THE SOLUTION, OF COURSE, IS BOATLOADS OF FREE CONDOMS

A rapist's paradise (Leonard Stern, The Ottawa Citizen, May 13th, 2006)

Women's groups in South Africa were outraged at the acquittal Monday of Jacob Zuma, the country's former deputy president, who had been charged with rape, sparked outrage. Sexual violence is out of control in that nation. Tens of thousands of rapes are reported to police every year, though experts believe that at least as many additional ones go unreported. A bizarre pathology is plaguing South African men, and the trial of Mr. Zuma suggested that not even the nation's leaders are immune.

Researchers in fields from political science to psychology are trying to figure out why so many South African men rape. Observers note that South Africa is both a rigidly patriarchal society and in many ways a lawless one, two factors that, when combined, put women in a vulnerable spot.

Yet there are other patriarchal, lawless places in the world, and women there are not being systematically raped. One intriguing theory holds that the rape epidemic is a legacy of the apartheid years. Under the humiliating apartheid system, black South African men were rendered officially powerless -- politically neutered. The culture of rape represents a dysfunctional effort by black men to assert themselves and project power.

A similar phenomenon could be said to exist in U.S. inner cities, where black men who are marginalized in the larger society embrace a hip-hop culture whose defining feature is a grotesque misogyny.

In Mr. Zuma's case, his accuser was a 31-year-old HIV-infected woman -- an AIDS activist, actually -- who was staying at his house. In the end, the court sided with Mr. Zuma, 64, who argued that the sex was consensual.

It emerged in the course of the trial that the sex was unprotected. This also is interesting. Not only was Mr. Zuma a former deputy president of the country, but he once headed the South African AIDS Commission. Massive AIDS-awareness programs are under way across Africa, but you really have to wonder how effective these are if the one man in all of South Africa who should know better is having unprotected sex with an openly HIV-positive woman. For the record, Mr. Zuma himself is HIV-negative.

Never mind that this should have bolstered the accuser's contention that the incident was rape. Many HIV carriers engage in unsafe sex, but a woman who is personally and publicly involved in AIDS prevention presumably would behave responsibly in a consensual affair. It strains belief that a 31-year-old AIDS activist agreed to a one-night stand with a man nearly old enough to be her grandfather and also agreed to do so without protection.

It sure is depressing to see Mr. Stern’s admirable outrage dissipate so quickly in drivel about past exploitations and “marginalized” men. Maybe he should start asking African women what they think.