Generational Perspectives of Unprotected Sex and Sustainable Behavior Change in Nigeria:

Amaechi D. Okonkwo

doi:10.1177/2158244012472346

Generational Perspectives of Unprotected Sex and Sustainable Behavior Change in Nigeria:

Okonkwo, Amaechi D. 2013-01-08 00:00:00 Despite the HIV/AIDS pandemic and over two decades of safe-sex communication and condom social marketing in Nigeria, unmarried people continue to engage in unprotected sex. Understanding their perspectives of unprotected sex will be imperative for sustainable policy and intervention design. To realize this objective, the author synthesized Giddens’s structuration theory and Rob Stones’s structurationist project research brackets to develop a long interview guide used to elicit unmarried university students’ perspectives of influences on unprotected sex, and the feasibility of sustainable behavior change in Nigeria. Participants’ constructed unprotected sex as prescripted, and the cumulative outcome of complex institutional (structural), interpersonal, and agential influences. Their narratives challenge the popular but narrow loss of control, sensation-seeking, and ignorance theses of unprotected sex. Instead, participants’ narratives implicate an interrelated web of persuasive and insidious institutional and agential influences, in a manner that privilege neither structure nor agency. To promote safer sexual practices therefore, stakeholders must concurrently engage with institutional and agential influences on unprotected sex—and not focus on unmarried people’s sexual agencies alone, as current interventions do in Nigeria. Keywords Nigeria, unmarried university students, unprotected sex, structure, agency, influences, sustainable behavior change Introduction and a source of personal fulfillment” in Nigeria (Jackson & In Nigeria, unmarried university students continue to engage Scott, 1997, p. 559). In particular, heterosexual prowess and in unprotected sex (Elegbeleye, 2006; Kabir, Iliyasu, sexual conquest have become key indicators of trendiness, a Abubakar, & Kabir, 2004; Odu & Akanle, 2008). This is basis for peer acceptance; connote good living; and continue despite “substantial sums spent on information campaigns, to instigate similar and further conducts. the marketing of condoms” (Cleland & Watkins, 2006, p. 2; Moreover, normative sanctions against unmarried people’s Meekers, Van Rossem, Zellner, & Berg, 2004), and a high sexual activities are relatively weaker today in comparison awareness of HIV/AIDS risk (Momoh, Moses, & Ugiomoh, with Nigeria’s abstention-oriented traditional past. The weak- 2006; National Population Commission [NPC] and ICF ening of premarital sex sanctions is due to the combined Macro, 2009). The need to understand and account for the effects of social change, late marriage, human rights gains, knowledge, attitude, and practice gap (KAP-gap; see Westoff increased geographical mobility, and shrinking parental and & Bankole, 1995) described above partly inspired this study. community surveillance of unmarried people. Family and The second inspiration is the need to demonstrate the con- community sanctions for premarital sex now seem to operate tinuing relevance of structuration theory for the understand- on a don’t-ask-don’t-tell basis, as long as unintended outcomes ing and critical analysis of society and social conduct. of unprotected sex, such as unintended pregnancies, do not The study is set in Nigeria, where the institutional context manifest. Notwithstanding, the institutional environment in is compellingly erotic and romance laden (Smith, 2001). Nigeria concurrently constrains unmarried people’s sexual Varied institutions sexualize unmarried people and propa- conducts. For example, premarital sex is normatively catego- gate and normalize risk-prone sexual practices. These rized as purposeless and immoral in Nigeria (see Smith, 2004). include the mass media, pornography, peer sexual ideologies and/or conducts, folklore, gender scripts, dance, and so forth Swansea University, UK Behaviour Change Group Inc., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (see Ajibade, 2005; P. I. Okonkwo, Fatusi, & Ilika, 2005). The functioning of these compelling social institutions, and Corresponding Author: unmarried people’s active and purposeful engagement with Amaechi D. Okonkwo, 8, Hooper Crescent, Apt. 114, Edmonton, Alberta, them, predisposes the latter toward unprotected sex. Canada, T5A 4K7 Consequently, unprotected sex “has become a key life goal Email: amaechiokonkwo@hotmail.com 2 SAGE Open Adult valuation of premarital sex as immoral in Nigeria is a As can be deduced from the studies cited above, and form of sexual constraint, which has been conflated with the similar others, each addresses a key analytically influential HIV/AIDS pandemic and sustained by the contradictory valu- external structure or influence on unmarried Nigerian ation of unmarried people as valuable, ignorant, innocent, and university students’ risk-prone sexual practices without a at risk from others and to themselves. corresponding inquiry into how the identified structures are In addition, there are organized constraints on unpro- interrelated; recursive, how unmarried people (pre)reflex- tected sex, such as the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for ively engage (agency) with the identified sexualizing AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)–funded abstention-oriented Zip-up structures to normalize and promote unprotected sex on one campaign, and organized safe-sex and consistent condom hand, and contribute toward the renewal and maintenance of use campaigns by social marketers (see Holmes, Levine, & the original sexualizing structures, on the other (structural Weaver, 2004; Meekers et al., 2004). There are additional duality; Giddens, 1984). This study is an attempt to address varied and unorganized Pentecostal, peer and parental sexual this knowledge-gap in literature leveraging structuration surveillance of unmarried people in Nigeria. Despite these theory. The author elicits and interrogates participating sexual constraints, unmarried Nigerian university students university students’ gendered perspectives of influences on continue to engage in unprotected sex (Elegbeleye, 2006; unprotected sex, the interrelationships among identified Kabir et al., 2004; Odu & Akanle, 2008). influences (if any), and the implications of students’ own Based on the foregoing analysis, it is apparent that domi- perspectives on the feasibility of sustainable behavior nant policies and interventions designed to reduce unprotected change in Nigeria. The focus on influences on unprotected sex and mitigate unwanted outcomes in Nigeria have been sex is justified by the author’s conviction that influences, ineffective. This is probably because interventionists continue once identified, are comparatively easier to manage by to address mostly the agential components of unprotected sex. stakeholders and youths, before they produce concrete and In the author’s view, this conceptual linearity or stakeholders’ risk-infused sexual opportunities, which are more difficult systemic and ongoing failure to concurrently consider institu- to manage or avoid. tional and agential coinfluences on unprotected sex accounts University students were chosen because campuses in for the perennial ineffectiveness of sexual reproductive health Nigeria have become critical sites for youth (semi)indepen- policies and interventions in Nigeria despite over two decades dent development and self-exploration due to conflated fac- of safe-sex communication, condom social marketing, a high tors. These include social change, increased geographical awareness of unintended outcomes, and the normative view of mobility, intense peer and mass media influence, and so premarital sex as immoral in Nigeria (Cleland & Watkins, forth. Moreover, nearly half of new STIs are recorded 2006; Meekers et al., 2004; NPC and ICF Macro, 2009). among young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years, The dominant problematic conceptualization of premari- who constitute about 29% of the Nigerian over 140 million tal sex in Nigeria has nurtured several plausible, but linear, population (National Bureau of Statistics [NBS], 2009; studies of influences on unmarried university students’ risk- NPC and ICF Macro, 2009). The preceding statistics, prone sexual practices. Compelling, but narrow, influences despite the dominant categorization of premarital sex as reported by investigators as influential include drug abuse by immoral, purposeless, and fornication in Nigeria, elevate Ambrose Ali University students for enhanced sexual perfor- scholarly interest in risk-prone sexual practices among mance and sensations (Okoza & Aluede, 2009). On a differ- unmarried people. It does not imply that unmarried univer- ent note, Odu and Akanle (2008) concluded that transactional sity students’ sexual conducts are riskier or safer than other sex is the main motivation for university students’ risk-prone subpopulations in Nigeria. sexual conducts, regardless of their awareness of sexually transmitted infections (STIs; see also Momoh, Asagwara, & Conceptual Framework and Meriamu, 2007, for similar conclusions about University of Theoretical Clarification Lagos girls). Furthermore, Omoteso (2006) found that “gen- der and family background” has more significant influences For the purpose of this article, influences on unprotected sex on unprotected sex, compared with age and religion, in a approximates those durable institutions, ideologies, attitudes, study of Nigerian university students’ sexual behavior (p. emotions, (pre)reflexive knowledge, and active and purpo- 129). Additionally insightful is Okonkwo and colleagues’ sive conducts that predispose unmarried people to unpro- (2005) peer sexual conduct perception study among female tected sex in Nigeria. Structures have two basic components undergraduate students in Anambra State. According to the and are comparable with two sides of one coin. On one side authors, “almost half (47.1%) of respondents indicated that are patterned rules and resources from societal institutions, they were under pressure by friends to engage in pre-marital such as those emanating from the mass media or gender sex” (P. I. Okonkwo et al., 2005, p. 107). Similarly plausible, norms, which university students differentially draw-on and but narrow, is Elegbeleye’s (2006) study of rape incidence in work-on for their communication and interpretation of sexual Nigerian universities, which was linked to social change or cues, their (re)enactment of unprotected sex, and the rational- “the break down in societal values both at the local and ization of their conducts within and outside the boundaries of global level” (pp. 43-47). tradition or norms (see de Lauretis, 1990). The other side of Okonkwo 3 Participants Lagos Benin Nsukka Abuja Total Males 8 7 7 8 30 Females 6 8 7 5 26 Total 14 15 14 13 56 Figure 1. Participant selection by site the coin (structure) is composed of social agents’ variable participants and narrative diversity, in multiple intracountry agencies, which are “events of which an individual is the case studies approach that strengthens research findings. perpetrator, in the sense that the individual could, at any The universities were also selected because campuses in phase in a given sequence of conduct, have acted differently” Nigeria (from the author’s experience and lay discourse) are (Giddens, 1984, p. 9). It is persuasive that university students critical sites for unmarried students’ sexual identity forma- could act differently to avoid unprotected sex and risks by tion, sexual exploration, and performance. Selected institu- either abstention or consistent condom use. tions include the Universities of Lagos, Benin, Abuja, and To robustly specify and explain the operation of influ- University of Nigeria, Nsukka (see Figure 1). ences (structures) and university students’ active engage- Participants were legal, literate adults (above 18 years in ment (variable agencies) with the identified structures, the Nigeria) who read, understood, and signed the informed con- article assumed the structuration of unprotected sex—itself sent form. Snowball sampling was used to select a roughly an example of social relations that is simultaneously con- equal number of male and female students to participate in strained and enabled by structural duality (Giddens, 1984). the study (56 students in total; see Figure 2 for participants’ On one hand, the notion of structural duality requires the age and gender profile). Although initially unplanned, the consideration, understanding, and explanation of how author resorted to snowball sampling because female stu- unmarried students’ (pre)reflexively draw upon sexualizing dents initially approached refused to participate in an in- structures to (re)enact unprotected sex in situated interac- depth face-to-face discussion of their sexual conducts with a tions (see Stones, 2005). On the other hand, proposing struc- male investigator. Their reluctance are attributable to proba- tural duality to elicit, understand, and explain unmarried ble discomfort over discussing their sexual risk practices students’ accounts of influences on unprotected sex requires with a male investigator (the author), and/or local cultural the clarification of how the Nigerian (perhaps, the global) norms that socialize girls to be reticent about sexual con- sexual system acquires its compelling and insidious charac- ducts in general. Referrals by trusted peers, who vouched for teristics, and become the active and regenerative repository the author, reduced female participants’ reluctance to partici- of intergenerational macro- and microsexual (risk) ideolo- pate in the study (see Lee, 1993, for discussions on sampling gies and conducts that unmarried people simultaneously subpopulations). draw-on, and unconsciously maintain through their actual The main participants’ inclusion criteria were age (18-32 sexual risk conducts (see Cohen, 1968; Giddens, 1984). years), admission of sexual activity, consent to be inter- To achieve the study objectives, broad questions pursued viewed, and their willingness and capacities to discuss their include the following: (a) What institutions and agencies sexual conducts and perceptions of peers’ sexual conducts. influence unprotected sex ideologies and conducts in Each recruited participant was subsequently asked to refer a Nigeria? (b) How do these institutions and agencies function peer of opposite sex, who is not a relative, girlfriend/boy- to influence unprotected sex? (c) Do university students friend, or room or course mate. The objective of this sam- actively or passively engage with the identified institutions pling stipulation was to accommodate more diverse and agencies? (d) What are the implications of university participants and narratives. Ultimately, samples were drawn students’ gendered perspectives of influential structures and from multiple peer networks because of interruptions in the agencies driving unprotected sex on sustainable behavior reference chain due to academic demands and/or partici- change in Nigeria? To answer these questions, a generational pants’ elective withdrawal from the study. This sample study of university students was conducted. The objective is recruitment process and interviews continued until data to elicit students’ own accounts of how contextual institu- saturation. tional rules, resources, and variable agencies operate to rec- ommend unprotected sex instead of abstention or consistent Interview and Analysis Procedure contraceptive use, and vice versa. Leveraging Stones’s (2005) fourfold structuration research brackets, and lessons from an extensive review of Nigerian Method unprotected sex literature (see McCracken, 1988), the author Site and Participant Selection developed a semistructured interview guide. The objective of the literature review was to familiarize the author with Purposefully, four Nigerian universities were selected existing literature on unprotected sex and robustly define the because of their location in four different regions to promote research problem. The literature review served an additional 4 SAGE Open Participant’s Sex Female Male Total Participant’s Age 18 - 22 Count 20 17 37 % within Participant’s Age 54.1% 45.9% 100.0% % within Participant’s Sex 76.9% 56.7% 66.1% % of Total 35.7% 30.4% 66.1% 23 -27 Count 4 12 16 % within Participant’s Age 25.0% 75.0% 100.0% % within Participant’s Sex 15.4% 40.0% 28.6% % of Total 7.1% 21.4% 28.6% 28 - 32 Count 2 1 3 % within Participant’s Age 66.7% 33.3% 100.0% % within Participant’s Sex 7.7% 3.3% 5.4% % of Total 3.6% 1.8% 5.4% Total Count 26 30 56 % within Participant’s Age 46.4% 53.6% 100.0% % within Participant’s Sex 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% % of Total 46.4% 53.6% 100.0% Figure 2. Respondents’ age and gender profile function. It clarified (for the author) implicit and taken-for- and analyzed with structural hermeneutic analysis (i.e., granted constructs, such as structure-agency, interrelation- unpacking participants contexts and conducts; see Stones, ships that may be latent in Nigerian unprotected sex 2005)—with the continuous comparative data analysis literature and discourse (see Schutz, 1932/1972). method. That is, similar narrative themes or influential unpro- The interview guide was developed by adapting tected sex structures, incidents, meanings, attitudes, and their Giddens’s (1984) structural duality concept and Stones’s rationalizations were assigned to each element of Stones’s (2005) empirical structuration research brackets to (2005) fourfold structuration cycle, which became the “short- McCracken’s (1988) long interview. Stones recommended hand designation for various aspects of data” (Merriam, 1998, four interrelated research brackets for a structurationist pp. 164-187). The objectives of this analytic approach are project. The first research bracket specify the need to elicit to analyze transcribed narratives and uncover respondents’ from participants what they know about compelling ana- perspectives of what interrelated structures and agencies influ- lytically external influences on their unprotected sex, and ence unprotected sex, which would facilitate a deeper under- explain the relationships among identified influences. standing and explanation of what Archer (1995) famously Second, there is a corresponding need to interrogate and called the vexatious “linkages between structure and agency” tease out what participants’ know about their (pre)disposi- in enabling and constraining social practices, such as unpro- tions toward unprotected sex, or internal conditions that tected sex (p. 1; see also McLennan, 1984). influence unprotected sex and associated rationalizations Excerpts of participants’ own voices were quoted in the that are often within and outside the boundaries of tradition manuscript to emphasize their perspectives of structural and (eccentric subjects; see de Lauretis, 1990). Third, Stones’s agential influences on their risk-prone sexual practices; how fourfold research bracket requires the elicitation of what the identified influences are interrelated, how they operate to participants know about the influence of their purposive, cast compelling and insidious sexualizing influences on active, and often (pre)reflexive agencies on unprotected unmarried people, and how young people actively engage sex; and their linkages to other influential unprotected sex with the specified structures and agencies for sexual risk-tak- structures. Finally, Stones’s fourth research bracket stipu- ing (structural duality; Giddens, 1984). Participants were also lates that investigators unpack what participants know of invited to discuss the implication of their perspectives on sus- the intended and unintended outcomes of their conducts tainable behavior change policies and interventions in Nigeria. (unprotected sex)—especially how these influence further and similar conducts (see Stones, 2005). Ethical Considerations and Orientation of Methods The interviews were in an open and detailed discussion format (see O’Donnell & Cummins, 1999) and averaged The institutional review board of the School of Environment about 2 hr per participant. Participants’ narratives were tape- and Society, Swansea University, United Kingdom, approved recorded, transcribed verbatim (to increase research rigor), the study. Participants were informed about, read, and Okonkwo 5 signed the informed consent document explaining the poten- of educational instruction). This facilitated respondents’ tial risks associated with the study, such as social stigma, understanding of the interview questions and active partici- discomfort and/or embarrassment. Curiously, all participants pation in the study “on their own terms” regardless of their deemed the risks associated with study minimal because various ethnicities and languages (Thomas & O’Kane, unprotected premarital sex is “very common. Everybody 1998, p. 338; see also Fisher, 2004). The long interview does it” on campus (Interview 11, female); or that “every- additionally accommodated emergent participants’ voices body around here . . . is doing it” (Interview 16, male). In during the study (see McCracken, 1988; West, 2002). For addition, participants were informed about their rights to example, contrary to pervasive lay beliefs about near exclu- withdraw from the study at any time. In fact, several partici- sive male sexual adventurism in Nigeria, participants pants dropped out of the study, citing competing academic observed that “there is a woman, or women, involved in and personal pressures. every promiscuous relationship in Nigeria . . . just that Notwithstanding, the author assumed participants may women are smarter and don’t boast about it like men (long be discomfited by the topic, labeled or stigmatized for laughter)” (Interview 21, female). This opinion influenced participating in the study (Kelleher, 1996; Munson, 2000). the author’s expansion of the interview guide to accommo- To minimize this danger, participants’ anonymity was date this emergent idea about the seeming “democracy” in stipulated and guaranteed in the informed consent form. premarital sexual risk practices. Respondents were additionally interviewed alone, in a In line with prevailing ethical conventions (see Bond, setting of their choice, to guarantee confidentiality of infor- 2004), each participant was presented with an opportunity mation shared and their narrative anonymity because of (before the author left the study site) to listen to their own referrals from peers who presumably know (a part of?) their tape recordings, verify and/or refute its contents. Only one sexual history. In practice, participant anonymity entailed the female and two male participants accepted this offer. No par- exclusion of personal identifiers, such as ethnicities, religious ticipant requested changes be made to their taped interview. beliefs, and so on (i.e., culture), from data collected because Participants’ refusal to review their narratives may be due to of their misuse in creating and maintaining risk groups in academic related time constraints, embarrassment, and/or Nigeria, and globally (see Shoveller & Jonhson, 2006). In lay confidence in capabilities of electronic gadgets to capture fact, during the study, participants labeled peers from two conversations verbatim—maintaining the fidelity of original Nigerian administrative states with very high HIV/AIDS questions and answers. It may also be attributed to the “rap- prevalence rates as more promiscuous than themselves— port” (perhaps, trust) between the author and participants. drawing-on lay beliefs and expert HIV/AIDS prevalence It is the author’s opinion that participants’ had mostly studies (see Federal Ministry of Health [FMoH], 2002). The positive experiences of the interview. Their comfort during (un)intended effects of reading culture as a closed system, as the interview could also be attributed to their referrals from above, which is common among lay people and experts is the peers who probably share similar sexual values. It could also (re)production of vulnerabilities, social positions, risk labels, be attributed to incremental social change in Nigeria, which and the construction of already marginalized individuals and is demystifying sex as a topic for qualified discussion among groups as vectors of diseases, such as HIV/AIDS (see Lee, peers, and with privileged researchers. The rapport between Kochman, & Sikkema, 2002; Maxwell, 2002). the author and participants was such that he was invited to To protect participants from unintended research harm “come out and enjoy the campus” or to “see for yourself therefore, the author purposively emphasized broader influ- instead of asking so many questions.”Beyond their friendly ences on sexual risk practices (see Douglas, 1992; Lash, facade, students’ invitations may constitute a form of trans- 2000), such as the mass media, sexual self-presentations, ference, or participants’ attempts to (un)consciously relate to and so on, in a generalizing presentational approach. What the interviewer (Feltham & Dryden, 2004). The author’s ini- is gained by the de-emphasis of participants’ unique identi- tial concerns that accepting students’ invitations will com- fiers is the diminishment of old exclusionary labels and promise the quality of data collected were allayed after “stigmatising boundaries between the ‘at risk’ and the so- consultation with his supervisor/Ethics Committee who called ‘normal’ populations” (Grover, 1987, cited in Brown, authorized a trial attendance (as an observer) of one campus 2000, p. 1274). Because personal identifiers were not col- event at each site to determine likely outcomes, and inform lected (to protect participants—as stipulated in the informed future study methods. Limited attendance of students’ events consent document), and because the study did not produce significantly increased participant recruitment and built par- any harmful discovery, findings were not communicated to ticipant–interviewer rapport. participants. Nevertheless, a weblink of this article (when it is published) will be sent to the libraries of the universities Results covered by the study. The ethical standing of the study was additionally Participants’ Demographic Profile strengthened by the long interview method of data collec- tion. The long interviews were conducted in English Fifty-six male and female students, in roughly equal ratio, Language (Nigerian official language and medium participated in the study (see Figure 2). Participants were 6 SAGE Open drawn from diverse Nigerian peoples and cultures. Study sexual risk influences, their interrelationships, and implica- sample diversity is intended to facilitate plausible compari- tions for sustainable behavior change policies and interven- son of narratives across different Nigerian cultural, ethnic, tions in Nigeria. and religious divides. There are more than 250 ethnicities in Nigeria, and three dominant ethnic groups, namely, the Analytically External Structures as They Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. Influence Unprotected Sex Widespread condom and contraceptive availability as Participants’ Narratives external structures. Participants claim that widespread avail- Overall, the study elicited more than 20 interrelated and ability of contraceptives and sexual information in Nigeria self-repeating influences (structures) on unprotected sex. paradoxically influences unprotected sex by facilitating Space constraints negate the exhaustive listing and discus- their subjectively unconstrained access to contraceptives, sions of all findings, and their interrelated ramifications on such as morning-after pills, condoms, and illegal abortion. unprotected sex. Consequently, two examples of each broad In particular, the sexual expertise, products, and services institutional and agential influence on unprotected sex are emanating from the contraceptive revolution are believed presented leveraging Stones’s (2005) fourfold structuration to have liberated unmarried people from dominant hetero- cycle for analytical and presentational purposes. However, sexuality in Nigeria, traditional masculine control of sex, it is important to note that influences presented herein exist their fears of STIs, and repetitive and unwanted pregnan- as a duality in society and in social agents, from where they cies. The libratory influence of the contraceptive revolution, are (pre)reflexively instantiated in social action (see Stones, allied to other human emancipatory projects (see Giddens, 2005). That is, structures influence people and people influ- 1992), transferred sex from its kinship-sustaining base onto ence structures. individuals (as assets), which are leveraged to negotiate The first category of influence discussed is analytically relationships that often culminate in unprotected sex. In par- external to participants and illustrated with the mass media ticipants’ own words, and the contraceptive revolution. Similarly, the second class of influence presented is analytically internal to partici- Before, you need you parents and family permission to pants. These were illustrated with the influence of emotions, date or marry a boy. That is now old school. Nowadays, sexual curiosity, and predisposition to unprotected sex. The you choose your partner and do whatever you like. third class of influence presented described and explained You only introduce him if you people want to marry. the influence of participants’ purposive and active agencies Parents accept that now. (Interview 11, female) in unprotected sex. Participants’ illustrated their variable agencies (due to gender and other social asymmetries) with Your parents might tell you don’t do this sex thing, or their acknowledged and avoidable capacities to select sex- don’t do that! But if that is the trend, and all your ual partners, proposition them, and accept or reject sexual friends are doing it, you just have to go along—or propositions, and their sexual self-presentations. won’t fit-in. (Interview 36, male) The fourth class of influence presented is the intended outcomes of participants’ unprotected sex, such as sexual According to participants, the contraceptive revolution pleasure and material rewards, which are often ignored, made unprotected sex safer but had the unintended effects of underestimated, and rendered problematic whenever men- eroding vestiges of their normative fears of STIs and tioned in literature and interventions. The selective presenta- unwanted pregnancies. In their own words, “disease or preg- tion of intended outcomes partly addresses