’ shaped masculinities and femininities at a university campus in Zimbabwe and the implications of this for HIV-prevention interventions.
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Denhe, K. & Mugurungi, O. (2010) HIV decline in Zimbabwe due to reductions in risky sex? Evidence from a comprehensive epidemiological review. International Journal of Epidemiology 39(5), pp. 1311–1323. Halperin, D.T., Mugurungi, O., Hallett, T.B., Muchini, B., Campbell, B., Magure, T., Benedikt, C. & Gregson, S. (2011) A surprising prevention success: Why did the HIV epidemic decline in Zimbabwe? PLoS Medicine 8(2), pp. 1–7. Hanke, S.H. & Kwok, A.K.F. (2009) On the measurement of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation. Cato Journal 29(2), pp. 353–364. Hirsch, J.S., Wardlow, H., Smith, D.J., Phinney, M., Parikh, S. & Nathanson, C.A. (2009) The Secret: Love, Marriage and HIV. Nashville, Tennessee, Vanderbilt University Press. Holsopple, K. (1999) Pimps, tricks and feminists. Women’s Studies Quarterly 27(1/2), pp. 47–52. Hunter, M. (2002) The materiality of everyday sex: thinking beyond prostitution. Africa Studies 61(1), pp. 99–120. Iversen, A.B. (2005) Transactional aspects of sexual relations in Francistown, Botswana. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift/Norwegian Journal of Geography 59(1), pp. 48–54. Kaufman, C.E. & Stavrou, S.E. (2004) ‘Bus fare please’: The economics of sex and gifts among young people in urban South Africa. Culture, Health and Sexuality 6(5), pp. 377–391. Kuate-Defo, B. (2004) Young people’s relationships with sugar daddies and sugar mummies: What do we know and what do we need to know? African Journal of Reproductive Health 8(2), pp. 13–37. Leclerc-Madlala, S. (2003) Transactional sex and the pursuit of modernity. Social Dynamics 29(2), pp. 213–233. Luke, N. (2005) Confronting the ‘sugar daddy’ stereotype: age and economic asymmetries and risky sexual behaviour in urban Kenya. International Family Planning Perspectives 31(1), pp. 6–14. Masvawure, T.B. (2010) ‘I just need to be flashy on campus’: Female students and transactional sex at a university in Zimbabwe. Culture, Health and Sexuality 12(8), pp. 857–870. Moore, A., Biddlecom, A.E. & Zulu, E.M. (2007) Prevalence and meanings of exchange of money or gifts for sex in unmarried adolescents’ sexual relationships in sub-Saharan Africa. African Journal of Reproductive Health 11(3), pp. 44–61. Pisani, E. (2008) The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS. London, Granta Books. Robson, C. (1993) Real World Research: A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner-Researchers. Oxford and Cambridge, Blackwell. Rubin, G. (1975) The traffic in women: notes on the ‘political economy’ of sex. In: Reiter, R.R. (ed.) Towards an Anthropology of Women. New York, Monthly Review Press. Silberschmidt, M. & Rasch, V. (2001) Adolescent girls, illegal abortions and ‘sugar daddies’ in Dar es Salaam: vulnerable victims and active social agents. Social Science and Medicine 52(12), pp. 1815–1826. Swidler, A. & Watkins, S.C. (2007) Ties of Dependence: AIDS and Transactional Sex in Rural Malawi. Working Paper CCPR-2007025. Los Angeles, California, California Center for Population Research. Terry, P., Mhloyi, M., Masvaure, T. & Adlis, S. (2006) An examination of knowledge, attitudes and beliefs related to HIV/ AIDS prevention in Zimbabwean university students: comparing intervention programme participants and non-participants. International Journal of Infectious Diseases 10(1), pp. 38–46. Wyrod, R., Fritz, K., Woelk, G., Jain, S., Kellogg, T., Chirowodza, A., Makumbe, K. & McFarland, W. (2010) Beyond sugar daddies: intergenerational sex and AIDS in urban Zimbabwe. AIDS and Behavior (2010) [published online, 2 September].
