Premarital sexual relationships in Ghana in the era of AIDS

Governments and health policy makers in Africa are confronted with the task of modifying their populations' sexual behaviour, and especially that of the youth, in response to the AIDS epidemic. The little that is known about the sexual life of Ghanaians is based mainly on anthropological studies. In addition, the evidence is scattered and provided by various social scientists with different cultural backgrounds and divergent interpretations of Ghanaian mores. The paper attempts to provide insights into the nature of premarital sexual relationships in Ghana. Sexual relationships are considered as aspects of personal relationships, and are discussed in terms of their content, diversity, quality, extent of interdependence, intimacy and commitment, and the implications of these for policy are discussed. The paper also discusses the transactional nature of sexual networking in urban Ghana; quite different from prostitution as it is understood in Western Europe, and better understood within the framework of exchange theory. It is argued that the nature of most premarital sexual relationships in modern Ghana is consumerist and although traditionally this emphasis was prohibited among some communities, it is now socially acceptable. A major theme of the paper is that sexual facts must take account of the cultural con text if policy makers are to succeed in their behaviour-modification efforts.