In the transitional phase of development in contemporary urban Vietnam, young unmarried women are struggling between liberal sexuality and conservative values and norms regarding women’s sexual roles and practices. However, women constantly negotiate and renegotiate in the construction of sexual identities and subjectivities.
On one hand, women’s views of female sexuality are seen to be constrained by the conservative social construction of femininity of which their bodies is seen as ‘body-for-others’. Young women are perceived as lacking agency to make decisions about their sexual lives. This is manifested in disinterest in sex and passivity in sexual encounters. Sexuality is seen as a commodity that is of value to men and this includes putting great weight on female virginity.
On the other hand, young women try to exercise their agency through multiple competing discourses on femininity and sexuality. In here, the ‘body-for-self’ is central in the embodiment of female sexuality. This is exacerbated by globalization and the rapid social and economic development of Vietnam that provided unmarried educated women with many previously unavailable opportunities and lifestyles that compete with conventional gender roles. Young women, for example, are engage in pre-marital sex and consider sexual relations between unmarried couples as natural.
Aiming to maintain their position of ‘authority’, these women may successfully transform their bodies to ‘body-for-self’, but it is likely possible that they also maintain the ‘body-for-others’ in order to protect their honour in the eyes of society. Sexuality is seen as part of woman’s ‘self’ that is not always only passively determined by men. As such, sexuality is a right, free from coercion and exploitation that serves ‘body-for-self’. However, women can make their bodies a ‘body-for-self’ by using them in ‘culturally expected ways though participation in sexual activity and reproduction, thereby, acquiring personal honour.
In the eyes of society, ‘body-for-self’ is a problem and a target for social condemnation. Health policies and programmes in Vietnam regarded sexuality of young unmarried women as problematic because of the high risk of pregnancy and abortion. Pre-marital sex is a societal taboo. This makes it difficult for young people, especially women, to acknowledge their own sexuality and also for policy-makers and program managers to respond to their needs. Thus, exercising their agency to enjoy sexual pleasure and achieve sexual health well-being is difficult in this situation.
The social construction of feminine sexuality, ‘body-for-others’, may be used to serve young women’s sexual desire as ‘body-for-self’. Through sexual manipulation, ‘body-for-others’, which is controlled by social and cultural expectations of feminine sexual identities, may be used to negotiate their sexuality. These negotiations and re-negotiations emphasize the ability to have ‘choices’ in the context of social construction of femininity in a transitional society.
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