• October 15, 2008

When Nonhle’s* mother disowned her, the 23-year-old student turned to 52-year-old Max* who became her sugar daddy.

“My mother disowned me and left me to fend for myself, so really what was I supposed to do?” Nonhle asks. “I had to find a way to survive, pay my fees, buy groceries and have pocket money. Max was there so that’s what I did.”

Sugar daddies, suiker dees, dede’s, baba, ministers of transport and finance – whatever you choose to call the rich, older men who date younger girls – are a social reality in South Africa and one of the contributing factors to the countrywide spread of HIV/AIDS.

According to loveLife (South African HIV prevention campaign) counsellor Marlene Atwell, young girls get involved in these relationships for a number of different reasons.

“Circumstances play a big part in the formation of these types of relationships: poverty, financial distress at home and sometimes peer pressure,” says Atwell. “For some it’s a status thing. They want to be seen in a nice car, wearing nice clothes, but more and more it’s because of a lack of guidance and love from home that they end up seeking these things elsewhere.”

Sex is a standard expectation in these relationships, says Atwell, and quite often the sex is unprotected.

“The younger partner doesn’t have much negotiating power,” says Atwell. “If the older guy wants sex without protection, the girls don’t feel as though they can refuse.”

Nonhle’s need drove her to Max, the owner of a metered taxi business, and yes, she admits, they had sex – unprotected sex.

With 5.5-million people in South Africa currently infected with HIV, and more than 1 500 new infections reported every day, Nonhle was engaging in extremely risky behaviour by having unprotected sex with multiple partners. Not only was she sleeping with Max, but she also had a relationship with Theo*.

“I was scared, but I guess you always say to yourself: ‘Not this one, he couldn’t be infected’,” Nonhle explains. “I know that AIDS is deadly, but at the time I just didn’t think of the risks. I did suggest that Max and I get tested, but he refused,” she adds.

To make matters worse, neither Nonhle nor Max were faithful during their time together.

With Max providing for her material needs, Nonhle was having a fling, involving unprotected sex, with Theo*, a 24-year-old waiter, while Max was still married and having sex with his wife.

Nonhle was extremely lucky, she didn’t contract HIV, but she did fall pregnant.

“Because I had had unprotected sex with Max and Theo, I wasn’t sure who the baby’s father was, so I sat down and calculated dates, soon realising that the father was Theo,” she says. “I decided to tell Max because I couldn’t live with the lie. Max thought that I was carrying his child and he had already made plans to marry me and he was renting me a flat in Glenwood. He was devastated when he found the baby wasn’t his.”

“I really didn’t mean to hurt him and besides, I discovered that he had lied to me. He told me that his wife had passed away, but I found out that she was there all along, so we are even now,” she adds.

Atwell says that in order to help someone in a sugar-daddy relationship, you first need to find out why they became involved in such a relationship.

“First find out the reason why the girl is involved in the relationship, then try to work around that. If it is poverty related, then suggest she applies for a bursary or a learnership.

“We can’t just blame young girls, since the men are usually the ones who approach these girls,” Atwell explains.

“I think that for the man it’s all about status,” Atwell says. “Being seen with a younger girl makes him look good to his counterparts. I feel that these men take advantage of their financial positions and consider having younger girlfriends as a challenge, to check if their game is still tight,” she adds.

Nonhle gave birth to a bouncing baby girl in November 2007 in Addington Hospital in Durban– without Max or Theo to offer financial or moral support.

Nonhle is just like many other South African women in their twenties who get involved with sugar daddies, for a variety of reasons, then find themselves in compromising situations. These young women put their futures and lives at risk, as well as the lives of everyone indirectly involved. In Nonhle’s case, Theo, Max and Max’s wife were put at risk because Nonhle engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse with a man whose status she didn’t know, believing, like many others before her, that she was immune to the disease.

*Not their real names