what Jolly (2007) nancy is no longer big-deals. The big deal is use a condom all called the pleasure deficit approach to sexuality by dominant the time” (Interview 1, male). Ostensibly, due to these pre- literature and interventions. That is, the tendency for sexual- vailing sexual norms, unmarried people claim they cannot ity literature and interventions to ignore or render sexual abstain from unprotected sex. Reiterative questioning about pleasure and material rewards problematical in conceptions the sexualizing influence of the contraceptive revolution, and explanations of unprotected sex. To reiterate an earlier which participants primarily experience as peer sexual ide- point, more broadly common influences were utilized in a ologies, mass media programming/advertisements, and sex- generalist presentation format that de-emphasize partici- ual reproductive health interventions, merely reinforced pants’ unique personal identifiers, such as ethnicities, in a their earlier claims that calculated bid to reduce participants’ labeling and stigma, which are unfortunate outcomes of narrow application of Only a slacker (fool) just gets pregnant—unless you want culture to explain every behavior (see Douglas, 1992; Fenton to hook the boy . . . because you can always . . . use con- & Charsley, 2000; Kelleher, 1996). In addition, extracts of doms when . . . unsafe; contraceptives and abortion if all transcribed narratives (in participants’ own words) are used else fail. I cannot get pregnant before marriage. My par- to illustrate their opinions of each analytical category of ents will kill me (laughter). (Interview 11, female) Okonkwo 7 Disease . . . and pregnancy? They are no longer a big It is difficult not to participate in this sex thing . . . deal; nobody avoids sex these days just because of from what you watch on TV, to the Internet and even that. They say shine your eyes (be smart), a smart the way these babes dress, guys have to respond. matured girl cannot just get pregnant . . . unless she is (Interview 51, male) trying to hook you. Only AIDS is still a problem. (Interview 31, male) In response to questions relating to the processes of mass media influence (structural duality), participants admit that Notwithstanding the preceding, participants’ notions of mass media influence is not linear, but mediated by other the contraceptive revolution is controversial because change patterned variables, such as unmarried students’ predisposi- agents assume (and always proclaim) they promote only tions to premarital sex, variable agencies, individuated or safe sexual practices, and not risk-taking with the safe-sex collective needs, the prevalent romance standards, their information, condoms, and contraceptives they promote beliefs or experience of positive outcomes from premarital (see Holmes et al., 2004; UNAIDS, 1997). Respondents rec- sex, and so forth. Both male and female respondents illus- ognize the contradiction inherent in their claims. According trate the complex interrelationships between the mass media to them, and other patterned influences: Condoms and contraceptives are not bad. But yes, they Maybe the media is responsible for 50%. The other have increased sexual risk taking, because girls are not 50% belong to young people themselves and other fac- as scared of pregnancy today as they were before from tors. Okay. It is not as if you watch something and the stories I have heard. They know what to do when decide to do it immediately. I think you must want to they get pregnant. (Interview 26, female) do it before and the media just encourages you. (Interview 46, female) They [condoms] help reduce the risk involved in having sex, so far. But not a 100% help. But quite contributes . . . but you can’t just say because I high percentages, like 60-70% help. If anything, they watched blue film [pornography]—that is why I take have increased the number of people having sex. sexual risks. Although . . . images create lasting (Interview 16, male) impressions and ehmn . . . TV, magazines and web- pictures too, movies, music videos, and all that. All The mass media as an external institution and influence on these things, there is a way it pressurizes one sexually, unprotected sex. Respondents were asked whether they think it spurs you to indulge in especially risky behavior. that the mass media (broadly conceived) influence unpro- (Interview 1, male) tected sex and to illustrate with examples how the mass media influence operates. Without exception, all respondents To adapt Duffy and Gotcher’s idea, the mass media is a claim the mass media is very influential on unprotected sex. powerful and insidious influence on unprotected sex in Components of the mass media identified as strongly influ- Nigeria because it projects sex as “a means and an objective ential, in a descending order of influence, are pornography, . . . almost the sole focus of life . . . an unquestioned good” the Internet, television, mode of dressing, and so forth. (Duffy & Gotcher, 1996, p. 43). Concurrently, participants According to participants, mass media influence emanates claim mass media messages and programs often constrain from their nurture of unmarried people’s predisposition to their sexual conducts as well. Respondents associated this unprotected sex and the provision of sexual knowledge and seeming dual role of the mass media with their extensive use skills through regular programming and advertisements. In by reproductive health interventionists to communicate respondents’ words, the mass media influence operates thus: risks, safe sex, and protective products such as condoms and contraceptives in Nigeria (see Meekers et al., 2004). In par- I think what girls see in movies and read about love, ticipants’ own words, romance, and relationships in novels like Mills and Boons, Barbara Cartland, etc. influences what they do Some of the time the messages I see and hear advise sexually. These books definitely influenced my expec- you to play safe. I have not seen any that says young tations and response to males that toast [sexual propo- people should take sexual risks. Even in the movie sitioning] me. In most of these books . . . the women Booty Call [a movie starring Jamie Fox], the guys always yield to them in the end (laughter). I think what there wear condoms. (Interview 16, male) boys see in movies, Internet, and magazines influ- ences their unprotected sex . . . My boyfriend is On TV and radio you continue to hear use condoms, always carrying on about this and that sexual position use condoms. Don’t trust anybody. But when it comes and style he saw somewhere. (Interview 11, female) to it, I don’t think anybody remembers condoms. Even 8 SAGE Open the so-called safe sex is risky. Condoms burst, tear, romance, love, and trust recommends sexual partners “not and leak. (Interview 46, female) worrying about one’s partner’s sexual past or present . . . If a pregnancy occurs, the ‘love’ in the relationship will guaran- In spite of the commonality of the mass media influence tee a marriage” (p. 115; see also Ugoji, 2011). In particular, on unprotected sex on university campuses in Nigeria, either (or both) partners’ invocation of emotions, such as respondents underscore that the mass media influence is not love, are said to erode residues of unmarried people’s instinc- linear but mediated by other influential structures, such as tive sexual caution; recommending instead, unprotected sex participants’ variable agencies and sexual needs. For or what participants called skin-to-skin sex (unprotected example, sex). According to participants, emotions influence unpro- tected sex: Even the Internet, nobody forces people to pay money and log-on to porn sites. You must have sex on your Especially for girls. Because love, emotion, romance mind before you go there. In fact, that is why most and all that, that is what girls want at the end of the guys browse overnight. The Internet is just like . . . day, but the boys, it is just the pleasure they can get out helping you satisfy your need. But people are always of it. (Interview 6, male) looking for someone to blame . . . it’s not my fault, the Internet made me do it (laughter). (Interview 39, male) I think sex occurs in most relationships love or no love anyway. But being in love makes it better and some- thing to look forward to. Love puts you in a more Analytically Internal Structures as They receptive mood—I guess. (Interview 11, female) Influence Unprotected Sex Emotions—Trust, commitment, love, and so forth, as influ- Furthermore, participants believe that emotions in hetero- ences on unprotected sex. All participants agree that emo- sexual relationships often discourage their preacquisition of tional influences, related to love, affection, trust, commitment, contraceptives because such conducts connote preplanning and romance increase the likelihood of unprotected sex in of sexual intercourse, which diminishes prescripted notions dominant heterosexual relationships. Emotions exemplify of romance and sexual spontaneity. According to those taken-for-granted stocks of sexual predispositions, participants, which are coproduced by participants’ socialization, active engagement with social institutions, subordinate statuses in If I have a boyfriend who always has a condom in his society, roles and behavior expectations, (inter)personal rela- pocket, I will be very careful being alone with him. It tionships, previous positive experiences from unprotected is as simple as that! (Interview 41, female) sex, and associated folklores. According to participants, If your girl visits and you guys want to do it, you can’t If partners trust each other and are committed, why do just root out condoms from your wallet. She will get they need condoms? Maybe when it is unsafe for the angry and say you have been planning it, which is girl to have sex. It’s complicated I guess. Somehow, true; and that can stop action. (Interview 51, male) condoms suggest sleeping around. (Interview 11, female) The significance of emotional influences on unprotected sex for sexual reproductive health policies and interventions The reason for condoms is for protection. Protection cannot be overemphasized. Female participants were particu- from disease. But if there is disease, it means someone larly eloquent about the desirability and influence of emo- is not faithful, therefore untrustworthy . . . so you tions on unprotected sex. More than half (76.9% = 20 of 26) should not be dealing with that person at all . . . or you of participating female respondents suggested that when in- must always use a condom. So in a way, condom use love, unprotected sex is more acceptable and likely to occur . . . doesn’t communicate trust, which is very impor- because fidelity and trust are assumed. Elsewhere, literature tant nowadays. (Interview 36, male) is unequivocal that young women engage in unprotected sex to prove their love to their male sexual partners (see In participants view, the influence of emotions on unpro- Holland, Ramazanoglu, Sharpe, & Thompson, 1998) and/ tected sex is so powerful that it mitigates concerns about or strengthen or bolster perceived unrequited love (Kaestle unintended pregnancies. If pregnancies occur, participants & Halpern, 2007), despite normative sexual conventions admit they purposefully managed them with illegal abortions (W. R. Jankowiak & Fischer, 1992; W. Jankowiak, Nell, & and/or early marriages. STIs are managed by patronizing Buckmaster, 2002). In contrast, majority of male participants community pharmacists and patent medicine vendors (see A. (83.3% = 25 of 30) agree that emotions are somehow influen- D. Okonkwo & Okonkwo, 2010). The article’s findings tial, but distrust their acclaimed deterministic influence on about emotion evokes Alaka’s (2006) contention that unprotected sex. According to masculine perspectives, Okonkwo 9 It is not that boys don’t feel love and all that . . . are for so many reasons. Spur of the moment thing, affec- human beings too (laughter). Just that, well . . . we tion, love, to please my boyfriend, when I have the don’t need to love someone to have sex with them urge, etc. It depends. It’s like some factors may be (laughter). (Interview 6, male) important today and others tomorrow. (Interview 46, female) Sexual curiosity and predispositions as influences on unpro- tected sex. Participants admitted they were initially, and con- Most guys . . . actually . . . go into relationships for tinue to be, curious about sexuality in general, and sex in sex and prestige. Maybe along the line, they may fall particular. More than half (51.8%) of respondents are certain in-love with the girl and then it grows into some- that sexual curiosity promotes experimentation and unpro- thing—the next level. (Interview 16, male) tected sex habit formation. The other half (48.2%) claim curiosity somehow influences unprotected sex. Furthermore, Respondents’ curiosity and predispositions to premarital nearly all female participants counterintuitively linked their sex particularly predispose them toward other influences, initial sexual curiosities, current secretive sexual conduct, from peers, the mass media, and so forth. However, respon- and ambivalent sexual attitudes with the normative status of dents insist their predisposition to premarital sex does not premarital sex as immoral in Nigeria (see Smith, 2004). Sex- equate recklessness. They attribute their risk-prone sexual ual curiosity, as an influential internal state of mind, is con- conducts to influences emanating from being active and pur- urtured by external influences, such as the mass media, peer poseful members of the Nigerian society. That is, “being-in- ideologies, and participants’ biology. the-world” replete with institutional, interpersonal, and Driven by sexual curiosity, and other cofactors, respon- personal pressures to seek and nurture heterosexual relation- dents insist they must cultivate and maintain heterosexual ships with premarital sex (Bleicher, 1980, p. 118, citing relationships (called having a boyfriend or girlfriend in Heidegger, 1949). Nigeria), for which unprotected premarital sex is a certain component “unless . . . somebody discovers a steroid that can Agency as an Influence on Unprotected Sex suppress the hormones in the body” (Interview 16, male). Accordingly, nearly all respondents (98.2% of 56) admit Purposive sexual partner selection as influences on unpro- they cannot avoid sex until marriage. Consequently, answers tected sex. Participants admitted that their varying capacities to the questions, such as As a boy/girl must you have a girl/ to purposefully select, proposition, and accept sexual boyfriend produced the following responses: propositions from partners based on cultural, emotional, and material considerations influence unprotected sex. This is It’s necessary, because one day you must get married “because you can always say no to these things —if you and you need to know who you are marrying by going really want to. But it’s often difficult. Your mood and circum- out with her. (Interview 6, male) stances can affect your willpower” (Interview 11, female). However, participants’ sexual agencies are gendered and Oh yes you do. I think you must. That is the only way unequal; but agency nonetheless. Unequal sexual agencies you can learn about each other, get committed, and are coproduced by gender norms, peer sexual ideologies/con- possibly marry in future. This safe sex thing you are ducts, their internal dispositions, sexual folklore, and previ- talking about can only be done in a committed rela- ous sexual experiences, which govern participants general tionship where both parties remain faithful to each and specific knowledge of contextual sexual rules, resources, other. (Interview 11, female) constrains, and opportunities. Expectedly, participants have a gendered interpretation of Apart from respondents’ sexual curiosities and willing- the partner propositioning/acceptance process, but agree it ness to follow the dominant heterosexual conventions, par- could be avoided because it often culminates in unprotected ticipants admit they also purposefully initiate, consent to, sex “if there is a meeting of minds” (Interview 2, male). For and maintain heterosexual relationships with unprotected male participants, sexual propositioning entails communi- premarital sex. In fact, 80.4% of participants are uncertain cating their suitability over rivals, their they can maintain a nonsexual heterosexual relationship due to complex structural and interpersonal pressures, especially interest and love for the babe or get her friends to rec- the intended benefits of unprotected sex. These include sex- ommend you to her . . . for insurance, you can even ual pleasure, material reward, to secure potential marriage combine the two methods. (long laughter). (Interview partners, to satisfy sexual curiosity, to gain/give love/affec- 51, male) tion, to satisfy partner’s sexual demands, to confirm or reaf- firm personal desirability, to test fertility status, and to gain/ For female participants, sexual propositioning entails maintain peer acceptance/status (see Plummer, 2003, for a similar catalog). In their own words, premarital heterosexual boys lying and saying they love you, they care for relationships are instituted you . . . nobody makes them feel the way you do! 10 SAGE Open (laughter). All lies! Some will even promise to marry unprotected sex, and the other half consider it weakly influ- you and all that. Meanwhile, we all know what they ential. In male participants’ opinions, sexual impression want. (Interview 56, female) management is a prescripted activity that attracts sexual partners: Regardless, sexual partner selection, acceptance, and rejection evidence agency because it is a highly scripted Everyone wants to look good and be loved by friends and gendered sexual conduct that entails conscious and/or . . . Even on campus here, all these yahoo [419 or emotional assessment of a potential partner’s socioeconomic advance fee fraud] boys get all the fine girls. Why? status, physical health, and social standing through personal Because they have loads of cash, pimped-up rides, observation, peer surveillance/referrals, and testimonials laptops, phones, etc. They even live in very expensive for heterosexual relationships. Popular attributes sought by hostels. How do you compete with that? Simple . . . respondents include handsomeness/beauty, physical fitness, you hustle for money. That is why most guys go into trendiness, and course of study. The last, course of study, crime and this yahoo thing . . . to impress girls and often translates into future profession. For example, dating a their friends! (Interview 1, male) medical student, all things being equal, indicates participants’ potentials to marry a medical doctor in future. Other attri- You don’t just toast anybody. The ways a girl dresses butes considered include family background, especially and behaves allow you to know if, and when to toast known or suspected family wealth. All respondents are cer- [proposition them]. That is why the born-again girls tain that unprotected sex cannot take place without partner don’t get happening (trendy) boys on campus, and do selection, toasting (propositioning), acceptance, and dating. it secretly in church with fellow Christian brothers . . . According to their narratives, The way these girls dress, talk, and carry bible up and down drives boys away. (Interview 51, male) Both boys and girls do things that lead to unprotected sex. Not that they always plan it that way. For exam- Female participants ambivalently disagree with male ple, if a boy does not toast (male sexual proposition- opinions of sexual impression management, adding that they ing) a girl in this environment, it will be hard for him dress and act sexually based on prevailing standards and per- to have a girlfriend. If he doesn’t have a girlfriend, sonal needs (to look good for themselves and friends), but how can he take sexual risks? The same thing goes for conceded it also attracts potential male sexual partners. Male girls, if they don’t accept your toasting; there is noth- respondents added that they often collude with their female ing you can do. You can’t kill them or rape them! sexual partners to sustain scripted sexual self-presentations (Interview 16, male) on campuses because “some boys want their girlfriends to look one way, so they are ready to spend anything to achieve We all know what it means for a guy or babe to say that” (Interview 16, male). Regardless, female narratives they have a girlfriend or boyfriend. So when a guy is about sexual impression management remain ambivalent: toasting a girl, she knows that ultimately he will want to have sex. Everybody knows that. The guy too kind It is not my fault that boys are always staring at my of knows he will need to shower the girl with gifts and body (prolonged laughter) . . . that is their problem, presents to maintain the relationship . . . and the girl not mine. I dress the way I like . . . and it is very nice knows that they will have sex to maintain the relation- . . . I mean, you feel very good when you know the ship. If not, generally, they won’t last. That is the way effect you have on them . . . even some lecturers these relationship thing work around here, simple. If (laughter). (Interview 2, female) anybody tells you anything different, they are just lying or deceiving themselves. (Interview 21, female) Well, I still don’t think I am responsible for how my dressing makes a guy feel or think. I think it’s part of Sexual self-presentations and impression management as the bad African culture—men trying to control how influences on unprotected sex. Participants admit they addi- women dress. I think some boys will love how you are tionally deploy agency in their routine and symbolic micro- dressed and others won’t . . . anyway, girls dress to be level sexual impression management activities anticipated to attractive . . . It’s complicated (prolong laughter) . . . attract sexual partners and admirers within and outside the For example, on campus, that is the way most happen- confines of tradition and gender (see Goffman, 1983). Par- ing [trendy] girls dress, I mean they wear body hug- ticularly relevant to the study are sexual impression manage- ging and other revealing clothes. That is the standard. ment activities, such as sexy modes of dressing, flirting, and (Interview 46, female) so on. However, there were gendered disagreements about the influence of sexualized modes of dressing on unprotected Notwithstanding the seeming gendered dissent about sex- sex. More than 42% (42.9% of 56) of mostly male partici- ual self-presentations, it is apparent that participants believe pants consider sexy modes of dressing very influential on it confers symbolic sexual authority and/or privileged sexual Okonkwo 11 access on social agents perceived to be beautiful, handsome, youths have sex. Sometimes there is the mood thing, gregarious, intelligent, charismatic, and so forth. That is, maybe during festivals and celebrations like Christmas. these ascribed sexual facades endow unmarried people (so Even burials, you cannot believe the amount of sex perceived) with a capacity to control, influence, and/or coor- going on in the background. (Interview 26, female) dinate their (similarly, less endowed, and insecure) peers in a social and sexual sense. This is probably why Leary, Well . . . yes pleasure is important. We are human Tchividjian, and Kraxberger (1994) concluded that sexual beings too. You can also do it to get someone to call self-presentations are invaluable for attracting and sustaining your own, care for you, and all that. Some people also heterosexual attention, falling-in-love; and implicated by believe it is what you must do if you are in a relation- this study participants in their risk-prone sexual conducts. ship or care about someone. (Interview 46, female) To secure maximum pleasure from their sexual activities Outcome of Unprotected Sex as They therefore, participants use condoms inconsistently—mostly Influence Further and Similar Conducts to avoid unintended pregnancies. As a female participant Inconsistent condom use and enhanced sexual pleasure. Par- framed it, ticipants admit they engage in unprotected sex in a knowl- edgeable and purposeful quest for enhanced sexual pleasure, Condoms are artificial barriers . . . and it is not the and that consistent condom use interferes with perceived same thing using them compared to not using them . . . organic sexual sensations. This was the most difficult influ- no matter what anybody says. But it is the spread of ence on unprotected sex to elicit from participants because of disease that is making their use popular. (Interview 21, gender asymmetries and participants’ presumption that the female) meaning and value of enhanced sexual pleasure via unpro- tected sex is self-explanatory and universally shared. None- Abdulraheem (2009) drew similar conclusions in the theless, male respondents readily agree (probably because of study of prevalence and correlates of HIV risk behaviors ascribed gender privilege in a patriarchal society) that they among young people in Nigeria—citing decreased pleasure engage in unprotected sex in pursuit of pleasure. According as the primary reason for unprotected sex. Notwithstanding to them, participants’ risk-prone sexual conducts, they disagree with dominant literature assertions that they are ignorant or reck- Very few things can give you the same pleasure as less (for example, see Wagbatsoma & Okojie, 2006). Instead, skin-to-skin [unprotected] sex . . . I think that is why participants claim multiple and interrelated societal and people cannot abstain for long. (Interview 6, male) (inter)personal influences instigate and normalize unpro- tected sex. Therefore, notions that they are ignorant or reck- Most boys have unprotected sex or any sex at all for less were considered: pleasure—period! They are not thinking about mar- riage, sex is just fun and youthful exuberance, I am fallacious. I could die when I drive on Lagos-Asaba young, I want to have fun and so that I can tell my kids road [one of the most dangerous roads in Nigeria] . . . and those who care to listen to stories of my youthful and I still do it. Does that mean I am reckless? Life is adventure and all stuff. (Interview 1, male) a risk . . . generally speaking . . . ehen. (Interview 1, male) Unlike males, female participants were more circum- spect in their narratives about the influence of pleasure Young and reckless . . . maybe, but no young person on unprotected sex. Their reticence was probably due to really wants to die. Some people pray or hope they embarrassment and/or normative double standards govern- will not get pregnant or disease . . . Even the so-called ing sexual conducts in society (see Lips, 2003; Social safe sex is risky. Condoms burst, tear, and leak (laugh- Science and Reproductive Health Research Network ter). (Interview 46, female) [SSRHRN], 1999). Most talk about sex obliquely, as doing it. Furthermore, their narratives about sexual pleasure were Material rewards as intended outcome and influences on fur- more complex. For example, female participants suggested ther and similar conducts. All participants admit that the lack that the quest for enhanced sexual pleasure was one of the of material possession, allegedly linked with poverty, is an multiple drivers of unprotected sex, which transcends gen- influence on unprotected sex to accrue material rewards. der bifurcation: More than half of the participants (58.9% of 56), agree that poverty directly influences unprotected sex while 41.1% (of As soon as youths know they will have a nice time by 56) agree that poverty is somehow influential along gender having sex, they will continue to do it. Although plea- lines. Although no participant admitted poverty, or that their sure is very important, it is not the only reason why sexual conducts were influenced by poverty considerations, 12 SAGE Open there was a general agreement nevertheless, that poverty Male participants ambivalently agree, influences more young females than males because females I think so. But it is not nice to think about it that way. tend to need the money more desperately . . . They Where is the love in all that? (laughter), but the reality tends to want to do more money intensive things than is that if you like a girl and you want to have sex with the guys. (Interview 16, male) her, you give her gifts and money first to impress her. If she is impressed, she will let you have sex and pre- Ambivalently, the study participants further qualified the tend you pressured her. That is how the game is above assertion: played. (Interview 6, male) It is not as if girls are generally poorer than boys, or Curiously, the giving of cash and gifts emerged as vehi- feel the lack more. But then, they are the ones that can cles for masculine demonstration of love and affection for a do something about it with their bodies (laughter). female partner, rather than obvious sexual domination of (Interview 21, female) female partners, whose receipt of the cash/gifts reassures her of the male’s continued interest in the relationship, commit- Regardless, all participants are aware that transactional ment, care, and love. This latter role of cash/gifts implies that sex is risky because overgeneralizations about the material facade of heterosex- ual relationships ought to be reexamined in sub-Saharan the more gifts, money, and favors, a girl receives, the Africa. According to respondents, cash/gift giving is more there will have unprotected sex, if that is what the man wants or the cash/gifts will stop. (Interview part and parcel of relationship building. I cannot think 56, female) of a relationship where a guy does not spend money on recharge-card (for mobile phones), hair, gifts, and The preceding narratives emphasize female respondents’ even outright cash giving. That relationship won’t last. active (although bounded) sexual agencies within the con- But it can also be because of poverty . . . It is also straints of Nigerian patriarchy, political economic, and gen- about relationship building . . . no . . . maintenance. der asymmetries. That is, young females who perceive Yes, relationship building and maintenance. (Interview themselves as lacking symbolic social goods may seek out 1, male) wealthier men and peers willing to offer cash and gifts in exchange for unprotected sex. A further testimony to bounded Well, some people give gifts as a sign of affection or and varied agencies is that not all girls who perceive them- love. But I don’t think it should matter, although it selves as lacking in symbolic material goods succumb to does matter in this environment . . . Gifts are part of societal and (inter)personal pressures to assuage their wants relationship give and take. I give my boyfriend gifts through transactional or cross-generational sex: too. But cash, no . . . I guess girls need these small gifts for reassurance that the relationship is still appre- [An] individual like me will finally decide to do this or ciated. Nothing very major. It is the thinking behind it that. Your friends can put pressure, but it is up to you that matters. (Interview 46, female) to resist it or not. Do you know how many times I have been invited to the government house for parties? Discussions They have recruiters in the hostels that go about invit- ing girls to big-men parties. They send their luxury Practical and Theoretical Implications of Findings cars down every weekend to pick up girls who return with plenty of cash the following week. So do I just go Generally, participants’ narratives were underscored by ten- because I am broke? So their opinion is important to sions, contradictions, assertive but variable agencies, which some extent. But if you mean do they tell me what to undermine the dominant bifurcation of structural and agen- do, no. Although you can be pressured to have sex, but tial influences on unprotected sex by literature and interven- finally doing it is your choice. (Interview 46, female) tions in Nigeria. Furthermore, respondents were unequivocal about their awareness of risks associated with unprotected Furthermore, female respondents agree that sex and available mitigation measures in Nigeria. Never- theless, participants admit they engage in unprotected sex sex is a way for a girl to say thank you to a boy who induced by interrelated institutional and (inter)personal gives her attention, gifts, and . . . material support. influences that are often insidious and compelling. A few That is the only thing boys want from girls around interrelated influences they implicate in sexual risk practices here . . . no matter what they say. (Interview 41, include the mass media, peer influence, personal needs, the female) influence of the gender structure, emotions, sensation-seeking, Okonkwo 13 the influence of the romance structure, and so on— influencing internal structures, sexual agencies, outcomes, perpetually jostling among themselves to recommend and external structures anew—in a dynamic and interrelated unprotected sex instead of safe-sex or abstention. process in which all four analytical categories of influences Consequently, participants’ narratives challenge entrenched play varied roles, and so on. This is how extant sexual risk beliefs among sexual reproductive health stakeholders that structures and agencies become “deeply layered in time and unprotected sex is driven by unitary factors, such as igno- space, stretching through many decades and over large or rance or sensation-seeking alone (see Onoh, Mbah, fixed domains” that “pre-exist and post-date the lives of indi- Chukwuka, & Ikeme, 2004), and surmountable with safe- viduals (unmarried students) who reproduce them, and thus, sex communications, empowerment, and contraceptive may be resistant to manipulation or change” (Thompson, promotions (see UNAIDS, 2000). 