Female Control over First Sexual Intercourse in Brazil: Qualitative Evidence from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais

Ann M. Moore, University of Texas at Austin

While public health advocates began exploring the vagaries of sexual consent in the 1990s, public policy regarding sexual health has yet to address the spectrum of gender-based sexual coercion. But there is growing evidence that sexual coercion plays a fundamental role in female sexual behavior. This project presents data from 12 focus groups carried out in June/July 2002 in the municipality of Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, Brazil with low and middle/upper-income women of the ages 18-21 and 30-39 to explore female control over first sex experiences. The respondents’ sexual debut stories are rife with deception and disappointment. A prominent theme in the data is that sexual intercourse becomes obligatory at a certain point due to contextual relationship factors. While the 18-21 year old respondents felt obligated at a different point than the 30-39 year old respondents, this obligation obscures what is deemed unwanted intercourse.