Do clothes prevent sexually transmitted diseases?
SIR— I wish to respond to Paul Kisubika’s letter regarding the reed dance and his simplistic notion that South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world because of such cultures.
SIR— I wish to respond to Paul Kisubika’s letter regarding the reed dance and his simplistic notion that South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world because of such cultures.
First of all, there is nothing degrading about the naked human body. It is only twisted minds that believe so. Secondly, the girls who participated in the reed dance are girls who in the main have taken oaths to remain virgins until marriage.
Thirdly, the men who watched them did not jump up and down in their shirts wanting to have sex with the girls. If bare bodies and pornography were responsible for the spread of HIV, why is it that the prevalence of HIV is less in America and Europe than here in Africa. What morals are we actually trying to defend as African when we have the highest rate of every imaginable sexually transmitted infection? Do clothes prevent STDs?
Maybe if we were more comfortable with our naked bodies, we would not always be linking nakedness to sex and morals. Can our brothers and sisters in Karamoja tell us if their HIV rates are higher than in Kampala where girls in miniskirts are molested by clothed men?
Dr G. Buga
South Africa
First of all, there is nothing degrading about the naked human body. It is only twisted minds that believe so. Secondly, the girls who participated in the reed dance are girls who in the main have taken oaths to remain virgins until marriage.
Thirdly, the men who watched them did not jump up and down in their shirts wanting to have sex with the girls. If bare bodies and pornography were responsible for the spread of HIV, why is it that the prevalence of HIV is less in America and Europe than here in Africa. What morals are we actually trying to defend as African when we have the highest rate of every imaginable sexually transmitted infection? Do clothes prevent STDs?
Maybe if we were more comfortable with our naked bodies, we would not always be linking nakedness to sex and morals. Can our brothers and sisters in Karamoja tell us if their HIV rates are higher than in Kampala where girls in miniskirts are molested by clothed men?
Dr G. Buga
South Africa