1989, pp. 61-73). Figure 3 depicts the structuration cycle of Moreover, participants’ narratives have theoretical and unprotected sex. practical significance for sustainable behavior change Under the influence of multiple and often insidiously interventions in Nigeria. Findings imply that young people dynamic societal and (inter)personal influences already out- cannot simply Zip-Up their pants or Just Say No to unpro- lined, unprotected sex seems highly prescripted. It is not tected sex (agencies). Neither are young people’s sexual attributable to one influence alone. Participants’ context and conducts mere lifestyle issues (see Davison, Frankel, & conducts equally matter. Their context matter because soci- Smith, 1992; Davison, Smith, & Frankel, 1991). This is etal institutions, such as the mass media, sexualize unmarried because several insidious, competing, and compelling insti- people. Similarly, participants’ conducts matter because they tutional and (inter)personal coinfluences are always at play, purposefully draw-on and work-on prevailing sexual stan- such as marriage ambitions, peer pressure, sensation seek- dards, from social institutions, peer models, and so on, to (re) ing, and so on. Furthermore, participants claim that the enact unprotected sex in pursuit of intended outcomes such as Nigerian society categorization of premarital sex as immoral pleasure and peer esteem. It is against this seemingly contra- recommends its secretive and risk-prone conduct away from dictory and duality of influence background that behavior parental and societal gaze. Drawing on participants’ per- change interventionists must function in Nigeria. spectives, stakeholders will begin to appreciate why earlier agential abstention pledges and safe-sex resolutions crum- Study Limitations ble before dynamic contexts, sexual opportunities, peer pressure, emotions, (inter)personal needs, and so on. Several methodological issues limit this study. The first is that Participants describe influences as perpetually jostling the hermeneutic stance of the study implicates the author’s among themselves to normalize and recommend unprotected preunderstanding of, and allied prejudice for, or against, risk- sex; instead of abstention or consistent condom use. They prone sexual practices in the choice of topic, theory, research claim that sexual themes from external structures, such as the methods, and the interpretation and presentation of findings mass media, act as subtle pressures on young people, and as (see England, 1994; Schwandt, 1997). This is an inevitable normalizing influences on unprotected sex by (in)directly product of the author “being-in-the-world” (Bleicher, 1980, teaching sexual knowledge and skills through ubiquitous p. 118, quoting Heidegger, 1949). Furthermore, the sensitive sexual discourse, the promotion of sexual risk mitigation nature of the research topic constrained the initial recruitment measures, and so on, to affect and shape their sexual habitus, of female participants for the study. Topic sensitivity and that is, young people’s variable emotional and practical pre- allied participant recruitment challenges paradoxically recom- disposition toward unprotected sex that are wedded to their mended snowball sampling for a more efficient sample highly sexualized worldviews and values. recruitment from extended peer networks, and to reduce par- Notwithstanding, participants claim external influences ticipants’ discomforts. Although initially unplanned, snowball are not deterministic because young people routinely draw- sampling was used because female students initially on and work-on their sexual worldviews, values, emotions, approached refused to discuss their sexual practices with a and knowledge of their contexts, with active, purposive, and stranger and male investigator. Regardless of its inherent mer- often variable agencies, to initiate and accept sexual relation- its, snowball sampling render findings unrepresentative of ship propositions that they know culminates in normative Nigerian youths and their risk-prone sexual practices. sexual interactions and practices (i.e., unprotected sex). Moreover, peer referrals may have constrained the Interestingly, participants claim their sexual conducts are author’s access to participants in same-sex relationships, instigated for varied individual and/or dyadic intended which are normatively condemned in Nigeria. During the benefits but sometimes produce unintended outcomes, interview, same-sex sexual relationships research themes which they covertly manage with sexual reproductive health evoked strong verbal hostilities among participants. In fact, technologies available in society. Crucially, participants’ several self-styled born-again Christians terminated their mostly positive experiences of unprotected sex filter interviews, and promised an impending divine wrath on peo- back into society through the mass media, peer sexual ide- ple (like this author) who promote Western immoralities— ologies, and folklore to (re)affect the external world by (re) the dominant view of same-sex relationships in Nigeria. 14 SAGE Open External structures. Outcomes of sexual Composed of sexual relations relations. Intended and rules and resources. unintended ones such as Facilitates the acquisition of pleasure and STIs challenge knowledge and /skills of the dominant sexual order. sexuality. Active agencies-manifested Internal Structures. This is as youth proposition and exemplified by emotions and acceptance of propositions, respondents predispositions gifting and sexual risk- to sexual risk-taking. taking. Figure 3. Recursive sexual risk-taking influence cycle Note: Author-developed figure with input from Stones (2005) empirical structurationist research brackets The topic derailed several interviews to the extent that the With this privileged access, the author was able to understand author elected to drop it. In the future, better funded and and explain generational perspectives of sexual risk practices more generously timed studies would benefit from a more and sustainable behavior change in Nigeria as the study par- inclusive sampling of participants. ticipants did, utilizing their own words as much as reason- In addition, snowball sampling probably influenced par- able. Consequently, findings could inform an evidence-based ticipants’ narrative insurgency—especially in an abstention- understanding, explanation, description, and plausible theo- until-marriage-oriented context like Nigeria. Participants’ retical generalizations (see Yin, 1984) about influential and narrative insurgencies are likely due to personal, in-group, interrelated structures and agencies that predispose unmar- and contextual pressures to conform with, challenge, (re)pro- ried people to sexual risk practices on a broader national scale duce contextual sexual conducts, and/or reenact sexual fables. in Nigeria—without mistaking “local conventions for univer- Regardless of participants’ motivations for their narratives, sal truths” (Gergen & Gergen, 2000, p. 1032). we are cautioned by Freeman (1998) that “the self is indistin- guishable from the life story it constructs for itself out of what Conclusion is inherited what is experienced and what is desired” (cited in Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 746). Furthermore, participants’ Against the background of conflated institutional and agen- statements about their sexual practices accurately describes tial influences on sexual risk practices previously outlined, unmarried people’s sexual practices reported in literature, university students emphasize that abstention and consistent minus the gendered agency components (see FMoH, 2002; condom use injunctions are not realistic options for unmar- NPC and ICF Macro, 2009), and have internal coherency (see ried people. The suggestion was made that safe-sex stake- Czarniawska, 1999), which is determined by iteratively com- holders ought to accept serial monogamy; that is, focus on paring transcribed narratives. making unmarried people’s trending tendencies to maintain Notwithstanding the discussed challenges, the study meth- one sexual relationship at a time safer. In addition, partici- ods facilitated the author’s access to participants, their sexual pants argue that abstention expectations and pledges compli- contexts, conducts, worldviews, and allied rationalizations. cate their (especially girls) access to safe-sex information Okonkwo 15 and products. Howell (2001) drew similar observations participate in its prescripted pursuit. Accordingly, gender in about U.S. abstention-led programs (see Institute of Medicine heterosexual relationships is recast after Butler (1999) as [IOM], 2007, also). More critically, participants stress that performative—or indistinguishable from the various pre- previous beliefs about contraceptives, access to them, and scripted and learnable conducts socially constructed as positive dispositions toward contraceptives are poor predic- masculine or feminine. tors of their actual use in premarital relationships because of More significantly, participants claim that sexual risk- multiple and dynamic societal and (inter)personal influences infused structures and their variable agencies do not predeter- previously outlined. mine their unprotected sex conducts. According to them, In particular, participants claim interventionists’ failure to influential sexual structures present unprotected sex as one acknowledge and work-on conflated influences on unpro- compelling option, among several sexual conduct alternatives tected sex accounts for limited behavior change in Nigeria (or in Nigeria, such as abstention and consistent contraceptive the perennial KAP-gap). To correct this anomaly, participants use. Conversely, their agential choices and conducts were pre- suggested that interventionists endeavor to understand emo- sented as impossible without structural enablement in the tions, sexual curiosity, and pleasure, especially their influence form of sexual rules and resources within a context of increas- on unprotected sex. Their sentiments corroborates Alaka’s ingly weak sexual constraints. Based on participants’ genera- contention that “much sexual and reproductive behaviour is tional perspectives, rarely does one variable operating alone, motivated by emotional states that can suppress prior knowl- for example the mass media or peers, determine the occur- edge, services, or agency” (Alaka, 2006, p. 107); and Higgins rence of unprotected sex. Therefore, rather than simply read- and Hirsch’s (2008) analysis that “clear links exist between ing off the presented influences as narrowly corresponding the forms of pleasure respondents seek and their contracep- with others, or as simply multifactoral, it is more robust to tive practices” (p. 1803; see Rosenthal, Gifford, & Moore, read participants’ perspectives of influences as interdependent 1998, also). For participants, emotions collude with compel- and complex—facilitating the pursuit of subcultural, perhaps, ling and competing modern romance ideologies to recom- contextually compelling goals, such as enhanced pleasure, mend sexual spontaneity—which often mean unprotected peer esteem, securing future marriage partners, social sex. Emotion discourages contraceptive preplanning and use exchange, and so forth. More crucially, the relative influence among participants, recommending instead, the relinquishing of different structures (influences) identified, especially their of rational sexual control for love and/or romance. Similarly, (re)combinations, often vary with individuals or subpopula- attention ought to be paid to participants’ claims that the dom- tions, felt-needs, social fads, time, and space. inant taboo against premarital sex and feminine pursuit of To conclude therefore, behavior change strategists in sexual pleasure in Nigeria (see Smith, 2001, 2004) paradoxi- Nigeria must come to terms with respondents’ modalities for cally elevates their sexual curiosities and secretive risk-prone learning, interpreting, and incorporating patterned sexual sexual practices despite (perhaps, because of) the categoriza- rules and resources into their lives within the context of tion of premarital sex, especially women’s pursuit of sexual modern romance ideologies, structural inequalities, emo- pleasure, as immoral. tions, and purposive and active sexual agencies. This is Further attention ought to be paid to the reality that par- because unprotected sex “is only a taking up of the tools ticipants value the unique benefits, independence, and where they lie, where the very ‘taking up’ is enabled [and sense of achievement their sexual relationships confer. In constrained] by the tool lying there” (Butler, 1999, p. 145). this regard, participants contest adult presumptions that Declaration of Conflicting Interests they are uniformly reckless, suggesting instead that unpro- tected sex is acceptable within their dominantly heterosex- The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with ual subculture that is governed by serial monogamy, respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this romance, commitment, and partners’ mutual expectations article. of fidelity (their subcultural attempts to manage sexual Funding risks). Therefore, patronizing safe-sex and abstention mes- sages that are governed by notions of sexual danger, preda- The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or tory masculinity, and passive femininity, which are allied to authorship of this article. developing nations’ HIV/AIDS pandemic and population References control concerns, will continue to be ineffective (see Jolly, 2007). The foregoing analysis invites commentary on the Abdulraheem, I. S. (2009). Young people’s sexual risk behaviours gendered facade of collected narratives, which concur- in Nigeria. Journal of Adolescent Research, 24, 505-527. rently corroborated and challenged essentialists’ concep- Ajibade, G. O. (2005). Is there no man with penis in this land? tion of gender in Nigeria (see Oyekanmi, 1994). Contrary Eroticism and performance in Yoruba nuptial songs. African to essentialists’ versions of women as sexually passive and Study Monographs, 26(2), 99-113. men as sexually voracious, participants were unequivocal Alaka, M. B. (2006). The emotions and reproductive health. Popu- that both sexes desire sexual pleasure and actively lation and Development Review, 32, 107-121. 16 SAGE Open Archer, M. (1995). Realist social theory: The morphogenetic Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Cambridge, UK: approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Polity. Giddens, A. (1992). The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love Bleicher, J. (1980). Contemporary hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as and eroticism in modern societies. Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni- method, philosophy and critique. London, England: Routledge versity Press. & Kegan Paul. Goffman, E. (1983). The interaction order (American Sociological Bond, T. (2004). Guidelines for researching counselling and psy- Association 1982 Presidential Address). American Sociological chotherapy. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 4(2), Review, 48, 1-17. 10-19. Higgins, J. A., & Hirsch, J. S. (2008). Pleasure, power, and inequal- Brown, T. (2000). AIDS and social governance. Social Science & ity: Incorporating sexuality into research on contraceptive use. Medicine, 50, 1273-1284. American Journal of Public Health, 98, 1803-1813. Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of Holland, J., Ramazanoglu, C., Sharpe, S., & Thompson, R. (1998). identity (Anniversary Ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. The male in the head: Young people, heterosexuality and power. Cleland, J., & Watkins, S. C. (2006). The key lesson of family plan- London, England: Tufnell Press. ning programs for HIV/AIDS control. AIDS, 20, 1-3. Holmes, K. K., Levine, R., & Weaver, M. (2004). Effectiveness of Cohen, P. S. (1968). Modern social theory. London, England: condoms in preventing sexually transmitted infections. Bulletin Heinemann. of World Health Organization, 82, 454-461. Czarniawska, B. (1999). Writing management. Oxford, UK: Oxford Howell, M. (2001). The future of sexuality education: Science or University Press. politics? Transitions, 12(3), 1-17. Davison, C., Frankel, S., & Smith, G. D. (1992). The limits of life- Institute of Medicine. (2007). PEPFAR implementation: Progress style: Re-assessing “fatalism” in the popular culture of illness and promise (Report brief: Institute of Medicine of the National prevention. Social Science & Medicine, 34, 675-685. Academies). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. de Lauretis, T. (1990). Eccentric subjects: Feminist theory and his- Jackson, S., & Scott, S. (1997). Gut reactions to matters of the heart: torical consciousness. Feminist Studies, 16(1), 115-150. Reflections on rationality, irrationality and sexuality. Sociologi- Douglas, M. (1992). Risk and blame: Essays in cultural theory. cal Review, 45, 551-575. London, England: Routledge. Jankowiak, W., Nell, M. D., & Buckmaster, A. (2002). Managing Duffy, M. E., & Gotcher, J. M. (1996). Crucial advice on how to infidelity: A cross-cultural perspective. Ethnology, 41, 85-101. get the guy: The rhetorical vision of power and seduction in Jankowiak, W. R., & Fischer, E. F. (1992). A cross-cultural perspec- the teen magazine YM. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 20, tive on romantic love. Ethnology, 31, 149-155. 32-48. Jolly, S. (2007). Why the development industry should get over its Elegbeleye, O. S. (2006). Is rape in the eye or in the mind of obsession with bad sex and start to think about pleasure (IDS the offender? A survey of rape perception among Nigerian Working Paper No. 283). Brighton, UK: Institute of Develop- university stakeholders. Educational Research and Review, 1(2), ment Studies. Retrieved from http://www.research4develop- 40-51. ment.info/PDF/Outputs/SexReproRights_RPC/wp283.pdf Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. (2000). Autoethnography, personal Kabir, M., Iliyasu, Z., Abubakar, I. S., & Kabir, A. S. (2004). Sex- narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. Denzin & ual behaviour among students in tertiary institutions in Kano, Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., northern Nigeria. Journal of Community Medicine & Primary pp. 733-768), Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Health Care, 16(2), 17-22. England, K. V. L. (1994). Getting personal: Reflexivity, positional- Kaestle, C. E., & Halpern, C. T. (2007). What’s love got to do ity, and feminist research. Professional Geographer, 46, 80-89. with it? Sexual behaviours of opposite-sex couples through Federal Ministry of Health. (2002). HIV/AIDS: What it means for emerging adulthood. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Nigeria (Background, projections, impact, interventions and Health, 39, 134-140. policy). Abuja, Nigeria: Author. Kelleher, D. (1996). A defence of the use of the terms “ethnicity” Feltham, C., & Dryden, W. (2004). Dictionary of counselling (2nd and “culture.” In D. Kelleher & S. Hillier (Eds.), Researching ed.). London, England: Whurr. cultural differences in health (pp. 69-90). London, England: Fenton, S., & Charsley, K. (2000). Epidemiology and sociology as Routledge. incommensurate games: Accounts from the study of health and Lash, S. (2000). Risk culture. In B. Adam, U. Beck, & and J. van ethnicity. Health, 4, 403-425. Loon (Eds.), The risk society and beyond (pp. 47-62). London, Fisher, C. B. (2004). Informed consent and clinical research involv- England: SAGE. ing children and adolescents: Implications of the revised APA Leary, M. R., Tchividjian, L. R., & Kraxberger, B. E. (1994). Self- ethics code and HIPAA. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent presentation can be hazardous to your health: Impression man- Psychology, 33, 832-839. agement and health risk. Health Psychology, 13, 461-470. Gergen, M., & Gergen, K. (2000). Qualitative inquiry: Tensions Lee, R., Kochman, A., & Sikkema, K. (2002). Internalized stigma and transformations. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Hand- among people living with HIV-AIDS. AIDS and Behavior, 6, book of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 1025-1046) Thousand 309-319. Oaks, CA: SAGE. Okonkwo 17 Lee, R. M. (1993). Doing research on sensitive topics. London, Onoh, H. E., Mbah, A. U., Chukwuka, J. C., & Ikeme, A. C. (2004). England: SAGE. HIV/AIDS awareness and sexual practices among undergradu- ates in Enugu, Nigeria. Nigerian Postgraduate Medical Jour- Lips, H. M. (2003). A new psychology of women: Gender, culture, nal, 11(2), 121-125. and ethnicity (2nd ed.). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield. Oyekanmi, F. A. D. (1994). Women’s attitudes towards sexually Maxwell, J. (2002). Ethnography and the construction of culture transmitted diseases in Nigeria: A case study in Ilesa in Osun (Comprehensive Essay No. 2). Retrieved from http://thinkubator state. Africa development. 19(2), 147-165. .ccsp.sfu.ca/jmax-papers/PhD/ethnographyComp.pdf Plummer, K. (2003). Intimate citizenship: Private decisions and McCracken, G. (1988). The long interview. Newbury Park, CA: public dialogues. Seattle: University of Washington Press. SAGE. Rosenthal, D., Gifford, S., & Moore, S. (1998). Safe sex or safe McLennan, G. (1984). Critical or positive theory? A comment on love: Competing discourses? AIDS Care, 10, 35-47. the status of Anthony Giddens’ social theory. Theory, Culture Schutz, A. (1972). The phenomenology of the social world. Lon- & Society, 2, 123-129. don, England: Heinemann Educational Books. (Original work Meekers, D., Van Rossem, R., Zellner, S., & Berg, R. (2004). Using published 1932) behavior change communications to overcome social market- Schwandt, T. A. (1997). Qualitative inquiry: A dictionary of terms. ing sales plateaus: Case studies in Nigeria and India (Techni- Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. cal Paper Series 7). Washington, DC: USAID. Shoveller, J. A., & Jonhson, J. L. (2006). Risky groups, risky behav- Merriam, S. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applica- iour, and risky persons: Dominating discourses on youth sexual tions in education (Rev. ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. health. Critical Public Health, 10, 313-319. Momoh, S. O., Asagwara, C. G., & Meriamu, U. M. (2007). Male Smith, D. J. (2001). Romance, parenthood and gender in a modern gender roles and sexuality: Implications for university girls African society. Ethnology, 40, 129-151. HIV/AIDS awareness in a Nigerian university. Journal of Inter- Smith, D. J. (2004). Youth, sin and sex in Nigeria: Christianity and national Women’s Studies, 8(4), 148-152. HIV/AIDS related beliefs and behaviour among rural-urban Momoh, S. O., Moses, A. I., & Ugiomoh, M. M. (2006). Women migrants. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 6, 425-437. and the HIV/AIDS epidemic: The issue of school age girls’ Social Science and Reproductive Health Research Network. (1999). awareness in Nigeria. Journal of International Women’s Stud- Male responsibility in reproductive health: The construction of ies, 8, 212-218. manhood in Nigeria (Phase I). Ibadan, Nigeria: NISER. Munson, R. (2000). Intervention and reflection: Basic issues in Stones, R. (2005). Structuration theory. Traditions in social theory. medical ethics (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. National Bureau of Statistics. (2009). Social statistics in Nigeria Thomas, N., & O’Kane, C. (1998). The ethics of participatory federal republic. Abuja, Nigeria: Author. Retrieved from http:// research with children. Children and Society, 12, 336-348. www.efiko.org/material/Social%20Statistics%20in%20Nige- Thompson, J. B. (1989). The theory of structuration. In D. Held ria%20by%20NBS.pdf & J. B. Thompson (Eds.), Social theory of modern societies: National Population Commission and ICF Macro. (2009). Nigeria Anthony Giddens and his critiques (pp. 56-76). Cambridge, demographic and health survey 2008. Abuja, Nigeria: National UK: Cambridge University Press. Population Commission Nigeria and ICF Macro Ugoji, F. N. (2011). Romanticism and gender identity as predictors O’Donnell, A., & Cummins, D. (1999). The use of qualitative of sexual behaviours among undergraduate students in a Nige- methods to research networking in SMEs. Qualitative Market rian university. Journal of Social Sciences, 26, 147-152. Research, 2, 82-91. UNAIDS. (1997). Impact of HIV and sexual health education on the Odu, B. K., & Akanle, F. F. (2008). Knowledge of HIV/AIDS and sexual behavior of young people: A review update. Retrieved from sexual behaviour among the youths in south west Nigeria. http://data.unaids.org/Publications/IRC-pub01/JC010-Impact International Journal of Tropical Medicine, 3, 81-88. YoungPeople_en.pdf Okonkwo, A. D., & Okonkwo, U. P. (2010). Patent medicine ven- UNAIDS. (2000). The male condom (UNAIDS Technical update). dors, community pharmacists and STI management in Abuja, Geneva, Switzerland: UNAIDS Best Practice Collection. Nigeria. African Health Sciences, 10, 253-265. Wagbatsoma, V. A., & Okojie, O. H. (2006). Knowledge of HIV/ Okonkwo, P. I., Fatusi, A. O., & Ilika A. L. (2005). Perception AIDS and sexual practices among adolescents in Benin City, of peers’ behaviour regarding sexual health decision making Nigeria. African Journal of Reproductive Health, 10(3), among female undergraduates in Anambra State, Nigeria. Afri- 76-83. can Health Sciences, 5(2), 107-113. West, W. (2002). Some ethical dilemmas in counselling and coun- Okoza, J., & Aluede, O. (2009). Drug abuse among students of selling research. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. European Journal 30, 261-268. of Social Sciences, 10, 85-92. Westoff, C. F., & Bankole, A. (1995). Unmet need: 1990–1994 Omoteso, B. A. (2006). A study of the sexual behaviour of univer- (Demographic and Health Surveys Comparative Studies 16). sity undergraduate students in southwestern Nigeria. Journal of Calverton, MD: Macro International. Social Sciences, 12, 129-133. 18 SAGE Open Yin, R. K. (1984). Case study research: Design and methods. Bev- Sustainability journal (2012); “Gender and Sexual Risk-Taking erley Hills, CA: SAGE. Among Selected Nigerian University Students” published by the Sexuality and Culture Journal (2010); and a collaborative study of Bio the roles of “Patent Medicine Vendors, Community Pharmacists, Amaechi D. Okonkwo is a PhD graduate of Swansea University, and STI Management in Abuja, Nigeria,” which was published by United Kingdom, and currently engaged in development research the African Health Sciences journal (2010). He is currently work- with Behaviour Change Group, Edmonton, Canada. His recent ing on two research projects, including a theoretical reimagining of publications include the investigation of the impact of “The Lower institutional and agential influences on grand corruption in Nigeria, Niger River Dredging on Indigenous Wetland Livelihoods in and a critical analysis of the primacy of ethnicity in explaining Nigeria,” which was published by Environment, Development and Nigeria’s failed state status. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png SAGE Open SAGE http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/generational-perspectives-of-unprotected-sex-and-sustainable-behavior-qGVcVc2ssj

