The Pope, Africa, Aids, and acts of Genocide.
Lets talk about sex, aids, and a suffering continent. Africa, oh Africa, no greater cry exists, than one that affects all of humanity. Millions of Africans are dying. The main disease is Aids. What worse human tragedy than one that can be prevented by education. So I am going to blast the pope. Someone needs to hold him responsible, and fix the horrible thing he did.
I am not sure how many Africans are Catholic, but I am sure that they are dying. After all they have been told that using condoms spreads disease. Well I want to take some time and educate and spread the word that this is a tragic lie. Condoms do not cause disease, in fact they help prevent it. You have better chances of not getting aids if you use a condom. I know because I am educated in sexual diseases, I have been through sex ed classes, I study biology and diseases. I am a student of science. I know more about Aids than the pope know about sex.
This is the problem. Since when do we take sex ed from a man who has never used his sexual organs for sex, and believes that you can not serve god if you do? Why would we trust a man who has not studied medicine or biology to our reproductive health? The only thing he has studied is a bible, and that does not qualify him to speak about aids transmission.
I however can, because I am going to use facts.
1. Aids is spread by body fluid transmission. This means oral sex, vaginal sex, anal sex. Any body fluids that come into contact with another persons have the ability to infect. So condoms help stop fluid transmission and do prevent Hiv and Aids.
2. Cuts, sores, and wounds are another source of infection. As well as bite wounds. That is because Aids can live outside the body for a few hours. In laboratories, in concentrated amounts it can live for days, and even weeks outside of the body. Always be careful of body fluids from another person. If any blood, semen, or vaginal fluid gets on you make sure to wash it off as soon as possible and use strong antimicrobial agents. Soap, small amounts of bleach, and wash thoroughly. Use alcohol when possible, but not on sex organs/genitalia.
3. Babies have a higher chance of being born infected to an infected mother. Especially if they come into contact with body fluids during birth. So many precautions should be taken if possible.
4. Monkeys and other species carry HIV but are immune to it. So they are only carriers, but can infect humans by bite wounds.
5. Prostitutes have the highest instances of HIV infection, so when you engage in sex use any forms of protection available. Using two condoms will not lessen you chances, since one condom may break the other. using one and making sure that there is room in the tip for semen is important. Also unroll the condom to the very base of the penis. After intercourse make sure to remove the condom and wash your hands, then body parts. Do not kiss or engage in oral sex where body fluids can be transmitted. Preforming anal sex, or engaging in anal sex is more risky, which is why it is best to use a condom as well.
I know the Pope has said that condoms spread aids, but if you are using a new condom every time, and making sure to put it on properly, you could save your life and that of those you love. I know that sex happens, and people visit prostitutes. So the reality exists for infection and disease. We should stop pretending people do not visit prostitutes. They do, and when they do, they should be using protection.
The Pope is responsible for millions of deaths. It is his word that has made Africa want to kill homosexuals, and not use condoms, and not use preventative care when it comes to having children. This is a human tragedy. Because you are suffering at the hands of a monster. What man does not hear the suffering of people and do what is best for them. Condoms work. They can fit a penis the size of your arm. They only have a fail rate of 0.00001% unlike unprotected sex which causes 99.99999% of all Aids.
I consider it offensive to let my brothers and sisters in Africa die of aids because no one was willing to stand up and say that human health comes above religion. If everyone knew how much disease can be prevented by the simple use of a condom. It is astounding. Meanwhile where is the Pope? Does he visit the hospitals of Africa, and pray with the dying? Does he come and give them meds, or shower them with help to deal with the Aids? Does he send in educators and doctors, to help stop the spread?
No, he is on his throne in Vatican City living in a palace, eating the best foods, flying on the best planes. He wants for nothing, and has doctors at his disposal. All of this while the children of Africa cry and lay dying. All of this while children become orphans, and mothers and fathers suffer to death of Aids.
It is not okay to let our brothers and sisters die. It is not okay to kill people because they are gay. It is not okay to let people get Aids and say it is the will of god. Because if he was watching, even his blood would boil at seeing such human misery by the millions. So if you are in Africa, share this with a friend. Get the word out. Spread the education. We are hoping for your survival Africa, because you represent part of our family we do not want to live without.
Life is hard enough in a lot of places in Africa. There is female genital mutilations, Albino murders, homosexual killings, and Aids. We can prevent all of those. Stop listening to the pope, because if he were right millions would be living and not dying. There would be less cases of Aids every year. That is not the case, instead we see the bodies come, and the people go. And the Pope sits on his throne playing god, without mercy for the precious lives he is taking.
A couple of points - it's so very wrong to refer to Africa as a "suffering nation". Not because there isn't suffering, but because Africa is an entire CONTINENT, made up of many nations.
ReplyDeleteSecond, this kind of thing bugs me: "There is female genital mutilations". The word "female" does not belong in there.
Are we supposed to care only about non-consentual genital cutting if the victims are female? Millions of men, all over the world, in Africa and outside of Africa, are forced to undergo genital cutting that they do not need. Hundreds of those men die as a result.
Men are even now, throughout Africa, being told that if they have their foreskin cut off, they will be less likely to catch AIDS. The immediate result has been profit for those offering circumcisions, and subsequent increase in infection of men and women who think circumcision is a "prevention".
