Sexual Pleasure and the Construction of Masculinities and Femininities: Understanding Sexuality in Ghana

Although sexual pleasure is an important aspect of human sexuality, we know little about how women and men construct sexual pleasure. Yet, understanding how individuals construct sexual pleasure is key making sense of how they perform themselves in relation to sexual practices. How do women and men portray themselves as active agents in sexual encounters as consequence of their sexual beliefs and symbolic interpretations and meanings of sexual pleasure? Drawing on the narratives of 20 women and 16 men aged 22 to 79 years in Madina, an urban settlement in Accra, Ghana, I investigate how women and men construct sexual pleasure in Ghana and highlight women’s sexual agency. Specifically, the study explores how sexual knowledge, beliefs and experiences inform the way women and men perceive sex and initiate sexual intercourse; notions of masculinity and femininity, and how they influence women’s sexual practices; and meanings of sexual pleasure, factors that stimulate women and men’s sexual pleasure, and how they are negotiated. Both women and men were constrained discussing sexual matters due to factors such as protection of privacy, secrecy and sensitivity. Media and friends were the main sources of knowledge of sexual beliefs and behaviour. Sexual experiences varied by age and sex but not by marital status or religion. Women believed sex should be guarded while men perceived sex as a declaration of their masculinity. Although men persuaded women to engage in diverse sexual practices, women used vagina to negotiate sex on their own
terms. Women were active initiators of sex. Although women framed ’proper’ masculinity in terms of stereotypical reproductive norms, they also acknowledged fluidity and multiplicity of masculinities. Femininity was more uniformly characterised in terms of physical attractiveness and beauty, responsibility, and reproduction. These features, especially those related to morally appropriate sexual norms (e.g., menstrual and bodily hygiene, unplanned pregnancy etc.), influence the way women engage in sexual relations with men. Meanings of sexual pleasure were direct and indirect and were symbolic (e.g., ejaculation, scream, and asking rhetoric questions during sex) based on subjective interpretations. Both women and men reported experiencing direct expressions of sexual pleasure, i.e. ejaculation. The experience of sexual pleasure was a product of sexual negotiation based on complex factors (e.g., eroticism, sex positions, and use of aphrodisiacs) and perceptions of sexual risk (e.g., fear of suffering an ill health). Although the women’s agency was expressed within the confines of masculinist ideology, women reported negotiating sex and sexual pleasure according to self-reflecting sexual choices. Therefore, dominant ideologies of masculinity are not threat to Ghanaian women's sexuality. However, the need to address issues that would make sexual pleasure seeking easier for women and men and the removal of barriers of fears is compelling.