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The role of ‘pimping’ in the mediation of transactional sex at a university campus in Zimbabwe Tsitsi B Masvawure
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To cite this article: Tsitsi B Masvawure (2011) The role of ‘pimping’ in the mediation of transactional sex at a university campus in Zimbabwe, African Journal of AIDS Research, 10:2, 165-171, DOI: 10.2989/16085906.2011.593379 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2989/16085906.2011.593379
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ISSN 1608–5906 EISSN 1727–9445 doi: 10.2989/16085906.2011.593379
The role of ‘pimping’ in the mediation of transactional sex at a university campus in Zimbabwe Tsitsi B Masvawure
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University of Pretoria, Centre for the Study of AIDS, Hatfield Campus, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa Author’s e-mail: [email protected] The article focuses on a very specific form of transactional sex that exists at a university campus in Zimbabwe, which students refer to as ‘pimping.’ Drawing extensively on the specific experiences of a male student pimp, the article demonstrates that, in practice, transactional sex takes different forms and is not always confined to two parties (namely, a woman and a man). In this case, ‘pimp-mediated’ transactional sex introduces a third person — the pimp — into what is traditionally understood to be a relationship between the two parties and, in the process, dramatically transforms the social obligations that define this particular social relation. A major transformation that occurs in pimp-mediated transactional sex is that it makes the pimps, rather than the women, the central people in these relationships. This, I argue, makes transactional sex more efficient and potentially increases the female participants’ vulnerability to HIV infection. Keywords: gender, HIV/AIDS, men, sexual behaviour, sexuality, sex work, social anthropology, southern Africa, women
Introduction Numerous studies on HIV and AIDS in Africa have demonstrated the many ways that limited material resources create conditions of extreme vulnerability for women and girls (e.g. Luke, 2005; Kaufman & Stavrou, 2004; Pisani, 2008). These studies have argued that, when faced with economic challenges, many women will resort to transactional sex. The latter refers to ‘non-marital sexual relations’ in which cash and other goods are exchanged (Hunter, 2002). Transactional sex is often differentiated from prostitution or sex work, with many scholars arguing that transactional sex is a less formal arrangement in that the price of sex is often not clearly stated, neither is it agreed upon in advance (Swidler & Watkins, 2007; Bene & Merten, 2008). Epstein (2007, p. 76) further suggests that the goods exchanged in transactional sex are “of less importance than the social connections and relationships they signify.” While in practice transactional sex and prostitution or sex work may overlap, in this article I deliberately maintain the distinction between the two. Transactional sex relationships in Zimbabwe are popularly referred to as ‘sugar daddy’ relationships and ‘small houses.’ The former term is typically used to describe intergenerational relationships between older well-off men and much younger women who are often of school-going age (Silberschmidt & Rasch, 2001; Luke, 2005). It is also often argued that these intergenerational relationships largely involve the exchange of sex and money (Chatterji, Murray, London & Anglewicz, 2004). Some studies have also noted the existence of ‘sugar-mommy’ relationships, in which young men have sexual relationships, often with older and wealthy women, in exchange for material goods
(Kuate-Defo, 2004). However, it must be noted that not all transactional sex relationships entail huge age differentials between the parties involved (Moore, Biddlecom & Zulu, 2007; Wyrod, Fritz, Woelk, Jain, Kellogg, Chirowodza et al., 2010) nor do they always entail a straightforward exchange of sex and money (Leclerc-Madlala, 2003; Masvawure, 2010). ‘Small houses,’ on the other hand, refer to long-term extramarital relationships that married men have. These relationships are termed small houses because they mimic legal marriages in that the parties involved often have children together and the men provide long-term financial support, while the women provide domestic support. Zimbabwe’s adult HIV prevalence has declined from 29% in 1997 to the current estimate of 15.6% (Gregson, Gonese, Hallett, Taruberekera, Hargrove, Lopman et al., 2010; Halperin, Mugurungi, Hallett, Muchini, Campbell, Magure et al., 2011). Despite this rather impressive decline, young women aged 15–24 years continue to account for the bulk of new HIV infections in the country and remain disproportionately affected by the epidemic. This is in part due to the fact that young women tend to date older men, who are likely to be already HIV-infected and to be involved in multiple concurrent sexual relationships (Central Statistical Office [CSO] & Macro International, 2007). Other studies suggest that the power differentials that characterise transactional sex relationships limit young women’s ability to enforce condom use, thereby increasing their risk for HIV infection (Dunkle, Jewkes, Brown, Gray, McIntyre & Harlow, 2004; Iversen, 2005). Research conducted in Zimbabwe points to low rates of condom use, with only 42% of young women aged 15–24 reporting condom use at last instance of higherrisk sex, compared to 68% among their male counterparts (CSO & Macro International, 2007).
