Interview with Tonya, 16 - 17, Caribbean, working class. Women, Risk and AIDS Project, Manchester, 1989. Anonymised version including fieldnotes (Ref: AMB18)
This interview is part of the Women, Risk and Aids Project (1989-90) archive which was created as part of the Reanimating Data Project (2018-20).
Anonymised transcript of an interview with Tonya, who is at college and works as a part-time hairdresser. She lives with her parents, who are very strict, and lots of siblings (mainly brothers). She thinks her parents are stricter than her those of her ('half cast') friends, due to familial and cultural differences. She brings up AIDS without being prompted, in the context of risk and safety - she is very frightened of it after hearing about it at school and on TV. Tonya does not want a sexual relationship at the moment, but had had intercourse with her first boyfriend after five months of seeing each other - he has now moved away, so they are no longer together. They did not use contraception throughout their sexual relationship, as he did not want to wear one. She would go on the pill in the future, as she thinks most men do not like using condoms, but is aware that this puts her at risk of AIDS transmission and that the pill carries its own health risks. Tonya feels that contraception use is the responsibility of the female within heterosexual sexual relationships. Her formal sex education at school, in Biology, covered topics such as periods, condoms, contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases. She understands safe-sex (in terms of AIDS) as using a condom, but did not seem to be aware of oral sex, especially as a form of safe-sex - she thinks oral sex would be disgusting.