Taxi 'Sugar Daddies' and Taxi Queens: Male Taxi Driver Attitudes Regarding Transactional Relationships in the Western Cape, South Africa

"Some information has begun to emerge, mainly anecdotal and in the media, about young women who travel with older mini-bus taxi drivers, and are thought to have sex with them in exchange for gifts and money."

This research considers transactional sexual relationships, "especially where age and material difference are marked, are increasingly an area of concern in addressing HIV as well as gender-based violence in southern Africa. Transactional sex that is not sex work in the traditional sense, nor only an outcome of poverty, but is also fuelled by consumerist pressures to acquire goods and social status, as well as linked with culturally-based notions of gender, love and exchange." [Footnotes are removed by the editor.] The paper is based on a quantitative survey conducted with taxi drivers in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.

Earlier research has focused on vulnerability of women to HIV/AIDS, on gender power differentials, and on weakened bargaining power in relation to safe sex. "[M]ore recent calls to acknowledge the complexity of transactional sex and avoid a woman-as-victim discourse....There has also been a call to focus more on the perspectives of men, since there has been little research looking at men's motivations and experiences of such practices....Few studies have looked specifically at the subjective experiences and motivations of men who engage in transactional relationships."

This study, focussing on issues related to transactional sex (offered by young women needing transportation - taxi queens) and its consequences, is conducted in the context of a gendered transportation needs (young women being dependent on public transport and men being the drivers of available transport), with background from larger and previous studies and reports that suggest that:

• tourists get taxi drivers (connected with the sex trade) to organise girls as young as 13 years brought to their hotel room; and
• drivers described these girls as "throwing" themselves at them.

"A structured questionnaire, based on information obtained from formative focus groups held with local youth, and individual interviews with girls identified as taxi queens, both conducted in the same geographic areas as those outlined below, was developed. It elicited initial demographic information, followed by 22 statements regarding taxi drivers and taxi queens, for which respondents had five possible response options, ranging from 'strongly disagree' through to 'strongly agree'. The questionnaire was developed in English and translated into both Afrikaans and Xhosa (constituting the three official languages of this province). The questionnaire was piloted on three taxi drivers, in each of the languages, and based on this, language and/or content were modified where necessary....Analyses took the form of generating descriptive statistics for the biographical information and responses to statements."

Results from the drivers linked their perception of higher status for the girls with their chauffeuring them in a taxi and showed general acceptance of the relationship of chauffeuring and sex as transactional, but without links to violence for refusals. Responses suggested that taxi drivers stigmatise and assume stigmatisation of those girls who offer sex for rides. In general, drivers agreed on the need to use a condom to prevent HIV infection, though less than half agreed that girls who have sex with drivers are likely to become infected with HIV. Drivers recognised a connection between alcohol use - but not drug use - and the practices of transactional sex for rides. Drivers acknowledge the girls' family fears about girls who have sexual contact with taxi drivers.

Conclusions include the following:

• There are significant divergences of opinion between existing reports of taxi queens and these interview results from drivers, suggesting a need for further investigation with a view to addressing possible problems arising from these relationships.
• A key benefit of the transaction relates to "the social construction of hegemonic masculinity and the assumption that men need to prove their masculinity by illustrating their attractiveness to women....This finding points to the importance of understanding the gendered investments for both men and women in transactional sex.”
• "Any work with men in the transport industry towards the promulgation of safe and equitable sexual practices needs to take into account the complexity of the dynamic of interaction and the gains for such men which extend beyond access to casual sex. While the provision of information remains important, especially in the light of some confusion identified in this study, raising consciousness around the ways in which dominant forms of masculinity create problems for men as well as women is required."
• "In this respect key areas that need to be explored and raised with men include: the association of risk-taking including alcohol and substance abuse with masculinity; the salience of ‘provider’ masculinity and its attractiveness to young poor women; and the way in which successful masculinity hinges around sexual prowess, thus facilitating unsafe and inequitable sexual practices."