RETHINKING LINEAR ACCOUNTS OF TRANSACTIONAL SEX IN LITERATURE WITH STRUCTURATION THEORY…. FEMALE NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AS A CASE STUDY

Abstract

Dominant transactional sex literature attribute Nigerian female university students’ engagement in transactional sex to mostly their structures. In contrast, this thesis argues that both structure and agency are instantaneously implicated in transactional sex. To corroborate this stance, Giddens’ structural duality construct is adapted to Stones’ reconstruction of structuration theory for empirical research and used to interrogate, synthesize and re-orientate Nigerian transactional sex literature. Based on the analytical device of the students’ context and conduct analysis, findings strongly indicate that components of the students’ analytical external structure, such as gender structure, patterns their internal structure or habitus, such as their sexual scripts, which suggests that women depend on men for financial and material security in exchange for sex. The students’ own knowledgeability about, and orientation toward transactional sex in turn, informs their agencies or active engagement in transactional sex, which produces intended outcomes, such as the students’ acquisition of luxury goods, which enhances their social status on campus, and/or unintended outcomes, such as poor grades. These outcomes filter back into society through socialisation, peer ideologies and adaptation, which (un)intentionally renews the transactional sex structuration cycle. Essentially, findings corroborate this thesis claim that structure and agency are simultaneously implicated in female Nigerian university students’ transactional sex – in a manner that grants neither structure nor agency instigative primacy.