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This article focuses on a very specific form of transactional sex that exists at a university campus in Zimbabwe and which students refer to as ‘pimping.’ The first aim of the article is to show that, in practice, transactional sex takes different forms and is not always confined to two parties — namely, a woman and a man. In this case, ‘pimp-mediated’ transactional sex introduces a third person — the pimp — into what is traditionally understood to be a relationship between the two parties and thus fundamentally transforms the practice. The second aim is to investigate the specific ways that the presence of the pimp transforms transactional sex relationships, especially with regard to the social obligations that such relationships often entail.
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Methods This article is derived from a larger ethnographic study conducted between August 2006 and December 2007 at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) in Harare. This study examined the ‘sexual cultures’ of female and male students at the institution and the implications of these for the transmission of HIV. Over a period of 16 months, I conducted numerous in-depth interviews and had numerous informal conversations with a core group of 40 students (20 females and 20 males). I also spent considerable time, during the day and in the evenings, among these students. This enabled me to observe students in their day-to-day interactions with peers and as they went about their daily activities. This article draws specifically on data obtained from unstructured in-depth interviews that I conducted with three male students and one female student, all of whom were involved, to varying degrees, in pimp-mediated transactional sex. The interviews ranged from 30 minutes to two hours in length and all were held on the campus at venues chosen by the informants. I also draw on informal conversations about the phenomenon, which I had with female and male students who were in my core sample. I obtained permission from the students concerned to audio record the interviews and assured them of anonymity and confidentiality. Consequently, I use pseudonyms throughout, and have also left out potential identifiers, such as the students’ actual degree programmes. To further protect the identities of my informants, I encrypted and password-protected all audio files as well as used pseudonyms in the transcripts. The three male students interviewed were in their third (and final) year of study, and only one, referred to here as Jabu, acknowledged that he acted as a pimp. The other two male students, referred to as Steve and Mandla, denied ever being pimps but claimed to have ‘in-depth’ information on the practice because they knew male students who were pimps. The female student discussed in this article had firsthand knowledge of pimp-mediated transactional sex as she claimed that she had been ‘pimped.’ My access to these students was made possible through the help of two key informants: a final-year male student who first made me aware that such a practice existed at the institution, and who consequently introduced me to the student pimp discussed here. The second key informant was a female student I met at a church function on campus, who later introduced me
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to the only female student, whom I refer to as Itayi, in the sample. The small sample is largely due to the fact that the practice of ‘pimping’ is highly stigmatised at the university, hence only a few students were willing to talk to me about it. In fact, I only learnt about the phenomenon 14 months into my fieldwork, and even then it was wholly by chance. A friend’s brother (also a student at the institution) told me of the practice after he discovered that a couple of his classmates were pimps. Once I started asking around, I soon realised that many students at the institution were aware of the practice but were simply not talking about it publicly. Although the small sample is a limitation and makes it impossible to generalise the findings, I am much more interested in drawing attention to the existence of an unusual phenomenon — pimping — and explaining how it works, so as to inform future research agendas as well as actual HIV interventions. All interviews were conducted in English (although most students regularly used some chiShona words when they spoke) and were transcribed verbatim. The data analysis was inductive and iterative. I began by sorting through the data and identifying themes, usually within a few hours of conducting an interview. I then relied on subsequent interviews and informal conversations with various students to explore interesting themes further as well as to clarify and verify the information I had. Thematic content analysis continued well after fieldwork, and here I paid particular attention to similarities and differences in students’ descriptions of pimping. The use of several informants is one strategy that qualitative researchers use to verify the trustworthiness of information received (see Robson, 1993). The setting The University of Zimbabwe (henceforth UZ) was established in 1955 by the then colonial government of Rhodesia (Gelfand, 1978). At the time of the research it had approximately 14 000 undergraduate students and 2 000 postgraduate students (Terry, Mhloyi, Masvaure & Adlis, 2006). Less than 35% of the student population were females. UZ is a residential campus and can accommodate at least 3 000 students in 11 residences, nine of which are located on the campus and two located in the city centre. UZ is also the oldest university in the country and was the only university in the country for over three decades. There are now 12 universities (7 public and 4 private) in Zimbabwe. This study was conducted at a time when Zimbabwe was experiencing a major economic and political crisis. When data collection began in August 2006, the country’s annual inflation rate had just surpassed 1 000%; by the time I ended fieldwork in December 2007, the inflation rate was an estimated 215 000% (Hanke & Kwok, 2009). Life on campus was therefore an ongoing struggle for survival for students, many of whom were dependent on financial support from the government. Unfortunately, the amounts that students were receiving from the government were barely enough to cover basic tuition, let alone living expenses. In 2006, for instance, resident students were charged 40 million
