ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 focuses on the contradictory and complex articulation of virginity and ‘pure love’, where proof of virginity is equated to purity. Both teenage boys and girls draw on the cultural values of hlonipha (respect) as they advocate virtuous respectable femininity and normalise hegemonic masculinity. Unlike the previous chapter, which described teenage boys managing economic weakness by idealising virginity and condemning girls’ desire for consumption, both teenage boys and girls draw on and accommodate female purity. They support cultural ideals of virginity that prize sexual innocence, chastity and female sexual passivity. Presenting female purity and love as ‘pure’ allows teenage girls to negotiate acceptable femininity and avoid the label of slut – but it also makes them complicit in the reproduction of gender inequality and their own loss of agency in the regulation of female sexuality. Conversely, teenage boys’ idealisation of female virginity is normalised, instantiating male power without ever interrogating male virginity. This further compounds the regulation and control of female sexuality. Teenage girls, I show in this chapter, actively stitch themselves into these gender normative constructions of sexuality.
