Browsing by Author "Rauch, Rena (Rena Petronella)"

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    Harmful sexual practices and gender conceptions in Kwazulu-Natal and their effects on the HIV/AIDS pandemic
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003-03) Rauch, Rena (Rena Petronella); Van Niekerk, Anton A.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This paper looks critically at particularly two harmful sexual practices most prevalent among the Zulu people in Kwazulu-Natal; virginity testing for girls, and the practice 'dry sex.' It is mostly the ripple effects of these practices, regarding the spread of mV/AIDS that is most alarming to medical science, leaving them no option other than to condemn this behaviour. This treatise however endeavours throughout to proffer understanding for the needs of a culture as diverse and unique as the Zulu people. Further, this paper often looks from an overarching African perspective, since despite African peoples' differences in terms of linguistics, geography, religiosity and general differences in daily run of the mill activities, there is a dominant socioreligious philosophy shared by all Africans. The, a, band c of virginity testing, and the resulting moral issues revolving around this practice are addressed. The main issues regarding the repercussions of virginity testing are discussed as well as the medical controversy involved in these issues. This will prove the limited effectiveness of this practice and the potential, yet serious and harmful ramifications it has for girls who are tested. In stark contrast to these girls, stands the girl who starts at a very tender age with the practice of 'dry sex', often encouraged and taught to her by female elders in order 'to please men'. This practice serves as a very powerful tool for commercial sex workers, venturing the streets and the truck driver stops, as it lures men into making her the preferred choice. So desperate are her socio-economic and cultural circumstances that she risks infection, and ultimate death, in order to comply with his need for unprotected and 'dry sex.' Numerous studies alert us to the fact that the drying agents used lead to lacerations of the vaginal walls, causing SID's, which in tum, exacerbate the spread of the disease. Zulu traditions and customs regarding sexuality and sexual relationships proffer essential insight into the Zulu people's sexual behaviour. In order to strike a balance between two diverse cultural groups, the West and African, a critical assessment of the West's own sexual history guides us to understand the West's 'sober' practice of monogamy is no less 'permissive' and 'promiscuous' than the African's practice of polygamy. The paper also investigates the corresponding differences in relation to indigenous knowledge systems versus science. African people discern the body's physiology and anatomy metaphorically and symbolically. We cannot simply gloss over these perceptions, enforcing scientific-based knowledge in our educational programmes, without consideration and accommodation for a very unique way of interpreting one's daily experiences and one's unique self. It is not only our biased discernment of indigenous knowledge that complicates the Aids pandemic considerably, but it is also enhanced by the burden of stereotyped gender-roles. Not only is a paradigm shift regarding the imbalance of power very much needed, we also need to understand that the inculcated anger some men in the Zulu culture fosters is a force to be reckoned with, as it displays psychological underpinnings of damage, signalling very clearly the need for therapeutic measures of healing. Conversely, the female in the Zulu culture has started to empower herself, but not always in terms of a beneficial end in itself. Similarly, it must alert us to the fine line separating the virgin-whore dichotomy, fuelled by her poverty-stricken and maledominated existence. It would appear that what we are fighting for is more than the preservation of life whilst engulfed by AIDS's scourge, but a global vision where the individual, or a whole community, with regard to mVIAIDS, is "self-reproducing, pragmatically selfsustainable and logically self-contained." (Bauman 1994: 188)