Re: A Prostitute Community's Response to Aids in Urban Senegal

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mine:

>Yoshie wrote:
>
> > >One shouldn't
> > >idealize the Third World & think that this type of ignorance doesn't
> > >exist in Africa & elsewhere.
>
>This is not the point I am making. Of course, gays are stereotyped in Africa
>to the extent that  they are ostracized in other cultures, but there is a
>nuance here. Spread of HIV virus can not be related to the stereotyping of
>gays in third world countries per se. If you assume so, you think sexuality
>(or gays) is the root of the problem, not the system

No, homophobia is just one example of the problem.  I don't hold the
view you impute to me, as should be clear from many posts on
prostitution as well as the post to which you replied.

>"Social Darwinism" stereotyping rearticulated as
>"modernization ideology" by imperialist transitional elites in the third
>world: That gays are degenerate, that blacks are backward, that African
>culture is inherently reactionary, that african people are underdeveloped,
>belong to the same Social Darwism crap imposed on and then internalized by
>third world countries during their encounter with imperialist modernization.

I did not say X is inherently reactionary.  I simply gave you
real-world examples of Thabo Mbeki (who is a cosmopolitan elite &
ignorant of reality of AIDS transmission) & of ignorance _in the
West_.

Let me cite another example of ignorance for your benefit -- and this
time, from Thailand:

*****   Very young girls, even if no longer virgins, are also
believed likelier to be free of disease.  However, one study
estimates that 50 percent of the child prostitutes in Thailand are
HIV positive.  (Lillian S. Robinson, "Touring Thailand's Sex
Industry," _Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and
Women's Lives_, eds. Rosemary Hennessy & Chrys Ingraham, NY:
Routledge, 1997, p. 254)   *****

In this case, ignorance not only helps spread AIDS but also helps to
victimize very young girls because a premium is placed upon youth &
virginity out of a mistaken belief.

Yoshie