Genital cutting of those who do not or cannot consent - regardless of the victim's gender - has no place in society. If people make an informed decision to have part of their genitals removed, then whether they are male or female I support them. But no-one should have that decision made for them, and no-one should be fed lies to encourage them to have it done.
So please, when we talk about genital mutilation, can we leave out the sexism?
Sexism has its place in my conversation here because I know what happens. I understand your point, but I am not willing to say that a person should be proud of a tremendous suffering. I see Africa as one nations just as I see people as one species. Sometimes I forget how people love borders. Just like I am American but I see my self as human first and a sister to all of the other humans. I would say that I appreciate your feedback, but here is the reality. I am for the ending of borders. I love all people equally. I wrote about genital mutilation and I know that everyone has their point of view. Even scientists disagree on things. Which is fine, we all do. But please take a look at the worth of the content, because I would rather be guilty of being blind to differences then to be guilty of promoting suffering. I will not sit here and talk about their pride in being mutilated, because they did not have a choice. So what else can they be, they are taught to be proud that they are clean by suffering. Just like all other people are taught suffering is good. Well I am not the seller of misery and I will not treat my fellow humans as objects.
DeleteIt is not that I have any particular love of borders (I share the same view as you) but when those people regard themselves as diverse and distinct groups, then it is necessary to respect that. It smacks of imperialism or plain ignorance to do otherwise.
DeleteNot a single word I have written promotes suffering.
The fact that women have no choice does not make them any less proud. Just the same as those men who had no choice but are proud nonetheless.
You cannot deny that those women feel that way simply because it is inconvenient to you. It is hardly loving of all people to ignore those women who are asking to be heard simply because you disagree with them.
Your anger towards me is severely misplaced. I made it clear in my comment that I oppose genital cutting of any individual without their consent. It is wrong. It's wrong to do to women, it's wrong to do to men.
What I think we need is an HONEST discussion. Not a discussion that relies upon deceit or exaggeration.
Genital cutting is horrible enough without us having to lie about what it entails.
I was thinking of what you had said, but I want to be very clear, when something has happened to you against your will you only have so many choices. I guess saying you are proud is just a way of saying in your culture that you are accepted. I am not angry with you. I am just very stern about my stance on genital mutilation. I can see we are on the same side about it. I just would like you to reflect one thing...if you will. If a culture cut off the leg of every baby, and the child said I am proud to be one legged, would you promote and support his pride, or act to end something that he may be proud of for the wrong reasons. Also when you sever 40,000 nerve endings in the tip of the clitoris, that must be the worst moment of your life. It must feel like 20,000 volts of electric through your body. I don't aprove of any forced and unnecessary procedures, and you are right many children die from these. It is sad and senseless.
DeleteAs for calling them a nation I fixed that. Really it is not either empirialism, or ignorance, just my view on people. But you were right. Thanks for your comments.
I hope this clears everything up.
I have also never "supported" the pride of those who suffer genital mutilation. I am stating that it exists, whether we like it or not, and that we cannot simply tell these people not to be proud.
DeleteYou cannot tell people they should not be proud because they are what you consider mutilated. We have to recognise that people are proud of what we consider to be mutilation whilst we work to end it. Pretending that all women who are circumcised cannot orgasm or are miserably unhappy and controlled by explicit patriarchy is not helpful or honest. In some cases that is true, but in many it is not. Ignoring the women who are proud of this practise and therefore will continue it in their own families is no way to end the problem.
Your stance on genital mutilation is certainly no less stern than mine, but you fall prey to the very Western foible of stating how absolutely awful female circumcision is, and in so doing you minimise the atrocity of male genital cutting. Both are wrong, and both must be stopped.
I'm certain that severing 40,000 nerve endings in the clitoris would be excruciatingly painful. But then tearing, clamping and severing the similar number of nerve endings in the male foreskin (after forcibly tearing it from the glans to which it is attached) is probably no less painful. No-one's experienced both, so it seems pointless to debate which is worse when it's clear that neither should be happening.
I don't see any need to distinguish male from female genital cutting. When we say that "FGM" needs to end, that tacitly condones the continuation of MGM. Because it is more familiar to us, as Westerners, to see little boys mutilated than to see little girls mutilated. Like George Bernard Shaw said, "custom will reconcile people to any atrocity" - we stress the horror of FGM because it's unfamiliar to us, while we ignore how horrific MGM is because we almost certainly know people who've survived it and feel no problem at all as a result.
Brilliant article, as I have come to expect from you! But I must take issue with you on one point -- are you sure that the HIV virus can survive outside the body for seven days? Everything I have read and been told indicates that it can not survive outside a human body for more than a very brief time. When I joined the police we had to be vaccinated against Hepetitus B, which is a fluid borne virus just like HIV, to guard against contact with infected blood or saliva, but we were told that unlike Hepetitus, the HIV virus can't live outside a host body.
ReplyDeleteThis is from Univeristy of MN
DeleteTo obtain data on the survival of HIV, laboratory studies have required the use of artificially high concentrations of laboratory-grown virus. Although these unnatural concentrations of HIV can be kept alive for days or even weeks under precisely controlled and limited laboratory conditions, CDC studies have shown that drying of even these high concentrations of HIV reduces the amount of infectious virus by 90 to 99 percent within several hours. Since the HIV concentrations used in laboratory studies are much higher than those actually found in blood or other specimens, drying of HIV-infected human blood or other body fluids reduces the theoretical risk of
I will edit my post. Thanks Nicholas.