Loading next page...

References (87)

I. Craib, M. Archer (1997)
Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach
Canadian Journal of Sociology-cahiers Canadiens De Sociologie, 22
(2004)
Guidelines for researching counselling and psychotherapy
J. Cleland, S. Watkins (2006)
The key lesson of family planning programmes for HIV/AIDS control
AIDS, 20
W. West (2002)
Some ethical dilemmas in counselling and counselling research
British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 30
William Jankowiak, E. Fischer (1992)
A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Romantic Love
Ethnology, 31
S. Momoh, C. Asagwara, Ugiomoh Meriamu (2007)
Male Gender Roles and Sexuality: Implications for University Girls' HIV/AIDS Awareness in a Nigerian University
Journal of international women's studies, 8
D. Kelleher (2002)
A defence of the use of the terms ‘ethnicity’ and ‘culture’
J. Turner (1986)
The Theory of Structuration
American Journal of Sociology, 91
K. Holmes, R. Levine, M. Weaver (2004)
Effectiveness of condoms in preventing sexually transmitted infections.
Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 82 6
K. Plummer (2003)
Intimate Citizenship: Private Decisions and Public Dialogues
J. Thompson (1989)
Social theory of modern societies: The theory of structuration
C. Davison, S. Frankel, G. Smith (1992)
The limits of lifestyle: re-assessing 'fatalism' in the popular culture of illness prevention.
Social science & medicine, 34 6
N. Thomas, C. O’Kane (1998)
The ethics of participatory research with children
Children & Society, 12
S. Jolly (2007)
Why the Development Industry Should Get Over its Obsession With Bad Sex and Start to Think About Pleasure.
(2001)
The future of sexuality education: Science or politics? Transitions
A. Basu (2006)
The Emotions and Reproductive Health
Population and Development Review, 32
Margaret Duffy, Micheal Gotcher (1996)
Crucial Advice on how to Get the Guy: The Rhetorical Vision of Power and Seduction in the Teen Magazine YM
Journal of Communication Inquiry, 20
C. Ellis, Arthur Bochner (2000)
Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher as Subject
H. Lips (1999)
A New Psychology of Women: Gender, Culture, and Ethnicity
A. Russo, Torres
Getting Personal : Reflexivity , Positionality , and Feminist Research
D. Meekers, R. Vanrossem, S. Zellner, R. Berg (2004)
Using behavior change communications to overcome social marketing sales plateaus. Case studies of Nigeria and India.
, 7
B. Southwell (2000)
Audience construction and AIDS education efforts: Exploring communication assumptions of public health interventions
Critical Public Health, 10
H. Onah, A. Mbah, J. Chukwuka, A. Ikeme (2004)
HIV/AIDS awareness and sexual practices among undergraduates in Enugu, Nigeria.
The Nigerian postgraduate medical journal, 11 2
Thomas Schwandt (1997)
Qualitative Inquiry: A Dictionary of Terms
Elegbeleye (2006)
Is rape in the eye or in the mind of the offender ? A survey of rape perception among Nigerian university stakeholders
T. Lauretis (1990)
Eccentric Subjects: Feminist Theory and Historical Consciousness
Feminist Studies, 16
I. Abdulraheem, O. Fawole (2009)
Young People's Sexual Risk Behaviors in Nigeria
Journal of Adolescent Research, 24
D. Rosenthal, S. Gifford, S. Moore (1998)
Safe sex or safe love: competing discourses?
AIDS care, 10 1
Stevi Jackson, S. Scott (1997)
Gut Reactions to Matters of the Heart: Reflections on Rationality, Irrationality and Sexuality
The Sociological Review, 45
B. Odu, F. Akanle (2008)
Knowledge of HIV/AIDS and Sexual Behaviour among the Youths in South West Nigeria
K. Gergen (2000)
Qualitative Inquiry: Tensions And Transformations
(1999)
material/Social%20Statistics%20in%20Nige-ria%20by%20NBS.pdf National Population Commission and ICF Macro
George Ajíbádé (2005)
Is There No Man With Penis in This Land? Eroticism and Performance in Yoruba Nuptial Songs
African Study Monographs, 26
M. Zaman, Sobia Razzaq, Rabia Hassan, Junaid Qureshi, H. Ijaz, Muhammad Hanif, Fazal Chughtai (2015)
Drug abuse among the students
Pakistan Journal of Pharmaceutical Research, 1
S. Fenton, Katharine Charsley (2000)
Epidemiology and Sociology as Incommensurate Games: Accounts from the Study of Health and Ethnicity
Health:, 4
A. Giddens (1992)
The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love, and Eroticism in Modern Societies
E. Kurzweil (1983)
Contemporary Hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as Method, Philosophy and Critique
New Vico Studies, 1
F. Oyekanmi (1994)
Women's Attitude Towards Sexually Transmitted Disease in Nigeria: A Case Study in Ilesa in Osun State
Africa Development: a Quarterly Journal of CODESRIA, 19
Youth Children, Families. (2007)
PEPFAR implementation: Progress and promise
D. Smith (2001)
Romance parenthood and gender in a modern African society.
Ethnology, 40
Drug abuse among students of Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, Nigeria
E. Shils (1982)
The Constitution Of Society
C. Feltham, W. Dryden (2004)
Dictionary of Counselling
William Jankowiak, M. Nell, A. Buckmaster (2002)
Managing Infidelity: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Ethnology, 41
Rachel Lee, A. Kochman, K. Sikkema (2002)
Internalized Stigma Among People Living with HIV-AIDS
AIDS and Behavior, 6
(2009)
Social statistics in Nigeria federal republic
(1999)
Writing management
J. Butler (1990)
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
M. Douglas (1994)
Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory
(1999)
Male responsibility in reproductive health: The construction of manhood in Nigeria (Phase I)
S. Merriam (1998)
Qualitative research and case study applications in education
A. Fouda (2011)
The Male Condom
(2002)
Ethnography and the construction of culture (Comprehensive Essay No
C. Renzetti (1992)
Doing Research on Sensitive Topics
F. Ugoji (2011)
Romanticism and Gender Identity as Predictors of Sexual Behaviours among Undergraduate Students in a Nigerian University
Journal of Social Sciences, 26
J. Higgins, J. Hirsch (2008)
Pleasure, power, and inequality: incorporating sexuality into research on contraceptive use.
American journal of public health, 98 10
A. Grunseit, S. Kippax (1997)
Impact of HIV and sexual health education on the sexual behaviour of young people: a review update
A. Okonkwo, UP Okonkwo (2010)
Patent medicine vendors, community pharmacists and STI management in Abuja, Nigeria.
African health sciences, 10 3
P. Misir (2015)
Structuration Theory
Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (JIAPAC), 14
Daniel Albert (1981)
Book Reviews : Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Medical Ethics Ronald Munson. 512 pp, Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1979. $17.95
Medical Decision Making, 1
G. Mclennan (1984)
Critical or Positive Theory? A Comment on the Status of Anthony Giddens' Social Theory
Theory, Culture & Society, 2
(2002)
HIV/AIDS: What it means for Nigeria (Background, projections, impact, interventions and policy)
M. Kabir, Z. Iliyasu, I. Abubakar, Asma Kabir (2005)
Sexual behaviour among students in tertiary institutions in Kano, northern Nigeria
Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care, 16
C. Fisher (2004)
Informed Consent and Clinical Research Involving Children and Adolescents: Implications of the Revised APA Ethics Code and HIPAA
Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 33
T. Brown (2000)
AIDS, risk and social governance.
Social science & medicine, 50 9
Risk culture
A. Schutz (1967)
The phenomenology of the social world
J. Holland, C. Ramazanoglu, S. Sharpe, R. Thomson (2004)
The Male in the Head: Young People, Heterosexuality and Power
R. Pittman, Claus Schultze, Janet Mitchell, Joanna Wu, A. Enthoven, Ariel Cohen, Rudolfs Bems, T. Horváth, R. Kleinfeld, Jennifer Munroe, Ashok Robi, M. Neider, Erik Berglöf, Gábor Péteri, N. Campos, V. Korhonen, Richard Hirschler, Arista-Maria Cirtanutas, R. Messick, P. Reti, R. Ball, J. Nugent, D. Dejong, Luigi Marcon, Mika Widgrén, A. Vanags, J. Nemec, Daniel Berkowitz, Jaana Rantama, R. Struyk, J. Corbett, Scott Thomas, R. Baldwin (2001)
Transition 12 (4)
Transition: An International Review, 12
P. Cohen (1968)
Modern Social Theory
A. O'Donnell, D. Cummins (1999)
The Use of Qualitative Methods to Research Networking in SMEs
Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 2
M. Leary, Lydia Tchividijian, Brook Kraxberger (1994)
Self-presentation can be hazardous to your health: impression management and health risk.
Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 13 6
P. Okonkwo, A. Fatusi, A. Ilika (2005)
Perception of peers' behaviour regarding sexual health decision making among female undergraduates in Anambra State, Nigeria.
African health sciences, 5 2
Christine Kaestle, C. Halpern (2007)
What's love got to do with it? Sexual behaviors of opposite-sex couples through emerging adulthood.
Perspectives on sexual and reproductive health, 39 3
D. Smith (2004)
Youth, sin and sex in Nigeria: Christianity and HIV/AIDS‐related beliefs and behaviour among rural‐urban migrants
Culture, Health & Sexuality, 6
S. Momoh, A. Moses, Maria Ugiomoh (2006)
Women and the HIV / AIDS epidemic: The issue of school age girls awareness in Nigeria.
Journal of international women's studies, 8
E. Goffman (1983)
The Interaction Order: American Sociological Association, 1982 Presidential Address
American Sociological Review, 48
V. Wagbatsoma, O. Okojie (2006)
Knowledge of HIV/AIDS and sexual practices among adolescents in Benin City, Nigeria.
African journal of reproductive health, 10 3
K. England (1994)
Getting Personal: Reflexivity, Positionality, and Feminist Research∗
The Professional Geographer, 46
Grant Mccracken (1988)
The long interview
J. Shoveller, Joy Johnson (2006)
Risky groups, risky behaviour, and risky persons: Dominating discourses on youth sexual health
Critical Public Health, 16
Charles Westoff, Akinrinola Bankole (1995)
Unmet need: 1990-1994.
B. Omoteso (2006)
A Study of the Sexual Behaviour of University Undergraduate Students in Southwestern Nigeria
Journal of Social Sciences, 12
N. Denzin, Y. Lincoln (1994)
Handbook of Qualitative Research
British Journal of Educational Studies, 42
The future of sexuality education: Science or politics?
AIDS and social governance
Nigeria., Icf Macro (2004)
Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey 2008

