A child's cry against superstition

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Mr Bolt, my name is Sibongile and I’m an eight year old African girl. Recently I contracted AIDS when I was raped by a family friend who was trying to rid himself of the virus. You see, where I live there is a myth left over from the 19th century that having sex with a virgin will cure disease. I have read your opinion piece in today’s Herald Sun where you respond to claims by the ‘Left’ that the Pope exacerbated the African AIDS pandemic by disallowing condoms. You suggest that abstinence is how to stop AIDS.

I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but I think you’re oversimplifying the issue.
It would take a massive cultural and political overhaul of my entire country for your conservative rhetoric to be feasible. Since we live in the 21st century now, sir, and it’s not really practical to insist that people only sleep with one person their whole lives - and only then not until they are married - condom usage would mean that myself and my friends would not be prey to such inhumane practices.

Clearly, the fact that I live in a place where a myth like this exists shows you how impractical your suggestion of abstinence is. If men believe a virgin can cure AIDS, we are in too different and drastic a place for simple solutions like ‘don’t fuck anyone’ (Sorry, I swore; but I do have AIDS because of this shit, you know).

I need only point to the problems associated with the Catholic clergy’s abstinence – again, raping children – to suggest that maybe abstinence is just as problematic. Together with the Catholic sanction against masturbation, abstinence has the potential for sublimating sexual desires in unhealthy ways, leading to such atrocities as the one I experienced. It is superstitious nonsense like virgin purity myths and Catholic notions of morality that have created such a problem. Excuse me, Mr. Bolt I didn’t mean to sound like a leftie loony. Please don’t yell at me. I cry when men yell at me now.

Also, you mention that not even that many Africans are Catholic, inferring the Pope’s ban on condoms doesn’t affect them. This is interesting considering your insistence that the only way to save us is by adhering to Christian notions of what is moral. Your culture is not something that you can just map onto ours. I don’t think following or not following Catholicism has much bearing. If people here do not even have the self control to not rape children, how are they going to get the self control to abstain from sex?

Sir, I know I’m only an 8 year old African child, but again I think you’re misunderstanding the issues. The reason the Pope banned condoms was not so it would force people into an potentially unhealthy monogamous relationships (with a supposed decrease in AIDS victims) it was because of a silly old rule that comes from the Church - not from the Bible - that preventing the chance of conception is wrong. But even you say that condoms are not foolproof. Surely, then, the chance of conception is present, though slimly, and condoms aren’t to be thrown away.

People are going to have sex. You can’t stop that. So, to be practical we have to think in terms of harm minimisation. If the choice is between people going to an African bishop and asking for permission to use condoms or going to a traditional healer and being told to rape children to cure AIDS, what is the best course of action?
In the short term, Mr Bolt, we are faced with a situation where extreme points of view don’t help. I am compelled to ask: are you really after a workable solution or do you just want to beat your Leftie opponents?

One more thing, my Australian friend. You say that ‘progressives’ are angry. Then you say:
“Why their anger? Christianity, or any philosophy that preaches restraint, responsibility and a respect for facts, threatens their freedoms, such as freedom to have sex with whomever they choose”
Are you saying that Christianity has respect for the facts? I don’t mean to speak out of turn but this is such a bad statement that I cry for the Western world when I hear it.

Look, Mister Bolt. I don’t have the answers: I’m just an eight year old girl. But I want to find an answer. Your rhetoric doesn’t help me, especially when that advocates a ‘traditional’ approach to an issue, rather than a pragmatic one. It is solutions based on tradition, like those that allowed me to be raped, rather than evidence that seal our fate. Superstitious nonsense – virgin purity myths and Christian myths alike - has killed me, my friend. I hope you can come to my funeral.

Sincerely,

Sibongile Dupree

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/aids/aidsinafrica.html
http://www.nai.uu.se/newsfromnai/arkiv/2003/smitheng.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,12272,1451750,00.html