Anthropology

For us, life is about having a fluid disposition. Nairobi is a shot of whisky.' 1 Patrick and I met at a friend's party in 2001. We were leaning over the balcony staring into the Nairobi night while the sounds of the party made up the background noise. He asked what had brought me to Nairobi and we engaged in a discussion about the lifestyles of his generation (he was then aged twenty-eight). His generation, he said, was marked by a spirited approach to life, 'hip and ambitious', a generation he also characterized as 'dangerously nearing Westernization'. He got somewhat agitated and started fulminating about the dominance of 'the West'. Somewhere along the discussion we started talking about female circumcision, and he got very upset. He said:

Studies of female sexuality in Africa tend to adopt an instrumental approach, many times problematizing sexual conduct in relation to HIV infection and/or reproduction. This study aimed to explore sexuality as a relational concept. Using interviews and participant observation, the paper shows how sexuality becomes a point of self-identification for young professional women in Nairobi between 20 and 30 years-old. These women form a group who implicitly and explicitly criticize conventional gender roles through the overt pursuit of sexual pleasure as recognition of their womanhood. This aspect of the feminine sense of self is at odds with normative notions of femininity. To avoid criticism for being 'un-proper', women adopt a deferential attitude towards men. The focus on upwardly mobile professional women and their experiments with new types of heterosexual relations in dating provides insight into both sexuality and gender. profesionales y activas y sus experimentos con los nuevos tipos de relaciones heterosexuales en sus citas nos da una idea de la sexualidad y los diferentes sexos.

This article presents two themes: how young professionals personally experience sexuality and issues of cultural belonging or identification; and how these issues are interrelated in their lives. I identify ways in which "young professionals' as a social group are in the vanguard in respect of societal reconfigurations of gender, sexuality and culture. I argue that this group embodies postcolonial transformations concerning reconfigurations in gender, sexuality and culture. I work out the complexities of sexuality and culture by focussing on public debates about African heritage, gerontocratic power relations and conventional morality on the one hand, and personal sexual relationships, intimacy and self-definitions on the other. Finally, I explore how sexuality has become central to self-expression and how cultural selfidentification is an ambiguous concern for young professionals.