Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA07647 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 30 Mar 2001 13:55:58 +0100 Subject: taboos Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 07:51:45 -0500 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID: <20010330125145.AAA22983@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.144]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Yes, one may well wonder what taboos are really- where the 'crime' comes
from.
Incest can lead to unfit progeny. Whether that is a path that develops to
a taboo, who knows? It would seem logical.
As for 'unconscious' communication? I, for one, don't think there is any
such thing- it's much more a matter of the level of awareness of body
language, but, perception, by very definition, is a conscious activity.
- Wade
*************
A sexual revolution in South Africa
Visiting the US, women advocate frank discussion
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff, 3/30/2001
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/089/metro/A_sexual_revolution_in_South_Af
ricaP.shtml
Zanele Hlatshwayo wants women to have the freedom to have sex - but to be
able to choose when and how they want it, and with whom.
In her native South Africa, she said, this message of sexual empowerment
can help women avoid the all-too-common fate of AIDS infection through
rape or unfaithful lovers. Hlatshwayo, on a speaking tour in
Massachusetts, expected this to be old hat in the United States,
birthplace of the Sexual Revolution and ''Baywatch.'' Not so, she said.
''I'm surprised. I find Americans very conservative. I suppose through
fashion, through the media, you come to think sex and sexuality is more
open here,'' she said.
Hlatshwayo, 37, and a colleague spoke to a group of local activists at
the YWCA in downtown Boston yesterday, and they explained their work in
AIDS-racked South Africa. Their experience here underscores just how
differently the virus has affected the two countries.
In South Africa, one in four adults is HIV-positive. There are no taboos
in fighting the virus, said Hlatshwayo. A sexual revolution in that
deeply macho country is underway, she said. But the mores of the United
States, in the eyes of the South African activists, seem unchanged by the
virus.
''Often people think that talking about sexuality is a Western thing. And
everything Western is American,'' said Ndivhuwo Selinah Masindi, 34, as
she walked off stage at the YWCA. ''I was very surprised at how people
here react to certain words. They shrink away.''
The pair, members of the Women's Health Project of South Africa,
addressed about 40 activists yesterday, mostly women, as part of an
exchange program that grew out of the 1980s antiapartheid movement here.
They are scheduled to spend 11 days sharing their stories before
returning home.
One story they told yesterday involved a disabled South African girl who
was raped by her father. She bore his child, but nothing was done. Months
later, she became pregnant by him again. But this time, activists got
noisily involved. Charges were filed and the girl was removed from the
home.
Heads in the audience shake, and some cluck their tongues. Behind the two
activists is an overhead projection of their manifesto. It includes,
''have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related
to sexuality'' and, ''Shared responsibility for sexual behavior and its
consequences.''
In South Africa, ''our religious groups have realized that abstinence is
not effective,'' explained Masindi.
Her nation has an enormous HIV caseload and the highest rate of rape in
the world. A recent survey in an industrial province of South Africa
found that male adolescents viewed rape as a game, a rite of passage. One
in six South African women are in abusive relationships, Masindi said.
One of the activists' goals is to prod the South African criminal justice
system to deal effectively with sex crimes. They teach women to properly
report rapes, doctors to preserve evidence, and police to take charges
seriously.
''The desire to rape stems from oppression,'' said Hlatshwayo of
apartheid, the now-defunct South African governing system that treated
blacks as inferior. ''If you feel oppressed, you need to find someone to
oppress.''
In the 1990s, black South Africans toppled apartheid after a
decades-long, often bloody, struggle. The resulting sense of empowerment
has given the nation, at least for the moment, the sense that anything is
possible, including reducing HIV, said Hlatshwayo. That has produced an
atmosphere of frankness lacking in the United States, she said.
''My theory is that the struggle against apartheid mobilized all kinds of
people. You had to talk about what was going on,'' she said. ''I expected
the US to be even more open about issues of sexuality.'' But Boston
struck Masindi as quite similar to Johannesburg, a modern, cosmopolitan
city. There was one form of openness here, though, that did surprise her:
street parking.
''Cars here park outside. In South Africa, they're all in garages, the
crime is so bad,'' she said.
This story ran on page 2 of the Boston Globe on 3/30/2001. © Copyright
2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
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