This paper uses a life-course approach to explore the sexual partnerships and HIV-related risk of men and women in Swaziland throughout their adolescence, their 20s and 30s. Twenty-eight Swazi men and women between the ages of 20 and 39 discussed their life histories in 117 in-depth interviews, with an average follow-up of 9 months. Many participants reported painful childhood experiences, including a lack of positive role models for couple relationships. Women’s first sexual partnerships often involved coercion or force and resulted in pregnancy and abandonment by partners, leaving women economically vulnerable. Most men and women reported a desire to marry and associated marriage with respectability and monogamy. Men typically did not feel ready to marry until their 30s, while women often married only after years in tumultuous relationships. A high degree of relationship instability and change was observed over the study period, with half of participants reporting concurrency within their primary relationship. Participants’ narratives revealed significant sources and circumstances of risk, particularly multiple and concurrent sexual partnerships, violence, and lack of mutual trust within relationships, as well as social ideals which may provide opportunities for effective HIV prevention.

Men and women in Swaziland who are engaged in multiple or concurrent sexual partnerships, or who have sexual partners with concurrent partners, face a very high risk of HIV infection. Ninety-four in-depth interviews were conducted with 28 Swazi men and women (14 of each sex) between the ages of 20 and 39 in order to explore participants’ sexual partnership histories, including motivations for sexual relationships which carried high HIV risk. Concurrency was normative, with most men and women having had at least one concurrent sexual partnership, and all women reporting having had at least one partner who had a concurrent partner. Men distinguished sexual partnerships that were just for sex from those that were considered to be “real relationships”, while women represented the majority of their relationships, even those which included significant financial support, as being based on love. Besides being motivated by love, concurrent sexual partnerships were described as motivated by a lack of sexual satisfaction, a desire for emotional support and/or as a means to exact revenge against a cheating partner. Social and structural factors were also found to play a role in creating an enabling environment for high-risk sexual partnerships, and these factors included social pressure and norms, a lack of social trust, poverty and a desire for material goods, and geographical separation of partners.

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