Abstract
This thesis focuses on changing sexualities and moralities in Xhosa areas from the 1940s-1960s and seeks to venture into transcribed interviews collected and recorded by an African Percival (Percy) Qayiso. African interlocutors and research assistants like Percy Qayiso played an immeasurable role in pioneering scholarship on Black people through oral interviews and transcription. His contribution shaped the content of the data collected and contributed to the work by the Mayers in the Xhosa in Town project. When looking at the interviews in Qayiso’s manuscript, there is a common view amongst rural and urban communities - that young people are no longer sexually ‘chaste’ compared to the older generation. The argument here is that young people are more sexually active and no longer apply preventative measures to avoid unwelcome consequences, i.e. premarital pregnancy. In the rural areas, sex-play (ukumetsha), referred to as a more accepted form of sexual expression by older people for unmarried youths and is less accepted and regarded as ‘old fashioned’. Within the topic of sexual morality, topics like rape and pre-marital pregnancy are part of the study by default. There is also a notable increase of predatory masculine sexual identities and a more visible distinction of identities rural and urban attitudes towards the 1960s. The cessation of virginity testing is understood to be the cause of increased sexual ‘immorality’. The inaccessibility of support systems, family planning services, inadequate employment and lack of opportunities in the face of massive social changes. The coercive legislation that forced Black people into controlled compounds or locations led to spiralling problems of over-crowdedness and other social ills. Consequently, measures to curb shame and dishonour, like fines and ostracism, became prominent in various Red (traditional) communities. The critical conventional sanctions which policed and maintained a measure of stability in the past were rejected. In this thesis, I also discuss how Black cultures and systems have been historically centred on the control of female sexuality, and how those systems were oppressive in its own right. Furthermore, the militarized system of apartheid worsened the position of Black women as sexual assaults on them increased. This thesis focusses on Xhosa views on the concept of sexual morality in the interviews gathered in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, within the town and rural divide model developed by Philip Mayer. The interviews are very important and are the highlight of this thesis as they reveal Qayiso’s methodology and the consciousness of the informants concerned. The aim is to show how individuals and communities conformed and constructed nuanced sexual identities and practices, which in turn varied over space and time. The nuances in identities revealed that individuals became more involved in the creation of moral codes in the face of dramatic changes and the harsh realities of apartheid.
M.A. (Historical Studies)