Condom Negotiation Strategies Jimma University Undergraduates Use with New and Main Heterosexual Partners

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.