“Daddy, Today We Have a Match!” Women’s Agentic Skills in Initiating Sexual Intercourse in an Urban Community in Ghana

This paper investigates women’s sexual behaviour to demonstrate how different forms of agentic skills are employed in initiating sexual intercourse. Drawing on the narratives of 25 married women aged 25 to 52 years in an urban community in Accra, Ghana, findings reveal that women are active initiators of sexual intercourse although there are some silences about their sexuality. Consistent with other studies, the present work shows that a significant number of women have experienced sexual abuse which impacts negatively on their sexual reception within marital relationships. Differences in socio-demographic profile (such as Age, marital status, commitment to moral and religious values), past sexual experience, partners’ understanding, being in a ‘bad mood for sex, and menstrual cycle create different barriers to sex initiation amongst different categories of women. Compared with older women, younger women were more likely to initiate sex with their partners, and held low commitment to religious beliefs. For the older women, high commitment to upholding moral and religious values posed major barriers to sex initiation. Yet within all these constraints, women exercised differential agentic skills in initiating sexual contact in marriage.