In line with our interest in increasing the quality and quantity of freely accessible critical sexuality studies resources and materials around the globe, we are very happy to see the recent publication of The Prize and the Price: Shaping Sexualities in South Africa (2009). This volume, edited by Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl, comprises 19 chapters, all of which are freely downloadable from HSRC Press.

In the introduction to The Prize and the Price, Steyn and van Zyl outline the primary aim of the volume which is to explore ‘the invisible power of heteronormativity as the enduring dominant ideological formation in post-apartheid South Africa’ (p. 3). The ways in which race intersects with gender and sexuality are central issues throughout the volume. Indeed, the editors state that one of their goals is to ‘out’ heteronormativity, just as scholars are increasingly ‘outing’ the normativity of whiteness in South Africa and elsewhere.

The volume is divided into five sections, which explore: (1) the formation of new identities as a result of post-apartheid transformations; (2) how people struggle to negotiate continuing and persisting conditions of inequality; (3) how structural and physical violence play a role in maintaining the regulation of sexual subjectivities, particularly via racialised and heteropatriarchal domination; (4) how heteronormativity, and ‘holding the centre’, are maintained through a variety of practices and discourses; and (5) how sexual rights have been situated (or obscured) in the post-apartheid era.

An impressive feature of this volume is its inclusion of topics often marginalised in sexuality studies; for instance, the sexual desire and expression of those wrongly assumed to be asexual, such as people with disabilities, older people, or young children. Reinette Popplestone gives an honest and poignant account of her lived experience of being both blind and sexual. She reflects on the various forms of social marginalisation that construct disabled people as undesirable and undesiring, or perceive them as being less capable of establishing sexual relationships. Similarly, Helena Thornton, Felix Potocnik and Jacqueline Muller confront the myths and misconceptions surrounding the sexuality of older people, which assume them to be sexually inactive, or immoral if they do engage in sexual activity. What emerges clearly from both of these chapters is the widespread tendency to infantilise older people and those with disabilities, and thus de-sexualise them.

Heterosexual sexualities predominate in The Prize and the Price. According to the authors, this is because homosexuality has gained much academic attention in South Africa while studies of heterosexualities have largely taken a back seat, except in relation to gender-based violence and the spread of HIV. In one chapter, Rebecca Sherman and Melissa Steyn examine the history of interracial unions in South Africa, and how young heterosexual interracial couples understand and negotiate their relationships today, in a post-apartheid context. The authors argue that although young people speak of their relationships in the context of increasing liberal attitudes in the post-apartheid era, their narratives also include evidence of continuing stereotypes about both white and black sexualities. For instance, the authors note that for some black men, having a relationship with a white woman is described as a status marker, and a form of attaining ‘some of the privileges of white status’ (p. 71). Tamara Shefer and Don Foster also explore young people’s heterosexual relationships, but are more concerned with how young men and women construct gender relations around discourses of ‘inherent and immutable differences’ (p. 271). For instance, while men are perceived as having unquenchable sex drives, and as capable of separating love and sex, women are framed as searching for love and intimacy. The authors note that, much like gender relations in many parts of the world, ‘sexuality gets framed as a male domain which men control and set the terms for, and into which women must be inducted and guided’ (p. 272). Further, ‘heterosex’ is deeply connected with violence and coercion in women’s experiences. Nevertheless, the authors found that both women and men (to differing degrees) expressed resistance towards women’s subordination within a patriarchal society.

For those readers interested in South African queer sexualities, it is worth checking out Performing Queer: Shaping Sexualities 1994-2004 – Volume 1, published in 2005 and also edited by Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl (unfortunately, this volume is not freely accessible). Nonetheless, there are several engaging chapters in The Prize and the Price addressing the continuities and transformations of homosexual practices and identities in South Africa. For instance, Isak Niehaus examines male-male sexuality in two different settings, mining compounds and prisons. He argues that sex between men in these contexts cannot be interpreted simply as a way of coping sexually with the absence of women. For example, in the case of miners living in compounds, it has been common, historically and as recently as the mid 1990s, for older men to have long-term relationships with younger boys (referred to as their ‘wives’). A ‘wife’ would typically live with his older husband, be sexually available to him, and take care of domestic duties within the household. In return, these younger boys would receive a monthly stipend, and in some cases (e.g. in which their husbands held powerful or prestigious positions within the mines) they would be relieved from working in hard labour positions. According to Niehaus, these male-male relationships mirrored traditional heterosexual marriages and provided men with romance, intimacy and the comforts that they associated with home. Indeed, in many cases, men perceived same-sex relationships as better, more intimate and healthier than the relationships that they could establish with sex workers or women living in nearby towns. Niehaus further points out that the historical documentation of these relationships challenges political discourses that represent homosexuality as ‘un-African’.

Throughout the volume, the spectres of sexual violence and HIV/AIDS are omnipresent. Lillian Artz describes how threats of violence in South Africa continue to regulate women’s behaviour, both in the public and private spheres. High rates of rape keep women at home, off the streets, and perpetuate poverty and other forms of structural violence by limiting women’s mobility and access to education, recreation and employment. Nonetheless, violence in public spaces is only one form of control over women, for domestic violence is just as rampant. Artz notes that ‘For many women, the home is the most common site of cruelty and torture against them’ (p. 181). Women’s fears surrounding sexual violence are also sadly apparent in the chapter by Washeila Sait, Theresa Lorenzo, Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl, which examines the various challenges faced by mothers with disabled daughters. According to the authors, rape is such an everyday reality that mothers feel that they must constantly protect their daughters from men, even from their own family members. Moreover, the authors found that the looming threat of sexual violence had led the mothers in their sample to teach their daughters what to do in the case of being raped. Strategies included instructing them not to resist an attack, in order to increase their chances of survival, and to keep a condom on hand to give to an attacker, in order to decrease the chances of being infected with HIV.

The Prize and the Price is an engaging and insightful collection of empirical research on sexuality in South Africa that will be of interest to scholars and students from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. Congratulations to the editors and authors for producing a valuable addition to African sexuality studies, and for making an equally important contribution to the expanding open access movement.