Publisher: SAGE
Copyright: Copyright © 2022 by SAGE Publications Inc, unless otherwise noted. Manuscript content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Licenses.
ISSN: 2158-2440
eISSN: 2158-2440
DOI: 10.1177/2158244012472346
Publisher site: See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Despite the HIV/AIDS pandemic and over two decades of safe-sex communication and condom social marketing in Nigeria, unmarried people continue to engage in unprotected sex. Understanding their perspectives of unprotected sex will be imperative for sustainable policy and intervention design. To realize this objective, the author synthesized Giddens’s structuration theory and Rob Stones’s structurationist project research brackets to develop a long interview guide used to elicit unmarried university students’ perspectives of influences on unprotected sex, and the feasibility of sustainable behavior change in Nigeria. Participants’ constructed unprotected sex as prescripted, and the cumulative outcome of complex institutional (structural), interpersonal, and agential influences. Their narratives challenge the popular but narrow loss of control, sensation-seeking, and ignorance theses of unprotected sex. Instead, participants’ narratives implicate an interrelated web of persuasive and insidious institutional and agential influences, in a manner that privilege neither structure nor agency. To promote safer sexual practices therefore, stakeholders must concurrently engage with institutional and agential influences on unprotected sex—and not focus on unmarried people’s sexual agencies alone, as current interventions do in Nigeria. Keywords Nigeria, unmarried university students, unprotected sex, structure, agency, influences, sustainable behavior change Introduction and a source of personal fulfillment” in Nigeria (Jackson & In Nigeria, unmarried university students continue to engage Scott, 1997, p. 559). In particular, heterosexual prowess and in unprotected sex (Elegbeleye, 2006; Kabir, Iliyasu, sexual conquest have become key indicators of trendiness, a Abubakar, & Kabir, 2004; Odu & Akanle, 2008). This is basis for peer acceptance; connote good living; and continue despite “substantial sums spent on information campaigns, to instigate similar and further conducts. the marketing of condoms” (Cleland & Watkins, 2006, p. 2; Moreover, normative sanctions against unmarried people’s Meekers, Van Rossem, Zellner, & Berg, 2004), and a high sexual activities are relatively weaker today in comparison awareness of HIV/AIDS risk (Momoh, Moses, & Ugiomoh, with Nigeria’s abstention-oriented traditional past. The weak- 2006; National Population Commission [NPC] and ICF ening of premarital sex sanctions is due to the combined Macro, 2009). The need to understand and account for the effects of social change, late marriage, human rights gains, knowledge, attitude, and practice gap (KAP-gap; see Westoff increased geographical mobility, and shrinking parental and & Bankole, 1995) described above partly inspired this study. community surveillance of unmarried people. Family and The second inspiration is the need to demonstrate the con- community sanctions for premarital sex now seem to operate tinuing relevance of structuration theory for the understand- on a don’t-ask-don’t-tell basis, as long as unintended outcomes ing and critical analysis of society and social conduct. of unprotected sex, such as unintended pregnancies, do not The study is set in Nigeria, where the institutional context manifest. Notwithstanding, the institutional environment in is compellingly erotic and romance laden (Smith, 2001). Nigeria concurrently constrains unmarried people’s sexual Varied institutions sexualize unmarried people and propa- conducts. For example, premarital sex is normatively catego- gate and normalize risk-prone sexual practices. These rized as purposeless and immoral in Nigeria (see Smith, 2004). include the mass media, pornography, peer sexual ideologies and/or conducts, folklore, gender scripts, dance, and so forth Swansea University, UK Behaviour Change Group Inc., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (see Ajibade, 2005; P. I. Okonkwo, Fatusi, & Ilika, 2005). The functioning of these compelling social institutions, and Corresponding Author: unmarried people’s active and purposeful engagement with Amaechi D. Okonkwo, 8, Hooper Crescent, Apt. 114, Edmonton, Alberta, them, predisposes the latter toward unprotected sex. Canada, T5A 4K7 Consequently, unprotected sex “has become a key life goal Email: amaechiokonkwo@hotmail.com 2 SAGE Open Adult valuation of premarital sex as immoral in Nigeria is a As can be deduced from the studies cited above, and form of sexual constraint, which has been conflated with the similar others, each addresses a key analytically influential HIV/AIDS pandemic and sustained by the contradictory valu- external structure or influence on unmarried Nigerian ation of unmarried people as valuable, ignorant, innocent, and university students’ risk-prone sexual practices without a at risk from others and to themselves. corresponding inquiry into how the identified structures are In addition, there are organized constraints on unpro- interrelated; recursive, how unmarried people (pre)reflex- tected sex, such as the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for ively engage (agency) with the identified sexualizing AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)–funded abstention-oriented Zip-up structures to normalize and promote unprotected sex on one campaign, and organized safe-sex and consistent condom hand, and contribute toward the renewal and maintenance of use campaigns by social marketers (see Holmes, Levine, & the original sexualizing structures, on the other (structural Weaver, 2004; Meekers et al., 2004). There are additional duality; Giddens, 1984). This study is an attempt to address varied and unorganized Pentecostal, peer and parental sexual this knowledge-gap in literature leveraging structuration surveillance of unmarried people in Nigeria. Despite these theory. The author elicits and interrogates participating sexual constraints, unmarried Nigerian university students university students’ gendered perspectives of influences on continue to engage in unprotected sex (Elegbeleye, 2006; unprotected sex, the interrelationships among identified Kabir et al., 2004; Odu & Akanle, 2008). influences (if any), and the implications of students’ own Based on the foregoing analysis, it is apparent that domi- perspectives on the feasibility of sustainable behavior nant policies and interventions designed to reduce unprotected change in Nigeria. The focus on influences on unprotected sex and mitigate unwanted outcomes in Nigeria have been sex is justified by the author’s conviction that influences, ineffective. This is probably because interventionists continue once identified, are comparatively easier to manage by to address mostly the agential components of unprotected sex. stakeholders and youths, before they produce concrete and In the author’s view, this conceptual linearity or stakeholders’ risk-infused sexual opportunities, which are more difficult systemic and ongoing failure to concurrently consider institu- to manage or avoid. tional and agential coinfluences on unprotected sex accounts University students were chosen because campuses in for the perennial ineffectiveness of sexual reproductive health Nigeria have become critical sites for youth (semi)indepen- policies and interventions in Nigeria despite over two decades dent development and self-exploration due to conflated fac- of safe-sex communication, condom social marketing, a high tors. These include social change, increased geographical awareness of unintended outcomes, and the normative view of mobility, intense peer and mass media influence, and so premarital sex as immoral in Nigeria (Cleland & Watkins, forth. Moreover, nearly half of new STIs are recorded 2006; Meekers et al., 2004; NPC and ICF Macro, 2009). among young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years, The dominant problematic conceptualization of premari- who constitute about 29% of the Nigerian over 140 million tal sex in Nigeria has nurtured several plausible, but linear, population (National Bureau of Statistics [NBS], 2009; studies of influences on unmarried university students’ risk- NPC and ICF Macro, 2009). The preceding statistics, prone sexual practices. Compelling, but narrow, influences despite the dominant categorization of premarital sex as reported by investigators as influential include drug abuse by immoral, purposeless, and fornication in Nigeria, elevate Ambrose Ali University students for enhanced sexual perfor- scholarly interest in risk-prone sexual practices among mance and sensations (Okoza & Aluede, 2009). On a differ- unmarried people. It does not imply that unmarried univer- ent note, Odu and Akanle (2008) concluded that transactional sity students’ sexual conducts are riskier or safer than other sex is the main motivation for university students’ risk-prone subpopulations in Nigeria. sexual conducts, regardless of their awareness of sexually transmitted infections (STIs; see also Momoh, Asagwara, & Conceptual Framework and Meriamu, 2007, for similar conclusions about University of Theoretical Clarification Lagos girls). Furthermore, Omoteso (2006) found that “gen- der and family background” has more significant influences For the purpose of this article, influences on unprotected sex on unprotected sex, compared with age and religion, in a approximates those durable institutions, ideologies, attitudes, study of Nigerian university students’ sexual behavior (p. emotions, (pre)reflexive knowledge, and active and purpo- 129). Additionally insightful is Okonkwo and colleagues’ sive conducts that predispose unmarried people to unpro- (2005) peer sexual conduct perception study among female tected sex in Nigeria. Structures have two basic components undergraduate students in Anambra State. According to the and are comparable with two sides of one coin. On one side authors, “almost half (47.1%) of respondents indicated that are patterned rules and resources from societal institutions, they were under pressure by friends to engage in pre-marital such as those emanating from the mass media or gender sex” (P. I. Okonkwo et al., 2005, p. 107). Similarly plausible, norms, which university students differentially draw-on and but narrow, is Elegbeleye’s (2006) study of rape incidence in work-on for their communication and interpretation of sexual Nigerian universities, which was linked to social change or cues, their (re)enactment of unprotected sex, and the rational- “the break down in societal values both at the local and ization of their conducts within and outside the boundaries of global level” (pp. 43-47). tradition or norms (see de Lauretis, 1990). The other side of Okonkwo 3 Participants Lagos Benin Nsukka Abuja Total Males 8 7 7 8 30 Females 6 8 7 5 26 Total 14 15 14 13 56 Figure 1. Participant selection by site the coin (structure) is composed of social agents’ variable participants and narrative diversity, in multiple intracountry agencies, which are “events of which an individual is the case studies approach that strengthens research findings. perpetrator, in the sense that the individual could, at any The universities were also selected because campuses in phase in a given sequence of conduct, have acted differently” Nigeria (from the author’s experience and lay discourse) are (Giddens, 1984, p. 9). It is persuasive that university students critical sites for unmarried students’ sexual identity forma- could act differently to avoid unprotected sex and risks by tion, sexual exploration, and performance. Selected institu- either abstention or consistent condom use. tions include the Universities of Lagos, Benin, Abuja, and To robustly specify and explain the operation of influ- University of Nigeria, Nsukka (see Figure 1). ences (structures) and university students’ active engage- Participants were legal, literate adults (above 18 years in ment (variable agencies) with the identified structures, the Nigeria) who read, understood, and signed the informed con- article assumed the structuration of unprotected sex—itself sent form. Snowball sampling was used to select a roughly an example of social relations that is simultaneously con- equal number of male and female students to participate in strained and enabled by structural duality (Giddens, 1984). the study (56 students in total; see Figure 2 for participants’ On one hand, the notion of structural duality requires the age and gender profile). Although initially unplanned, the consideration, understanding, and explanation of how author resorted to snowball sampling because female stu- unmarried students’ (pre)reflexively draw upon sexualizing dents initially approached refused to participate in an in- structures to (re)enact unprotected sex in situated interac- depth face-to-face discussion of their sexual conducts with a tions (see Stones, 2005). On the other hand, proposing struc- male investigator. Their reluctance are attributable to proba- tural duality to elicit, understand, and explain unmarried ble discomfort over discussing their sexual risk practices students’ accounts of influences on unprotected sex requires with a male investigator (the author), and/or local cultural the clarification of how the Nigerian (perhaps, the global) norms that socialize girls to be reticent about sexual con- sexual system acquires its compelling and insidious charac- ducts in general. Referrals by trusted peers, who vouched for teristics, and become the active and regenerative repository the author, reduced female participants’ reluctance to partici- of intergenerational macro- and microsexual (risk) ideolo- pate in the study (see Lee, 1993, for discussions on sampling gies and conducts that unmarried people simultaneously subpopulations). draw-on, and unconsciously maintain through their actual The main participants’ inclusion criteria were age (18-32 sexual risk conducts (see Cohen, 1968; Giddens, 1984). years), admission of sexual activity, consent to be inter- To achieve the study objectives, broad questions pursued viewed, and their willingness and capacities to discuss their include the following: (a) What institutions and agencies sexual conducts and perceptions of peers’ sexual conducts. influence unprotected sex ideologies and conducts in Each recruited participant was subsequently asked to refer a Nigeria? (b) How do these institutions and agencies function peer of opposite sex, who is not a relative, girlfriend/boy- to influence unprotected sex? (c) Do university students friend, or room or course mate. The objective of this sam- actively or passively engage with the identified institutions pling stipulation was to accommodate more diverse and agencies? (d) What are the implications of university participants and narratives. Ultimately, samples were drawn students’ gendered perspectives of influential structures and from multiple peer networks because of interruptions in the agencies driving unprotected sex on sustainable behavior reference chain due to academic demands and/or partici- change in Nigeria? To answer these questions, a generational pants’ elective withdrawal from the study. This sample study of university students was conducted. The objective is recruitment process and interviews continued until data to elicit students’ own accounts of how contextual institu- saturation. tional rules, resources, and variable agencies operate to rec- ommend unprotected sex instead of abstention or consistent Interview and Analysis Procedure contraceptive use, and vice versa. Leveraging Stones’s (2005) fourfold structuration research brackets, and lessons from an extensive review of Nigerian Method unprotected sex literature (see McCracken, 1988), the author Site and Participant Selection developed a semistructured interview guide. The objective of the literature review was to familiarize the author with Purposefully, four Nigerian universities were selected existing literature on unprotected sex and robustly define the because of their location in four different regions to promote research problem. The literature review served an additional 4 SAGE Open Participant’s Sex Female Male Total Participant’s Age 18 - 22 Count 20 17 37 % within Participant’s Age 54.1% 45.9% 100.0% % within Participant’s Sex 76.9% 56.7% 66.1% % of Total 35.7% 30.4% 66.1% 23 -27 Count 4 12 16 % within Participant’s Age 25.0% 75.0% 100.0% % within Participant’s Sex 15.4% 40.0% 28.6% % of Total 7.1% 21.4% 28.6% 28 - 32 Count 2 1 3 % within Participant’s Age 66.7% 33.3% 100.0% % within Participant’s Sex 7.7% 3.3% 5.4% % of Total 3.6% 1.8% 5.4% Total Count 26 30 56 % within Participant’s Age 46.4% 53.6% 100.0% % within Participant’s Sex 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% % of Total 46.4% 53.6% 100.0% Figure 2. Respondents’ age and gender profile function. It clarified (for the author) implicit and taken-for- and analyzed with structural hermeneutic analysis (i.e., granted constructs, such as structure-agency, interrelation- unpacking participants contexts and conducts; see Stones, ships that may be latent in Nigerian unprotected sex 2005)—with the continuous comparative data analysis literature and discourse (see Schutz, 1932/1972). method. That is, similar narrative themes or influential unpro- The interview guide was developed by adapting tected sex structures, incidents, meanings, attitudes, and their Giddens’s (1984) structural duality concept and Stones’s rationalizations were assigned to each element of Stones’s (2005) empirical structuration research brackets to (2005) fourfold structuration cycle, which became the “short- McCracken’s (1988) long interview. Stones recommended hand designation for various aspects of data” (Merriam, 1998, four interrelated research brackets for a structurationist pp. 164-187). The objectives of this analytic approach are project. The first research bracket specify the need to elicit to analyze transcribed narratives and uncover respondents’ from participants what they know about compelling ana- perspectives of what interrelated structures and agencies influ- lytically external influences on their unprotected sex, and ence unprotected sex, which would facilitate a deeper under- explain the relationships among identified influences. standing and explanation of what Archer (1995) famously Second, there is a corresponding need to interrogate and called the vexatious “linkages between structure and agency” tease out what participants’ know about their (pre)disposi- in enabling and constraining social practices, such as unpro- tions toward unprotected sex, or internal conditions that tected sex (p. 1; see also McLennan, 1984). influence unprotected sex and associated rationalizations Excerpts of participants’ own voices were quoted in the that are often within and outside the boundaries of tradition manuscript to emphasize their perspectives of structural and (eccentric subjects; see de Lauretis, 1990). Third, Stones’s agential influences on their risk-prone sexual practices; how fourfold research bracket requires the elicitation of what the identified influences are interrelated, how they operate to participants know about the influence of their purposive, cast compelling and insidious sexualizing influences on active, and often (pre)reflexive agencies on unprotected unmarried people, and how young people actively engage sex; and their linkages to other influential unprotected sex with the specified structures and agencies for sexual risk-tak- structures. Finally, Stones’s fourth research bracket stipu- ing (structural duality; Giddens, 1984). Participants were also lates that investigators unpack what participants know of invited to discuss the implication of their perspectives on sus- the intended and unintended outcomes of their conducts tainable behavior change policies and interventions in Nigeria. (unprotected sex)—especially how these influence further and similar conducts (see Stones, 2005). Ethical Considerations and Orientation of Methods The interviews were in an open and detailed discussion format (see O’Donnell & Cummins, 1999) and averaged The institutional review board of the School of Environment about 2 hr per participant. Participants’ narratives were tape- and Society, Swansea University, United Kingdom, approved recorded, transcribed verbatim (to increase research rigor), the study. Participants were informed about, read, and Okonkwo 5 signed the informed consent document explaining the poten- of educational instruction). This facilitated respondents’ tial risks associated with the study, such as social stigma, understanding of the interview questions and active partici- discomfort and/or embarrassment. Curiously, all participants pation in the study “on their own terms” regardless of their deemed the risks associated with study minimal because various ethnicities and languages (Thomas & O’Kane, unprotected premarital sex is “very common. Everybody 1998, p. 338; see also Fisher, 2004). The long interview does it” on campus (Interview 11, female); or that “every- additionally accommodated emergent participants’ voices body around here . . . is doing it” (Interview 16, male). In during the study (see McCracken, 1988; West, 2002). For addition, participants were informed about their rights to example, contrary to pervasive lay beliefs about near exclu- withdraw from the study at any time. In fact, several partici- sive male sexual adventurism in Nigeria, participants pants dropped out of the study, citing competing academic observed that “there is a woman, or women, involved in and personal pressures. every promiscuous relationship in Nigeria . . . just that Notwithstanding, the author assumed participants may women are smarter and don’t boast about it like men (long be discomfited by the topic, labeled or stigmatized for laughter)” (Interview 21, female). This opinion influenced participating in the study (Kelleher, 1996; Munson, 2000). the author’s expansion of the interview guide to accommo- To minimize this danger, participants’ anonymity was date this emergent idea about the seeming “democracy” in stipulated and guaranteed in the informed consent form. premarital sexual risk practices. Respondents were additionally interviewed alone, in a In line with prevailing ethical conventions (see Bond, setting of their choice, to guarantee confidentiality of infor- 2004), each participant was presented with an opportunity mation shared and their narrative anonymity because of (before the author left the study site) to listen to their own referrals from peers who presumably know (a part of?) their tape recordings, verify and/or refute its contents. Only one sexual history. In practice, participant anonymity entailed the female and two male participants accepted this offer. No par- exclusion of personal identifiers, such as ethnicities, religious ticipant requested changes be made to their taped interview. beliefs, and so on (i.e., culture), from data collected because Participants’ refusal to review their narratives may be due to of their misuse in creating and