Black feminist thought will be used to interpret the meanings study participants gave to their sexual relationships. This disjuncture is potentially a crucial location for sexual health intervention. This qualitative paper will describe how a sample of low-income substance using Black women in New York City demonstrated contradictory empowerment in their sexual relationships with men: they were active in choosing varying types of male partners but had irregular patterns of condom use. Women who had sexual relations with only one current mate in the past two years were recruited as a monogamous comparison group. This contradiction becomes an important area for sexual health interventions. However, women described low rates of condom use with main partners and inconsistent use of condoms with more casual sexual partners. Using a Black feminist framework, we describe how participants displayed considerable autonomy by actively forming and withdrawing from sexual relationships with men. Individual-level motivations for extra relational sex fell into four dominant themes: sexual pleasure, partner infidelity, sex exchange and past main partners. Analysis of in-depth interviews with 50 study participants demonstrates that their relationships consisted of those who had: (1) a main sex partner and a secondary sex partner or (2) two or more “casual” partners. Motivations of low-income substance using heterosexual Black women in New York City for having multiple sexual partners are explored in this paper.
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