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Zimbabwean dollars (then the parallel market equivalent of US$27) for accommodation and food for the semester. In February 2007, this amount shot up to 365 million Zimbabwean dollars (~US$19 at the prevailing street rate) and yet students only received stipends of one million Zimbabwean dollars (i.e. less than US$1) for a 15-week semester. This situation was further compounded by severe shortages of cash as many people, students included, were often unable to access money from their banks for days on end. The majority of students that I interacted with during my fieldwork were therefore involved in some incomegenerating activity. These activities ranged from selling snacks (mainly fruits and popcorn) to offering services, such as CD burning and ‘dealing in forex’ by buying and selling foreign currency (mostly American dollars, the British pound, the South African rand and the Botswana pula) at a profit. Even then, many resident students were going without regular meals, often subsisting on bread alone. Consequently, in 2006, university authorities decided to solve this problem by making meals compulsory for all resident students. This meant that all students who secured on-campus accommodation for the semester paid for their accommodation and meals in advance. The success of this policy, however, was short-lived, as the quality and quantity of meals quickly deteriorated due to a combination of factors, key of which were hyperinflation and pricecontrol-induced food shortages. One morning in June 2007, students were confronted with locked doors when they went for breakfast: food supplies had run out and the university had run out of funds to purchase new stock. Academically, life was no better for students either. During the first semester in 2006, lectures were held intermittently because lecturers were on strike for inflation-adjusted and more-competitive salaries. As it was, lecturers were among the poorest-paid professionals in the country, with professors earning as little as US$50 per month (Gaidzanwa, 2007). Many students thus spent most of the first semester with very little to do. The phenomenon of pimping should therefore be understood within this broader socioeconomic context. Findings and discussion An overview of pimp-mediated transactional sex at UZ Holsopple (1999, p. 47) defines a pimp as “any man or woman who induces, promotes and profits from the prostitution of women or children.” Although I do not consider female students who are involved in transactional sex to be prostitutes, Holsopple’s (1999) definition is apt because the male students I discuss here benefitted directly from their female counterparts’ involvement in sexual-economic exchanges. I will also show in the discussion that the male students in question induced, promoted and profited from their female counterparts’ involvement in transactional sex. However, in contrast to the pimps who are commonly described in the literature on prostitution and sex work, the pimps that I discuss here did not appear to ‘own’ or have any ‘claim’ over the female students that they worked with. As such, the relationship between the female participant
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and the pimp, though still unequal, tended to be relatively less violent and less coercive. In essence, pimping (or pimp-mediated transactional sex as I prefer to call it) at the institution worked in the following ways: a male student facilitated a relationship between a ‘big dhara’ and one or more female students. Briefly, a big dhara is a term that students at UZ use to refer to older, wealthy men who come to the institution in search of female students to date (see Masvawure, 2010). The term dhara is derived from the Shona word mudhara, which means ‘older man.’ Therefore, the term ‘big dhara’ literally translates to ‘big older man.’ The word ‘big’ in this case refers to these men’s portly physical statures as well as to their perceived wealth, while the ‘mudhara’ part refers to the men’s older ages. In pimp-mediated transactional sex, female students were expected to provide the big dharas with a variety of services, which included, but were not limited to, companionship and sex. The pimp was then paid for his role in facilitating the relationship as well as for managing future outings and handling all communication between a big dhara and a female student. This article is primarily based on the experiences of Jabu, a male student pimp. Jabu claimed that he had been ‘supplying’ some of his big dharas with female students for over two years. He also claimed that he had as many as 27 female students that he ‘marketed’ to various big dharas in the city. When I mentioned this number to the other two male students in the sample, Steve and Mandla, they indicated that this was only possible among the more established pimps. Steve and Mandla were also of the view that the majority of male students involved in pimping dealt with much smaller numbers of female students. Steve explained: ‘When you get to those numbers, that is, ten or more, you are actually like [one of] the big guys. Most of the time you only have like two people. Two or three. Maybe four.’ This seems to suggest some sort of pimping hierarchy at the institution, with a male student like Jabu located in the upper echelons of such a hierarchy. The quote above further suggests that the majority of pimps had less than five female students that they might be ‘marketing’ at a given time. The 27 female students that Jabu said he was marketing included classmates as well as female students that he had randomly approached on campus. Jabu explained the latter strategy as follows: ‘Just look at a person’s face and you [will] know that this person might be game for this. You take a gamble [and] go up to her. She might slap you. That’s a risk you take. You explain what’s in it for her so [that] she realises how much she can make. If she says no then you approach someone else. Watch a person for five minutes and you [will] learn quite a lot.’ Male students acting as pimps commonly recruited female students that they knew well, such as classmates. This recruitment could be overt or covert, as this quote by Steve shows: ‘Sometimes you can just tell. When you are hunting, you find the weakest prey. Sometimes you can just
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take from a group of friends without really saying you need to do so and so. Sometimes, you simply know people who usually go out. Just like that.’ The ‘weakest prey’ in this instance, referred not only to economically needy female students but also to those female students who partied a lot. Such students were said to be much more open to participating in pimp-mediated transactional sex. The female student in the sample, Itayi, had been ‘pimped’ without her knowledge. She had only found this out months later after she tried to end her relationship with the big dhara. She discovered, then, that her male friends had lied that one of them was related to the big dhara. She also discovered that her friends had been receiving payment from the big dhara for their role in setting up the relationship and that this payment had stopped when she ended the relationship. In the excerpt that follows, Itayi described her experience of being pimped, starting off with how she met her big dhara, what the relationship involved and how she eventually found out that she had been ‘pimped’: ‘One day they told me that ‘someone’ wanted to meet me. They claimed that this person had seen my photo from one of them and he thought I was good-looking. When I told them that I was not interested, they assured me that they knew this person well, that he had lots of money and that they would be present when he visited, so that I wouldn’t be alone with him. They told me that this guy had even given them some money to buy me some takeaways. Each time they would visit [my room] they would bring me some takeaways and say that the money came from this person. Eventually, I agreed to meet him and a few days later my friends showed up in my room with this old man. He was old! Maybe fifty or even sixty years old! He would buy me things or send me money through my friends [i.e. the male students] and we would go out and have fun. It was only after I decided to stop seeing this guy that I realised that my friends had lied to me. I became suspicious when they kept pressuring me not to end the relationship. Eventually they admitted that they were getting paid by the old man for having hooked [us up]. If I ended the relationship, they would no longer receive any money from him. I was hurt when I discovered this and, for a while, I stopped hanging out with these guys.’ While it was not clear in my discussions with students just how prevalent pimping was at the institution, all the students I interviewed, however, including other students in the core sample, were aware of its existence and most claimed that they knew of someone who was involved in it. Jabu indicated that he personally knew 20 male students who were pimps and he attributed this to the harsh economic situation in the country: ‘If you had asked me this question a few months ago, I would have said that [the practice] is not common.’ He noted that pimping was ‘easy money’ and that the ‘demand’ for such services was high. Jabu also explained that he had tried to deal in foreign currency on the parallel market, as many Zimbabweans were doing, but had found it time-consuming and dangerous, given
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that the police were constantly on the lookout for illegal foreign currency transactions. As far as he was concerned, pimping was much ‘safer’ and more lucrative. Both Steve and Mandla, on the other hand, mentioned that most male students who engaged in pimping did so in order to meet their basic subsistence needs. The male students mentioned two ways that one could become a pimp: one could be approached, at random, by a big dhara or one could be approached by big dharas that one knew. Jabu, for instance, had a brother who was a politician and this gave him relatively easy access to politicians and businessmen. The latter make up the bulk of big dharas. Jabu claimed that he had six government officials that he was supplying with female students. In contrast, Mandla stated that he had been randomly approached by a big dhara who wanted assistance accessing female students at the institution. Mandla stated that he had refused and insisted that he had never participated in pimping. His account below illustrates how easy it is for male students to become pimps: ‘[I was given a ride by a guy driving a] Merc [Mercedes Benz]. When we got to campus this guy asked me if I could arrange some girls for him. He gave me his cell [phone] number and said I should call him once I got someone. He also said that I would be handsomely rewarded [for this service]. I was not interested and so I never called him back. But that’s just how easy it is to get into this business. These guys are looking for USAs [an acronym that stands for university spinsters association and which is used to refer to female students at the institution].’ The students that I spoke to were of the view that it was more common for big dharas, rather than male students, to initiate the pimping relationship. Others, however, suggested that pimps could introduce their male friends to the practice. Although pimping seemed to be more commonly practiced by male students, most students were of the view that female students could also be pimps; they simply did not know any who were. According to Jabu, anyone could be a pimp as long as they were sociable and willing to ‘shelve [their] conscience [away].Your conscience can’t come along in this business.’ All three male students — Jabu, Mandla and Steve — and the other male student informants were much aware of the ‘morally’ problematic nature of their dealings even though they usually tried to downplay this by pointing out that pimping was lucrative for both the female and male students involved. Pimping as a lucrative business venture Throughout the interview, Jabu consistently used business terms to describe what he did: ‘I like to refer to it as commodity broking. It’s marketing really…business, nothing more, nothing less. I’m the business person here [and] I believe that I should make the most money, but that’s not usually the case anyway. But I make quite an amount. I am not complaining.’ He also cast his role as that of a business person who takes advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. In the excerpt above, Jabu suggested that female students
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were ‘commodities’ and that he was merely ‘marketing’ them to a ready audience. He also alluded to the highly lucrative nature of the practice for both male and female students and even suggested that the female students involved made more money than he did. During one interview, Jabu said he had recently received a gift of a video camera, which he estimated was valued at US$400, from a big dhara who had been on a trip to China: ‘Those guys [big dharas] are a bit more generous. Not overgenerous, but he [sic] wouldn’t mind parting with some stuff, like 10 million [then the equivalent of US$100 on the parallel market]. To them it doesn’t mean much. I have made in excess of thirty, forty, fifty million [i.e. US$300–500] from some transactions.’ Considering that most lecturers at the institution were making much less than US$200 per month, Jabu was therefore making a lot of money from pimping. It was also not unusual, as described in the next section, for payment to take non-monetary forms. The other students in the sample corroborated the lucrative nature of the practice and they mentioned that ownership of multiple and expensive cellphones and clothes was often enough evidence that one was a pimp. According to Mandla: ‘If you see a particular male student who was always broke now suddenly wearing designer labels and always having the latest cellphones, chances are [that] he is a pimp. That is a sure sign.’ ‘Ties that bind’? Interrogating the pimp–big dhara relationship What then do pimps bring to transactional sex? At first glance, it appears that the pimp is no more than a mere middleman, which then begs the question: Why are the pimp’s services retained beyond the initial contact between a big dhara and female student? Further examination, however, clearly shows that the pimps were central in these relationships. They managed transactional sex relationships on behalf of big dharas and ensured that complications did not arise in the relationships. For instance, the pimps offered ready alibis, especially where spouses were concerned. Jabu explained: ‘If he [i.e. the big dhara] was to have a personal girlfriend, that would automatically entail personal links: phone calls and all, which usually lead to complications. The bulk of these guys are married men, you see. [But] if I am to call him at midnight and the wife answers the phone, I just say — Maiguru [i.e. a term of respect used to refer to an older brother’s wife], may I talk to mudhara [a term that denotes an older person]? That’s how simple it is. No suspicion, nothing. It takes away the issue of personal attachment. It makes it easier for guys who want to maintain a clean sheet, if I may call it that, with their missus [wife] at home.’ The literature shows that men who engage in transactional sex tend to be married and that most do not want their wives to find out about their extramarital affairs (see Hunter, 2002; Hirsch, Wardlow, Smith, Phinney, Parikh & Nathanson, 2009). Hence, by handling all communication between the
