What is transactional sex?

Introduction

Transactional sex refers to sexual relationships where the giving and/or receiving of gifts, money or other services is an important factor. The participants do not necessarily frame themselves in terms of prostitutes/clients, but often as girlfriends/boyfriends, or sugar babies/sugar daddies. Those offering sex may or may not feel affection for their partners. Transactional sex is a superset of sex work, in that the exchange of monetary reward for sex includes a broader set of (usually non-marital) obligations that do not necessarily involve a predetermined payment or gift, but where there is a definite motivation to benefit materially from the sexual exchange. The omnipresence of transactional sex in sub-Saharan Africa, prevalent in non-marital relationships across all income groups, is closely related to gender socio-cultural norms, whereby a man is expected to act as a provider to their partners, and women expect a compensation or reward for “giving” sex. This results in implicit exchange expectations whereby a man could buy a woman a drink for example, and her acceptance implies a willingness to have sex. Transactional sex also becomes a tool for migration in areas where younger women, for example from Europe or North America, have romantic relationships with older men. The general consensus among those studying transactional sex is that it is associated with the combined effects of poverty, the influence of Western consumerism, the differences in economic power between men and women, and the breakdown of traditional African marriage customs involving bride wealth. Some scholars also associate transactional sex with the use of female erotic power and new inter-generational strategies and argue that these are part of a broader moral economy where the money that young women earn from transactional sex is redistributed to kin and peers. It is a prevalent in the relationships of basically young women and adolescent girls. The meanings and notions attached to the exchange vary from one person to person and from society to society, with key motivations being to meet basic needs and to acquire items of modernity. Gender inequalities shape sexual relationships by giving men greater social and economic power than women and create the material and ideological conditions that encourage transactional sex. Though transactional sex is often seem to be connected with the women only but in reality it is associated with all gender, even men also have transactional sex. The practice of transactional sex matters and requires intervention to the extent that it is associated with HIV and related risk behaviours and therefore endangers the health and well-being of adolescent girls and young women and their male partners in sub-Saharan Africa.

Transactional sex through a public health perspective

Transactional sex has been shown to raise the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases from a public health perspective and can also contribute to unplanned pregnancies as well as other undesirable sexual and reproductive health consequences, such as intimate partner abuse, sexual harassment and increased alcohol consumption among the Adolescent Girls and Young Women. Being in relationship where there is a young girl and an older person, situations can be detrimental and leading to worsen the situation. Most attempts to tackle transactional sex have originated from the area of HIV prevention, typically prioritizing the provision of information and the shift in attitudes as the primary drivers of change. Such approaches have given less attention to psychosocial and economic causes and transactional sex implications for young girls, such as decreased access to services and education, which strengthens the cycle of deprivation in which girls engaged in transactional sex are usually locked up. Likewise, structural, cultural, and community-level variables that could explain these gender roles and relationship power imbalances are typically under-theorized.

Transactional sex through human rights and child protection perspective

It leads to the exploitation of young and adolescent girls, wherein they involve in situations and enter into a relationship where they receive something (money, gifts) for performing sexual acts and indulging into the sexual activities. International frameworks derived from this perspective, such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, consider these exchanges to be a form of child sexual exploitation when the encounter involves an adult and a young person below the age of 18. However, according to a well-established body of literature arising from the African context AGYW involved in these relationships and others within their communities may not perceive these relationships to be exploitative, demonstrating that these definitions are not always as clear-cut in practice.