Haddad, BeverleyBeverleyHaddad2025-02-132025-02-132025978-3-98989-042-8https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/106053There are at least 1300 new HIV infections amongst young women between the ages of 15 and 24 in South Africa each week. Research over the past two decades has shown that transactional sex with older men, traditionally known as “sugar daddies”, is a key driver in this vulnerability. These older men have more recently been termed “blessers” on social media sites with a community of young urban women, #Blessed, seeking lifestyles that embrace the commodified goods of neoliberal capitalism. The article discusses the notion of “transactional sex” and positions young women as both victim and agent in the South African context of unemployment and poverty. By naming these relationships #Blessed, young women choose to harness the tools of prosperity theology and link their desire for material wealth and consumer lifestyles with the unmediated power of God who intervenes. African women’s theologies must, the article contends, address women’s agency that does not destabilise the unequal gender relations of econo-patriarchy by engaging the intersections of economics, gender, and sexuality in the current South African context.engHIVtransactional sex#Blessed“blesser” phenomenonprosperity gospelecono-patriarchyAfrican women’s theologies300bookpart