he notes. “So it’s very hard to bring up condoms.”
Mhlolo speaks from both professional and personal experience. She is HIV-positive, infected by her late husband. As AIDS eroded his immune system, he suffered from herpes, which broke into open sores on his penis. Mhlolo suggested condoms, “but he said, ‘Now that I’m sick you have gotten yourself a boyfriend.’ It was very hard.”
Many people balk at discussing the sexual practices of particular cultures because the issue is too sensitive — and, in Africa, too racially charged. Whites have caricatured African sexuality for centuries, casting black men as sexual beasts, and some whites still whisper that this is why HIV is running rampant among Africans. But such stereotypes miss the point, which is not the libido itself but the culture in which it finds expression. […]
Of course, Africa contains thousands of cultures, some of which have strict sexual codes. But common to many sub-Saharan societies are the gender roles epitomized by dry sex: Women are unable to negotiate sex, and so must risk infection to please the man. In fact, there are very few female checks and balances on male behavior. This stark inequality “is part of our culture,” Mhlolo says, “and our culture is part of why HIV is spreading.”
This conclusion seems about right:
What South Africa and southern Africa need to save us from AIDS is nothing less than a cultural revolution. Mbeki was right about one thing: AIDS is a disease of poverty, but mainly because at this level the stark discrepancy between the power of men and women puts women at such extraordinary risk. Of course we need to deal with the appalling economic and health situation in our country, but we also have to deal with a culture that empowers its men so much more than its women when it comes to sex. In Africa, AIDS is a gender issue, and until we address it as such, we an never win the war.
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