title: The role of 'pimping' in the mediation of transactional sex at a university campus in Zimbabwe.
abstract: The article focuses on a very specific form of transactional sex that exists at a university campus in Zimbabwe, which students refer to as 'pimping.' Drawing extensively on the specific experiences of a male student pimp, the article demonstrates that, in practice, transactional sex takes different forms and is not always confined to two parties (namely, a woman and a man). In this case, 'pimp-mediated' transactional sex introduces a third person - the pimp - into what is traditionally understood to be a relationship between the two parties and, in the process, dramatically transforms the social obligations that define this particular social relation. A major transformation that occurs in pimp-mediated transactional sex is that it makes the pimps, rather than the women, the central people in these relationships. This, I argue, makes transactional sex more efficient and potentially increases the female participants' vulnerability to HIV infection.
authors: a University of Pretoria, Centre for the Study of AIDS, Hatfield Campus , Private Bag X20 , Hatfield , 0028 , South Africa.
authors: Tsitsi B
authors: TB
authors: Masvawure
keywords: HIV/AIDS; gender; men; sex work; sexual behaviour; sexuality; social anthropology; southern Africa; women