AIDS -- by Mark Hunter

¶ … AIDS -- by Mark Hunter

The author provides a vivid glimpse into the challenges posed by the AIDS epidemic in Africa to many people hoping to develop emotionally and sexually intimate relationships. He also details the tremendously difficult issues faced by women in particular, as the result of long-standing gender-based social and cultural norms in connection with intimate relationships, especially in marriage. It is an insightful but extremely depressing account of routine sexual infidelity of males, abject ignorance in relation to the disease transmission process, exploitation of the innocent, and women trapped by cultural norms and values that perpetuate their vulnerability.

Typically, married African men frequent roadside prostitutes with whom they consort without condoms. Then, they transmit HIV to their wives, often resulting in the birth of infants already infected with the deadly virus. The problem is compounded by the fact that cultural beliefs about masculinity and sex promote the ideas that it is desirable for women to bleed during intercourse because that is a signal of male virility and sexual power. For that reason, women even use Eucalyptus leave to dry their vaginal tissue because that promotes bleeding during intercourse and pleases their husbands. Naturally, all of these practices provide the most fertile environment and situation for efficient HIV transmission. Meanwhile, when African women are diagnosed with AIDS, they are, unfortunately and unfairly, stigmatized and virtually shunned and treated as though their condition is their fault. Tragically, African men infected with HIV also believe cultural notions of cures that maintain that sexual intercourse with virgins can cure the infection and countless young girls are exposed to the disease in exactly that way by males seeking a cure.

Trans: Transgender life stories from South Africa

By Morgan, R., Marais, C. And Wellbeloved, J.R.

The authors provide a clear image of the challenges faced by transgender individuals in general, and the particular challenges they face within societies that are less open-minded than some Western nations. Even in more liberal and open-minded societies, transgender individuals are frequently misunderstood. They are assumed to be part of the homosexual community by mainstream culture but often do not fit within that population either. Alternatively, they are viewed as recreational fetishists like transvestites who enjoy cross-dressing.