MASCULINE?:

Rural African men claim AIDS as sign of masculinity (EurekAlert, 7/13/04)

Many rural African men unknowingly claim to have AIDS, thinking it is an indicator of their masculinity and sexual prowess, says a University of Alberta researcher. Dr. Amy Kaler, from the U of A's Faculty of Arts investigated the ways that young men in rural southern Malawi, Africa talk about HIV and their own perceptions of risk.

Kaler found that a high number of sexually active young men say they are HIV-positive, without having any medical evaluation or signs of AIDS. For many Malawi men, their beliefs about the virulence of AIDS are not consistent to current medical treatment of the disease.

"They assume, first, that it is everywhere and will eventually kill everyone and second, that AIDS is extremely infective and that if one has been exposed to the virus, one's days are numbered," said Kaler. Schoolboys, for example, argued with their teacher that there was no point in working hard in school because no one would "remain alive in the coming five years."

These claims seem to emerge from a particular idea of masculinity which is used to justify continuing such risky sexual behaviour as having multiple partners or not using condoms--this behaviour is no longer dangerous if one believes he has already contracted the virus, said Kaler, who has published in the journal "Social Science and Medicine" as well as "Demographic Research."

Given the number of men reported to have AIDs in Africa and the near impossibilty of contracting it from women, there are only three possibilities: they're lying about having it; they're lying about only engaging in heterosexual sex; they're sharing needles at some extravagant rate; or some combination of the three.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 13, 2004 11:02 PM