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female students and big dharas, the pimps greatly minimised the chances of big dharas’ wives finding out, as the excerpt above suggests. This particular role therefore made pimps indispensable as far as big dharas were concerned. The students in the sample explained that female students who participated in pimp-mediated transactional sex were often aware that they, in contrast to the pimps, were dispensable and could easily be replaced if they were perceived to be getting too difficult and demanding. The second role that the pimps played was to facilitate the big dharas’ easier access to female students. This is because, unlike in ‘standard’ sugar-daddy relationships, the big dharas did not have to personally ‘hunt’ for and coax young women into dating them. Instead, the big dhara only had to make a phone call to a pimp and specify the kind of female partner that he wanted and when he wanted to see her. It was thus the responsibility of the pimp to find the ‘right’ female student for the big dhara. Consider this description by Jabu: ‘Mr X calls [me and says] — Young man, I intend to travel to Mutare [a picturesque resort town in the northeast, which shares a border with Mozambique] over the weekend. I would like someone to accompany me and keep me company. I will be going on Friday and coming back Sunday. Can you find someone? I would like someone who is a social bug, someone who can talk, etcetera — In my mind I know my person already.’ The third role that the pimps played was ‘preparing’ the female students for their outings with big dharas. ‘Preparing’ a female student included explaining what was expected of her during an outing, as well as ensuring that she was appropriately attired for whatever outing she was required for. Itayi, the female student in the sample, for instance, indicated that her big dhara often gave her money (via her male friends) to have her hair done in a specific way. Her big dhara also gave her money to buy clothes for specific functions. Preparing a female student also meant explaining to her that she might be expected to provide sexual services. This was especially the case when big dharas requested female company for out-of-town excursions. Jabu noted that some big dharas could be ‘demanding’ — in the sense that they were often men of influence (politicians and business executives) who are used to having things done their way. Such big dharas were said to be unwilling to use condoms. Jabu indicated that he always tried to supply such big dharas with ‘assertive’ female students who could negotiate for condom use. What is especially fascinating about pimp-mediated transactional sex is that, unlike in standard transactional sex where the relationship between an older man and young woman is central, here the relationship between the pimp and big dhara is paramount. This relationship is maintained and strengthened through the forging of fictive familial ties that enable pimps and big dharas to relate to each other as a younger and older brother or a nephew and uncle would. From the reports given by the three male students in the sample, big dharas seemed happy enough to play the role of older brother/uncle in these relationships, as indicated by the gifts that they regularly gave the pimps, of which
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cellphones were a big part. While cellphones were important for communication purposes, the fact that they were constantly upgraded to the latest models suggests that they performed more than just a utilitarian function. Ownership of expensive phones and fancy clothes were mentioned by the male students as some of the things that gave away one’s identity as a pimp. In addition to these gifts, invitations to parties and outings were some of the non-monetary ways that fictive affinal relationships (i.e. relationships not actually connected by kinship or marriage) were strengthened. These parties could be very simple affairs in which big dharas treated pimps and their friends (sometimes even the pimps’ girlfriends) to food and drink or they could be very formal affairs in which big dharas entertained business colleagues. A male student claimed that he had attended a number of such parties after being invited by friends who were pimps: ‘I know of male students who are involved in this practice just for the free beer and [the] free food that they get when they hang out with these big dharas.’ Business parties, on the other hand, provided opportunities for pimps to network with influential people, such as potential employers. The male students I spoke to claimed to know other male students who had found employment or vacation jobs because of their links to big dharas. Other ‘gifts’ that sustained the brotherly bond between pimps and big dharas took the form of outings to popular tourist destinations. A few pimps were said to have even travelled abroad as a result of the networks they had established through their interactions with big dharas. Anthropologists have long shown that gifts create ‘ties that bind.’ Rubin (1975), for instance, noted that in those transactions in which women are the transacted item, it is the men who do the transacting who are linked or ‘tied.’ This seems to be the case with pimping at the UZ campus; here, the social obligations of the transactional relationship are primarily between the big dharas and pimps. It is pertinent at this point to address the question of why big dharas willingly invest so much, financially, in these relationships. It is clear that pimps were privy to information that, if made public, could be detrimental to the reputations of the big dharas involved. It therefore seems that part of the remuneration that the pimps received was for their actual services as well as to prevent them from divulging incriminating details about the big dharas. Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind, as Ashforth (1999) and Hunter (2002) have shown in South Africa, that transactional sex relationships are also about competing for social status and prestige among one’s peers as much as they are about sexual-economic exchanges. My discussions with the three male students in the sample suggest that a second reason that big dharas were willing to invest in the services of a pimp was that the latter made it possible for big dharas to be seen in the company of attractive and intelligent young university women. This, in turn, earned them prestige in their peer groups (see Masvawure, 2010, for an in-depth discussion of what big dharas gain from transactional sex). Students in the study were of the view that female university students, in contrast to high-school girls, were ideal candidates for pimp-mediated transactional sex because of their intelligence, independence and relatively flexible
