Filed under: africa, health, sexualtiy | Tags: africa, AIDS, dan savage, gay sex, helen epstein, hiv, promiscuity, stranger, uganda
I’ve been reading the thoughtful, non-puritanical writing of Dan Savage for years now, both in his weekly sex-advice column “Savage Love” and in his nonfiction books like Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America (2002).
What I admire about Savage is his reasoned, articulate (albeit polemical) perspective on gay politics, sexuality, and morality. In the clip below, he responds to an audience member’s question, “How many partners is too many?”
Savage’s thoughts on promiscuity catches my interest because it aligns with some other thinking I’ve been doing on promiscuity in other cultures, namely in Africa. I’m just begun to advise a solidarity trip to Uganda with twelve B.C. undergraduates, and one of the books we will be reading is Helen Epstein’s The Invisible Cure. Though many have chimed in on public health policy in African countries, Epstein argues that most Westerners approach HIV/AIDS in Africa as a problem to be solved: through abstinence, or condom use, or better sexual health education.
However, in The Invisible Cure, Epstein argues for a paradigm shift: an empathetic approach to Afrocentric solutions to health crises, and a challenge to understand a way of life foreign to Westerners: a culture, in some African countries, in which a man may have several wives or sexual partners. Here is an interview with Epstein on the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa, as well as her understanding of promiscuity in this culture:
Promiscuity. In the U.S., we discuss sex and sexuality most often through a moral lens. Are we sex-positive? What should be allowed and forbidden? How do we achieve gay rights and breakdown a heteronormative society?
In African nations like Uganda, we discuss sex through a lens of public health. How do we reduce the HIV/AIDS crisis? What is the best method of prevention? Who is being infected, and how is the disease transmitted?
Hard to get out of a Western mindset, but always food for thought.
Filed under: africa, religion | Tags: africa, AIDS, Bush, catholicism, condom, pope, prevention
In visits to Cameroon and Angola this week, Pope Benedict says that condoms could only make the HIV/AIDS crisis worse. The Vatican is pushing abstinence and monogamy to fight AIDS in Africa–rather than condom use–as did the Bush administration.
Twenty-two million people are living with HIV/AIDS in Africa. As reported by CNN, there is also a significant rise in converts to Catholicism. Therefore, the Pope’s comments are of critical importance to the millions of congregants on the continent.
Is this debate merely a question of the best route to HIV/AIDS prevention? What role does religion play in establishing governmental policies? How do the words of one man–granted, an important man–play in the individual decisions of others?
Filed under: africa, global justice, politics | Tags: africa, drinking water, ghana, mccain, obama, peace corps, poverty, togo, world
You’ve heard–and like me, probably appalled–by the statistics like this: one billion people survive on less than a dollar a day. When I was travelling in Ghana and Togo this summer, I was amazed at the absence of the most basic necessities: clean drinking water, functional roads, even availability of toilet paper.
I’ve been listening and learning about the candidates’ policies on foreign policy, and so often it focuses solely on economic sanctions, the Middle East, and Russia. These issues deserve their attention and my own understanding of their positions. But how often do we learn about Obama and McCain’s policy on fighting the incredible poverty that plagues the world’s poorest nations?
This is the method my friend JT and his villagers used to obtain drinking water in Togo. Fortunately, for us, the U.S. government--through the Peace Corps--provided a simple water filter in which we added two drops of bleach (yes, bleach) to the river water we drank.
If you care about the health of other nations in addition to our own, take a look at this chart detailing Obama and McCain’s policies on fighting global poverty. It breaks down, in a visual way, the basic differences between the candidate’s positions on helping other nations. As the world’s strongest economy (I know this seems like an oxymoron), we have the responsibility to help other nations.
Obama cites statistics like the cost to get all children into elementary school: one billion dollars. He backs this up with a commitment: “I will invest at least $2 billion in a Global Education Fund.” McCain, however, evades a concrete contribution. He sets down a vague policy (or non-existent policy) that says: “This is why we all should agree that a quality education is the right of every child.”
I don’t want to become didactic or to proselytize. Yet it seems so easy for us as Americans–yes, real Americans–to take on the challenge of eradicating these horrible sanitary, educational, and health conditions. I’m not shy to echo Senator Obama and say it’s good to spread the wealth around.