maintaining risk groups in academic related time constraints, embarrassment, and/or Nigeria, and globally (see Shoveller & Jonhson, 2006). In lay confidence in capabilities of electronic gadgets to capture fact, during the study, participants labeled peers from two conversations verbatim—maintaining the fidelity of original Nigerian administrative states with very high HIV/AIDS questions and answers. It may also be attributed to the “rap- prevalence rates as more promiscuous than themselves— port” (perhaps, trust) between the author and participants. drawing-on lay beliefs and expert HIV/AIDS prevalence It is the author’s opinion that participants’ had mostly studies (see Federal Ministry of Health [FMoH], 2002). The positive experiences of the interview. Their comfort during (un)intended effects of reading culture as a closed system, as the interview could also be attributed to their referrals from above, which is common among lay people and experts is the peers who probably share similar sexual values. It could also (re)production of vulnerabilities, social positions, risk labels, be attributed to incremental social change in Nigeria, which and the construction of already marginalized individuals and is demystifying sex as a topic for qualified discussion among groups as vectors of diseases, such as HIV/AIDS (see Lee, peers, and with privileged researchers. The rapport between Kochman, & Sikkema, 2002; Maxwell, 2002). the author and participants was such that he was invited to To protect participants from unintended research harm “come out and enjoy the campus” or to “see for yourself therefore, the author purposively emphasized broader influ- instead of asking so many questions.”Beyond their friendly ences on sexual risk practices (see Douglas, 1992; Lash, facade, students’ invitations may constitute a form of trans- 2000), such as the mass media, sexual self-presentations, ference, or participants’ attempts to (un)consciously relate to and so on, in a generalizing presentational approach. What the interviewer (Feltham & Dryden, 2004). The author’s ini- is gained by the de-emphasis of participants’ unique identi- tial concerns that accepting students’ invitations will com- fiers is the diminishment of old exclusionary labels and promise the quality of data collected were allayed after “stigmatising boundaries between the ‘at risk’ and the so- consultation with his supervisor/Ethics Committee who called ‘normal’ populations” (Grover, 1987, cited in Brown, authorized a trial attendance (as an observer) of one campus 2000, p. 1274). Because personal identifiers were not col- event at each site to determine likely outcomes, and inform lected (to protect participants—as stipulated in the informed future study methods. Limited attendance of students’ events consent document), and because the study did not produce significantly increased participant recruitment and built par- any harmful discovery, findings were not communicated to ticipant–interviewer rapport. participants. Nevertheless, a weblink of this article (when it is published) will be sent to the libraries of the universities Results covered by the study. The ethical standing of the study was additionally Participants’ Demographic Profile strengthened by the long interview method of data collec- tion. The long interviews were conducted in English Fifty-six male and female students, in roughly equal ratio, Language (Nigerian official language and medium participated in the study (see Figure 2). Participants were 6 SAGE Open drawn from diverse Nigerian peoples and cultures. Study sexual risk influences, their interrelationships, and implica- sample diversity is intended to facilitate plausible compari- tions for sustainable behavior change policies and interven- son of narratives across different Nigerian cultural, ethnic, tions in Nigeria. and religious divides. There are more than 250 ethnicities in Nigeria, and three dominant ethnic groups, namely, the Analytically External Structures as They Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. Influence Unprotected Sex Widespread condom and contraceptive availability as Participants’ Narratives external structures. Participants claim that widespread avail- Overall, the study elicited more than 20 interrelated and ability of contraceptives and sexual information in Nigeria self-repeating influences (structures) on unprotected sex. paradoxically influences unprotected sex by facilitating Space constraints negate the exhaustive listing and discus- their subjectively unconstrained access to contraceptives, sions of all findings, and their interrelated ramifications on such as morning-after pills, condoms, and illegal abortion. unprotected sex. Consequently, two examples of each broad In particular, the sexual expertise, products, and services institutional and agential influence on unprotected sex are emanating from the contraceptive revolution are believed presented leveraging Stones’s (2005) fourfold structuration to have liberated unmarried people from dominant hetero- cycle for analytical and presentational purposes. However, sexuality in Nigeria, traditional masculine control of sex, it is important to note that influences presented herein exist their fears of STIs, and repetitive and unwanted pregnan- as a duality in society and in social agents, from where they cies. The libratory influence of the contraceptive revolution, are (pre)reflexively instantiated in social action (see Stones, allied to other human emancipatory projects (see Giddens, 2005). That is, structures influence people and people influ- 1992), transferred sex from its kinship-sustaining base onto ence structures. individuals (as assets), which are leveraged to negotiate The first category of influence discussed is analytically relationships that often culminate in unprotected sex. In par- external to participants and illustrated with the mass media ticipants’ own words, and the contraceptive revolution. Similarly, the second class of influence presented is analytically internal to partici- Before, you need you parents and family permission to pants. These were illustrated with the influence of emotions, date or marry a boy. That is now old school. Nowadays, sexual curiosity, and predisposition to unprotected sex. The you choose your partner and do whatever you like. third class of influence presented described and explained You only introduce him if you people want to marry. the influence of participants’ purposive and active agencies Parents accept that now. (Interview 11, female) in unprotected sex. Participants’ illustrated their variable agencies (due to gender and other social asymmetries) with Your parents might tell you don’t do this sex thing, or their acknowledged and avoidable capacities to select sex- don’t do that! But if that is the trend, and all your ual partners, proposition them, and accept or reject sexual friends are doing it, you just have to go along—or propositions, and their sexual self-presentations. won’t fit-in. (Interview 36, male) The fourth class of influence presented is the intended outcomes of participants’ unprotected sex, such as sexual According to participants, the contraceptive revolution pleasure and material rewards, which are often ignored, made unprotected sex safer but had the unintended effects of underestimated, and rendered problematic whenever men- eroding vestiges of their normative fears of STIs and tioned in literature and interventions. The selective presenta- unwanted pregnancies. In their own words, “disease or preg- tion of intended outcomes partly addresses what Jolly (2007) nancy is no longer big-deals. The big deal is use a condom all called the pleasure deficit approach to sexuality by dominant the time” (Interview 1, male). Ostensibly, due to these pre- literature and interventions. That is, the tendency for sexual- vailing sexual norms, unmarried people claim they cannot ity literature and interventions to ignore or render sexual abstain from unprotected sex. Reiterative questioning about pleasure and material rewards problematical in conceptions the sexualizing influence of the contraceptive revolution, and explanations of unprotected sex. To reiterate an earlier which participants primarily experience as peer sexual ide- point, more broadly common influences were utilized in a ologies, mass media programming/advertisements, and sex- generalist presentation format that de-emphasize partici- ual reproductive health interventions, merely reinforced pants’ unique personal identifiers, such as ethnicities, in a their earlier claims that calculated bid to reduce participants’ labeling and stigma, which are unfortunate outcomes of narrow application of Only a slacker (fool) just gets pregnant—unless you want culture to explain every behavior (see Douglas, 1992; Fenton to hook the boy . . . because you can always . . . use con- & Charsley, 2000; Kelleher, 1996). In addition, extracts of doms when . . . unsafe; contraceptives and abortion if all transcribed narratives (in participants’ own words) are used else fail. I cannot get pregnant before marriage. My par- to illustrate their opinions of each analytical category of ents will kill me (laughter). (Interview 11, female) Okonkwo 7 Disease . . . and pregnancy? They are no longer a big It is difficult not to participate in this sex thing . . . deal; nobody avoids sex these days just because of from what you watch on TV, to the Internet and even that. They say shine your eyes (be smart), a smart the way these babes dress, guys have to respond. matured girl cannot just get pregnant . . . unless she is (Interview 51, male) trying to hook you. Only AIDS is still a problem. (Interview 31, male) In response to questions relating to the processes of mass media influence (structural duality), participants admit that Notwithstanding the preceding, participants’ notions of mass media influence is not linear, but mediated by other the contraceptive revolution is controversial because change patterned variables, such as unmarried students’ predisposi- agents assume (and always proclaim) they promote only tions to premarital sex, variable agencies, individuated or safe sexual practices, and not risk-taking with the safe-sex collective needs, the prevalent romance standards, their information, condoms, and contraceptives they promote beliefs or experience of positive outcomes from premarital (see Holmes et al., 2004; UNAIDS, 1997). Respondents rec- sex, and so forth. Both male and female respondents illus- ognize the contradiction inherent in their claims. According trate the complex interrelationships between the mass media to them, and other patterned influences: Condoms and contraceptives are not bad. But yes, they Maybe the media is responsible for 50%. The other have increased sexual risk taking, because girls are not 50% belong to young people themselves and other fac- as scared of pregnancy today as they were before from tors. Okay. It is not as if you watch something and the stories I have heard. They know what to do when decide to do it immediately. I think you must want to they get pregnant. (Interview 26, female) do it before and the media just encourages you. (Interview 46, female) They [condoms] help reduce the risk involved in having sex, so far. But not a 100% help. But quite contributes . . . but you can’t just say because I high percentages, like 60-70% help. If anything, they watched blue film [pornography]—that is why I take have increased the number of people having sex. sexual risks. Although . . . images create lasting (Interview 16, male) impressions and ehmn . . . TV, magazines and web- pictures too, movies, music videos, and all that. All The mass media as an external institution and influence on these things, there is a way it pressurizes one sexually, unprotected sex. Respondents were asked whether they think it spurs you to indulge in especially risky behavior. that the mass media (broadly conceived) influence unpro- (Interview 1, male) tected sex and to illustrate with examples how the mass media influence operates. Without exception, all respondents To adapt Duffy and Gotcher’s idea, the mass media is a claim the mass media is very influential on unprotected sex. powerful and insidious influence on unprotected sex in Components of the mass media identified as strongly influ- Nigeria because it projects sex as “a means and an objective ential, in a descending order of influence, are pornography, . . . almost the sole focus of life . . . an unquestioned good” the Internet, television, mode of dressing, and so forth. (Duffy & Gotcher, 1996, p. 43). Concurrently, participants According to participants, mass media influence emanates claim mass media messages and programs often constrain from their nurture of unmarried people’s predisposition to their sexual conducts as well. Respondents associated this unprotected sex and the provision of sexual knowledge and seeming dual role of the mass media with their extensive use skills through regular programming and advertisements. In by reproductive health interventionists to communicate respondents’ words, the mass media influence operates thus: risks, safe sex, and protective products such as condoms and contraceptives in Nigeria (see Meekers et al., 2004). In par- I think what girls see in movies and read about love, ticipants’ own words, romance, and relationships in novels like Mills and Boons, Barbara Cartland, etc. influences what they do Some of the time the messages I see and hear advise sexually. These books definitely influenced my expec- you to play safe. I have not seen any that says young tations and response to males that toast [sexual propo- people should take sexual risks. Even in the movie sitioning] me. In most of these books . . . the women Booty Call [a movie starring Jamie Fox], the guys always yield to them in the end (laughter). I think what there wear condoms. (Interview 16, male) boys see in movies, Internet, and magazines influ- ences their unprotected sex . . . My boyfriend is On TV and radio you continue to hear use condoms, always carrying on about this and that sexual position use condoms. Don’t trust anybody. But when it comes and style he saw somewhere. (Interview 11, female) to it, I don’t think anybody remembers condoms. Even 8 SAGE Open the so-called safe sex is risky. Condoms burst, tear, romance, love, and trust recommends sexual partners “not and leak. (Interview 46, female) worrying about one’s partner’s sexual past or present . . . If a pregnancy occurs, the ‘love’ in the relationship will guaran- In spite of the commonality of the mass media influence tee a marriage” (p. 115; see also Ugoji, 2011). In particular, on unprotected sex on university campuses in Nigeria, either (or both) partners’ invocation of emotions, such as respondents underscore that the mass media influence is not love, are said to erode residues of unmarried people’s instinc- linear but mediated by other influential structures, such as tive sexual caution; recommending instead, unprotected sex participants’ variable agencies and sexual needs. For or what participants called skin-to-skin sex (unprotected example, sex). According to participants, emotions influence unpro- tected sex: Even the Internet, nobody forces people to pay money and log-on to porn sites. You must have sex on your Especially for girls. Because love, emotion, romance mind before you go there. In fact, that is why most and all that, that is what girls want at the end of the guys browse overnight. The Internet is just like . . . day, but the boys, it is just the pleasure they can get out helping you satisfy your need. But people are always of it. (Interview 6, male) looking for someone to blame . . . it’s not my fault, the Internet made me do it (laughter). (Interview 39, male) I think sex occurs in most relationships love or no love anyway. But being in love makes it better and some- thing to look forward to. Love puts you in a more Analytically Internal Structures as They receptive mood—I guess. (Interview 11, female) Influence Unprotected Sex Emotions—Trust, commitment, love, and so forth, as influ- Furthermore, participants believe that emotions in hetero- ences on unprotected sex. All participants agree that emo- sexual relationships often discourage their preacquisition of tional influences, related to love, affection, trust, commitment, contraceptives because such conducts connote preplanning and romance increase the likelihood of unprotected sex in of sexual intercourse, which diminishes prescripted notions dominant heterosexual relationships. Emotions exemplify of romance and sexual spontaneity. According to those taken-for-granted stocks of sexual predispositions, participants, which are coproduced by participants’ socialization, active engagement with social institutions, subordinate statuses in If I have a boyfriend who always has a condom in his society, roles and behavior expectations, (inter)personal rela- pocket, I will be very careful being alone with him. It tionships, previous positive experiences from unprotected is as simple as that! (Interview 41, female) sex, and associated folklores. According to participants, If your girl visits and you guys want to do it, you can’t If partners trust each other and are committed, why do just root out condoms from your wallet. She will get they need condoms? Maybe when it is unsafe for the angry and say you have been planning it, which is girl to have sex. It’s complicated I guess. Somehow, true; and that can stop action. (Interview 51, male) condoms suggest sleeping around. (Interview 11, female) The significance of emotional influences on unprotected sex for sexual reproductive health policies and interventions The reason for condoms is for protection. Protection cannot be overemphasized. Female participants were particu- from disease. But if there is disease, it means someone larly eloquent about the desirability and influence of emo- is not faithful, therefore untrustworthy . . . so you tions on unprotected sex. More than half (76.9% = 20 of 26) should not be dealing with that person at all . . . or you of participating female respondents suggested that when in- must always use a condom. So in a way, condom use love, unprotected sex is more acceptable and likely to occur . . . doesn’t communicate trust, which is very impor- because fidelity and trust are assumed. Elsewhere, literature tant nowadays. (Interview 36, male) is unequivocal that young women engage in unprotected sex to prove their love to their male sexual partners (see In participants view, the influence of emotions on unpro- Holland, Ramazanoglu, Sharpe, & Thompson, 1998) and/ tected sex is so powerful that it mitigates concerns about or strengthen or bolster perceived unrequited love (Kaestle unintended pregnancies. If pregnancies occur, participants & Halpern, 2007), despite normative sexual conventions admit they purposefully managed them with illegal abortions (W. R. Jankowiak & Fischer, 1992; W. Jankowiak, Nell, & and/or early marriages. STIs are managed by patronizing Buckmaster, 2002). In contrast, majority of male participants community pharmacists and patent medicine vendors (see A. (83.3% = 25 of 30) agree that emotions are somehow influen- D. Okonkwo & Okonkwo, 2010). The article’s findings tial, but distrust their acclaimed deterministic influence on about emotion evokes Alaka’s (2006) contention that unprotected sex. According to masculine perspectives, Okonkwo 9 It is not that boys don’t feel love and all that . . . are for so many reasons. Spur of the moment thing, affec- human beings too (laughter). Just that, well . . . we tion, love, to please my boyfriend, when I have the don’t need to love someone to have sex with them urge, etc. It depends. It’s like some factors may be (laughter). (Interview 6, male) important today and others tomorrow. (Interview 46, female) Sexual curiosity and predispositions as influences on unpro- tected sex. Participants admitted they were initially, and con- Most guys . . . actually . . . go into relationships for tinue to be, curious about sexuality in general, and sex in sex and prestige. Maybe along the line, they may fall particular. More than half (51.8%) of respondents are certain in-love with the girl and then it grows into some- that sexual curiosity promotes experimentation and unpro- thing—the next level. (Interview 16, male) tected sex habit formation. The other half (48.2%) claim curiosity somehow influences unprotected sex. Furthermore, Respondents’ curiosity and predispositions to premarital nearly all female participants counterintuitively linked their sex particularly predispose them toward other influences, initial sexual curiosities, current secretive sexual conduct, from peers, the mass media, and so forth. However, respon- and ambivalent sexual attitudes with the normative status of dents insist their predisposition to premarital sex does not premarital sex as immoral in Nigeria (see Smith, 2004). Sex- equate recklessness. They attribute their risk-prone sexual ual curiosity, as an influential internal state of mind, is con- conducts to influences emanating from being active and pur- urtured by external influences, such as the mass media, peer poseful members of the Nigerian society. That is, “being-in- ideologies, and participants’ biology. the-world” replete with institutional, interpersonal, and Driven by sexual curiosity, and other cofactors, respon- personal pressures to seek and nurture heterosexual relation- dents insist they must cultivate and maintain heterosexual ships with premarital sex (Bleicher, 1980, p. 118, citing relationships (called having a boyfriend or girlfriend in Heidegger, 1949). Nigeria), for which unprotected premarital sex is a certain component “unless . . . somebody discovers a steroid that can Agency as an Influence on Unprotected Sex suppress the hormones in the body” (Interview 16, male). Accordingly, nearly all respondents (98.2% of 56) admit Purposive sexual partner selection as influences on unpro- they cannot avoid sex until marriage. Consequently, answers tected sex. Participants admitted that their varying capacities to the questions, such as As a boy/girl must you have a girl/ to purposefully select, proposition, and accept sexual boyfriend produced the following responses: propositions from partners based on cultural, emotional, and material considerations influence unprotected sex. This is It’s necessary, because one day you must get married “because you can always say no to these things —if you and you need to know who you are marrying by going really want to. But it’s often difficult. Your mood and circum- out with her. (Interview 6, male) stances can affect your willpower” (Interview 11, female). However, participants’ sexual agencies are gendered and Oh yes you do. I think you must. That is the only way unequal; but agency nonetheless. Unequal sexual agencies you can learn about each other, get committed, and are coproduced by gender norms, peer sexual ideologies/con- possibly marry in future. This safe sex thing you are ducts, their internal dispositions, sexual folklore, and previ- talking about can only be done in a committed rela- ous sexual experiences, which govern participants general tionship