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schedules. However, as the preceding discussion has shown, the pimps benefit tremendously from this type of transactional sex and it is therefore in their best interest to remain in favour with the various big dharas that they service. Conclusions Implications of pimp-mediated transactional sex for HIV prevention The article has had two aims: first, to show that transactional sex can take a different form from standard transactional sex that typically involves two parties, and, second, to show the specific social obligations that a pimp-mediated sexual transaction involves. Most HIV interventions are based on a fairly static understanding of what constitutes transactional sex — namely, interactions between an older man and a young woman, wherein money and sex are the main things transacted. This article shows that under certain conditions, such as a hyperinflationary economic environment, a third party can become involved in these relationships, and in the process dramatically transform the social obligations that these relationships entail. The university students in the study maintained that pimp-mediated transactional sex had become widespread on the campus because of the harsh economic climate in the country. This article has shown that pimping offered economically needy male students a viable income-generating alternative and that they were willing to use any means necessary to alleviate their poverty. The phenomenon of pimp-mediated transactional sex has many implications for HIV-prevention efforts. First, the presence of a pimp inadvertently makes transactional sex more efficient. For instance, whereas in traditional transactional sex big dharas would have to search for young women to date, in pimp-mediated transactional sex this responsibility is transferred to pimps who have relatively easier access to female students and ensures that big dharas have a large and ever-present group from which they select potential sexual partners. This unlimited access is made possible largely because of the presence of a pimp. Jabu’s experiences, for instance, clearly show that big dharas capitalise on their improved access by requesting different female students for different occasions. Second, the existing literature illustrates that transactional sex is associated with higher-risk sexual practices, particularly low condom use. Pimp-mediated transactional sex presents similar challenges. Male students in the sample noted that the big dharas frequently requested female company for out-of-town excursions. This raises concerns about a female student’s ability to successfully negotiate the use of condoms when she is hundreds of kilometres away and is wholly dependent on the big dhara for transportation back to campus. Jabu was aware that this could be a problem, which is why he made an effort to pair very ‘assertive’ female students with ‘difficult’ big dharas. Despite this, he pointed out that five of the 27 female students in his pool had experienced ‘pregnancy scares’ in the past. Although there is no evidence to link these pregnancy scares directly to relationships with big dharas, they do point to unsafe sexual practices on the part of the female students.
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Third, the data presented here underpins the importance of HIV interventions that specifically target economically needy young men. Women are typically viewed as the economically needy ones and many HIV-prevention programmes are designed to cater for their needs. This study has shown that, in conditions of extreme economic hardship, young men will resort to survival strategies that potentially increase women’s vulnerability to HIV infection. Further research that investigates the presence of pimps in transactional sex is strongly recommended. Future research on the topic should also target big dharas for their perspectives and personal experiences in these relationships, as this could lead to better designed and more relevant HIV interventions. Acknowledgements — Sincere thanks to the Centre for the Study of AIDS (CSA) and the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Pretoria for providing institutional support during my doctoral studies. Special thanks are extended to Isak Niehaus, Mary Crewe and Pierre Brouard for their mentorship. Sincere gratitude to the Health Economics and AIDS Research Division (HEARD) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal for convening the Young Researchers Initiative, through which this paper was written. Special thanks to Flora Cornish for her incisive reading of earlier versions of this paper. Lastly, I remain eternally grateful to the Ford Foundation for funding my doctoral studies. The author — Tsitsi B. Masvawure holds a DPhil in anthropology from the University of Pretoria. Her research interests focus on the intersection of gender, sexuality and HIV, particularly as these relate to youths in southern Africa. Her doctoral dissertation examined how ‘campus sexual cultures’ shaped masculinities and femininities at a university campus in Zimbabwe and the implications of this for HIV-prevention interventions.
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