Sexual relations between European men and local women existed at the Cape from the time of the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652, and interracial sex increased after 1658, when enslaved people joined the community. Sex across the colour line was a regular and often brutal occurrence, both in households and in brothels. Some liasons were love affairs, but the social distance between partners was vast and, in contrast to the Dutch East Indies, such relationships were frowned upon at the Cape. By the twentieth century the interracial sex taboo was already so widespread that outright prohibition seemed logical. Although tourist pictures of young black women in front of rural huts were common during apartheid, their naked breasts were classed with wild life and other kitsch images as natural beauty, thereby dehumanising the women.

By the 1960s, white families had apparently managed to construct black women as completely asexual, as nothing more than servants. This is clear from a scene in Jan van Tonder's Stargazer, where the narrator, young Timus, boasts that he spied on domestic worker, Gladys, while she was washing herself. While Timus is aware of the sexual nature of his deed, his friend Joepie asks what is so special about seeing Gladys naked:

He shook his head. ‘Why would I do that? We've got our own maid.’ (62)

Ignorant and sexually inexperienced as he is, Joepie simply assumes that he has access to the body of the family's servant whenever he wishes.