Positive sexual health: an ethnographic exploration of social and cultural factors affecting sexual lifestyles and relationships of Nepalese young people in the UK

This PhD is an interdisciplinary research project in the field of public health, youth studies, sociology and cultural studies about the sexual lives of 16 young Nepalese aged 16-24 living in London. The research uses ethnography and biography to explore social and cultural factors affecting sexual health and lifestyles of Nepalese young people in the changing world. Sexual health still remains a taboo, which brings struggle for Nepalese young people to negotiate their sexual lives within Nepalese families and community.

The current study explores young people’s reflections of their sexual lifestyles and experiences, which is embedded in the sociocultural norms and patterns of the society, and their interactions with families, community and broader social structures.

The findings suggest that detailed examinations of the connectedness between agency and social context provide more clear understanding of the everyday sexual lives of young people. The changing lifestyles of Nepalese young people in the western world provide accessibility to the new ways of living in experiencing sexual lives through transforming leisure activities and creating multiple opportunities for sexual intimacies and relationships. The popularity of nightclubbing and changing attitudes towards sexual lifestyles create concerns for sexual health risks and vulnerability as well as conflict within family because of sociocultural dominance towards relationships and marriage.

The data suggest that young people negotiate with several challenges, such as caste issues and parental consent, while transforming love relationships into love arranged marriage. It was found that lack of communication on sexual matters within family fuel the issues of trust and promote secret relationships and females are widely discriminated at different levels within Nepalese society. These structural factors along with lack of appropriate sexual health knowledge and education limit expressions of positive sexual lifestyles and relationships among Nepalese young people.

Intersectionality in this study is used to investigate key structural influences of sexual health and lifestyles at multiple levels. This research uses grounded theory to develop a tentative social ecological model, adapted from an ecological model, to understand the positive sexual health experiences of Nepalese young people.