Date: Thursday 2nd Feb 2023
Time: 2:00pm/Nairobi
Venue: CHUSS Smart Room
Zoom link: http://alturl.com/hib43
Meeting ID: 946 0937 2846
Pass code: 387314
Abstract
Concerns about men’s sexual performance locally described as upungufu wa nguvu za kiume have become widespread among men in many African countries and have even become the subject of national parliamentary debate in Tanzania. In-depth qualitative studies on men’s sexual performance concerns in the country have largely focused on the meanings and experiences that men associate with the phenomenon; and how they relate their concerns about sexual performance to their everyday lives and wider processes of identity formation and relationship-building. However, the existing studies have paid very little attention to the understanding of the phenomenon from the female partner’s perspective. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Dar es Salaam and Mwanza, and building on the Afro-feminism perspective, the paper explores female partners’ experiences and reactions to men with sexual performance concerns in urban Tanzania. I argue that female partners in urban Tanzania take the advantage of the dominant masculine version of sexuality to negotiate and express sexual pleasures for themselves and hence enact a decolonial vision of gender relations. Through female partner’s narratives, the findings demonstrate that in the context of men’s sexual performance concerns, female partners express their sexual agency, by demanding sexual satisfaction, seeking sexual pleasure, expressing interest in sex, being active in sexual encounters, and consequently developing a sense of negative feelings about men’s sexual performance concerns. My findings highlight the need to consider how female partners challenge patriarchal gender practices that aim to dehumanise the dignity of (African) women.
Keywords: women’s sexual agency, patriarchy, decolonization, men’s sexual performance concerns, urban Tanzania