(Untitled)

[tigersong]

News flash: A man who has never had sex is not the best person to comment on safer sex!"'You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms,' the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon, where he will begin a seven-day pilgrimage on the continent. 'On the contrary, it increases the problem

Comments

[artemisia_l]

Benedict says abstinence is the solution to the spread of AIDS in Africa. Right. Because the entire continent is realistically going to stay celibate for their entire lives, for the next century. Yeah, I suppose that will reduce the number of new infections. Because there will be no children born to replace all the adults who will eventually die.

[mosskat55]

Not abstinence, but continence.

[tigersong]

I think she was being facetious, but...

Continence is not a solution for the 20-25 million or so living with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. To continue to teach opposition to condoms is an ignorant response that is backed only by two millenia of sexual repression and control. It is a life-destroying act. The Pope doing this sort of work is more than unhelpful... it is abhorrent and damaging to the world at large, and in particular to an incredibly broken part of the world. A person in this position should realize that one's ideas of moral purity are not as important as God's demands for justice in the world.

[tigersong]

Sorry if I come off as very impassioned about this. I feel very strongly that this is a justice issue, and when the Church claims to be carrying out God's mission, I find it... really bad that a man with that much power would choose to take positions that continue to perpetrate that injustice. So, yeah, I feel very strongly that the Church needs to correct this, and quickly, and act.

[thisdancewedo]

*sighs* with the amount of influence he has, with how much good he could do, it is really disheartening. perhaps we should organize an SCM "missions trip" to the vatican and queerify and condom-ify it up a bit...?

[summerkatherine]

ROAD TRIP

[thisdancewedo]

wooooo!

[thisdancewedo]

and amen to needing to counter sex negativity, pre-marital, post-marital, no-marital, whatever.

[bdouville]

I think that the Pope was disastrously wrong, but in all his wrongness, there was a kernel of undeniable truth: the solution to the AIDS epidemic cannot rest entirely on latex. An important component of the HIV/AIDS crisis in these countries is how one understands and performs roles of gender and sexuality. Both the ideas and performances need to be transformed -- and transformed by the people themselves. In cultures where the people have been exploited by European colonizers, and intimidated by army and police violence (specifically white army and police violence), a lot of that exploitation and violence becomes internalized, and it works itself out in the exploitation and oppression of women and children

[tigersong]

No, it can't rely solely on latex... there has to be an empowerment of women and those who are suffering under any forms of sexual exploitation. My best thoughts on the matter? Massive education campaigns dedicated to empowering young women, plus information on making safer sexual decisions, and getting millions of condoms out there

You're right, it has to be much more holistic.

However, I'd argue that the sexual repression being taught by the church is the Western cultural export that we're trying to impose on people in a colonial fashion.