Abstract:
The study assessed condom negotiation strategies undergraduates of Jimma University
use with main (or permanent, monogamous, longer-term) and new (temporal or casual)
heterosexual partners. Data were gathered from 4 focus group discussions (35
discussants––20 male, 15 female), 10 in-depth interviews (all males), and 378 randomly
selected survey participants (where 176 are sexually active in life). While descriptive
statistics (e.g. percentage) was used to analyze the survey data, content and thematic
analyses were used to analyze the qualitative data. Both the quantitative and qualitative
findings revealed that males and females use overall similar verbal negotiation strategies
(e.g. risk information, relationship conceptualization, direct request, withholding sex,
deception) and non-verbal strategy (e.g. seduction) to influence main and new sex
partners to accept condom use. However, while males emphasize using the non-verbal
strategy (seduction) with both new and main partner, females emphasize employing
withholding sex, a unilateral verbal strategy, with both types of partners. The study
concluded that risk information, relationship conceptualization, withholding sex, direct
request, seduction, and deception strategies promote condom use for the study
population, but not coercion and reward. The study recommends programs that promote
safer sex in college context to emphasize the use of information where communication
and negotiation strategies are enacted in a participatory manner. Further, the study
recommends more research on the analysis of existing discourses in HIV/AIDS in college
contexts.