where both parties remain faithful to each and specific knowledge of contextual sexual rules, resources, other. (Interview 11, female) constrains, and opportunities. Expectedly, participants have a gendered interpretation of Apart from respondents’ sexual curiosities and willing- the partner propositioning/acceptance process, but agree it ness to follow the dominant heterosexual conventions, par- could be avoided because it often culminates in unprotected ticipants admit they also purposefully initiate, consent to, sex “if there is a meeting of minds” (Interview 2, male). For and maintain heterosexual relationships with unprotected male participants, sexual propositioning entails communi- premarital sex. In fact, 80.4% of participants are uncertain cating their suitability over rivals, their they can maintain a nonsexual heterosexual relationship due to complex structural and interpersonal pressures, especially interest and love for the babe or get her friends to rec- the intended benefits of unprotected sex. These include sex- ommend you to her . . . for insurance, you can even ual pleasure, material reward, to secure potential marriage combine the two methods. (long laughter). (Interview partners, to satisfy sexual curiosity, to gain/give love/affec- 51, male) tion, to satisfy partner’s sexual demands, to confirm or reaf- firm personal desirability, to test fertility status, and to gain/ For female participants, sexual propositioning entails maintain peer acceptance/status (see Plummer, 2003, for a similar catalog). In their own words, premarital heterosexual boys lying and saying they love you, they care for relationships are instituted you . . . nobody makes them feel the way you do! 10 SAGE Open (laughter). All lies! Some will even promise to marry unprotected sex, and the other half consider it weakly influ- you and all that. Meanwhile, we all know what they ential. In male participants’ opinions, sexual impression want. (Interview 56, female) management is a prescripted activity that attracts sexual partners: Regardless, sexual partner selection, acceptance, and rejection evidence agency because it is a highly scripted Everyone wants to look good and be loved by friends and gendered sexual conduct that entails conscious and/or . . . Even on campus here, all these yahoo [419 or emotional assessment of a potential partner’s socioeconomic advance fee fraud] boys get all the fine girls. Why? status, physical health, and social standing through personal Because they have loads of cash, pimped-up rides, observation, peer surveillance/referrals, and testimonials laptops, phones, etc. They even live in very expensive for heterosexual relationships. Popular attributes sought by hostels. How do you compete with that? Simple . . . respondents include handsomeness/beauty, physical fitness, you hustle for money. That is why most guys go into trendiness, and course of study. The last, course of study, crime and this yahoo thing . . . to impress girls and often translates into future profession. For example, dating a their friends! (Interview 1, male) medical student, all things being equal, indicates participants’ potentials to marry a medical doctor in future. Other attri- You don’t just toast anybody. The ways a girl dresses butes considered include family background, especially and behaves allow you to know if, and when to toast known or suspected family wealth. All respondents are cer- [proposition them]. That is why the born-again girls tain that unprotected sex cannot take place without partner don’t get happening (trendy) boys on campus, and do selection, toasting (propositioning), acceptance, and dating. it secretly in church with fellow Christian brothers . . . According to their narratives, The way these girls dress, talk, and carry bible up and down drives boys away. (Interview 51, male) Both boys and girls do things that lead to unprotected sex. Not that they always plan it that way. For exam- Female participants ambivalently disagree with male ple, if a boy does not toast (male sexual proposition- opinions of sexual impression management, adding that they ing) a girl in this environment, it will be hard for him dress and act sexually based on prevailing standards and per- to have a girlfriend. If he doesn’t have a girlfriend, sonal needs (to look good for themselves and friends), but how can he take sexual risks? The same thing goes for conceded it also attracts potential male sexual partners. Male girls, if they don’t accept your toasting; there is noth- respondents added that they often collude with their female ing you can do. You can’t kill them or rape them! sexual partners to sustain scripted sexual self-presentations (Interview 16, male) on campuses because “some boys want their girlfriends to look one way, so they are ready to spend anything to achieve We all know what it means for a guy or babe to say that” (Interview 16, male). Regardless, female narratives they have a girlfriend or boyfriend. So when a guy is about sexual impression management remain ambivalent: toasting a girl, she knows that ultimately he will want to have sex. Everybody knows that. The guy too kind It is not my fault that boys are always staring at my of knows he will need to shower the girl with gifts and body (prolonged laughter) . . . that is their problem, presents to maintain the relationship . . . and the girl not mine. I dress the way I like . . . and it is very nice knows that they will have sex to maintain the relation- . . . I mean, you feel very good when you know the ship. If not, generally, they won’t last. That is the way effect you have on them . . . even some lecturers these relationship thing work around here, simple. If (laughter). (Interview 2, female) anybody tells you anything different, they are just lying or deceiving themselves. (Interview 21, female) Well, I still don’t think I am responsible for how my dressing makes a guy feel or think. I think it’s part of Sexual self-presentations and impression management as the bad African culture—men trying to control how influences on unprotected sex. Participants admit they addi- women dress. I think some boys will love how you are tionally deploy agency in their routine and symbolic micro- dressed and others won’t . . . anyway, girls dress to be level sexual impression management activities anticipated to attractive . . . It’s complicated (prolong laughter) . . . attract sexual partners and admirers within and outside the For example, on campus, that is the way most happen- confines of tradition and gender (see Goffman, 1983). Par- ing [trendy] girls dress, I mean they wear body hug- ticularly relevant to the study are sexual impression manage- ging and other revealing clothes. That is the standard. ment activities, such as sexy modes of dressing, flirting, and (Interview 46, female) so on. However, there were gendered disagreements about the influence of sexualized modes of dressing on unprotected Notwithstanding the seeming gendered dissent about sex- sex. More than 42% (42.9% of 56) of mostly male partici- ual self-presentations, it is apparent that participants believe pants consider sexy modes of dressing very influential on it confers symbolic sexual authority and/or privileged sexual Okonkwo 11 access on social agents perceived to be beautiful, handsome, youths have sex. Sometimes there is the mood thing, gregarious, intelligent, charismatic, and so forth. That is, maybe during festivals and celebrations like Christmas. these ascribed sexual facades endow unmarried people (so Even burials, you cannot believe the amount of sex perceived) with a capacity to control, influence, and/or coor- going on in the background. (Interview 26, female) dinate their (similarly, less endowed, and insecure) peers in a social and sexual sense. This is probably why Leary, Well . . . yes pleasure is important. We are human Tchividjian, and Kraxberger (1994) concluded that sexual beings too. You can also do it to get someone to call self-presentations are invaluable for attracting and sustaining your own, care for you, and all that. Some people also heterosexual attention, falling-in-love; and implicated by believe it is what you must do if you are in a relation- this study participants in their risk-prone sexual conducts. ship or care about someone. (Interview 46, female) To secure maximum pleasure from their sexual activities Outcome of Unprotected Sex as They therefore, participants use condoms inconsistently—mostly Influence Further and Similar Conducts to avoid unintended pregnancies. As a female participant Inconsistent condom use and enhanced sexual pleasure. Par- framed it, ticipants admit they engage in unprotected sex in a knowl- edgeable and purposeful quest for enhanced sexual pleasure, Condoms are artificial barriers . . . and it is not the and that consistent condom use interferes with perceived same thing using them compared to not using them . . . organic sexual sensations. This was the most difficult influ- no matter what anybody says. But it is the spread of ence on unprotected sex to elicit from participants because of disease that is making their use popular. (Interview 21, gender asymmetries and participants’ presumption that the female) meaning and value of enhanced sexual pleasure via unpro- tected sex is self-explanatory and universally shared. None- Abdulraheem (2009) drew similar conclusions in the theless, male respondents readily agree (probably because of study of prevalence and correlates of HIV risk behaviors ascribed gender privilege in a patriarchal society) that they among young people in Nigeria—citing decreased pleasure engage in unprotected sex in pursuit of pleasure. According as the primary reason for unprotected sex. Notwithstanding to them, participants’ risk-prone sexual conducts, they disagree with dominant literature assertions that they are ignorant or reck- Very few things can give you the same pleasure as less (for example, see Wagbatsoma & Okojie, 2006). Instead, skin-to-skin [unprotected] sex . . . I think that is why participants claim multiple and interrelated societal and people cannot abstain for long. (Interview 6, male) (inter)personal influences instigate and normalize unpro- tected sex. Therefore, notions that they are ignorant or reck- Most boys have unprotected sex or any sex at all for less were considered: pleasure—period! They are not thinking about mar- riage, sex is just fun and youthful exuberance, I am fallacious. I could die when I drive on Lagos-Asaba young, I want to have fun and so that I can tell my kids road [one of the most dangerous roads in Nigeria] . . . and those who care to listen to stories of my youthful and I still do it. Does that mean I am reckless? Life is adventure and all stuff. (Interview 1, male) a risk . . . generally speaking . . . ehen. (Interview 1, male) Unlike males, female participants were more circum- spect in their narratives about the influence of pleasure Young and reckless . . . maybe, but no young person on unprotected sex. Their reticence was probably due to really wants to die. Some people pray or hope they embarrassment and/or normative double standards govern- will not get pregnant or disease . . . Even the so-called ing sexual conducts in society (see Lips, 2003; Social safe sex is risky. Condoms burst, tear, and leak (laugh- Science and Reproductive Health Research Network ter). (Interview 46, female) [SSRHRN], 1999). Most talk about sex obliquely, as doing it. Furthermore, their narratives about sexual pleasure were Material rewards as intended outcome and influences on fur- more complex. For example, female participants suggested ther and similar conducts. All participants admit that the lack that the quest for enhanced sexual pleasure was one of the of material possession, allegedly linked with poverty, is an multiple drivers of unprotected sex, which transcends gen- influence on unprotected sex to accrue material rewards. der bifurcation: More than half of the participants (58.9% of 56), agree that poverty directly influences unprotected sex while 41.1% (of As soon as youths know they will have a nice time by 56) agree that poverty is somehow influential along gender having sex, they will continue to do it. Although plea- lines. Although no participant admitted poverty, or that their sure is very important, it is not the only reason why sexual conducts were influenced by poverty considerations, 12 SAGE Open there was a general agreement nevertheless, that poverty Male participants ambivalently agree, influences more young females than males because females I think so. But it is not nice to think about it that way. tend to need the money more desperately . . . They Where is the love in all that? (laughter), but the reality tends to want to do more money intensive things than is that if you like a girl and you want to have sex with the guys. (Interview 16, male) her, you give her gifts and money first to impress her. If she is impressed, she will let you have sex and pre- Ambivalently, the study participants further qualified the tend you pressured her. That is how the game is above assertion: played. (Interview 6, male) It is not as if girls are generally poorer than boys, or Curiously, the giving of cash and gifts emerged as vehi- feel the lack more. But then, they are the ones that can cles for masculine demonstration of love and affection for a do something about it with their bodies (laughter). female partner, rather than obvious sexual domination of (Interview 21, female) female partners, whose receipt of the cash/gifts reassures her of the male’s continued interest in the relationship, commit- Regardless, all participants are aware that transactional ment, care, and love. This latter role of cash/gifts implies that sex is risky because overgeneralizations about the material facade of heterosex- ual relationships ought to be reexamined in sub-Saharan the more gifts, money, and favors, a girl receives, the Africa. According to respondents, cash/gift giving is more there will have unprotected sex, if that is what the man wants or the cash/gifts will stop. (Interview part and parcel of relationship building. I cannot think 56, female) of a relationship where a guy does not spend money on recharge-card (for mobile phones), hair, gifts, and The preceding narratives emphasize female respondents’ even outright cash giving. That relationship won’t last. active (although bounded) sexual agencies within the con- But it can also be because of poverty . . . It is also straints of Nigerian patriarchy, political economic, and gen- about relationship building . . . no . . . maintenance. der asymmetries. That is, young females who perceive Yes, relationship building and maintenance. (Interview themselves as lacking symbolic social goods may seek out 1, male) wealthier men and peers willing to offer cash and gifts in exchange for unprotected sex. A further testimony to bounded Well, some people give gifts as a sign of affection or and varied agencies is that not all girls who perceive them- love. But I don’t think it should matter, although it selves as lacking in symbolic material goods succumb to does matter in this environment . . . Gifts are part of societal and (inter)personal pressures to assuage their wants relationship give and take. I give my boyfriend gifts through transactional or cross-generational sex: too. But cash, no . . . I guess girls need these small gifts for reassurance that the relationship is still appre- [An] individual like me will finally decide to do this or ciated. Nothing very major. It is the thinking behind it that. Your friends can put pressure, but it is up to you that matters. (Interview 46, female) to resist it or not. Do you know how many times I have been invited to the government house for parties? Discussions They have recruiters in the hostels that go about invit- ing girls to big-men parties. They send their luxury Practical and Theoretical Implications of Findings cars down every weekend to pick up girls who return with plenty of cash the following week. So do I just go Generally, participants’ narratives were underscored by ten- because I am broke? So their opinion is important to sions, contradictions, assertive but variable agencies, which some extent. But if you mean do they tell me what to undermine the dominant bifurcation of structural and agen- do, no. Although you can be pressured to have sex, but tial influences on unprotected sex by literature and interven- finally doing it is your choice. (Interview 46, female) tions in Nigeria. Furthermore, respondents were unequivocal about their awareness of risks associated with unprotected Furthermore, female respondents agree that sex and available mitigation measures in Nigeria. Never- theless, participants admit they engage in unprotected sex sex is a way for a girl to say thank you to a boy who induced by interrelated institutional and (inter)personal gives her attention, gifts, and . . . material support. influences that are often insidious and compelling. A few That is the only thing boys want from girls around interrelated influences they implicate in sexual risk practices here . . . no matter what they say. (Interview 41, include the mass media, peer influence, personal needs, the female) influence of the gender structure, emotions, sensation-seeking, Okonkwo 13 the influence of the romance structure, and so on— influencing internal structures, sexual agencies, outcomes, perpetually jostling among themselves to recommend and external structures anew—in a dynamic and interrelated unprotected sex instead of safe-sex or abstention. process in which all four analytical categories of influences Consequently, participants’ narratives challenge entrenched play varied roles, and so on. This is how extant sexual risk beliefs among sexual reproductive health stakeholders that structures and agencies become “deeply layered in time and unprotected sex is driven by unitary factors, such as igno- space, stretching through many decades and over large or rance or sensation-seeking alone (see Onoh, Mbah, fixed domains” that “pre-exist and post-date the lives of indi- Chukwuka, & Ikeme, 2004), and surmountable with safe- viduals (unmarried students) who reproduce them, and thus, sex communications, empowerment, and contraceptive may be resistant to manipulation or change” (Thompson, promotions (see UNAIDS, 2000). 1989, pp. 61-73). Figure 3 depicts the structuration cycle of Moreover, participants’ narratives have theoretical and unprotected sex. practical significance for sustainable behavior change Under the influence of multiple and often insidiously interventions in Nigeria. Findings imply that young people dynamic societal and (inter)personal influences already out- cannot simply Zip-Up their pants or Just Say No to unpro- lined, unprotected sex seems highly prescripted. It is not tected sex (agencies). Neither are young people’s sexual attributable to one influence alone. Participants’ context and conducts mere lifestyle issues (see Davison, Frankel, & conducts equally matter. Their context matter because soci- Smith, 1992; Davison, Smith, & Frankel, 1991). This is etal institutions, such as the mass media, sexualize unmarried because several insidious, competing, and compelling insti- people. Similarly, participants’ conducts matter because they tutional and (inter)personal coinfluences are always at play, purposefully draw-on and work-on prevailing sexual stan- such as marriage ambitions, peer pressure, sensation seek- dards, from social institutions, peer models, and so on, to (re) ing, and so on. Furthermore, participants claim that the enact unprotected sex in pursuit of intended outcomes such as Nigerian society categorization of premarital sex as immoral pleasure and peer esteem. It is against this seemingly contra- recommends its secretive and risk-prone conduct away from dictory and duality of influence background that behavior parental and societal gaze. Drawing on participants’ per- change interventionists must function in Nigeria. spectives, stakeholders will begin to appreciate why earlier agential abstention pledges and safe-sex resolutions crum- Study Limitations ble before dynamic contexts, sexual opportunities, peer pressure, emotions, (inter)personal needs, and so on. Several methodological issues limit this study. The first is that Participants describe influences as perpetually jostling the hermeneutic stance of the study implicates the author’s among themselves to normalize and recommend unprotected preunderstanding of, and allied prejudice for, or against, risk- sex; instead of abstention or consistent condom use. They prone sexual practices in the choice of topic, theory, research claim that sexual themes from external structures, such as the methods, and the interpretation and presentation of findings mass media, act as subtle pressures on young people, and as (see England, 1994; Schwandt, 1997). This is an inevitable normalizing influences on unprotected sex by (in)directly product of the author “being-in-the-world” (Bleicher, 1980, teaching sexual knowledge and skills through ubiquitous p. 118, quoting Heidegger, 1949). Furthermore, the sensitive sexual discourse, the promotion of sexual risk mitigation nature of the research topic constrained the initial recruitment measures, and so on, to affect and shape their sexual habitus, of female participants for the study. Topic sensitivity and that is, young people’s variable emotional and practical pre- allied participant recruitment challenges paradoxically recom- disposition toward unprotected sex that are wedded to their mended snowball sampling for a more efficient sample highly sexualized worldviews and values. recruitment from extended peer networks, and to reduce par- Notwithstanding, participants claim external influences ticipants’ discomforts. Although initially unplanned, snowball are not deterministic because young people routinely draw- sampling was used because female students initially on and work-on their sexual worldviews, values, emotions, approached refused to discuss their sexual practices with a and knowledge of their contexts, with active, purposive, and stranger and male investigator. Regardless of its inherent mer- often variable agencies, to initiate and accept sexual relation- its, snowball sampling render findings unrepresentative of ship propositions that they know culminates in normative Nigerian youths and their risk-prone sexual practices. sexual interactions and practices (i.e., unprotected sex). Moreover, peer referrals may have constrained the Interestingly, participants claim their sexual conducts are author’s access to participants in same-sex relationships, instigated for varied individual and/or dyadic intended which are normatively condemned in Nigeria. During the benefits but sometimes produce unintended outcomes, interview, same-sex sexual relationships research themes which they covertly manage with sexual reproductive health evoked strong verbal hostilities among participants. In fact, technologies available in society. Crucially, participants’ several self-styled born-again Christians terminated their mostly positive experiences of unprotected sex filter interviews, and promised an impending divine wrath on peo- back into society through the mass media, peer sexual ide- ple (like this author) who promote Western immoralities— ologies, and folklore to (re)affect the external world by (re) the dominant view of same-sex relationships in Nigeria. 