Attitude towards negotiating safer sexual relations: Exploring power dynamics among married couples in India

The study primarily focuses on analyzing married women's attitudes towards negotiating safer sex in two contexts. The first context is when a woman refuses to have sex with husband if she knows her husband has a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and the second is when she does so if she knows he has sex with other women. The study examined predictors of Indian women's attitude towards negotiating safer-sex using data on 92,306 ever married women from the state module of the 2015-16, National Family Health Survey 4. Descriptive and multilevel logistic regression was used to understand the interplay between the attitude towards negotiation of safer sexual relationships with husband and the selected background characteristics with a primary focus on controlling behaviour and power relations. About 17% of women did not believe in negotiating safer sexual relations with the husband. An approximately equal proportion of ever-married women (79% each) believed in doing so under the two specific conditions, that is, if they knew the husband had an STD and they knew he had sex with other women. Multilevel regression analysis showed that women who had household decision-making power [AOR=0.71; p<0.01] and those whose husbands displayed low control towards them [AOR=0.91; p<0.05] were more likely to believe in negotiating safer-sex. Our findings suggest that women who have controlling partners or those who live under the umbrella of the husband's authority lack the power to negotiate for safer sex. Interventions promoting sexual well-being must deal with negative male perceptions and expectations that perpetuate unhealthy sexual habits and marriage ties.