Transactional sex relationships in fiction: the disintegration of women’s emancipation through the blesser/blessee culture in selected african novels
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Date
2023
Authors
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Publisher
University of Namibia
Abstract
The hashtag #blessed started trending several years ago on different social media
platforms when women claimed to be beneficiaries of blessers. The latter was what
the new hashtag denoted and not the often biblical meaning of ‘blessed’ which is to
receive favour from God. The hashtag thus falls under the contemporary phenomenon
known as transactional sex relationships, colloquially known as the blessers, blessees,
sugar daddies, sugar babies and side-chicks. Since this is a new phenomenon, this
study aimed to interrogate the multiple layers of transactional sex relationships in
fiction and how they possibly contribute to the disintegration of women’s
emancipation. The study which was essentially a qualitative desktop study employed
purposive sampling to select and analyse four novels by southern African writers: The
Blessed Girl by Angela Makholwa (2018), Bare: #The Blesser Game by Jackie
Phamotse (2017), Sweet Medicine by Panashe Chigumadzi (2016), and The y in yOUR
Man is Silent: Book 1 by Yvonne Maphosa (2019). Employing the postcolonial
paradigm of Africa writing-back-to-self advocated by Mwangi (2009) and a critique
of Lipstick Feminism, the study analysed how the writers aesthetically present literary
devices describing the unrefined data about transactional sex relationships. In addition,
the study analysed how the transactional sex relationship culture encouraged the
possible disintegration of women’s emancipation. The study contributes to the
understanding of the self-reflexive catalytic events that lead to transactional sex
relationships and their consequences in Africa, without singular attribution to the
West. The findings indicate the following: firstly, the authors wrote extensively and
without inhibition about transactional sex relationships using visual imagery more
than euphemisms whilst presenting a variety of issues that are considered taboo. The
following key issues were identified as the primary sources of transactional sex
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relationships: women’s agency, consumerism, modernity, poverty, parental influence
or encouragement, peer pressure, gendered norms, grade adjustments to pass, and
guaranteed job offers. Depression, trauma, abuse, and isolation were some of the issues
found to be the psychological, physical and social consequences of transactional sex
relationships. Significantly, the study found that the advancement of Lipstick
Feminism towards the application of make-up and women using their sex appeal as
empowerment has contributed to the commodification of transactional sex and thus
the disintegration of women’s empowerment. The findings of the study corroborate
the existing social studies’ findings on the phenomenon and provide vital information
for future studies. The study recommends future studies to employ Mwangi’s (2009)
postcolonial paradigm of writing-back-to-self to examine the other taboos revealed in
this thesis; skin and private part bleaching, depression, indecent public exposure,
polyamory, black tax and men who have sex with men (MSM). The study concludes
that the transactional sex relationship culture contributes to the disintegration of
women’s empowerment.
Description
A research submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of philosophy in english studies
Keywords
Women’s empowerment, Disintegration, Transactional sex relationships, Side-chick, Blesser, Blessee