14 SAGE Open External structures. Outcomes of sexual Composed of sexual relations relations. Intended and rules and resources. unintended ones such as Facilitates the acquisition of pleasure and STIs challenge knowledge and /skills of the dominant sexual order. sexuality. Active agencies-manifested Internal Structures. This is as youth proposition and exemplified by emotions and acceptance of propositions, respondents predispositions gifting and sexual risk- to sexual risk-taking. taking. Figure 3. Recursive sexual risk-taking influence cycle Note: Author-developed figure with input from Stones (2005) empirical structurationist research brackets The topic derailed several interviews to the extent that the With this privileged access, the author was able to understand author elected to drop it. In the future, better funded and and explain generational perspectives of sexual risk practices more generously timed studies would benefit from a more and sustainable behavior change in Nigeria as the study par- inclusive sampling of participants. ticipants did, utilizing their own words as much as reason- In addition, snowball sampling probably influenced par- able. Consequently, findings could inform an evidence-based ticipants’ narrative insurgency—especially in an abstention- understanding, explanation, description, and plausible theo- until-marriage-oriented context like Nigeria. Participants’ retical generalizations (see Yin, 1984) about influential and narrative insurgencies are likely due to personal, in-group, interrelated structures and agencies that predispose unmar- and contextual pressures to conform with, challenge, (re)pro- ried people to sexual risk practices on a broader national scale duce contextual sexual conducts, and/or reenact sexual fables. in Nigeria—without mistaking “local conventions for univer- Regardless of participants’ motivations for their narratives, sal truths” (Gergen & Gergen, 2000, p. 1032). we are cautioned by Freeman (1998) that “the self is indistin- guishable from the life story it constructs for itself out of what Conclusion is inherited what is experienced and what is desired” (cited in Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 746). Furthermore, participants’ Against the background of conflated institutional and agen- statements about their sexual practices accurately describes tial influences on sexual risk practices previously outlined, unmarried people’s sexual practices reported in literature, university students emphasize that abstention and consistent minus the gendered agency components (see FMoH, 2002; condom use injunctions are not realistic options for unmar- NPC and ICF Macro, 2009), and have internal coherency (see ried people. The suggestion was made that safe-sex stake- Czarniawska, 1999), which is determined by iteratively com- holders ought to accept serial monogamy; that is, focus on paring transcribed narratives. making unmarried people’s trending tendencies to maintain Notwithstanding the discussed challenges, the study meth- one sexual relationship at a time safer. In addition, partici- ods facilitated the author’s access to participants, their sexual pants argue that abstention expectations and pledges compli- contexts, conducts, worldviews, and allied rationalizations. cate their (especially girls) access to safe-sex information Okonkwo 15 and products. Howell (2001) drew similar observations participate in its prescripted pursuit. Accordingly, gender in about U.S. abstention-led programs (see Institute of Medicine heterosexual relationships is recast after Butler (1999) as [IOM], 2007, also). More critically, participants stress that performative—or indistinguishable from the various pre- previous beliefs about contraceptives, access to them, and scripted and learnable conducts socially constructed as positive dispositions toward contraceptives are poor predic- masculine or feminine. tors of their actual use in premarital relationships because of More significantly, participants claim that sexual risk- multiple and dynamic societal and (inter)personal influences infused structures and their variable agencies do not predeter- previously outlined. mine their unprotected sex conducts. According to them, In particular, participants claim interventionists’ failure to influential sexual structures present unprotected sex as one acknowledge and work-on conflated influences on unpro- compelling option, among several sexual conduct alternatives tected sex accounts for limited behavior change in Nigeria (or in Nigeria, such as abstention and consistent contraceptive the perennial KAP-gap). To correct this anomaly, participants use. Conversely, their agential choices and conducts were pre- suggested that interventionists endeavor to understand emo- sented as impossible without structural enablement in the tions, sexual curiosity, and pleasure, especially their influence form of sexual rules and resources within a context of increas- on unprotected sex. Their sentiments corroborates Alaka’s ingly weak sexual constraints. Based on participants’ genera- contention that “much sexual and reproductive behaviour is tional perspectives, rarely does one variable operating alone, motivated by emotional states that can suppress prior knowl- for example the mass media or peers, determine the occur- edge, services, or agency” (Alaka, 2006, p. 107); and Higgins rence of unprotected sex. Therefore, rather than simply read- and Hirsch’s (2008) analysis that “clear links exist between ing off the presented influences as narrowly corresponding the forms of pleasure respondents seek and their contracep- with others, or as simply multifactoral, it is more robust to tive practices” (p. 1803; see Rosenthal, Gifford, & Moore, read participants’ perspectives of influences as interdependent 1998, also). For participants, emotions collude with compel- and complex—facilitating the pursuit of subcultural, perhaps, ling and competing modern romance ideologies to recom- contextually compelling goals, such as enhanced pleasure, mend sexual spontaneity—which often mean unprotected peer esteem, securing future marriage partners, social sex. Emotion discourages contraceptive preplanning and use exchange, and so forth. More crucially, the relative influence among participants, recommending instead, the relinquishing of different structures (influences) identified, especially their of rational sexual control for love and/or romance. Similarly, (re)combinations, often vary with individuals or subpopula- attention ought to be paid to participants’ claims that the dom- tions, felt-needs, social fads, time, and space. inant taboo against premarital sex and feminine pursuit of To conclude therefore, behavior change strategists in sexual pleasure in Nigeria (see Smith, 2001, 2004) paradoxi- Nigeria must come to terms with respondents’ modalities for cally elevates their sexual curiosities and secretive risk-prone learning, interpreting, and incorporating patterned sexual sexual practices despite (perhaps, because of) the categoriza- rules and resources into their lives within the context of tion of premarital sex, especially women’s pursuit of sexual modern romance ideologies, structural inequalities, emo- pleasure, as immoral. tions, and purposive and active sexual agencies. This is Further attention ought to be paid to the reality that par- because unprotected sex “is only a taking up of the tools ticipants value the unique benefits, independence, and where they lie, where the very ‘taking up’ is enabled [and sense of achievement their sexual relationships confer. In constrained] by the tool lying there” (Butler, 1999, p. 145). this regard, participants contest adult presumptions that Declaration of Conflicting Interests they are uniformly reckless, suggesting instead that unpro- tected sex is acceptable within their dominantly heterosex- The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with ual subculture that is governed by serial monogamy, respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this romance, commitment, and partners’ mutual expectations article. of fidelity (their subcultural attempts to manage sexual Funding risks). Therefore, patronizing safe-sex and abstention mes- sages that are governed by notions of sexual danger, preda- The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or tory masculinity, and passive femininity, which are allied to authorship of this article. developing nations’ HIV/AIDS pandemic and population References control concerns, will continue to be ineffective (see Jolly, 2007). The foregoing analysis invites commentary on the Abdulraheem, I. S. (2009). Young people’s sexual risk behaviours gendered facade of collected narratives, which concur- in Nigeria. Journal of Adolescent Research, 24, 505-527. rently corroborated and challenged essentialists’ concep- Ajibade, G. O. (2005). Is there no man with penis in this land? tion of gender in Nigeria (see Oyekanmi, 1994). Contrary Eroticism and performance in Yoruba nuptial songs. African to essentialists’ versions of women as sexually passive and Study Monographs, 26(2), 99-113. men as sexually voracious, participants were unequivocal Alaka, M. B. (2006). The emotions and reproductive health. Popu- that both sexes desire sexual pleasure and actively lation and Development Review, 32, 107-121. 16 SAGE Open Archer, M. (1995). Realist social theory: The morphogenetic Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Cambridge, UK: approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Polity. Giddens, A. (1992). The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love Bleicher, J. (1980). Contemporary hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as and eroticism in modern societies. Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni- method, philosophy and critique. London, England: Routledge versity Press. & Kegan Paul. Goffman, E. (1983). The interaction order (American Sociological Bond, T. (2004). Guidelines for researching counselling and psy- Association 1982 Presidential Address). American Sociological chotherapy. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 4(2), Review, 48, 1-17. 10-19. Higgins, J. A., & Hirsch, J. S. (2008). Pleasure, power, and inequal- Brown, T. (2000). AIDS and social governance. Social Science & ity: Incorporating sexuality into research on contraceptive use. Medicine, 50, 1273-1284. American Journal of Public Health, 98, 1803-1813. Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of Holland, J., Ramazanoglu, C., Sharpe, S., & Thompson, R. (1998). identity (Anniversary Ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. The male in the head: Young people, heterosexuality and power. Cleland, J., & Watkins, S. C. (2006). The key lesson of family plan- London, England: Tufnell Press. ning programs for HIV/AIDS control. AIDS, 20, 1-3. Holmes, K. K., Levine, R., & Weaver, M. (2004). Effectiveness of Cohen, P. S. (1968). Modern social theory. London, England: condoms in preventing sexually transmitted infections. Bulletin Heinemann. of World Health Organization, 82, 454-461. Czarniawska, B. (1999). Writing management. Oxford, UK: Oxford Howell, M. (2001). The future of sexuality education: Science or University Press. politics? Transitions, 12(3), 1-17. Davison, C., Frankel, S., & Smith, G. D. (1992). The limits of life- Institute of Medicine. (2007). PEPFAR implementation: Progress style: Re-assessing “fatalism” in the popular culture of illness and promise (Report brief: Institute of Medicine of the National prevention. Social Science & Medicine, 34, 675-685. Academies). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. de Lauretis, T. (1990). Eccentric subjects: Feminist theory and his- Jackson, S., & Scott, S. (1997). Gut reactions to matters of the heart: torical consciousness. Feminist Studies, 16(1), 115-150. Reflections on rationality, irrationality and sexuality. Sociologi- Douglas, M. (1992). Risk and blame: Essays in cultural theory. cal Review, 45, 551-575. London, England: Routledge. Jankowiak, W., Nell, M. D., & Buckmaster, A. (2002). Managing Duffy, M. E., & Gotcher, J. M. (1996). Crucial advice on how to infidelity: A cross-cultural perspective. Ethnology, 41, 85-101. get the guy: The rhetorical vision of power and seduction in Jankowiak, W. R., & Fischer, E. F. (1992). A cross-cultural perspec- the teen magazine YM. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 20, tive on romantic love. Ethnology, 31, 149-155. 32-48. Jolly, S. (2007). Why the development industry should get over its Elegbeleye, O. S. (2006). Is rape in the eye or in the mind of obsession with bad sex and start to think about pleasure (IDS the offender? A survey of rape perception among Nigerian Working Paper No. 283). Brighton, UK: Institute of Develop- university stakeholders. Educational Research and Review, 1(2), ment Studies. Retrieved from http://www.research4develop- 40-51. ment.info/PDF/Outputs/SexReproRights_RPC/wp283.pdf Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. (2000). Autoethnography, personal Kabir, M., Iliyasu, Z., Abubakar, I. S., & Kabir, A. S. (2004). Sex- narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. Denzin & ual behaviour among students in tertiary institutions in Kano, Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., northern Nigeria. Journal of Community Medicine & Primary pp. 733-768), Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Health Care, 16(2), 17-22. England, K. V. L. (1994). Getting personal: Reflexivity, positional- Kaestle, C. E., & Halpern, C. T. (2007). What’s love got to do ity, and feminist research. Professional Geographer, 46, 80-89. with it? Sexual behaviours of opposite-sex couples through Federal Ministry of Health. (2002). HIV/AIDS: What it means for emerging adulthood. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Nigeria (Background, projections, impact, interventions and Health, 39, 134-140. policy). Abuja, Nigeria: Author. Kelleher, D. (1996). A defence of the use of the terms “ethnicity” Feltham, C., & Dryden, W. (2004). Dictionary of counselling (2nd and “culture.” In D. Kelleher & S. Hillier (Eds.), Researching ed.). London, England: Whurr. cultural differences in health (pp. 69-90). London, England: Fenton, S., & Charsley, K. (2000). Epidemiology and sociology as Routledge. incommensurate games: Accounts from the study of health and Lash, S. (2000). Risk culture. In B. Adam, U. Beck, & and J. van ethnicity. Health, 4, 403-425. Loon (Eds.), The risk society and beyond (pp. 47-62). London, Fisher, C. B. (2004). Informed consent and clinical research involv- England: SAGE. ing children and adolescents: Implications of the revised APA Leary, M. R., Tchividjian, L. R., & Kraxberger, B. E. (1994). Self- ethics code and HIPAA. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent presentation can be hazardous to your health: Impression man- Psychology, 33, 832-839. agement and health risk. Health Psychology, 13, 461-470. Gergen, M., & Gergen, K. (2000). Qualitative inquiry: Tensions Lee, R., Kochman, A., & Sikkema, K. (2002). Internalized stigma and transformations. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Hand- among people living with HIV-AIDS. AIDS and Behavior, 6, book of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 1025-1046) Thousand 309-319. Oaks, CA: SAGE. Okonkwo 17 Lee, R. M. (1993). Doing research on sensitive topics. London, Onoh, H. E., Mbah, A. U., Chukwuka, J. C., & Ikeme, A. C. (2004). England: SAGE. HIV/AIDS awareness and sexual practices among undergradu- ates in Enugu, Nigeria. Nigerian Postgraduate Medical Jour- Lips, H. M. (2003). A new psychology of women: Gender, culture, nal, 11(2), 121-125. and ethnicity (2nd ed.). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield. Oyekanmi, F. A. D. (1994). Women’s attitudes towards sexually Maxwell, J. (2002). Ethnography and the construction of culture transmitted diseases in Nigeria: A case study in Ilesa in Osun (Comprehensive Essay No. 2). Retrieved from http://thinkubator state. Africa development. 19(2), 147-165. .ccsp.sfu.ca/jmax-papers/PhD/ethnographyComp.pdf Plummer, K. (2003). Intimate citizenship: Private decisions and McCracken, G. (1988). The long interview. Newbury Park, CA: public dialogues. Seattle: University of Washington Press. SAGE. Rosenthal, D., Gifford, S., & Moore, S. (1998). Safe sex or safe McLennan, G. (1984). Critical or positive theory? A comment on love: Competing discourses? AIDS Care, 10, 35-47. the status of Anthony Giddens’ social theory. Theory, Culture Schutz, A. (1972). The phenomenology of the social world. Lon- & Society, 2, 123-129. don, England: Heinemann Educational Books. (Original work Meekers, D., Van Rossem, R., Zellner, S., & Berg, R. (2004). Using published 1932) behavior change communications to overcome social market- Schwandt, T. A. (1997). Qualitative inquiry: A dictionary of terms. ing sales plateaus: Case studies in Nigeria and India (Techni- Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. cal Paper Series 7). Washington, DC: USAID. Shoveller, J. A., & Jonhson, J. L. (2006). Risky groups, risky behav- Merriam, S. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applica- iour, and risky persons: Dominating discourses on youth sexual tions in education (Rev. ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. health. Critical Public Health, 10, 313-319. Momoh, S. O., Asagwara, C. G., & Meriamu, U. M. (2007). Male Smith, D. J. (2001). Romance, parenthood and gender in a modern gender roles and sexuality: Implications for university girls African society. Ethnology, 40, 129-151. HIV/AIDS awareness in a Nigerian university. Journal of Inter- Smith, D. J. (2004). Youth, sin and sex in Nigeria: Christianity and national Women’s Studies, 8(4), 148-152. HIV/AIDS related beliefs and behaviour among rural-urban Momoh, S. O., Moses, A. I., & Ugiomoh, M. M. (2006). Women migrants. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 6, 425-437. and the HIV/AIDS epidemic: The issue of school age girls’ Social Science and Reproductive Health Research Network. (1999). awareness in Nigeria. Journal of International Women’s Stud- Male responsibility in reproductive health: The construction of ies, 8, 212-218. manhood in Nigeria (Phase I). Ibadan, Nigeria: NISER. Munson, R. (2000). Intervention and reflection: Basic issues in Stones, R. (2005). Structuration theory. Traditions in social theory. medical ethics (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. National Bureau of Statistics. (2009). Social statistics in Nigeria Thomas, N., & O’Kane, C. (1998). The ethics of participatory federal republic. Abuja, Nigeria: Author. Retrieved from http:// research with children. Children and Society, 12, 336-348. www.efiko.org/material/Social%20Statistics%20in%20Nige- Thompson, J. B. (1989). The theory of structuration. In D. Held ria%20by%20NBS.pdf & J. B. Thompson (Eds.), Social theory of modern societies: National Population Commission and ICF Macro. (2009). Nigeria Anthony Giddens and his critiques (pp. 56-76). Cambridge, demographic and health survey 2008. Abuja, Nigeria: National UK: Cambridge University Press. Population Commission Nigeria and ICF Macro Ugoji, F. N. (2011). Romanticism and gender identity as predictors O’Donnell, A., & Cummins, D. (1999). The use of qualitative of sexual behaviours among undergraduate students in a Nige- methods to research networking in SMEs. Qualitative Market rian university. Journal of Social Sciences, 26, 147-152. Research, 2, 82-91. UNAIDS. (1997). Impact of HIV and sexual health education on the Odu, B. K., & Akanle, F. F. (2008). Knowledge of HIV/AIDS and sexual behavior of young people: A review update. Retrieved from sexual behaviour among the youths in south west Nigeria. http://data.unaids.org/Publications/IRC-pub01/JC010-Impact International Journal of Tropical Medicine, 3, 81-88. YoungPeople_en.pdf Okonkwo, A. D., & Okonkwo, U. P. (2010). Patent medicine ven- UNAIDS. (2000). The male condom (UNAIDS Technical update). dors, community pharmacists and STI management in Abuja, Geneva, Switzerland: UNAIDS Best Practice Collection. Nigeria. African Health Sciences, 10, 253-265. Wagbatsoma, V. A., & Okojie, O. H. (2006). Knowledge of HIV/ Okonkwo, P. I., Fatusi, A. O., & Ilika A. L. (2005). Perception AIDS and sexual practices among adolescents in Benin City, of peers’ behaviour regarding sexual health decision making Nigeria. African Journal of Reproductive Health, 10(3), among female undergraduates in Anambra State, Nigeria. Afri- 76-83. can Health Sciences, 5(2), 107-113. West, W. (2002). Some ethical dilemmas in counselling and coun- Okoza, J., & Aluede, O. (2009). Drug abuse among students of selling research. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. European Journal 30, 261-268. of Social Sciences, 10, 85-92. Westoff, C. F., & Bankole, A. (1995). Unmet need: 1990–1994 Omoteso, B. A. (2006). A study of the sexual behaviour of univer- (Demographic and Health Surveys Comparative Studies 16). sity undergraduate students in southwestern Nigeria. Journal of Calverton, MD: Macro International. Social Sciences, 12, 129-133. 18 SAGE Open Yin, R. K. (1984). Case study research: Design and methods. Bev- Sustainability journal (2012); “Gender and Sexual Risk-Taking erley Hills, CA: SAGE. Among Selected Nigerian University Students” published by the Sexuality and Culture Journal (2010); and a collaborative study of Bio the roles of “Patent Medicine Vendors, Community Pharmacists, Amaechi D. Okonkwo is a PhD graduate of Swansea University, and STI Management in Abuja, Nigeria,” which was published by United Kingdom, and currently engaged in development research the African Health Sciences journal (2010). He is currently work- with Behaviour Change Group, Edmonton, Canada. His recent ing on two research projects, including a theoretical reimagining of publications include the investigation of the impact of “The Lower institutional and agential influences on grand corruption in Nigeria, Niger River Dredging on Indigenous Wetland Livelihoods in and a critical analysis of the primacy of ethnicity in explaining Nigeria,” which was published by Environment, Development and Nigeria’s failed state status.

Journal

SAGE Open – SAGE

Published: Jan 8, 2013

Keywords: Nigeria; unmarried university students; unprotected sex; structure; agency; influences; sustainable behavior change

Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Generational Perspectives of Unprotected Sex and Sustainable Behavior Change in Nigeria:

Generational Perspectives of Unprotected Sex and Sustainable Behavior Change in Nigeria:

Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Generational Perspectives of Unprotected Sex and Sustainable Behavior Change in Nigeria:

Generational Perspectives of Unprotected Sex and Sustainable Behavior Change in Nigeria:

References (87)

Abstract

Journal

Recommended Articles

There are no references for this article.

Our policy towards the use of cookies